Feng Shui to Welcome 2022

Guest User January 5, 2022

Serene bedroom with white bedding and white walls — Photo by Anjie Cho Architect PLLC

I think everyone can agree that the last couple of years have been especially challenging. As humans here on this earth, we can acknowledge that we’ve experienced some trauma during this time. We’ve been working with challenging emotions and situations, and this has activated our fight-or-flight response.

One of the most important aspects of feng shui is to look at this phenomenon of fight-or-flight. We all have a yearning to feel safe, and there are ways that feng shui can help us to cultivate feelings of safety and stability in our homes. In feng shui, we can create environments that support us, even when there are so many ups and downs in the world around us. You can start to welcome this new year by taking some time to get quiet, and just listen and connect to your home.

I would also encourage you to look at the feng shui concept called commanding position. This is a basic principle in feng shui, and the idea is to set yourself up in your home to reduce any challenges that exacerbate your fight-or-flight response. This is one way to set up your home to feel more safe, which is especially important right now since we’ve already experienced so much fight-or-flight.

To begin working with the commanding position, I recommend starting with your bedroom. You want to make sure that when you’re lying in bed, or sitting in bed with your back against the headboard, that you can see the door to your bedroom without being directly in line with the door. Usually this will put you in a position that is diagonally across from the door. You should also have a wall behind the headboard, which will help you feel more secure and supported. Being in the command position allows you to know what’s coming towards you, so that you can sleep and rest with more ease, and less fight-or-flight activation.

When your bed is set up with the door behind you, it actually creates more stress and difficulty and activates our fight-or-flight response. If you’ve been feeling especially raw or traumatized because of the happenings in the world, I would really recommend you take a look at your bedroom and set up your bed in the commanding position. If this is impossible because of the design details of your bedroom, you can instead set up a mirror so that you can see a reflection of the door while you’re laying in bed.

I hope this helps you welcome the new year in a supportive and nurturing way. First, recognize and acknowledge that this has been a very difficult time, and then find the ways in which you can create a home that supports you. Most importantly, make sure your bed is in command so you can soothe and heal yourself while you’re sleeping, which is a very healing and passive time.

by Anjie Cho

If you’d like to learn more about feng shui, check out Mindful Design Feng Shui School at: www.mindfuldesignschool.com

Q&A Sunday: How to Lay the Bagua in BTB Feng Shui

Guest User November 28, 2021

Does your method of feng shui use the main door to lay the bagua?

First, I want to clarify that the feng shui that I practice is not my method. Feng shui is an ancient practice, and no practitioner living now has created it. It is lineage-based, and it’s been passed down for generations. It is true that there are many schools of feng shui, and I study and teach BTB or Black Sect feng shui.

In BTB feng shui, we lay the bagua according to the main entrance to the home. We align the bottom of the bagua map with the front door, so your front door will fall in the blue, black, or grey area of the bagua map. The red area, often called Fame, will be on the wall opposite to the front door. If you’re working with a different school of feng shui, this may be different, but that is how we lay the bagua in the BTB school of feng shui.

I also want to note that all schools of feng shui recognize the importance of the front door in how they look at the energetics of a room, and how they place things in the home. Even though they might not place the bagua according to the front door, it is still an important feature to pay attention to.

If you are wondering how to lay the bagua on your home, I would definitely encourage you to work with a skilled practitioner. It might seem simple, but unless you have a very rectangular floor plan it can actually be quite complicated. You can also get on the Mindful Design mailing list to be notified when we do floor plan bootcamps or other workshops where you may have the opportunity to see us lay the bagua on your space.

by Anjie Cho

If you’d like to learn more about feng shui, check out Mindful Design Feng Shui School at: www.mindfuldesignschool.com

Q&A Sunday: The Best Feng Shui Bedroom Color

Guest User November 14, 2021

What’s the best feng shui color for a bedroom?

I get asked some version of this question a lot, and I’m going to let you in on a feng shui secret: there’s no perfect feng shui color for a bedroom, or any room for that matter. The best color for you depends on what you want to manifest, your unique energy, and what colors you like. For me to recommend a color for your bedroom, I would need to know what elements you need more of, where you need more support, and what you’d like to work on.

For example, if you want to invite in a partner, pink or peach could be a supportive color for you. If you want to feel more grounded, an earthy brown or yellow might be the most nourishing. We can look at feng shui color theory, but I can’t give you a cookie cutter answer. If that was how feng shui worked, it would be really easy to just say that all bedrooms should be blue. However, not everyone wants a blue bedroom, and it might not be the best fit for everyone energetically either.

When choosing a color for your bedroom, first think about what it is that you want. Then, you can start looking at different colors and the connections you have to them. You can look at the feng shui meaning behind colors, but also pay attention to what you like and what resonates with you. If you read somewhere that orange is the best color for a certain room but you hate orange, it will be bad feng shui for you to paint your room orange.

What colors do you gravitate towards? What colors do you not like as much? I have a lot of metal element naturally and I love metal element colors, like whites and off-whites. I also really like black, which is connected to the water element. Those tend to be good colors for me to work with because I enjoy being around them.

Another thing to note is that there are many ways to bring color into your life besides painting the walls. Once you’ve figured out what kind of energy you want to create and which colors resonate with you, you can start by bringing in that color in small ways. It’s often a good idea to play around with accessories before committing to a new wall color. You can even start wearing a color, and see how it makes you feel.

by Anjie Cho