Feng Shui for the Holidays

Anjie Cho December 8, 2021

Although the holidays are a time for celebration and rest, sometimes they can be quite the opposite. This time of year can become stressful and exhausting. Since feng shui concepts can give us tools to help create harmony and positivity in our living spaces, I’d like to share some feng shui tips to support us during the holiday season.

Family

Thanksgiving was just a few weeks ago, and of course there is often a little drama and turmoil in the Cho household. Thankfully, it was resolved. But no matter how well your family gets along – I don’t think it hurts to have more harmony in the home. Did you know there’s a section of the feng shui map that relates to family? This area also relates to new beginnings.

Locate the family/new beginnings area of your home or bedroom on the feng shui map. If you divide your home or bedroom into a 3x3 grid, it’s the center left area. You can use this feng shui map to help you locate the area. For more harmony within your family, try adding a live green plant to represent growth and support for the family during the holidays. If there is not enough natural light for a plant, try a low light plant or a very high quality, realistic looking silk plant.

Space Clearing

Holidays are often a time to gather with friends and family. Some of us have visitors staying with us in addition to parties and get-togethers. When there are many gatherings in the home, it may be helpful to do a light space clearing on a regular basis to clear the air and energy in your home. Each time you clear the space, dedicate your home to creating a loving happy space for your family and friends. For frequent space clearing, I like smudging (burning) palo santo or diffusing sweet orange essential oil. Palo santo has a light, clean, minty smell that is delicious. The sweet orange scent is life affirming, happy and bright. Use the one you like best, or alternate!

If you’re traveling you can use this to clear the space you are staying in whether it’s a hotel or as a guest in someone’s home. Probably better to use the orange essential oil rather than burn something ☺

Gratitude and Thanks

Finally, the holiday season reminds us to be grateful and thankful for the love and support we’ve received in our lives. I recently received some Buddhist teachings on patronage. I find that supporting others as a patron is a truly rewarding way to offer thanks. I'm so thankful for my abundance and success and am happy to share that with the world.

Take some time to thank the ones you love who bring you support in your life. Bring some feng shui into this practice of honoring those helpful people by offering to be a benefactor for them as well! The benefactors’ area of your bedroom would be the corner front right if you’re standing in your room looking in. Make a list of those caring and generous people, and then place the list in the benefactors area of your bedroom with the intention that you're grateful for their help and you wish to offer them even more in return.

Thanksgiving, Christmas and the days in between have always been dedicated to family, friends and remembering how fortunate we are to have life. Over time though, the holiday season has, unfortunately, become associated with high stress levels and weariness as well. Through feng shui practices and awareness, we can use well-established methods to lower stress and focus on what's really important during this time: our loved ones.

by Anjie Cho

Mindful Design Feng Shui School: Energy, Meditation, Sacred Space

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

Q&A Sunday: Abundance, Giving, and Receiving

Guest User April 25, 2021

How can I work on bringing in more abundance?

This is a popular question, and I invite you to read through some of my earlier blog posts on feng shui and abundance as well. Today, I want to talk about how we can approach this from the perspective of giving and receiving. There’s a Zen saying that there’s no giver and no receiver. I encourage you to think about what this means to you. It might sound paradoxical, and there are many ways to unpack this statement.

I invite you to contemplate how you give and receive, and what generosity means to you. In BTB feng shui, we were taught by our teachers to honor something called the red envelope tradition, and this is something we teach our students at Mindful Design School. It’s a way to formally exchange energy with our students, since we are offering them teachings. At the same time, my students are also my teachers because they help me to become a better teacher.

Whenever you do give something, you can think about why you are giving. Is there a balance in what you’re receiving? How can you be generous in new and different ways? This concept connects to the feng shui area of abundance, called Xun. In feng shui, the opposite areas of the bagua are closely related. Opposite Xun is Qian, which has to do with benefactors and helpful people. How abundant you feel is directly related to how you can invite helpful, supportive people into your life, and the way to invite more helpful people into your life is to become a more helpful person. A lot of people want to work on wealth, and it’s something I get asked a lot about as a feng shui practitioner. Often, however, what people really need to work on is how to give and receive. How can you become a benefactor to others, and how can you receive what is offered to you?

A lot of people, myself included, have a hard time receiving wealth. One lesson that many of us are learning is to not help other people so much that we hurt ourselves, and to be open to receive when people do offer their help and support. In addition to being open to support from others, it’s important to be able to support yourself too.

If you’re working with abundance, I encourage you to think about your relationship to giving and receiving. How can I give and support others, and how can others support me? Feng shui isn’t just about moving things around. Changing the objects in your home is just one way you can start to manifest these deeper philosophical concepts in your physical world.

by Anjie Cho

Thanks for reading our "Q&A Sunday". If you have personal questions, we encourage you to check out Practical Feng Shui or hire one of Anjie's Grads.

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

Q&A Sunday: Room with Two Doors

Anjie Cho January 26, 2020

How do I orient the feng shui bagua map on a bedroom with two doors? and what is the best bed position for this room?

Kristina W., Pismo Beach, CA

Hi Kristina,

Thank you for your question! In general, for any space, you always orient the bagua map with the Kan line aligned with the wall where your primary door is located. The Kan line is the side of the bagua with the guas Gen (self-cultivation/knowledge), Kan (career/path in life), and Qian (travel/helpful people). If you have two doors, you want to locate the bagua based on the formal door, or the door that is most like a formal door.

In this case, we’re looking at a bedroom with two doors. I can see from looking at this floor plan that the room was originally a dining room, and more of a pass-through space. It’s not an ideal spot for anyone to be sleeping, but since this is what you’ve been given, we’re going to work with it.

First, we have to figure out which door is the primary door. I would suggest using the door facing the hallway, because you probably want to enter your room through the hallway and not through the kitchen. Ideally, you want your bedroom to be in a more private area of the home, separated from more public spaces like the kitchen. I’ve drawn the feng shui bagua map on your bedroom using Door #1 as you’ve indicated.

Regarding the bed position, I’ve drawn up what I feel is the best bed location based on the information that I have. If you use Door #1, you’d be in command of the room with the bed positioned as shown. You also wouldn’t have a stove or toilet directly behind you when you’re in bed, both of which present some feng shui challenges. You do have a door partially behind you; I would suggest locking that door, and not blocking it. In feng shui, doors represent the mouths of the inhabitants, so locking or closing a door might mean that part of your voice is closed off. It’s not ideal, but this is what you have and we can work with it.

You also mentioned to me that you are getting a bed frame--that’s definitely the most important thing. You also told me that this is a more temporary living situation. This makes sense, because physically the room is a transition space. It’s not the best location for a bedroom, but do the best you can.

Good luck, and thanks again for submitting your question!

by Anjie Cho