How to Clear and Bless Your Space Using Your Own Voice

Anjie Cho August 15, 2024

One of the sections in my second book, Mindful Homes: Create Healing Living Spaces with Mindfulness and Feng Shui, is about space clearing rituals. This is a popular topic, and in my book I share more about why we practice space clearing rituals in feng shui and the best times to practice them.

I generally prefer the term “space blessing,” because “space clearing” puts the focus on getting rid of negative energy. Instead of looking at it as removing something bad, I like to approach this process as a way to bless the space and enhance what is already there. We put a lot of effort into trying to change our experience into what we think is good or what we think will make us happy. When we are present with what is, rather than looking at what needs to be fixed, we can find a lot of ease and relaxation. Instead of fighting our circumstances, we can really recognize and appreciate what is around us.

There are many ways to do a space blessing. You may be familiar with methods that use smoke offerings of botanicals or space clearing sprays with essential oils and crystals. One of the methods I share in my book doesn’t require you to collect or buy any special supplies — instead, it involves using your own qi and your own voice to shift the energy in your home.

To clear and bless your space with your voice, think of a song or mantra that feels meaningful to you. I almost always chant the Buddhist Sanskrit mantra “Om Ma Ni Pad Me Hum,” which translates to “The jewel is in the lotus.” Start by taking a deep breath, and then sing out loud as you move clockwise around your home, beginning and ending at your front door. As you sing, place your hands over your heart and imagine your voice permeating your entire home and shifting the qi in your space into a bright rainbow light. When you return to your front door, make a wish to close your ritual.

It’s okay if you feel a bit embarrassed doing this — you can wait to do it when no one else is home. If you want to learn more about feng shui and space blessing rituals, I invite you to check out my book Mindful Homes: Create Healing Living Spaces with Mindfulness and Feng Shui. You can find it everywhere books are sold!

by Anjie Cho

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

Feng Shui for a Studio Apartment

Anjie Cho July 1, 2024

small apartment with couch, bookshelf, desk, and table — Photo by Patrick Perkins on Unsplash

How can I apply feng shui principles to a studio apartment when I work from home?

I live in New York City where homes tend to be quite compact and I’ve also lived in many studio apartments, so I definitely have some suggestions to share! First, I want to point out that it’s an American sentiment to feel like we need to have large homes. There are people all over the world who live in smaller spaces, so I would first encourage you not to make judgments about having a small space. Instead, do your best with what you have and know that everything is workable.

In the case of a very small home like a studio apartment, one of the challenges is having a space that serves many different functions. You may have one room that is used for sleeping, dining, cooking, working, entertaining, and more. At the beginning of the pandemic, I taught a lot of classes and workshops about setting up a work-from-home space with feng shui. One of the most common pieces of feedback I heard during this time from people who had been working from another location is that they weren’t equipped to have work-life balance when they were suddenly forced to work from home.

This says a lot about the challenges of a small space. When you live in a studio apartment or a small home where everything is multifunctional, you have to acknowledge that you may not have the same physical boundaries that you would have in a larger home. Physical boundaries like doors, walls, and separate rooms make it a lot easier to set up different areas for different parts of our lives.

The idea in feng shui is that if you’re working in your studio apartment and looking at your kitchen all the time, that might tell you that you get hungry all the time. If you’re looking at your bed while you’re working, you might feel sleepy or have a hard time staying alert and focused. Alternatively, if you have a view of your desk while you’re lying in bed, it can be harder to fully rest when you’re trying to sleep.

When you don’t have the physical boundaries that might be present in a bigger home, it’s helpful to create energetic boundaries. One great way to do this is through ritual. For example, if your work-from-home desk is in the same space as your bed, create a ritual that helps you establish some separation between your work life and your personal life. My recommendation is to shut down your computer when you’re done working for the day. This turns off your energetic connection to work, and on a practical level, it makes it much harder to hop back on the computer and start working again. This ritual only takes a couple of minutes at the end of the day, but it can make a big difference. You can also put your computer away in a drawer if it’s a laptop, or cover it with a beautiful fabric so that you’re not looking at your work computer during your off hours.

Similarly, a lot of people work from their dining room table, which represents friends, family, and community. It’s totally okay to use your dining room table as a desk, especially if that’s all you have, but I would recommend creating rituals to begin and end your work day. During office hours, make your table into a proper desk rather than having your work supplies intermingled with your dishes. Have a daily ritual where you put away your breakfast dishes before starting work, and create a desk setup when it’s time to get started. This could include a desk blotter, a light, a special notebook, or maybe a special coffee mug that you only use while you’re working. When your work day is done, close your computer and put your work supplies away. This allows you to have a functional work-from-home space as well as a dedicated area to gather and share meals with friends and family.

Lastly, whether your work-from-home desk is a coffee table, a dining table, or an actual desk, make sure you’re in the command position while you’re working. If you want to learn more about feng shui and creating a healing living space, my book Mindful Homes!

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 Archive: Home Gyms in Feng Shui

Anjie Cho June 1, 2023

Welcome to our Holistic Spaces Q&A Archive:
Enjoy this post originally published April 21, 2019

I was wondering if there were any feng shui recommendations for having a home gym or exercise equipment in my home. Does it matter which way my treadmill faces, or is the most important thing that I use it regularly?

Liz K., Austin, TX

Hi Liz!

There aren’t any specific teachings that I’ve been transmitted about exercise equipment in regards to feng shui. However, there are a few different ways we can look at this.

First, we can look at how it relates to the bagua. If you’re looking at exercise and gym equipment in terms of your overall health, that might relate to the Health area of the bagua map. This doesn’t mean you need to put your gym equipment in the center of the house. I don’t think your whole life should revolve around gym equipment, and generally whatever is in the center of the house represents something that’s affecting everything else.

If you haven’t been exercising and you want to create a new habit of using the treadmill regularly, then it might be beneficial to work with the New Beginnings area of the bagua. You could place your gym equipment in the New Beginnings area of your home, or the New Beginnings area of a particular room.

In terms of which way the treadmill should face, I feel that the commanding position does apply to the treadmill, because if you’re spending half an hour to an hour on this treadmill, it makes sense to be in a position where you’re in command of the room. To be in command, you would be facing the door without standing in line with it. You can still have a TV in front of the treadmill as long as you are able to see the door; that way you can feel safe while you’re exercising.

Finally, another thing you can do is place a vision board, a list of intentions, or an image that represents your intentions in front of your treadmill. I’ve read stories of celebrities or aspiring actors who have placed Oscars or trophies in front of their treadmill to visualize that they’re running towards their goal. Whether it’s an ideal weight, a career success, or some other life goal, there’s something wonderful about making your exercise not only an activity to strengthen your body, but also a metaphor of moving towards a goal you want to achieve in your life.

I hope that this helps, and let us know how it goes!

xo Anjie Cho

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