Anna Lin

Feng Shui can be greatly beneficial for developing and sustaining harmony in interpersonal relationships especially if the concerned people are living under the same roof. Being in a relationship with someone and actually deciding to live in the same house with them are two entirely different things. It is a huge challenge to continue liking a person and living with him or her even when they do not quite turn out to be what you expected them to be. And that is something that is bound to happen once you begin living together. Feng Shui can make this difficult task much simpler. If you follow certain basic Feng Shui principles, you can save your breaking relationship from a number of complications.

Feng Shui And Protecting Your Relationship

Moving into any new place can cause a lot of changes in your temperament; the way you react to stimuli is bound to change once you are in a new environment. Feng Shui balances and cancels out this change to ensure that none of the negative energies enter your new household. There are various ways of blocking this negative energy and channelizing positive energy for the welfare of a relationship.

A Few Things That May Help

Red being the color of fire might be a good choice to keep the passion in your relationship alive and kicking. You must also keep in mind that it is fire that produces earth. The direction of the element earth is southwest. Keeping red in this direction will keep the relationship grounded and stable. Any decoration piece, cushion, etc. if kept in pairs will also have a positive effect. Traditional symbols of love like roses and heart also help. Like Feng Shui common sense would also suggest that nothing that can remind either of you of a troublesome past relationship should be kept in the room.

A Few Things That Should Not Be Kept In The Room

Feng Shui, as you might have realized by now is largely based on common sense. According to its rules, the area under the bed ought to be kept clean. Unhygienic conditions can lead the under-bed area to become a breeding ground for germs, insects, and even rodents, which is certainly not desirable. Another thing that Feng Shui would ask you to avoid would be keeping a mirror that reflects the bed. An image of your relationship can give rise to negative energy. Green is the color of the element wood. According to Feng Shui, wood and earth are antagonistic. Keeping plants or anything green in the southwest direction can thus cause disharmony.

Observing things from the perspective of Feng Shui, you would realize that everything around you has either a negative energy or a positive energy. Under such circumstances, it is just better to channelize all the energy towards the positive so that you benefit. You might not be aware but Feng Shui also has an extremely scientific basis to it. It works on the principles of opposites – Yin (female) and Yang (male)

Every little decorative item that you have in your house or even the color you decide to paint your wall in can affect the way energies around you may work. Since your environment manipulates you and your luck, it would be intelligent to learn the art of Feng Shui to bring about a certain sense of balance and harmony in your life.

Feng Shui Is An Intricate Art
Feng Shui expects you to give importance to everything that in your house and each element that makes your home. Be it the furniture, the doors, the upholstery, electronic gadgets, every object in your surrounding plays an important role in the way your life is turning out. Nothing in your physical environment ought to be considered as insignificant. Everything around you is important and is bound to affect you in some way or the other and this is exactly what the art of Feng Shui latches on to.

Take One Step At A Time
If you want to make your home Feng Shui sensitive then you must give yourself some time to understand the art of Feng Shui. This ancient Chinese art hinges on to extremely intricate laws and principles. Trying to make all the possible changes according to Feng Shui rules all in one go might not be such a great idea. You ought to make the changes step by step. Without having expert knowledge of Feng Shui, making all the changes at the same time can in fact prove to be extremely disastrous. You may not know the intricacies of the art and make changes, which are actually contradictory to each other! That way you will be attracting negative energy instead of the ideal positive energy (chi) into your house.

If you want to start making certain basic changes to your house, pick up some resource material from the nearest bookshop or even search online. You will get plenty of help from these. However, be careful about what you are consulting because a number of times the information given may not be accurate. Playing around with Feng Shui is not a great idea. You must always be very sure about the changes that you make.

Feng Shui works on the basic principle of creating a balance between the natural environment and the man-made environment around us. If you want to  get cracking on what Feng Shui is all about and learn how to manipulate the art to your advantage, then you must begin with a basic knowledge of the various schools that Feng Shui comprises of. Before you begin to inform yourself about the various schools of Feng Shui you ought to know something about the five elements based on which the Feng Shui principles work. No matter which school of Feng Shui best suits your requirements it is imperative to know about the elements of Feng Shui.

The Five Elements of Feng Shui

The principles, rules, and laws of Feng Shui are based on five elements. Each of these elements is associated with a direction. Manipulating the knowledge about these elements and the directions associated with these elements can bring you assured peace and prosperity. The elements and the directions associated with these elements are as follows:
•    Wood: East
•    Water: North
•    Earth: Southwest
•    Fire: South
•    Metal: West

The proper balance of all these elements in each room that needs to be affected by the art of Feng Shui will create the required harmony. The matter in the room made of these elements ought to be placed in the direction associated with it. The more accurate is your balance, the more effective role the art of Feng Shui will play.

The Various Schools of Feng Shui
A list of the various Feng Shui Schools along with a brief description of each is given as follows:
There are seven schools of Feng Shui in all.
•    The Compass School
This school is based on the science of directions. Each direction is associated with a particular kind of Chi, or energy.
•    The Form School
This one is based on shapes just like the previous one mentioned is dependent on directions. It is based on four basic shapes.
•    The Black Hat Sect
This school includes theories on psychology and Buddhism.
•    Eight Mansion School
Each individual can be associated with a particular set of numbers and unlucky numbers. The Eight Mansion School works on the knowledge of these numbers.
•    The Nine Star Key School
A numbers of complicated mathematical formulae are used in this school. It is a lot like astrology.
•    Flying Star Philosophy
This school relies upon numerology and astrology. The future can be predicted using this branch of Feng Shui.
•    Four Pillar
This school has faith on the time of a person’s birth. This school of Feng Shui is not commonly practiced today.

Feng Shui is actually all around you. It might have already affected your life without your getting to know of it. You may have felt comfortable in a particular environment as soon as you step into that place. The reason is probably the positive Chi due to the use of the right Feng Shui principles. If you look at the world through the perception of Feng Shui then there are actually only two types of spaces; those that are making use of Feng Shui principles to generate positive energy, and those that are not making use of Feng Shui thus giving rise to negative energy.

Since you know now that Feng Shui will affect you whether or not you are trying to follow it, it would be a good idea to understand the rules and laws of Feng Shui so that you can actually use it to divert the positive energies to work in your favor. A few common ways in which you can make Feng Shui work in your favor are discussed below. By following these simple rules, you will be able to feel a major difference in your everyday life. So read them, follow them, and make a difference to your life. It actually works!

A Few Basic Feng Shui Laws

Feng Shui, to be pronounced as Fung Shway brings positive energy to make your life better. The following simple rules can make a major difference to your life:
•    Shoes must be taken off before you enter your house. According to Feng Shui principles, taking your shoes in with you is equivalent to taking your problems within the house with you. This must be avoided.
•    Eating outside might be extremely appealing to you. However, Feng Shui would advice you to cook at least one meal at home and eat it with the entire family.
•    Sleeping with you feet towards the door of your bedroom is a complete no-no according to Feng Shui.
•    Sleeping under a white blanket or sheet can also attract negative energies.
•    You must make sure that none of the walls beside your bed have any meter boxes on them.
•    Whenever you are sitting or standing try to make sure that you are doing that while facing either the door or at least its reflection.
•    Feng Shui advices you against keeping knives as decoration pieces, or presenting knives to other people.

These are a few absolutely basic Feng Shui laws, which can bring you a lot of prosperity. See the change in your lives for yourself by following these principles.

It is common knowledge that Feng Shui works a lot through colors. Feng Shui as you might have realized, is based a lot on the effect that the most usual practices have on our lives, such that we do not give a second thought to them in our day-to-day lives too. All of us are aware of the fact that the combination of colors around us can make a lot of difference to the way we feel. It can affect the efficiency of our work and soothe our minds when required. Feng Shui works at the depth of all kinds of effect that colors have on people and their environment. This ancient Chinese art uses colors to create balance and harmony thus affecting a certain amount of positivity.

Colors and the Powers of Yin and Yang

Feng Shui believes that Yin and Yang are the two sides of the same coin. One cannot exist without the other. If the two are balanced then the presence of harmony is inevitable. Yin is associated with matter while Yang is associated with energy. All colors can be seen as falling into either of these two categories. They are either grounding colors or colors that induce spirit and energy. Educating yourself about these colors and using them for your benefit can be greatly advantageous for you. To get a start you ought to begin by knowing which color falls under which category. The following list could prove to be of some help:

•    Colors That Fall Under The Yin Category
According to Feng Shui, the colors that come under Yin category have an extremely soothing effect. If you are choosing the colors for a room where you want to forget about everything that is going wrong with your life, a suitable combination of the following colors will certainly help:
?    Blue
?    Black
?    Purple
?    White

•    Colors That Fall Under The Yang Category
The colors that fall under the Yang category, according to Feng Shui are auspicious and induce a lot of energy and warmth. These colors must be used in abundance in your workplace and your study. These colors are sure to help you focus better.
?    Yellow
?    Orange
?    Red
?    Brown
?    Tan
?    Beige
?    Mauve
?    Maroon
?    Lavender
?    Gold

So now that you have some sort of an idea about how Feng Shui manipulates colors to channelize energy you must get set to find out more about Feng Shui and colors. Improve you life by changing the colors around you according to Feng Shui principles and experience the difference.

Feng Shui, which literally means ‘wind-water’, has moved way beyond being considered as a mere superstition. Today, it has become one of the supporting pillars of Interior Decoration industry. Typing the keywords online or trying to find out more about it at your local bookstore or library will give you a fair idea of the amount of popularity that Feng Shui has gained. Though Feng Shui as an art has become extremely real and acceptable, its effects still seem magical and ethereal. Even the greatest believers in Feng Shui at some time or the other would have questioned the viability of changing the order of furniture and a few colors here and there to bring about such a tremendous change in a person’s life.

How Feng Shui Works Its Magic

Feng Shui, as you must be aware by now, mainly works its magic through the manipulation of energies; by getting rid of all negative energies and diverting the positive energies (or Chi as it is called in Feng Shui) for the welfare of the people concerned. By striking a balance between the five elements of water, earth, fire, metal, and wood, in accordance with the directions associated with these elements you can attracted positive Chi to your household or workspace. This balance brings in harmony for all those living, working, or even visiting these places affected with Feng Shui frequently.

The Principles Of Feng Shui

To begin manipulating the art of Feng Shui for prosperity in your personal life, your public relations, and your career, you ought to start teaching yourself a little by little about the rudiments of this three thousand year old Chinese art.

There are seven Feng Shui schools. You need to have some sort of an idea about each of them to know which one would best suit your need and purpose. There are Feng Shui schools dealing with directions, color, symbols, astrology, numerology, and mathematical calculations among others. You need to figure out which school you are most comfortable with and then accordingly study in great depth about that school.

Casual Knowledge of Feng Shui Can be Harmful

Finding out stray pieces of information about Feng Shui from undependable sources and then applying them to your home and workspace could backfire. As the popularity of this art has grown so has the number of people who are trying to make a living off it without actually having much expert knowledge about it. This can be extremely dangerous. A Feng Shui rule not known or used properly could begin attracting negative energy instead of the positive Chi and prove to be quite disastrous.

Feng Shui is an ancient Chinese art, which works for the peace and prosperity of people by manipulating the energies in their physical space and creating balance. This almost 3,000-year-old art has worldwide popularity today. Art dealers and even the local corner-shop keepers will be able to supply you with Feng Shui pieces for strategically placing in your house in order to introduce balance within the space.

How Does Feng Shui Work?

A few things, which Feng Shui believes can be manipulated to create balance within the house, are as follows.
•    Color scheme
•    Furniture positions
•    The positions of doors, and windows
•    The way you position yourself while studying, sleeping, or eating
Learning the intricacies of this art can take ages. You will find numerous resource guides and online resource material if you want to get started with Feng Shui.

The basic principle of Feng Shui is perhaps an attempt to keep your materialistic physical settings and matter in harmony and balance with nature. ‘Feng Shui’ literally means ‘wind and water’. The art, which arises probably from the Chinese Book of Burial, somehow has the entire world interested in it now.

Feng Shui – Then and now

In the days when Feng Shui had started being seen as an art in China, the Feng Shui masters would ‘feel’ the positive energy and through this feeling build palaces, houses, tombs, offices, and even gardens. Today a number of architects are Feng Shui sensitive. This primarily due to the awareness regarding Feng Shui that has been created in the market and the demand for Feng Shui sensitive structures rising in the market. Today’s architectures and engineers though do not ‘feel’ the positive energy but instead work according to the thousands of intricate rules and laws of the art. The focus is on guaranteeing the client a feeling of positivity. Most of the Feng Shui rules if examined closely actually turn out to be based on mere common sense. For example, not having the door of the kitchen bang opposite to where the stove is, as that would make you susceptible to sudden surprises coming from behind you!

A Word of Caution

If you are thinking about using Feng Shui to bring you prosperity then there is one thing that you ought to keep in mind. The principles behind Feng Shui are extremely complex. Getting something wrong while trying to follow the art can have negative effects on your hearth and home instead of incurring anything positive. Inform yourself well and from a reliable source before you get cracking on it.

Feng Shui does not literally mend everything that needs repair but it does so at a metaphorical level. You will find a distinct difference in the quality of your life if you follow the intricate rules of Feng Shui properly in your life. That in itself is a challenge as making Feng Shui work perfectly will require a lot of knowledge as there are thousands of different rules to be followed.

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You may think that Feng Shui is an absurd art based on false notions, which can in no way affect, or change, or for that matter do anything about the quality of the life that you are living. If you think on these lines then you can be no farther from the truth. Feng Shui as an art is based largely on common sense. Living in an age when technology is progressing by leaps and bounds you might have certain reservations about this 3,000 years old Chinese art, which has recently gained a lot of popularity. Such reservations are understandable. However, forming a prejudice against Feng Shui without completely knowing it would be completely uncalled for.

Feng Shui Common Sense

There are a number of Feng Shui principles and rules, which, are based either partially or completely on common sense. Feng Shui advises you to get rid of all broken pieces of furniture, decoration pieces, burnt cloth, etc. To ensure that you have complete peace of mind it is important that you are not surrounded by junk and waste. Surrounding yourself with things that you do not need and can become the cause of numerous accidents is bound to bring disharmony in the house in one way or the other. Feng Shui also advises you to ensure that your surroundings are absolutely clean. This again is only common sense. An unclean house or office area is a breeding ground of different kinds of germs. This can lead to numerous illnesses.

Feng Shui and Colors

The effect of colors on a person’s mind has been acknowledged by numerous experts. It has even been scientifically proven. The fact that we believe that wearing white clothes in the summer and black in the winter can have cooling or warming effect on the body and that red arouses passion proves the point. Feng Shui plays around a lot with the effect that colors have on people. Walls that have lighter shades are bound to be more soothing than one, which has bright shades.

Your bedroom being the space where you want to soothe your worked-up nerves should never have bright colors on its walls. Your workplace on the other hand should have a lot of bright colors to liven it up with a lot of energy. Soothing colors in your workplace may have a negative effect on your work as you may land up feeling so calm that you are unable to work. This way, by manipulating colors through Feng Shui you can actually affect the way you live, adjust and relate to your surroundings.

Feng Shui believes that everything is dependent on the co-existence of opposites. It believes that opposites need to co-exist and stay in balance to retain harmony. Yin and Yang symbolize these opposites. They are the universal symbols for all that stands opposite and contradictory but are actually inherently dependent on each other.

What Are Yin And Yang?

According to Feng Shui, Yin stands for matter while Yang stands for energy. To take a few examples into consideration in order to understand the concept of Yin and Yang we can look at pairs such as earth and sky, man and woman, action and thought. In each case, the other is completely dependent on the other. If either attempts to proclaim its superiority over the other then there can only be a lack of balance and thus disharmony and lack of stability.

The Theory Of Yin And Yang Is Quite Scientific

Mathematics and for that matter even Chemistry, Physics, and Biology are based on the principle of the opposites. The entire computer language is based on the system of binary coding which makes use of merely two numbers – zero and one. The fact that any computer code can be reduced to these two numbers does not however mean that there are only a limited number of codes possible – in fact it is the contrary. Feng Shui works on the same principle.

The same thing is true for Yin and Yang. Everything can be reduced to these two categories and these two categories give rise to every other category. It is the same theory that works with the seven musical notes and the limited number of elements of which all matter comprises of. The absence of a single musical note, a single chemical element, or either of the two digits of the binary code can be disastrous and even endanger the existence of the others in their category. Feng Shui realizes that this balance is necessary. None of these elements can survive without the others. Feng Shui works on the principle of striking this balance between the Yin and the Yang.

Every human being has both Yin and Yang in his or her thoughts. If there is love, there is bound to be hate; if there is aggression there is bound to be pity and sympathy; if there is satisfaction there is bound to be some envy. None of these emotions is seen as negative by Feng Shui. This ancient Chinese art believes that each and every emotion, feeling, and action should exist in the right balance with its opposite.