Intuitive Feng Shui Guidelines

We (me and Teresa) developed over time a number of guidelines to take care of, and maintain, the energy of the space we’re living in. We aren’t trained in Feng Shui, but we’ve always been in tune, aware, and highly sensitive to energy, at all times. You could probably call this “intuitive” Feng Shui.

1. Lightweight, Low Furniture

Bulky and tall furniture blocks sunlight, decreases air circulation, and makes spaces around it more difficult to reach. It can be a psychological deterrent to clean, both the piece of furniture itself and the areas around it. I’ve always preferred short furniture, which increases the amount, and sensation, of open space in the room, and allows you to easily reach below and behind when you need to. It leaves no physical areas particularly difficult to reach. The tallest furniture we have at the moment is a bookcase around 1.5m in height.

It’s also important for every division to not be cluttered of too much furniture. Whatever isn’t either functional for the room, or relevant for aesthetic purposes, doesn’t belong there. This doesn’t mean the whole house must be barren and spartan, just that each division should be open, de-cluttered, and all portions of space easily accessible.

Personally I was never a fan of big, bulky, intricately ornate styles of furniture. I always preferred light, lean, and clean lines. This is as much about trends and personal taste, as it is about sensitivity to energy. Bulky, heavy, unwieldy, old furniture corresponds to bulky, heavy, unwieldy, old energy. If a piece of furniture blocks access to spaces, and dissuades you from reaching certain areas, then in an energy level such furniture is making the energy slower and heavier.

There’s nothing wrong if your personal preference goes to the retro and the antique, or if you have a restored piece being showcased and given proper honors. However, there’s a fine line between honoring the past, and trying to revive it. The latter creates an energy that’s negative, cold, contracting, as opposed to being a vibrant, joyous, expansive kind of energy. This is because only the present moment is real and truly important.

2. Everything in Working Order

Every element within the home must be kept, within fairness and reason, in working order, fulfilling the role it’s meant to fulfill. Burned out light bulbs are to be exchanged. Insulation needs to be fixed if deteriorated. Cracked and broken pieces of glass from windows and mirrors need to be replaced as soon as possible. Hinges sometimes need a little oil. Plumbing can get clogged and require intervention. The interior of a home will need a new coat of paint every few years. Broken appliances and machines are not to be kept around indefinitely, they must be either fixed, replaced with something new, or their function and space released and vacated.

This doesn’t mean the moment something breaks down, you need to obsessively drop everything you’re doing and instantly focus on it. What’s important is that at some point in time you give the issue your concerted attention. Broken elements within the home generate the energy of stagnation, rot, and lack of caring. Much like your body needs attention, nurturing and care, your home needs periodic maintenance. Matter decays with use and over time. There’s no way around it. To keep things in the physical ticking, they need repair and maintenance when needed. This is also a form of love.

The presence of things that are faulty or in poor condition within the interior of a living space, on the long-term, may mean your energy isn’t able to “wrap around” the problem. You can’t, or are unwilling, to face the issue and deal with it, for whatever reason: not knowing what to do, fearing breaking something, or being overwhelmed by it. However, this will represent there are portions of your own home where your energy can’t get to. This creates “vacuums” of energy. Open and aerated spaces are good; however absence of energy is not. Absence of Light is synonym of darkness.

If you don’t know how to handle a certain situation that needs repairs within your home, ask, or call in, someone who does. But don’t be afraid to face and deal with the problem.

3. Things You’ve Chosen and Like

It’s important for every single element within your home, big and small, to be things you’ve personally chosen, love, and are aligned with – as opposed to things that are either borrowed, belong to someone else, or you bought yourself but with the mindset and tastes of someone else(ex. “what would my mother like here?”). These things bring into the house the energy of someone else other than your own.

Things within your living space must be of your own energy (and/or the energy of those who live there) but not of anyone else.

4. Clean and Tidy

Much like when your home needs periodic repairs, it also needs regular physical cleaning. Keeping the house reasonably clean and orderly is extremely important in terms of energy. A cluttered and messy home equals a cluttered and messy heart and mind. This is a similar principle to maintenance. The physical conditions of the house generate a corresponding energy; this energy then affects you.

A house that begins to get increasingly untidy and dirty will start feeding you the energy of laziness and stagnancy. It will make you feel you have to tackle an ever increasing and insurmountable amount of things, creating a negative snowball effect. It’s easier to clean a week-long accumulation of dirtiness than it is a month-long. If you don’t have the energy or patience to clean the house periodically and keep it orderly – which is totally understandable – then hire someone to do it for you, or share responsibilities with whoever lives with you.

Everyone can be messy and untidy. You are entitled to not be squeaky clean and perfectly organized at all times. To help handle this, keep a spot or two – a table, a desk, a drawer – to purposely hold stuff in a messy and disorganized manner. Things you don’t necessarily want to deal with immediately. A typical example would be a desk or table just beside the front door, where you can throw and fetch your keys, receipts, and miscellaneous items you bring from the outside. The “stuff” drawer.

This allows you to just hold things in these spots without losing too much energy with them, while at the same time keeping the areas of disorganization localized and circumscribed within the house – which helps keeping the rest of the home tidy. When you don’t want to waste energy with something, throw it in the “stuff” spot; when you want to sort out your “stuff”, at that point you just have to go to these one or two spots to do so. You just have to designate where these spots are.

Bugs, pests, and infestations of any kind, can’t be tolerated inside your living space, regardless of where you live, the quality of the construction, or the aging conditions of your house or apartment. The presence of unwanted critters living in your home is a parasitic situation, with a corresponding energy. You are allowing unwanted and draining energy within your boundaries, which only takes and gains from you, and you only lose from its presence. Dealing softly with such situations, without trying to get to the bottom of the issue, such as simply placing a trap or two, will not solve it. It’s like trying to mend a broken limb by gently blowing air over it. If you tolerate critters within your personal space, just imagine how the energy of that space will be. What things are you allowing inside your personal energy?

If you experience some kind of persistent infestation, your response must be nothing short of assertive and resolute. First, completely exterminate it yourself if you can, or call in a professional service to do it for you. Next, fix the physical spots where the sources of infestation might re-appear and live in. If you need to, cover/fill any and all crevices, holes, and tight spaces with plaster, insulation, or otherwise appropriate construction material, to prevent the animals from having areas where they can delve and install themselves. Finally, vow to keep the house clean thereafter. Uncleanness is usually what allows an infestation to anchor itself in the first place. The act of cleaning therefore doubles as a prevention measure in this regard.

5. Sunlight and Air Circulation

There is no replacement for sunlight. Light is the most powerful way to raise the energy of a house. Light from the Sun is energy, even if it’s a winter’s soft Sun rather than a Spring’s warm sunny day. You want Light rather than dark – always, unconditionally – and after that, you want light from the Sun over any artificial lighting.

Therefore, keep sunlight-facing windows unobstructed, and organize your furniture and decoration to maximize your inner space’s exposure to sunlight, including across divisions. Pay special attention to whatever sides and rooms of your home that never receive direct sunlight, by considering all the remainder suggestions regarding their energy. When choosing a new home, try to get one where all outward-facing sides receive direct sunlight, at least sometime during the day.

Once in a while – daily if possible – open opposing windows so that air currents may form. These will aerate and circulate the air. Without this, air indoors will become stale and dense, accumulating carbon dioxide, humidity, and possibly helping the cause of bugs and pests, physical and energetic. Generally speaking, whatever is valid for air is also valid for energy. By circulating the air you’ll also refresh and lighten the energy of the house. Air conditioning and artificial ventilation, by themselves, are not proper replacement for air exchange with the outside from natural wind and air currents straight from the window. Always prefer natural air circulation from the outside, if possible. Evidently, in colder weather and climates you’ll need to balance the need for ventilation with the temperature and comfort indoors. This is a point to consider, as opposed to a strict rule.

The smell within the house is of paramount importance. This also relates closely to the state of cleaning. Nice, light, fresh, clean smells attract/generate nice, light, fresh, clean energy; stale, dense, accumulated gases, fumes, or simply the accumulated dirtiness, generate equivalent energy. If you have a smoking habit, do not smoke inside the house. Do it completely outside of the house if you can, or, if you absolutely must, outside your window. But even then some of the fumes will turn back and return indoors (yours and your neighbors’).

Fumes from smoking (anything) are to be considered purely toxic and polluting agents for your home environment. Under no circumstance can such fumes be considered innocuous, physically and energetically. Accumulated fumes suffocate the environment and drain your life force, yours and anyone who lives in the space. They attract and accumulate energies who feed off the use of the substance. Finally, fumes easily ingrain themselves in your home, furniture, cloths, carpets, and so forth (much like external addict energies ingrain themselves in the energy of the home) especially when they result from persistent habit over time. In these circumstances, trying to cover the scent with another smell is like trying to cover an open wound with a band-aid. The smoking fumes are still there. If you have to smoke, the best solution is not doing it anywhere near your home at all.

Burning incense on a regular basis immensely helps with the overall scent of the house. Incense is a great, powerful, easy to use, portable energy influencing agent. As for the aroma, that’s up to your preference. Some incenses are especially designed to not only “smell nice”, but to actually cleanse energetically, such as nag champa, white sage incenses (and white sage itself), etc. Generally speaking, prefer handmade, clunky-looking sticks, that take slightly more effort to light up, over thin, artificial-looking ones that light up easily. The energy of the first ones is far better than the latter ones, who tend to smell “artificial” and have added chemicals.

Finally, the corners of divisions always tend to have poor energy. They have less air circulation, accumulate dirt more easily, and generally speaking, people tend not to pass through or physically spend time at them. This makes the energy at corners tend be lower, comparing with the remainder of the division. Ideally habitable spaces would have indoors with curved lines and never straight corners.

As much as possible, try not to occupy the house’s corners with heavy furniture, so light and air circulation can reach them, and so that you can easily access them for cleaning purposes.

6. No Photographs

Looking at a photograph of actual event, and of actual people, has two effects. First, when you look at the picture, you are transported to the past, to the time when the picture was taken. Second, when you look at the person(s) in the picture, you are establishing a connection with their energy, over distance, much like you do when you think about someone (or they think about you).

These effects are not intrinsically bad. However, keeping pictures on permanent display has the effect of you (1) locking part of your energy to the past rather than the present, and (2) connecting with, and bringing in, the energy from others – and from other’s past – into the energy of the home, on a permanent basis. Both of these are highly undesired things. Again, inside your personal living space you are meant to have only your personal energy, and, again, there’s a fine line between remembering and honoring the past, and trying to re-live it.

This is not the same as having a generic themed picture or a work of art on display. While these can also influence the energy and ambiance of the home, and can purposely be used for that end – see below – this applies to photographs (as well as portraits and paintings) of actual memories, events, people, and relationships, with personal significance or connection to you in some way.

Think of a picture as a bridge. It’s a spiritual, “astral”, or a “telepathic” link, if you will – even if you’re not thinking about it consciously. When you pass every day by a picture without noticing it (because it’s always there), your brain and subconscious mind is still recording and processing everything.

Imagine you keep a fixed telephone off the hook, but with a call to someone always active. Even if you’re not actively speaking to the person on the other side, the connection is still open permanently. You’ll hear any sounds, conversations, and habits, on the other end of the phone, and the other side will hear yours. This is a situation where proper healthy barriers and boundaries are not held and maintained. A portion of your energy is occupied permanently with this open connection.

Ideally, you shouldn’t have any pictures displayed. If you must absolutely have pictures within your living space, keep the ones strictly about those who live in the house, and gathered in a specific location meant to honor and pay tribute to memories, instead of being scattered throughout the house.

Pictures, including of you, are meant to be stored in albums, and/or in a drive somewhere. They are meant to be looked at and remembered on specific or special occasions, that is, circumscribed in time and space, but not indefinitely. You don’t need photos on display to have your memories, nor to define a situation in the present moment. Whatever pleasant memories you experienced in the past, whatever heart-based connections you share with someone, if they are true and genuine, you must trust they’ll endure the tests of distance and time. They’ll endure in your consciousness, bathed by its Light, and you can retrieve the corresponding pictures whenever you wish. That’s what makes those moments special.

On the other hand, pictures that are permanently on display tend to come from, and feed, the energy of neediness, drama, and connections based on lack. Pictures of deceased ones tend to keep their energies around, in your house, outside of Light and appropriateness. This, for reasons that should be obvious, you don’t want.

7. No Clocks

As few as possible. Your smartphones and devices already track the time for you. You don’t need much more than that, much less a clock hanging on the wall that no one can’t miss.

The construct of clock time already keeps you aligned with the remaining illusions of society, pulling your attention away from your inner being and inner reality. The clock is not evil on its own, but the linear 3D structures bound you. Use clocks sparingly, when you need to. The less you and your mind are reminded of the time, the better.

 8. The Energy of Decorative Objects

The energy of decorative objects, as well as functional items, furniture, etc, insofar as they work as decoration, influences the energy of the space and those living within, in a significant way. “Decoration” refers to the property of any object of offering the space he’s in, a certain theme and tone (energy) with its presence and disposition, as well as its appearance, beyond any strict functionality it may have. Here I’m excluding photos and portraits of actual events and people, as I’ve already discussed those.

Once upon a time Teresa met a girl who had just finished college, and wanted to find her first job. However, several months into her post-graduate life, she was still living with her parents, without a job in sight.

Sometime during her childhood, there was this trend with cows, that she had picked up. Since those days she loved everything about cows, and bought for herself cow-themed objects: cow soft toys, cow pillows, cow key rings, and so on. She completely surrounded herself with cows. They were all over her bedroom in her parents house. She had happily adopted this theme as part of her identity.

One day her sister convinced her to go to a Feng Shui course. In this course she learned that every object had its own energy, which influences the energy of people, including its owner. She learned that because she was completely surrounded by cow symbology, she wasn’t being able to go out finding a job, and instead she spent her days in her bedroom doing nothing other than eating and sleeping, and only gaining weight in the process – because that’s all cows do. She was told by her Feng Shui instructor to replace all the cows with birds, which represent movement, freedom, and change.

This wasn’t easy for her. She had an emotional attachment to cows, that had been part of her for many years. However, she did manage to replace all cows with birds and bird-themed objects. Within 2 months, she had a new job and was out of her parent’s house.

At the time Teresa learned about this story, she was also looking to leave her own parent’s house, yet there was some resistance from her own parents, and a little bit of inertia. Things weren’t really flowing for her. So she did the same thing. She went and placed a number of bird-themed elements in her own bedroom. This was around the month of May; by the end of the year she had bought and moved into an apartment.

Every object carries the energy of which it represents. This is true for every object. The energy, in turn, isn’t necessarily negative in itself. Cows represent nurturing and comfort, yet passivity and stagnation, while birds represent movement and freedom, but maybe frailty and lack of grounding. Perhaps the introduction of the theme of cows would be beneficial to someone that was too saturated with his work and needed to slow down, and a vacation. Or to someone who had difficulty in being calm and peaceful. But for the girl in our example, cows were part of the problem. She needed to move, and the energy she had brought around her wasn’t helping.

Perhaps it may not be linear to pick up exactly what energy an object stands for, for example a painting or a sculpture. But this is where your intuition should kick in. You can generally sense what kind of energy an object has, what it relates to. A painting with war and battle will bring the energy of war to your home; a painting of nature, or a zen garden, will bring peace and zen energy to your home.

In another story, a person had many stuffed animals at her home, and she reported that when she would go out, she’d have marks of bites and scratches in her body. The stuffed animals made the energy of the house be that of a jungle – despite that probably not being the original intention of the owners. The energies of the actual animals were being kept around by having their cadavers on display.

Consider the idea of stuffing the corpse of a deceased human, and keeping it on display in your house. If you think that’s gruesome and horrible, there’s no difference between that and stuffing an animal for display. The energy is the same. Generally speaking, death isn’t a particularly pleasant energy to have around in your home! That was meant as a joke… kind of.

Don’t keep stuffed animals in your home.

9. No Electronic Devices in Sleeping Quarters

Keep televisions, computers, tablets, smartphones, regular phones, anything electronic and computer-y, out of your sleeping quarters. This is less of a guideline and much more a strict rule. Your sleeping quarters are for rest alone. All of these items, to some degree, broadcast thought-forms – energy molded as human thought – that lingers in the space where they are, even long after they’ve been shut off. These thought-forms will then influence you and your mind, when you’re in the room, especially while you sleep. The magnetics created by the electric wiring and cables from computers can also disturb your sleep.

While ideally avoidable, having the PC in the bedroom is perhaps a borderline situation, if you don’t have the spare space in your home for a different solution (but if you dream about what what you see or play at the computer, you’re in the red zone. That’s not a passion, but an obsession). But by far, the worst and most exemplifying scenario, is when you have a television in the bedroom.

The thought-forms from the TV will over time pervade your mind, making it used to be hyperactive, inquisitive, and anxious, at a moment when it should be relaxing and winding down. TV programs in particular are very addictive for the human mind. Over time you’ll start depending on the TV being turned on, the noise and the activity, to go to sleep. But this will be a dependency, an addiction. You’ll have a worse quality sleep, with more dream state and less restoration and rejuvenating stages of sleep, because of the lingering mental activity. One million times worse if your children have a TV in their room. They are still growing and forming, vulnerable and permeable, and they’re being formatted by it. TV in the bedroom, big no-no.

Weaning yourself out of bedtime TV may be difficult in the first couple of nights, but the long-term effects in the quality of your sleep will be noticeable. If you need some stimulus for your mind before sleeping – understandable – find a book to read, or try to do something that’s not too taxing and demanding from you. At the very least, keep the computer and television in a division other than your bedroom, to ensure the energy of your sleeping quarters is kept clean, simple, and quiet, by the time you go there to sleep.