Feng shui is an ancient Chinese art, whose use has been democratized first in the East and then in the West. Indeed, even in China, it was an art that was reserved for a certain caste and protected in its teaching as in its implementation. It gradually left the land of the rising sun to spread to Western countries. It was particularly well received there, even if it sometimes suffered from an oversimplification that resulted in a loss of its true essence: no, it is not just a matter of placing Chinese decorative objects in the bedroom or office to get back to sleep or to get to work. Nor is it about a decorating style based solely on the colour of the wall. Yes, it can be done through the colours used in the room (since they are related to the elements: green with wood, black with water, grey with metal, yellow with earth, red with fire), but that will not be enough to get you back to sleep.
What is feng shui? It is a methodology, a set of rules and processes, which allow to harmonize the energy of an environment, whether it is the outside, the inside of a house or the offices of a company. This will involve the layout of the space, the balancing of yin and yang forces, the sectorisation according to the cardinal orientation from which the choice of colours and materials will result, the application of formulas, the management of the flying stars, the positioning of plants…
In feng shui, it is important to understand that the approach to the world is holistic: we know that the world is governed by universal laws and the subtle art of feng shui is to tame them in order to benefit from the best energies distributed by the vital breath of Chi. Harmony is found in everything, our world is deeply balanced. It is necessary to give back to the place its inner light, to tame the living space through the prism of energy.
Why should I use feng shui?
Have you noticed that the vocabularies related to the house and the body are sometimes confused? Don’t we say that a man is well built or well constructed? That so-and-so has flipped out or gone mad? That the walls are ears? That there are air vents? You will have understood, through this analogy, I wish to express the idea that our interior is at the same time our habitat and our inner self. Our house is the image of our inner world. We all want to make our home more comfortable, in every sense of the word. Acting on our environment is truly one of the vectors of well-being.
First of all, it is not necessary to feel bad or to be in bad health to use feng shui. Some of my clients are simply very conscious of the impact of the surrounding energies on their way of being and therefore wish to take advantage of the vector of the decoration of their house to balance the energy which surrounds them. They know the principles of yin and yang and, perhaps totally unconsciously, feel that the colours and materials do not respect the 5 elements (water, earth, metal, fire or wood). The colour of a room can indeed be as fundamental as the placement of the bed or the green plants. The shape of the furniture is also important…
Sometimes, there is indeed a feeling of uneasiness, which without going towards a real health concern, is enough to make us aware that the energies of the house are perhaps not favourable. For example, we spend so much time in our kitchen or in our bedroom, how can we make these rooms of the house bring us the best thanks to a good circulation of chi? For this you need a guide, the feng shui expert, who will be able to apply his methods to make the living space balanced through the thousand-year-old principles.
Finally, one can call upon a feng shui consultant for a specific problem. Indeed, feng shui can act on many areas of life. A health problem? The harmonization of energies can help to solve it! Heart problems (celibacy, tensions in the couple)? Nourishing the chi in the appropriate areas and rooms of the house can help to find or restore harmony. Are you having trouble getting through the month? Is the money flowing in and out of your bank account without stopping? Then it is probably a problem of flying stars!
As you can see, there is no area of life where feng shui cannot provide a remedy, whether it is a problem with money, relationships, health or professional concerns. Healing the house, nourishing the chi of the habitat, allows us to heal ourselves. We are in deep connection with our environment. To take care of it is to take care of ourselves. To neglect it is to unconsciously harm ourselves…
Feng shui principles
Like any art, feng shui has its own rules. But they don’t come out of nowhere, even though many writings have been lost or destroyed. Chinese metaphysics is extremely serious in its observations and experiments. It is true that if one were to retain only one fundamental principle it would be the management of the breath of life. Balancing and harmonising chi is at the heart of all feng shui practice. It is thanks to this vital energy, present in everything (the walls of your living room, the chair in the kitchen, the green plant in the bathroom, the tree in your garden, you!) that we are connected and that the holistic approach is the only relevant one.
Why is feng shui often compared to acupuncture? For the good reason that this medicine is based on the circulation of chi in the body. So it is no less relevant to deal with the invisible flows of energy that, like those that pass through our body, fluctuate all around us, inside and outside. With the help of needles, the acupuncturist knows how to direct the energy flows where they should be, how to manipulate them so that they bring the best. The feng shui expert does the same thing! We can channel energy that is too powerful, we can identify where the chi is stagnating, we can maintain the energetic balance of a place through age-old principles such as yin and yang, the cycles of the 5 Chinese elements, the loshu square, the bagua, etc. We can try to implement the most appropriate techniques to bring the energy to the right place.
You can try to implement feng shui principles on your own, as some of them are very accessible, so much so that they are just common sense. For example, is the room too dark (yin)? Let’s add light (yang); the room is too big, let’s arrange the space in such a way as to recreate more intimate spaces, with a cocoon effect. Some principles are more difficult to grasp and, without a guide, can be complicated to put into practice. This is particularly true of everything to do with flying stars, a school with such powerful effects that it is better not to make any mistakes.
Finally, there is always that part of perception that influences the diagnosis. Here we can make the link with home staging: it is often very difficult, for example, for a person wishing to sell his house, which he loves, to “see” what is wrong with it, what bothers potential buyers… In feng shui, the principle is somewhat the same: things that are obvious to an outsider will be less so to the person living in the house.
Feng shui applications
There are several schools of feng shui, some are older than others, more complex too. Generally speaking, we can say that the applications of feng shui can be summarized in 3 main environments: outside, at home and in the professional environment.
The external environment is the most important. Feng shui principles cannot be applied solely on the basis of the interior of the house. The circulation of energy outside is fundamental as it will impact the quality of the chi that enters the house. The vital breath, even if it is contained in everything, is much more powerful when it comes from nature. Indeed, imagine that the energy released by a mountain or a pond is completely different from that emanating from a building or any other man-made construction. The study of the external environment is the basis of the millennium feng shui. This is called form or landscape feng shui. The shapes and meanders of everything around the home are studied to judge the quality of the chi.
It goes without saying that if the quality of the chi is poor, it will be much more difficult to harness the energy inside the house. As you know, the entrance is considered the mouth of chi: if you bite into a piece of spoiled fruit or swallow a food you are allergic to, do you think your body will not notice the difference? It will not be “fed” properly according to its needs. It is exactly the same with feng shui: to harmonise energy, there must be good chi to exploit.
Once the verification has been carried out in the external environment, it is advisable to welcome this beautiful energy in all the rooms of the house, from the living room to the bedroom, via the kitchen or the bathroom: each room deserves a good feng shui. The management of the 5 elements will be done through the colours in particular, the most fun part since it is intimately linked to the interior decoration.
Finally, if one wants to apply feng shui in the company, the same fundamental principles will be followed. We spend time at work, what luck if we can arrange our office in an optimal way! In business premises, one can also nurture the areas via colours or materials. The use or non-use of the element of water will be particularly important, as water has a symbolism linked to abundance and prosperity. It is no coincidence that Chinese restaurants always have an aquarium! There are quite complex water formulas that feng shui experts would not pass on under any circumstances.
The benefits of feng shui
Don’t you think that feng shui would have completely disappeared if its results were too rare? On the contrary, if it has been kept secret for a long time, it is because the emperors and the Chinese nobility saw in it an extremely powerful tool that should not be put in all hands and should be kept jealously guarded.
As I mentioned above, the feng shui approach allows you to favour the most positive energies in your environment, whether it is personal or professional. Thus, all areas of life can potentially benefit from this harmonization of energy.
First of all, one can call upon a feng shui expert to improve one’s health or simply to ensure that one’s current level of health is maintained if it is satisfactory. Indeed, poorly harmonized energies, stagnant chi, a thwarted circulation of chi, unnourished elements, can result in chronic fatigue, insomnia or other sleep problems, stress, a sharp drop in energy or libido, depression. Feng shui can reduce or even eliminate these problems!
The results of implementing feng shui can also be found in the financial sphere: whether you have concerns about earning money, or not spending too much, cash flow problems or a drop in turnover, here again, feng shui can help, particularly through the appropriate management of the flying stars.
The benefits are also felt in relationships, whether they are friends, lovers, social or professional. Yes, feng shui can help you find love, boost your social life or protect your relationship.
It can also help children to work better at school, students to concentrate more easily, employees to get a promotion, employees to be more efficient… Feng shui knows how to activate the necessary levers to improve creativity, to increase motivation, to reinforce self-confidence… which translates into the success of many projects.
The consultant can combine several schools to maximise the benefits: for example, to get rid of insomnia, we start with the arrangement of furniture in the room (especially the location of the bed) based on the favourable orientations thanks to the number Kua, then we look at the star of the seat in the room to check its relationship with the star on the front of the door. For celibacy problems, the analysis of the front stars will be mixed with very practical recommendations regarding decoration and symbols attached to objects or paintings. You can’t imagine the power of the images on the wall!
To conclude, let us simply say that everything around us is energy, everything in us is energy. These energies enter into a symbiotic relationship. Also, feng shui, by exploiting the invisible flows of the vital breath, allows to harmonize these energies by allowing the environment to heal us, to recharge us, to help us in all our fields of life.
