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You may not want to believe that the design of your home can have an impact on your happiness, but it does. Yes, it’s true! You feel overall happiness—happy in many aspects of your life—when your space causes you to feel good. For this reason, the Chinese have continued to practice feng shui for thousands of years. They believe it brings positive energy into your home—harmony and balance throughout your life.
In This Post:
What Is Feng Shui?
Feng shui literally means wind and water, and historically, it formed the basis for selecting times and places favorable to growing crops, building homes, and the many other activities that support or extend your life. Its rules guide the arrangement of various objects, including elements of fire, water, earth, wood, and metal, and how they exude happiness into a space.
Each of these elements symbolizes qualities such as creativity, wisdom, growth, and stability. It’s believed that balancing them all enables you to live your most fulfilling life—that as energy enters your home, the placement of various pieces of furniture puts you in harmony with your environment.
Ways to Incorporate Feng Shui into Your Space
At home, you have the opportunity to shut out the world. It’s a place where you’re supposed to feel calm, safe, and collected—a peaceful and relaxing place. You can either create that for yourself or let Leadar help you. Its database offers you a vast collection of contacts to help you connect with expert decorators to get personalized feng shui advice for your space. Before you do so, however, let’s explore the ways to use feng shui in your home.
1. Declutter
Feng shui philosophy suggests that clutter can impact the way energy flows in your home, creating negative energy within your space. If you experience a feeling of demotivation, tiredness, claustrophobia, or depression, you may be surprised to learn that the flow of energy in your home may be too slow and that a simple declutter exercise can work wonders. Clear seats, workspaces, and passageways like halls and doors. Clear out unwanted or unnecessary items that occupy valuable space and anything that blocks pathways.
2. Create a Free Flow of Traffic in Your Rooms
Arranging your furniture with feng shui in mind ensures that all pathways into and around every room are clear. A blockage in the movement of traffic also means a blockage in the flow of energy. Let’s take, for instance, the living room. Coffee tables should be circular as opposed to square because rounded corners allow for a smoother flow of traffic, and the back of the sofa must never be placed facing the entrance.
3. Use Feng Shui Colors
Color shades can either uplift or ruin the energy of a room. Bright and strong colors tend to raise energy levels, while color palettes inspired by nature tend to encourage calm. For the right balance, it’s essential to choose colors carefully. For an open effect, apply lighter colors to ceilings and walls and darker colors closer to the floor for a solid foundation. Doing the opposite can create an unbalanced feeling. Remember, the goal is to help you feel more content and relaxed, so make small color changes to that effect—from paint to furniture and decor.
4. Embrace the Command Position
The command position, in feng shui, refers to the location of a piece of furniture in relation to the door. No matter what position you’re in, ideally, the door should be in sight but not directly in line with you—positioned diagonally against a wall to your back. The argument is that you’re supposed to be able to see who’s entering your space without being in a vulnerable position.
5. Make Your Entry Welcoming
The way you feel when you get home every day—that energy is what is carried with you to the rest of your home. Creating an entryway that is welcoming, airy, and clean provides a positive first impression. Having plants around the front door creates a pleasant ambiance. Make sure there’s enough light, that door locks work perfectly fine, and that doors don’t stick. This will eliminate any frustration that you would have experienced otherwise.
6. Incorporate Feng Shui Plants Into Your Design
When you incorporate plants into your design, you literally bring the outdoors in, i.e. bring freshness and energy. Plant life—carefully selected to sync with the conditions in your home and your ability to care for them—is ideal. But stick to round edge leaves. Be wary of pointy or spiky leaves because they can keep you on edge subconsciously.
Feng Shui Interior Design Ideas
Each of the feng shui elements invokes varying moods. Balancing the elements can help you create a room where you feel happy and comfortable. Let’s take, for example, the living room. You need to ensure that this room is uncluttered and well-ventilated so that feng shui energy can flow freely through it. Bring in the outdoors using plants.
Select furniture that is comfortable, attractive, and relaxing, and arrange it in such a way that encourages conversation. Preferably, your sofa should be placed in a commanding position—against a wall and facing the door.
Paint color, shape, and location of furniture and decor must be guided by the Bagua map. Be sure not to use blackout shades. Rather, use see-through linens on windows, as they allow light in and prevent the escape of positive energy. Remember, clutter is a no-no in feng shui—never over-accessorize shelving. Only things that are meaningful to you must be displayed, and by no means should you ever place the TV over the fireplace.
Final Thoughts
Feng shui plays a huge role in your overall happiness. The way you feel in your space is linked to your health and well-being. While it may be true that there’s no concrete evidence on the direct impact of feng shui, there are in fact a number of studies that support the philosophy. You need to keep in mind, though, that the objective is not to create perfect feng shui but instead to make little, gradual changes to make yourself happier at home so that it radiates throughout your life.
