Is Your Home “Making” You Spend Money?

There are many reasons people spend money -- even money they don't have. J. Money offers fantastic budgeting and financial tips on his blog at Budgets Are Sexy.com. But if you've been following financial advice and still can't seem to attract wealth into your life -- there could be other factors at play.

Feng Shui is an ancient eastern art and science that helps people harness the chi (life energy) of their living environment to help them achieve their goals and live a more fulfilling life. Unfortunate home layouts, floor plans that prevent chi from moving smoothly through a space, “missing” areas of your home and other “Feng Shui don'ts” may contribute to your financial issues.

The Universe is energy (chi). We are energy. Even money -- and the things money can buy -- is made up of energy. By making sure all the energy in your space is aligned to work together, you'll see greater success in all areas of your life.

Feng Shui Results
I recently visited the home of a client who is an aspiring musician and actress. She confessed she hadn't been writing much music and hadn't seen much success in her career recently. We moved her piano to the “wealth” corner of her living room, and encouraged the flow of chi around that space. This video of my audition for a Feng Shui televison program on Oprah's new network, OWN-TV, reveals the amazing results she experienced.

Feng Shui Factors that Block Wealth -- And How to Fix Them

Let's look at some common factors in people's homes that may be blocking their financial success. Do any of these situations sound like your home?

Staircase leading directly to your home's main entrance - A tall, narrow staircase that begins at your entryway causes chi to rush out of your house rapidly -- and with it, your opportunities for income and, quite often, your cash. If you find yourself spending money beyond your means, getting hit with emergency expenses regularly, and if money seems to leave your hands as quickly as it enters, the staircase could be contributing to the problems.

To slow the flow of chi down the staircase, hang wind chimes  from the ceiling at the bottom of the stairs, between the staircase and your front door. The best wind chimes have five tubes, representing the five elements in Feng Shui.

Bathroom in clear view of entryway - If your bathroom is in the clear view of your entryway, you may experience wasteful spending. Your money may literally get “flushed down the toilet.” Keep your bathroom door closed, and hang an octagonal mirror on the bathroom door to deflect the chi.

Dirty/unused stove - Your stove, along with your home's entryway and your master bedroom, is one of three most important areas of your home, according to Feng Shui principles. Your stove represents your wealth, career, and how people view you in the world. If your stove is dirty, broken, or you don't use it frequently, you may find your career and income adversely affected.

Keep your stove clean, and make an attempt to use all four burners regularly -- even if you're only boiling water.

You can also place a mirror behind and to the side of your stove, in order to “multiply” your wealth.

Missing “wealth corner” - Feng Shui consultants use a plan called a “ba gua,” which divides your home into nine separate sections. If you lay out the ba gua over your home's floor plan, the Wealth corner will be in the left back corner if you are standing at the doorway and looking into the room. If chi can't flow freely through this corner -- or if this area of the room is cluttered or missing -- it can lead to money problems. Placing a water element, such as a small fountain or a fish tank with live fish, in this corner will encourage the flow of chi and help improve your financial situation.

Use Your Intention to Attract Wealth
Feng Shui consultants use a combination of practical means and Feng Shui cures to help clients improve their situation. Mindful spending and following the principles outlined by J. Money on this site, combined with following these easy Feng Shui tips, can help you improve your financial situation.

What's the First Room You See in Your Home?

The first room you see in your home can affect how guests feel when they enter your house or apartment, and also the areas which will get the greatest focus in your life.

While the three most important areas of a home are the entrance, master bedroom and kitchen, the other rooms can have significant impact, too -- especially the first room someone sees when they enter the home.

The following is a list of rooms in many houses or apartments, and how their placement near the home's main entrance can affect the home's inhabitants according to the principles of Feng Shui.

Foyer: A large, spacious foyer is a good way to welcome opportunities into your life. Foyers should be well-lighted, clean and inviting. You can make a space even more welcoming with the addition of live plants or wind chimes.

Living room: A living room is very auspicious to have near your home's entrance. Residents -- and guests -- will tend to relax and feel at home.

Study: If you have a study, den or home office near the entrance, expect residents to be focused on education, learning and fulfillment.

Kitchen: If the first room people see when they enter your home is a kitchen, your family life will be focused heavily on food. In fact, it may even encourage over-eating, especially with children. Guests, too, will come only to “eat and run.” If this is the case in your home, you can place a screen or other barrier that will obscure the view of the kitchen from the front door. This is especially important if you can see the stove from the front door.

Bathroom: It's not auspicious to have a bathroom in clear view of the front door. This can affect health and wealth adversely. You may find your money being “flushed away.” Your health may suffer, and your home's residents may spend too much time on personal care in the bathroom. They may become obsessed with their appearance. Placing a mirror on the outside of the bathroom door can deflect this negative energy. Remember to keep the bathroom door closed, too.

Bedroom: Having a bedroom in clear view of your home's entrance could be making you feel tired all the time. Hang a mirror on the bedroom door and see if your energy increases.

Would you like to know if the home or apartment you're thinking of moving into will help you achieve your goals? I can help with home selection as part of my Feng Shui consulting services. We will consider the layout of the rooms, the architecture and landscaping, the neighborhood, and the overall chi of the space in order to help you select a residence where you and your family can thrive.

What Can I Expect During a Feng Shui Consultation?

If you're having problems related to your career, finances, romantic relationships or overall mood, a Feng Shui consultation might help. By altering your environment and surroundings under the watchful guidance of a professional, you'll be able to see positive changes take place in your life.

When a Black Sect Feng Shui consultant visits your home for a consultation, expect an interactive experience. Black Sect Feng Shui employs both transcendental (spiritual) and mundane (connected to everyday life) methods to improve the flow of chi (energy) through your home.

The Feng Shui Ba Gua in Your Home
Black Sect Feng Shui does not use a compass to determine the trigram positions or the direction in which to overlay the ba gua over a space. Instead, the Feng Shui consultant will determine the position by which chi enters your home (usually through a front door, but sometimes through another door), and lay the ba gua over the space with the front door in one of three front sectors of the ba gua.

He will also find the central palace (tai chi position) of your home, and assess the placement of important rooms (including the kitchen, bathroom and master bedroom) in relation to the central line and central palace.

After completing a site survey, in which he uses his knowledge of Feng Shui, observational skills, intuition and other techniques to assess the chi in the space, he will assess your Feng Shui needs in relation to your personal chi and the dynamics of your home.

Working with your Feng Shui Consultant
At the start of the consultation, the Feng Shui consultant will discuss with you the areas of your life you feel need help, where your priorities lie, and what your future goals are.

Be prepared to think -- and speak -- in depth about the areas of life covered by the eight Trigrams and the tai chi position (the central palace). You'll want to consider strong and weak areas of your life, and how your surroundings may affect these areas. It's a good idea to brainstorm your goals in regard to these eight areas. It may help to ask yourself the following questions:

- What role does money play in my life? Do I have enough? Do I spend it (or lose it) as quickly as it comes in? Is increasing my wealth a major goal right now?

- What are my goals in regard to children? Do I want to conceive right now? Do I desire better control as a parent?

- Do I feel creativity lacking in my life?

- What is my reputation at work and in my community? Is it important to me that I'm highly regarded amongst my peers?

- Am I stuck in my career or advancing quickly? What aspects of my business life would I like to improve?

- Am I looking to further my education or take part in career development? Is this a priority right now? How are my children doing in school?

- How is my love life and my relationship with my partner? Or am I seeking a romantic relationship?

- How are my relationships with others in general? Do people help me when I need it? Do my friendships have a fair amount of give and take?

- What is my overall health? Do I have any illnesses or ailments? Do I have a lot of energy everyday? Do I sleep well at night?  

- What is my overall mood? Am I typically in good spirits?

Intention in Feng Shui
Since intention plays such a large role in Feng Shui, it's important to visualize the improvements you'd like to make in your life, and to know that the Feng Shui cures an expert implements will help you to realize these positive changes.

Learn more about working with a Feng Shui consultant to experience your full potential.

How To Use Feng Shui To Overcome Life's Struggles

Did you recently move into a home and experience a string of unfortunate events negatively impacting your income, health or relationships with others? Have you experienced these struggles your whole life?

It could be due to unbalanced or negative chi collecting in your home's central palace, the very heart of your home. Just as our heart, lungs and other major organs reside in the center of our body and do their individual jobs to keep us alive, the central palace of our home affects the Feng Shui of the house or apartment.

If a kitchen or bathroom (and especially a stove) is located in the central palace, you may experience a loss of income, adverse events that negatively affect your relationships with others, and even health problems.

How to Find the Central Palace
To find the central palace, find the center point of each room in your home. If you have irregularly shaped rooms, it may be easier to divide your home into individual squares and rectangles implied by the home's layout. Connect the points to a central axis point in your home, which represents the chi of the house and Central Palace. Basically the direct center of your home or space and notice what is located there.

Feng Shui Cures for the Central Palace
If a bathroom is located in your home's central palace, you can place a mirror on the outside of the bathroom door to reflect the chi away from the toilet. If your kitchen is located in the central palace, you can place mirrors on either side and behind the stove.

If you want to adjust the balance of chi in the Central Palace, even though you can't pinpoint a specific problem, a number of cures can work. Choose the one that best fits your style preference and the decor of the space. Visualizing the balanced chi and positive effects on your lifestyle, place or hang any one of the following in the Central Palace:

- Wind chimes
- Crystal ball
- Lights
- Plants

Feng Shui Your Home For Better Health

At the heart of a healthy body lies a healthy home. If you want to feel your best, have more energy, and avoid illness, Feng Shui can help.

The bedroom, bathroom and kitchen are the rooms of your house or apartment that most closely relate to your health. The energy in these rooms reflects your own energy – positive or negative.

Before leaving the house each morning, we typically visit these three rooms in order, with each space providing us with something important, physically and spiritually, that we need for success.

In the evening, we reverse the routine, with dinner, getting ready for bed in the bathroom, and, finally, relaxing in the sanctuary of our bedroom.

Your Bedroom and Your Health
Your bedroom affects how well you sleep; a good night’s sleep means you’ll have more energy to face your day. Placing your bed in the command position and decorating with tranquil colors such as greens and blues and the absence of a TV can help encourage restful sleep including.

Your Bathroom and Your Health
The ambiance of your bathroom can set the tone for the day, too. Bright, vibrant colors and a clean, uncluttered environment help you start the day right. You want your bathroom to be a peaceful sanctuary where you can prepare yourself, with affirmations or simply a smile in the mirror can help you to be at your best all day. Consider adding living plants and green accents in your bathroom to help it come alive and be a place of rejuvenation.

Your Kitchen and Your Health
Following our morning grooming rituals, we typically head into the kitchen – our last stop before leaving the house. The kitchen should be clean, bright, uncluttered and, most importantly, nourishing. Consider adding living herb plants to awaken the senses and set your mind to healthy eating.

Turn Your Bathroom into a Spa Oasis with Feng Shui

In Feng Shui, the bathroom is a sanctuary where you nurture yourself.

Does your bathroom rejuvenate you in the morning and help you relax and unwind in the evening, or does it create chaos, increase stress and promote tension in your life? 

Consider the following aspects of your bathroom and implement some of the suggestions to create a spa-like experience that uplifts your energy and renews your spirit.

1. Bathroom Colors: The best colors for a bathroom include lighter shades of green, yellow, blue, silver sage, lavender, and yellow.

The bathroom already has an enormous amount of water energy represented with the sink, tub, shower and toilet. Colors that incorporate the “wood” element, such as light blues and greens, feed off the water element and create a sense of balance.

Avoid colors such as red, purple, emerald, navy, brown and black; they make the room feel smaller. Additionally, red, purple and black represent the fire (red and purple) or water (black) element, which can make the water element in the room undesirably strong.

I recently worked with a client who had a small bathroom decorated entirely in red. The room felt tight and constricting. I felt my body tense as soon as I entered. I suggested that she paint over the red with a lighter cream or white and introduce green accents in the form of a shower curtain, rug and towels. Her bathroom now feels like a lush, personal oasis that she loves.

2. Life Energy: Many homes I visit have a lot of candles in the bathroom, especially on top of the toilet tank. While it’s relaxing and romantic to soak in a tub by candlelight, candles represent the fire element, which actually strengthens the water element already in the space.
 
Instead of candles, bring live plants into the bathroom to balance the water element. You can even replace those candles on top of your toilet tank with a lush green plant.
Of course, you can keep candles in your bathroom. Simply store them out of sight when you are not using them, or keep only a few displayed. This change is easy and inexpensive to implement, and you’ll notice a difference right away.

3. Proper Ventilation: You want good air flow throughout your whole house to promote the flow of chi, but it is especially important to have proper ventilation and fresh air circulating in the bathroom. Run the fan when you take a hot shower so you don’t create mold and mildew in the bathroom.

4. Scents: Your bathroom experience should encompass all your senses. Small pots of fresh herbs, such as lavender, rosemary or sage, add a relaxing scent to the space, while offsetting the water element in the room. Try to avoid using air fresheners that may add toxic chemicals to the air; look for natural alternatives whenever you can.

5. Organization: What do you see when you walk into your bathroom: the curling iron, makeup and brushes scattered across the vanity? Or do you notice bath salts, folded towels, organized baskets and soothing lotions?

Consider organizing the space to display items that are pleasing to the eye. Keep your hair dryer and other styling tools tucked away out of sight. Even when they’re not turned on, these items emit electrical energy that can energize a space too much.
 
6. Lighting: Make sure your bathroom is well lit and that you have additional lighting options such as multiple lights or lights on a dimmer.

7. Mirrors: Bathroom mirrors should permit you to see your entire face. If the mirror is not hung at the proper height, and the image cuts off the top of your head or chin, it is slicing your energy. This can lead to problems of self-esteem or feeling “incomplete.” It’s best to have one mirror rather than multiple panes of mirrors, so the mirror does not cut your image into segments.

8. Etiquette: The toilet seat should always be down with the toilet lid closed. Do you really want that bacteria going into the air when you flush the toilet?

9. Proper Maintenance: Fix any leaking faucets and keep the fixtures clean. Dripping water is said to “drain” your wealth and can lead to financial difficulties.

These are just a few ways you can incorporate Feng Shui into your bathroom and your life. How do you feel when you walk into your own bathroom? What do you like and dislike about other bathrooms you’ve visited?

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