Basic Feng Shui Cure #8: Elemental Colors Balance the Chi for Good Fortune

Note: This series explores the 9 basic Feng Shui cures.

Color plays an instrumental role in Feng Shui. Colors evoke different moods based on our personal preferences, cultural traditions, and simply the way they can open or close a space.

For instance, white or beige is a great color for a foyer or small, narrow hallway, as it makes the space seem wider and more welcoming. In China, red is considered a color of good fortune, and is a good color for a door or accent colors in a room.

You can also use the color that corresponds to the element in that section of the Ba Gua. In other words, black or purple would activate the wealth section of your home.

Finally, you can employ the elemental color cycle in your home to balance the chi of a space. The five-elemental color cycle, in spite of its name, can be used in versions of either three, four, or five colors. You can learn more about the five elemental color destructive and creative cycles in the article, “Use the Feng Shui Five Element Color Cycle to Change Your Life.”

Color selection in Feng Shui relies heavily on personal preference and intuition, but understanding the psychology and culture behind certain colors can help lead you in the right direction when picking the colors for your home.

Stay Sharp with Brain Food

The FDA has recently declared walnuts to be a drug, due to scientific evidence and walnut makers' claims that the Omega-3 fatty acids in the foods can treat or prevent a number of medical conditions.

Omega-3s have been shown to:

- help lower cholesterol
- protect against heart disease
- treat or alleviate the symptoms of depression

In spite of the FDA's stand, there are plenty of healthy foods with Omega-3s that can also help you stay sharp, reduce your risk of disease and also help fight depression.

It's no accident that walnuts are shaped like brains -- these nutrient-packed nuts may help improve your focus and promote clear thinking.

Other Brain Foods
A number of other foods packed with Omega-3s offer the same benefits. Here are some additional foods you can eat for improved health and brain power:

- salmon
- flaxseeds
- brussel sprouts
- cauliflower
- shrimp
- cabbage

Feng Shui Your Food
A healthy meal incorporates foods of a variety of colors, making your dish both pleasing to the eye and packed full of different nutrients. A spinach salad with gorgeous pink salmon on top and beige walnuts provides a colorful, healthy summer lunch that will keep you sharp until dinner.

Five Easy Ways to Enhance Your Creativity for Greater Success

Whether or not you work in what you might call a creative field, your creativity can help you increase your wealth by expanding your possibilities for income. When we look at life through creative eyes, we are also more joyful and one step closer to be aligned to our true self.

If you work in a creative field -- such as graphic design, advertising or writing -- it's easy to see how enhancing your creativity can lead to increased wealth. But whatever you do for a living -- whatever your passion -- thinking creatively will help you:

- See things from other people's perspectives, which helps in sales and negotiations
- Think of creative moneymaking ideas
- Think of new ways to accomplish your objectives
- Make every day a joyous experience as you get the most out of life and use your talents to help others.

Here are five easy ways to enhance your creativity.

1. Brainstorm/mindmap - Get in the practice of thinking up crazy, fun ideas by creating mindmaps on paper, where one idea sparks another and another.

2. Open your eyes to experience the world around you. When we really look at our surroundings, it helps us see new things. As we see new things, we begin attracting new, creative ideas.

3. Be open to anything. When we begin life as a child, our imagination knows no limits. We're all creative. As adults, our own inner voice and the voices of others, stifle our creativity. Phrases like, “That's impossible,” “That will never work,” and “That's ridiculous” cause us to impose limits on our thoughts. Stifle those inner voices and ignore those negative words when they come from others. No idea is too crazy if you believe it can be done.

4.Use Feng Shui to activate the chi in the creativity/children area of your home. When you lay the bagua out over your house or apartment's floor plan, looking into the room from the door, the children and creativity area is the section against the right wall, up to the center of the space. It is between the love and relationships and travel/helpful people sections.

To activate the chi in this area, you can hang decorative firecrackers in the space to give your imagination a “spark.” You can also use live plants to introduce living chi into the area. White flowers correspond to the element of metal, represented in this section of the bagua.

Adding a cheerful sounding metal bell or windchimes to the space also activates the chi with lively sound.

5. Use Feng Shui colors for enhanced creativity. It's hard to be creative if you're dressed in depressing grays or blacks. Rainbow colors and bright colors that follow the five-elemental color cycle will help you be more creative. Bright greens and white are also good colors for creativity. Use colors and the rest of these creativity techniques to create the life of your dreams.

What do you think?

While you’re here, I’d like to introduce you to several consulting options to help you grow and transform your life or business. Come along with me on this journey and embrace all the possibilities waiting for you just around the corner.

Meet the Love of Your Life in the Right Clothes

Are you seeking love? Commitment? Fulfillment in a romantic relationship and an eventual family? It all starts with a first date.

What you wear on that first date can increase the odds you'll form a powerful connection with potential for a long-term relationship. On the other hand, the wrong choice in clothes can make you disappear quickly from the person's mind as soon as the door closes on the evening.

Red to Turn Heads
If you want to turn heads, a red dress or shirt will do the trick. This sends a message that you are a person full of passion. Red, often the color of a Chinese wedding dress, is an auspicious color for most occasions, and especially for a woman or man seeking a mate.

Pink or Peach for Seduction
If you want to show that you're open to seduction -- and looking for a more intimate connection -- a pale peach or beige satin top, which blends with your skin and gives the illusion that you are almost nude, sends a subtle message to your date that you are both daring and passionate. Pink has the added benefit of being a lucky color for finding a marriage partner.

Whatever you wear, make sure you are comfortable. An outfit that is flattering in its fit, cut and colors will give you tremendous confidence before you even leave your home. That confidence will project itself as a radiating inner light, attracting others -- including that special someone -- to you.

Dress to Enhance Your Chi
If you want to impress your date, you can choose colors that enhance your most positive inner traits or, alternatively, colors that correspond with your sign in the Chinese zodiac. These colors strengthen your chi.

For instance, if you are creatively charged and ready to deliver stimulating conversation -- and looking for someone who can do the same - wear blue, red or purple.

If you wish to showcase your natural compassion, green, blue, black or red will send a message to your date. Black can also indicate wisdom, class and style. (Think of a black tie affair.) However, to avoid depressing black chi that could overwhelm the otherwise happy occasion, dress up the outfit with colorful accessories, such as a red evening bag.

By strengthening your chi for a special occasion like a first date, you increase your own confidence. The right colors also change the way people perceive you and affect their chi in a positive manner, as well.

Rainbow Colors to Connect
Most people respond to rainbow colors. Salespeople often wear this color in order to appeal to a broad variety of buyers; this technique can work on a date, too. Rainbow colors enhance every type of chi and support the virtues of all five elements.

It takes a certain personality type to pull off a rainbow outfit without looking like a clown. Consider, instead, using rainbow elements on your undergarments or in very small doses, like on a piece of jewelry.

The Five Elemental Colors
Instead of a rainbow, you can employ the five-elemental colors in any order on your outfit to bring good fortune during a first date. Using the five elemental colors in an outfit is a special Feng Shui technique used to increase your fortune during important events.

You can see that Feng Shui can help you dress for a successful first date. With so many different color options that will help you make it a night to remember, you can choose the combination that works best for you.

I'm curious, do you have a favorite first date outfit or color that you really like?

Is The Building Next Door Blocking Your Success?

Whether you live in a suburban neighborhood or a high-rise apartment complex, your surroundings affect the fortune of your home.

In Feng Shui, color plays an important role in whether you will feel comfortable and achieve success in your home or apartment. Look next door. What do you see? How do you feel about the color of the neighboring buildings?

Use the Creative Color Cycle for Uplifting Chi

If your neighbors' homes, or the buildings adjacent to yours, are painted in colors that complement your own house or building based on the five element creative color cycle, this will bring you good fortune. However, if the neighboring building is a color that is “destructive” to your own home's color, you may find it brings down the chi in your space. It will also have negative consequences on the space next door.

If your house or apartment is the same color as neighboring buildings, the doors should have complementary colors.

What To Do About Destructive Colors

If your neighbor's homes are painted in destructive colors and you can't paint your house or change the color of your apartment building, plant a tree between the houses to block the effect of the negative chi. If you live in a condo, town house or apartments, you can plant vines to grow up the division between the spaces.

Make Sure Your Life is Moving Forward in the Right Color Car

Shopping for a car? You can select a car in a color to help balance your chi. For instance, if you are a bit low-key and would like to inject more energy into your life, a red car will get your own internal motors revving. On the other hand, a black or gray car will calm road rage in someone who is easily excitable.

You can choose a car using the five-element destructive or creative cycle color schemes, or you can select a car based on your Chinese Zodiac sign. Unlike Western horoscopes, which rely on your month of birth to calculate your sign, the Chinese Zodiac depends on the year you were born. You can use this chart to find out your sign.

Just as elements and segments of the bagua relate to certain colors, so do Chinese zodiac animals. Choosing a color car that relates to your Chinese Zodiac sign will enhance your chi and bring good fortune.

Choosing a Color for a Shared Car

Many couples have one car that they share. You'll see from the list below that there is lots of overlap in colors that correspond to the Chinese Zodiac signs. It may be easy to select a car color that will work well with both owners.

You can also select “complementary” colors, based on the five-element color cycle, which gives you even more options to select a car color that fits both owners and that also fits your personal taste.

If you can't find a matching color, you can select a two-toned car to relate to each person's best color, or you can select a color for the primary driver and apply racing stripes or accents in the spouse's color. You can also choose an exterior to match one partner and the interior to be a good fit for the other driver.

Remember, your chi is the most important factor in selecting a color for your car. For instance, if you were born in the year of the horse but are prone to speeding tickets and need to balance your “fire” chi, don't select a red car.

Here are the colors that correspond to the 12 animals of the Chinese Zodiac:

Rat: black
Ox: black, green, dark green
Tiger: black, green, dark green
Rabbit: Green, blue
Dragon: blue, green, pink, red, purple
Snake: blue, green, pink, red, purple
Horse: red, pink
Ram: brown, red, pink
Monkey: brown, red, pink
Rooster: white
Dog: white, gray, black
Pig: white, gray, black

What color car do you currently drive? Does it complement your chi and your Chinese Zodiac sign?

Five Surprising Factors That Can Change Your Life

Would you like to live a perfect life? Esteemed Feng Shui Grandmaster Lin Yun once said that those who want to live a perfect life may find themselves in an insane asylum.

The truth of life is that misfortune can occur. Even if you create a game plan to achieve your goals in life, your career or love, and follow that plan everyday, you may find the outcome is not what you expected.

Imagine planting a garden. You cultivate the land, plants the seeds, water them everyday, keep your garden free of weeds and make sure it has the proper amount of sun. You fully expect a crop of vegetables but instead, bugs get at the plants, leaving you with nothing but chewed up leaves.

That's because there are other factors besides free will and intention that influence our lives. Black Sect Feng Shui masters believe there are five major factors that influence our lives, along with a host of smaller ones, including our family circumstances, our responsibilities, our place in society, and our ability to give and receive help.

When we use Feng Shui to improve our lives, the arrangement of objects and use of color in a space are only part of the equation. We can also take mundane or practical steps, as well as spiritual measures, to improve our situation.

Let's explore the five factors that affect our lives according to Chinese philosophy.

1. Fate - In spite of its definition, our fate or destiny is not immutable. By using Feng Shui, we can begin prepare for the likelihood of certain events, and take action to possibly alter our fate to a more desirable outcome.
2. Feng Shui - How our environment affects our chi, as well as our influence on the space around us.
3. Karma - The cause and effect of our actions. Some people view karma as, "What goes around, comes around." Karma is like the concept of a butterfly flapping its wings and causing a monsoon halfway across the world. Small actions cause profound changes -- on your life and the lives of others.
4. Education - Education gives us knowledge and opportunities that make us better prepared to deal with whatever our fate brings.
5. Luck - These are life's variations in fortunes, the ups and downs. To some degree, however, we can all make our own good luck by addressing the other four factors in order to prepare us for a better outcome. Let's look at the old adage, "If life gives you lemons, make lemonade." Receiving lemons represents bad luck, (in this example) but we can use our education, Feng Shui, karma, fate, and even make adjustments to our chi to create a profitable lemonade stand with those lemons.

As we learn to control the factors of our life, we can turn what we view as an "unlucky" existence into a life filled with luck, wealth and success.

So what do YOU think?

What Kind of Mother's Day Flowers Will Make Mom Happiest?

In Feng Shui, different types of flowers have different meanings. The color of a flower can also make a difference when we talk about its effects on the chi -- the energy -- of a space.

You can use flowers to activate a specific segment of the bagua, as discussed in this article. You can also use specific types of flowers and plants -- as well as fruit trees -- to attract greater income, promote good health, or improve your fortune.

Give (Back) the Gift of Life

Your mom gave you the gift of life. Why not improve the living chi in your mom's space this Mother's Day and present her with a gift of fresh cut flowers or a plant? You may also consider giving mom live flowers or a fruit tree that she can plant as a year-long reminder of your love for her.

Selecting Flowers, a Plant or Tree for Mom

Here are a list of some flowers, plants and trees, along with their symbolism, so you can select the best gift for your mom's personality and life goals.

Peony - The beautiful and popular peony has long been a sign of luck, prosperity and elevated social status. This flower, especially in a red or purple variety, is perfect for Mom to place in the wealth corner of her home or garden.

Tree peonies - These woody shrubs, not to be confused with peony flowers, represent springtime, love and affection for beauty. The perfect gift to remind Mom how much you appreciate her.

Lotus - If your Mom is embarking on a spiritual journey, help her out with a gift of lotus flowers. Also a great gift for a spouse hoping to conceive.

Red persimmons - Is your mom the quintessential parent-preneur? Help her plant a red persimmon tree for good fortune in her new endeavors.

Apples - An apple tree represents safety and may be good for an older mom living alone, as a reminder that you are always thinking about her and her security. Plant the tree behind the house, but not touching it, for an added sense of protection.

Oranges - Want to wish your mom good fortune in everything she does? If you live in a tropical climate, an orange tree makes the perfect gift.

Evergreens and bamboo - Send Mom wishes for a long life and let her know your love for her will never die by presenting her with a small evergreen tree or potted bamboo. You can also use a small bamboo plant to activate the wealth or career segment of a desk, at work or at home.

Whatever plant, flower or tree you select for Mom this Mother's Day, make sure the leaves are bright green, lush and healthy in order to ensure your gift will infuse the space with positive chi.

How To Attract Positive People & Wealth into Your Life with Flowers

Have you begun planting your garden for this year yet? Even though April showers supposedly bring May flowers, it's not too late.  If you live in an apartment, you can use flower boxes for the same effect as a full-fledged garden. Fresh flowers enliven a space and activate the chi in a given area.

You can also use flowers of different colors to improve different areas of your life. When you lay the Feng Shui Bagua over your plot of land, you will see how different areas of your yard or home relate to different areas of your life. Similarly, different colors relate to the sections of the Bagua. To activate a particular sector, say wealth or helpful people, plant flowers of a corresponding color in that corner.

You can use this technique of adding colorful flowers to your property, home or even inside your apartment to:

- increase your wealth
- do better in school
- advance your career
- attract helpful people in your life

The Power of White Flowers
How do you achieve these results? Use the color that relates to the section of the bagua you wish to activate. For instance, if you desire to expand your social network with people who have the skill -- and desire -- to help you in your business, plant white flowers in the helpful people section of your yard, place them in a room of your home or apartment that corresponds with the helpful people section of the bagua.

White also corresponds with children, so planting white flowers in the section of your yard that corresponds with children can help a couple increase their fertility to conceive a child. White flowers in that corner of your home or yard can also bring good fortune to your children and improve your relationship with them.

Increase Your Wealth with Flowers
Similarly, violets or other purple flowers in the wealth corner can help you increase your income, as blue, purple and red are colors for wealth. Imagine the results of planting red roses, violets and lavender bushes in the wealth corner of your home, or in a flower box or placing in the wealth corner of your apartment? Not only do these colors look beautiful together, but you'll attract wealth to your home with positive living chi.

Attract Love with Flowering Plants
A single person hoping to attract love can activate the marriage corner of the home or apartment with white, pink and red flowers. If you want year-long positive results when you plant flowers, keep blooming seasons in mind. You may need to plant different flowers at different times of the year in order to ensure year-round success.

Will you be purchasing flowers this week? Is so, what colors?

How to Balance Your Personal “Chi” for Success, Peace and Happiness

We talk a lot about “chi” in Feng Shui. We often translate the Chinese concept of chi into the word “energy,” but it is actually so much more than that. Chi is present in every living thing and in the earth, itself.

According to Feng Shui Master Lin Yun in the book Living Color, different kinds of chi exist:

- chi that circulates in the earth
- chi that permeates the atmosphere
- chi that animates our bodies

The Chi Within Us
The chi within us could be described as our spirit, our energy or our essence. Without chi, we are merely flesh and bones. Chi is what makes us innately “us.” It's how we are still recognizable after 10, 20 or 50 years, even though every cell in our body has regenerated. Our personal chi defines our looks, our personality, and every characteristic that makes us each individuals.

Balancing Our Chi
In Feng Shui, we can use many methods to balance our chi, including meditations, cleansing and the use of colors (in our wardrobe and in our surroundings). When we balance our chi, we our balancing the yin and yang within ourselves.

Definitions of Yin and Yang
So what is yin and yang? Yin and yang are complementary opposites. Yin energy is female. It is dark, contemplative, quiet, and passive. Yang energy is masculine, light and active. Together, they form a whole -- called Tao -- which is literally translated as “the way.” According to Buddhist philosophy, Tao is the way of the universe, the natural order of things.

With this knowledge, you can see why, if your chi isn't balanced, you may feel stuck, depressed, restless, and unable to live up to your greatest potential. You are working against the natural order of the universe.

Chi must flow, unimpaired, through our entire body. It stimulates our brains, our muscles and our organs. It makes us able to move, think, and live. If chi does not flow well to a specific part of our body, we may experience illness or even paralysis there. If Chi cannot flow to a major organ, we may die.

When we are in balance, on the other hand, we feel as if all is right in our universe, which leads us to accomplish the greatness we were put on this earth to achieve.  A Black Sect Feng Shui consultant can not only help you balance the chi in your surroundings or perform a space cleansing on your home or business, but can help you balance your energy so that you can achieve the success you desire.