Have you ever walked into someone’s home and wanted to walk straight out again? Sometimes a home’s atmosphere can be so oppressive or depressing that you just don’t want to stay.

This bad atmosphere can be linked to a sluggish energy flow from too much clutter, the discordant use of colour or from what people are displaying in their homes. For example, unhappy people may have depressing art on their walls or sombre colours. This is because their homes mirror their feelings.

Feng shui, the ancient Chinese art of energy flow and furniture placement, deals with the energy (or chi) flow in the home, and the aim of the feng shui consultant is to manipulate this flow by moving furniture, changing colours, and using cures and energisers to create a blissful, harmonious atmosphere that will embrace you and your family.

How does feng shui work?

Feng shui means ‘wind’ and ‘water’. Everything that is alive on this planet is affected by these elements, and they in turn are influenced by chi, an invisible life force or energy, which is believed to flow through everything and be contained in living things. Where chi gathers abundantly, everything thrives. If it flows well in your home, it will improve your family’s moods and help them achieve their aims.

As feng shui is a complex subject, I will just outline its main principles.

A central part of feng shui is the balancing of the opposing forces of yin and yang. Yin is viewed as female, dark and passive, and yang is seen as male, positive and bright. The interaction of these energetic forces brings the changes in the world: how winter moves into spring, how day turns into night. In feng shui you need to balance yin and yang energies for perfect harmony.

The furniture and accessories you have in your home can make the existing chi energies more yin or yang. Accessories such as stone sculptures, glass, mirrors, hardwood furniture, stone floors and bathroom fittings are more yang, speeding up chi flow, while rush matting, rugs, carpets, curtains, pillows, throws, bed linen and softwood are more yin and slow it down. So for a balanced and inspiring home, choose a mixture of yin and yang furnishings.

The five elements are a refinement of yin and yang, each one representing a core chi energy: Fire, Wood, Water, Earth and Metal.

Diagnostic tool

The pa kua is the main feng shui diagnostic tool. This eight-sided figure can be placed over each room in the home to find out your life aspirational spaces and discover what you have placed here.

Once you know your rooms’ directions, you can draw up plans of each one (ideally on graph paper), showing the furniture and doorway position.

Now trace off the illustrated pa kua (photocopy at a larger size if you need to) and place the relevant segment over the doorway – so, for example if the doorway is southfacing, put the ‘recognition and fame’ section here – and draw in all the aspirational segments.

You can then, if desired, boost these spaces by adding any items relating to money in your southeast ‘wealth’ corner, or love items in your southwest ‘marriage and romantic happiness’ space, and so on.

Feng shui your home

Once you have mapped out your rooms, or if you just want to improve your home’s atmosphere, follow these 10 simple feng shui techniques:

1. Study your home’s environment to see if anything negative is affecting you – large trees or phone poles opposite your front door, for example. Yin places such as churches, doctors’ surgeries or funeral parlours can disrupt the yang energy entering your home, so hang a five-rod metal wind chime outside your front door and grow some shrubs to screen your home.
2. If your fencing exposes you to your neighbours, again grow some tall shrubs for protection. Check for satellite dishes or bad ‘sha’ energy coming off corners of buildings that may be directed at your home. Hang a spherical lead-faceted crystal where the bad energy hits your home.
3. Think about the areas that are not working in your life, or which may need boosting. For example, if you desire a partner, enhance the southwest area with yellow or ceramic items of the Earth element. To energise this space, add red accessories, candles or lighting as Fire feeds the Earth element.
4. Study each room. Start at your front door. Make sure you have a curved path to the front door so that the chi doesn’t rush in too quickly. Cut back overgrown shrubs that can restrict people from coming in, and remove any junk in the hallway, as it will hinder the chi flow. Hang happy and inspiring pictures here to welcome in guests.
5. Check whether you can see your kitchen cooker from the front door. If you can, screen it off with plants or furniture. Ensure that your fridge or freezer and sink are not next to the cooker as this causes a conflict of the Fire and Water elements. If they can’t be moved, put a metal object between them to control the Fire energy.
6. Appraise your living room and dining room for cluttered areas, noting down any piles for sorting, and see if you have a social arrangement of the sofas and chairs around a coffee table. With an open-plan dining room, demarcate the yang dining area with screens, plants or bookcases from the more yin living space. Add pictures of food to encourage prosperity in a dining room.
7. In the bedrooms, the best bed position is diagonally opposite the door with no pictures or shelving above the bed. Mirrors are very powerful energetically, so if there are any opposite the bed, remove or cover at night to prevent disturbed sleep. Beds are not good under sloping ceilings because of compression, but if you have no choice, tent the ceiling with light fabric. Avoid any clutter under the bed to prevent stagnancy, disturbed sleep or worse – a turbulent love life.
8. Study your bathrooms and cloakrooms. If a downstairs cloakroom is opposite or near the front door, this yin energy will decrease the yang energy entering, so keep the door closed. If it is not opposite the front door, put a mirror on the outside of the cloakroom’s door to make it disappear symbolically. With an ensuite bathroom, keep the door closed to prevent waste energies entering the bedroom, and always put the toilet seat down to prevent chi loss when flushing.
9. Investigate your garden shed. If it is full of rusty old tools and decaying garden furniture, you are pulling down the house’s energy, even if it is sited well away. Throw out what is not needed and store the remainder neatly on shelves, with small items hanging from hooks.
10. Finally, appraise your garage. This storage space is often a dumping ground for junk, leaving no room for cars. If yours is attached to the house, the stagnancy will seep through, so clear it out and plan good shelving or freestanding units. If there is a bedroom above the garage, the stagnancy can filter upwards, so in the middle of the garage ceiling glue a large natural quartz crystal to disperse the bad energies.

Enjoy using some of these feng shui principles and see how the atmosphere in your home becomes lighter and more vibrant. This improved energy will impact on your family, making them feel happier, more fulfilled and able to achieve those seemingly unattainable goals.

Mary Lambert is a qualified feng shui and decluttering consultant who regularly does consultations for homes and businesses. She has written nine books, including Clearing the Clutter and Feng Shui for Today’s Living (Cico books £18.99). She can be contacted for consultations or talks on tel: 07905 501423 or via her website: www.marylambertfengshui.com

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