Room by Room Feng Shui- Living Room

Feng Shui Your Living Room

In Feng Shui, Yin is the quiet and calming chi while Yang is the active and can be destructive, chi. You can’t have too much of either, you need both to achieve total contentment. “There must be opposition in all things.”

Anyone can have a beautiful home no matter how eccentric the taste. When I go to someone’s house, the first visual impression is not what dictates my comfort within. It is the flow of chi from person to room, one room to the next, wall to wall, and floor to ceiling. A lot of times, when people come to my house, it doesn’t matter that it’s messy from the day’s chaos, they come in and say “it’s so comfortable here” or “I love how your home feels so welcoming”. Good chi is not hard to reactivate, but very easily ignored when we fall prey to stress.

For 12 years, I have practiced these seven simple steps in reactivating my own good chi, starting with our living rooms (I’ve moved quite a bit). It can help you, too. I will not delve into symbolism for practical purposes.

1.From your front door, look around your first set of rooms. If there’s a “spot” that seem to catch your attention negatively, note it down. Do each room seem too dark, too bright or does it have much of what you don’t want as opposed to what makes you feel good? Put lamps on dark spaces and darken stark spaces with big plants or a vertical statue.

2.Still struggling to get things done, even after your yoga poses and blood-pumping routine? See if the room is the culprit. Again, from your front door, look at your furniture placement. Is it a maze or a meandering pathway? If you have to keep “turning” to get to the next furniture, then you're in a maze. The best yin chi is free flowing , gentle and invokes relaxation and creativity. Move around your sofas and tables to soften the flow from the front door to your living space and beyond to the back door.

3.Someone once told me, “If you keep looking up at the sky or always on the ground, eventually your neck will hurt.” Each of us needs to recognize what’s around, below, above, behind and in front of us to be well-balanced. If a room makes you feel too excited and the next agitated, then you have too much of each chi. Your own chi should compliment the chi inside the home. If you are a tall person, you should have low level attractions to help you see every surface. Reverse that for short dwellers. Don’t ignore tall ceilings and corners; if they are bare, it's like ignoring a part of you just because no one can see it. Eventually, it will be a source of annoyance. Maintain your good chi by making it “rise up” and dwell longer in your home. A good vessel to capture more yin is a tall and small necked vase or a vertical painting you love.

4.You should have a good exchange of oxygen flow in your home. Unless you are super allergic to dust, let the air in. Open those windows! Not only will it refresh your room, it'll do the same for your mood while you’re in your favorite room or the living room. If you clear your lungs, you clear your mind and mood. Air cleaners do the same if you have allergies.

5.Bring in plants that produce a lot of oxygen like bamboo or any pothos ivy. Scientifically, plants need and release carbon dioxide and oxygen to maintain health. Having more oxygen clears our heads and lightens our mood. We are told to drink water to maintain our health, right? Consider plants as your home’s water supply. But not in the bedrooms; as plants cycle carbon dioxide and oxygen for their own life maintenance. During the night, you are not in control of how much CO2 you inhale. See Gas Exchange in Plants .

6.From your sofa, can you see the front door? If you can’t, that uncertainty brings in undue anxiety about your safety. If your floor plan forces you to hide from the front door, place a mirror on the wall that allows you to see the door from where you like to sit and relax.

7.Make your living room, a living room. Meaning, represent your whole family in it. For example, children’s artwork displayed in a beautiful frame, most recent or favorite family portrait, favorite throw, books and a few toys in a beautiful basket that can be hidden away. Consider a conference room; it is designed to hold all that can contribute to a meeting or activity. It is normally bright enough, wide enough and meant for all involved in the meeting. Well, your whole family is your team, therefore, let their “input” be a part of the main room.

Sometimes, we forget that our own energy level is “dumped” into our own homes and to undo that, we need to reorganize our furniture and space to give us a new perspective. Feng Shui can also be seasonal, so don’t feel constraint about your initial reactivation. Remember that each season brings its own chi with it and it’s up to you to harness the good chi to help you deal with the bad chi life throws at you.