Feng Shui for a Harmonious Living Space

Table of Contents

1. Introduction
2. What is Feng Shui?
3. The Four Main Principles of Feng Shui
   1. Nature
   2. Clutter
   3. Command
   4. Elemental Balance
4. Our Feng Shui Experiment
5. Week One Results
6. Week Two Results
7. Applying Feng Shui Today
8. Conclusion
9. FAQ

Introduction

Do You ever feel overwhelmed by the weight of your responsibilities? Do you struggle with stress and anxiety? If so, you're not alone. In today's fast-paced world, it's easy to feel like we're constantly on the go, with no time to slow down and take a breath. But what if there was a way to solve those problems in just a few easy steps? Enter feng shui, an ancient Chinese philosophy dating back 5,000 years. In this article, we'll explore the principles of feng shui and how they can help you Create a more harmonious living space.

What is Feng Shui?

Feng shui is an ancient Chinese philosophy that focuses on finding harmony between you and your surrounding environment. The term literally means "wind Water," which are elements believed to help direct the energy flow of the Universe. The belief is that the arrangement of your surroundings can positively or negatively impact your life, from your energy levels to your mood, to your health, to your Fortune.

The Four Main Principles of Feng Shui

There are many schools of thought, teachings, and interpretations of feng shui that have evolved across thousands of years. However, our test today is only going to be focusing on the four main principles widely agreed upon by most feng shui practitioners.

Nature

Feng shui promotes incorporating nature into your room design in the form of plants and natural light. The rationale here is that plants represent growth and absorb negative energy. Sunlight is viewed as providing healing energy, which has been shown to boost serotonin production in the brain, the neurochemical that makes you feel happier.

Clutter

Feng shui says that clutter blocks the flow of positive energy around you, surrounding you with unfinished business that can prevent new opportunities from entering your life. The basic idea is that if you have unfinished projects lying around, they're constantly reminding you that you're being unproductive. Many studies have found that clutter is associated with elevated levels of cortisol, the stress hormone. However, feng shui proposes a very easy solution: lose everything that you don't plan on touching or using in a given day, and only keep around the items that are going to remind you of your past successes.

Command

Optimizing how you position the most important pieces of furniture in any given room is the key to commanding. This one goes pretty darn deep, but the TL;DR version here is that you should have a clear line of sight to the door without being directly in line with the door. This then puts you in a commanding position to see who's entering or leaving the room, preventing any unwanted jump scares from someone sneaking up on you while at the same time not being so focused on the door that you're distracted by what's down the hall.

Elemental Balance

The basic idea here is that there are five Core elements: wood, fire, earth, metal, and water. Each of these can be represented in our environment by a physical object, like a piece of wooden furniture or a ceramic piece of pottery. It can also be represented by a color. Each element is meant to offer some sort of benefit. For instance, Earth offers grounding, metal offers Clarity. But the overall goal is just balance with all elements present. Designs with sharp edges or harsh Patterns are said to cut off creativity and induce stress. Instead, feng shui recommends using more curved pieces to create openness and a better flow of energy.

Our Feng Shui Experiment

To test the effectiveness of feng shui, we enlisted the help of GTlive fan favorite Ash and her partner Tamar, who both volunteered not just one, but two rooms of their new apartment to our specific cause. We also tackled the most stressful room in the house, our office, and applied the principles of feng shui step by step.

Week One Results

At the midpoint check-in, we had plenty of things to say. We all seemed to be a bit more focused and a little less mentally stressed. But would those results hold on for an extra week, once we had gotten accustomed to everything? Shockingly, no. The results actually got better. By the end of the Second week of testing, the overall Consensus was that everyone felt more focused and in control. The overall lack of clutter was the single number one biggest all-star change that we all made.

Week Two Results

The overall consensus was that everyone felt more focused and in control. The overall lack of clutter was the single number one biggest all-star change that we all made. We all seem to be a bit more focused and a little less mentally stressed.

Applying Feng Shui Today

Above and beyond all else, the one move that Universally worked to ease all of our collective stress and anxiety was cleaning out the garbage. So, take a look around whatever room in your house you spend the most time in and see how much clutter you have clogging up your space. And for one week, put it all away. Keep it out of sight. And then come back and report if you feel the same difference that all of us felt in this episode.

Conclusion

Feng shui did not cure any of our problems. What it did do, though, was help in subtle, smaller ways. Feng shui seems to function similarly to YouTube optimization. On any given YouTube Channel, there are tons of small things that can all help your video do better. You can have better colors in your thumbnail, you could have more exciting words in your title, you could have better writing, better visual editing, faster pace. The list literally goes on and on and on. And each one of those things helps a little bit, an extra percent click-through here, a few extra watch minutes there. Alone, it's not doing a whole heck of a lot, but together all those small things add up to make a big difference. Feng shui seems to work in a similar way.

FAQ

Q: What is feng shui? A: Feng shui is an ancient Chinese philosophy that focuses on finding harmony between you and your surrounding environment.

Q: What are the four main principles of feng shui? A: The four main principles of feng shui are nature, clutter, command, and elemental balance.

Q: How can I Apply feng shui today? A: Above and beyond all else, the one move that universally worked to ease all of our collective stress and anxiety was cleaning out the garbage. So, take a look around whatever room in your house you spend the most time in and see how much clutter you have clogging up your space. And for one week, put it all away. Keep it out of sight. And then come back and report if you feel the same difference that all of us felt in this episode.