Q&A Sunday: Feng Shui for Your Bed

Guest User July 11, 2021

I’ve heard that it’s a good idea to replace your bed linens often. Why is that?

Your bed represents you, so it’s one of the best places to implement feng shui adjustments. One simple thing you can do is to take care of your bed, and acknowledge the preciousness of your bed and the support it offers you.

One way to care for your bed and acknowledge its support is to regularly change your bed linens, and to buy the highest quality bed linens you can. You spend a great deal of time in bed, and you are surrounded by your bed linens for about a third of your life. Take a moment to audit your bed linens: are they non toxic? Organic? Are they of high quality? Are they full of holes? All of this reflects upon you.

Also, your skin is your largest organ, and you absorb the energetics of how and what your bed linens are made from. This means that it’s helpful to pay attention to them, refresh them often, and keep them clean.

When it’s time to let your bedding go, there are a lot of ways you can repurpose or recycle it. I like to donate my old sheets to animal shelters. You can also find textile recycling nearby, or cut them up and use them as rags.

by Anjie Cho

If you’d like to learn more about feng shui, check out Mindful Design Feng Shui School at: www.mindfuldesignschool.com

Six Tips to Picking the Right Paint Color

Anjie Cho June 30, 2021

Think back to the last time you painted a room in your home. Odds are you spent more time than you thought possible combing through color swatches in the paint department. You brought home a pocketful, or more, and taped them up on the wall to ‘live’ with them for a few days. Maybe more than a few days. Perhaps you’re still considering those swatches today.

It doesn’t have to be that way. Here are 6 tips to picking the right paint color for your space.

Get inspired

With all the colors of the rainbow (and then some) at your fingertips, starting with swatches in a paint shop will quickly overwhelm you. Instead, do your homework first. What rooms and styles appeal to you in magazines or on Pinterest? Do you have a favorite piece of furniture or accent piece that you’d like included in the room? Build a color scheme off that item.

Get in touch

How do you use the room you’ll be painting? What mood do you want to invoke? A bedroom, for example, is well suited to subdued calming hues. If you’re painting a child’s playroom or a den, however, you may want to select something more vibrant and energizing. You can also look at the meanings of the colors based on feng shui or color psychology. My book 108 Ways to Create Holistic Spaces goes through feng shui color theory.

Frame it

Your paint color will be influenced by the things around it. If you place a color sample on a white wall, for example, the color will appear darker than it may eventually look spread throughout the entire room after you paint. Instead, hold the color sample up against your flooring and your furniture.

Shine a light

Sometimes a color that looks like absolute perfection in the store seems to look muddy and uninspired when you get it home. Was it your misguided enthusiasm for the hue in the shop? No, it’s more likely a matter of lighting. Make sure to look over those paint swatches at different times of day. Also take a look at the color in different areas of the room.

Think outside the walls

Take into consideration existing finishes – flooring, furniture, and even other rooms within your line of sight. How does your intended paint color work with those elements?

Be open to neutral

If you’re still wavering on the right color, consider going with a neutral. Today’s options go beyond varying shades of white. Neutrals like brown and grey are trending. When you go this route, incorporate pops of personality and color with accessories. Not only will you have more flexibility with color choice when you introduce it through a chair or pillow, you can also change your color-loving mind more easily and cost effectively whenever the whim hits you.

by Anjie Cho

If you’d like to learn more about feng shui, check out Mindful Design Feng Shui School at: www.mindfuldesignschool.com

Q&A Sunday: Feng Shui and the Fire Element

Guest User June 27, 2021

Can you tell me more about the fire element?

We use the five elements in a lot of feng shui applications. The five elements are earth, metal, water, wood, and fire. Right now, we’re in a fire season. Fire is related to summertime and we just had the summer solstice in the Northern Hemisphere, so it seemed like a good time to answer this question and talk about what the fire element means in feng shui.

Feng shui is related to a lot of different Asian modalities that also use the five elements, like Taoism and Chinese acupuncture. We also find the elements in many different cultures, and across the board, fire looks very similar. As humans, we have this connection to fire, and we really understand it. Fire is bright, consuming, red, and it stands out. It’s also this expansive energy. Of course, summertime is very fiery.

If you want to bring the fire element into your home with feng shui, you can start to bring in different aspects of fire. One of these is the color red. Red and fire are not only related to heat and summer, but also being seen in the world and your reputation. If you feel like people pass you over for promotions, or you’re not being recognized for all the good work that you do, you might need to bring in some more fire element.

Fire is also related to triangle shapes. This is a connection that is seen in many cultures. Bringing in that fiery triangle shape is another way to add more fire energy to your home.

My favorite way to bring the fire element into your home is to use your voice and sing. Professor Lin Yun, who brought BTB feng shui to the West, talked about letting your heart sing to really activate the fire element. I recommend you put on your favorite music, and then sing out loud and dance around! This will really inspire some passion, and invoke the fire element to promote more vitality. Allow yourself to be heard and seen in the world!

I hope you have fun working with the fire element!

by Anjie Cho