Q&A Sunday: Flowers and Feng Shui

Photo by Paula Russell on Unsplash

Photo by Paula Russell on Unsplash

Someone told me it is good feng shui to have flowers in the dining room. Is this true?

Thank you for your question! Yes, in general, fresh flowers are great, because they can bring in joy and uplift the qi in your home. Flowers also feel special. When I was going to ikebana class every week, I would bring flowers home and people would always ask where they were from. Having fresh flowers in your home can be a lovely and simple way to do some special for yourself. 

It’s also true that flowers are especially good for the dining room. Dining rooms are important places in the home because they represent how we nourish ourselves, and also how we connect to others and how deep our friendships are. However, they’re often neglected because we often don’t spend a lot of time eating in the dining room, and sometimes we even use the dining room table as a home office. If you want to deepen your friendships, make sure you are being mindful of how you interact with your dining room and especially your dining room table. Find a separate space that can function as your home office if you can, and take time regularly to eat meals at your table. Having a vase of beautiful flowers here can also help to bring more attention and energy to your dining room table and the parts of your life that it represents. 

If you do bring flowers into your home, there are a few things to keep in mind. First, if you can, try to find locally grown flowers. Local flowers are generally better for the environment because they aren’t shipped from far away, and don’t require as many chemicals to stay fresh for a long trip. It’s also a great way to support your local farmers. 

It’s also important to care for your flowers once you’ve brought them into your home. Replace the water daily and remove any dead leaves or flowers. Water is their life blood, just like it is ours, and it’s important to keep it clean and free of any debris that might fall into the vase. When you replace the water, you can also cut off the bottom inch or so of each stem, so that the flowers can receive more water.

I encourage you to do something special for yourself and bring some fresh flowers into your home. Choose flowers that you’re drawn to, and if you like, you can even look up the symbolism of those flowers to learn more about what they can teach you.

by Anjie Cho

Thanks for reading our "Q&A Sunday". If you have personal questions, we encourage you to check out Practical Feng Shui or hire one of Anjie's Grads.

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

Q&A Sunday: Books and Clutter

Photo by Ed Robertson on Unsplash

Photo by Ed Robertson on Unsplash

Hello! I have read some of your posts on clutter and found them very interesting. I don’t have a lot of clutter in my home except I do have a lot of books. What are your thoughts on books and how this relates to clutter?

Thank you for your question! I think a lot of us tend to accumulate books. There are always a lot of new books you want to get, and people give you books...and suddenly you have way more than you’ll ever be able to read! I notice that I start to feel a little stressed around my books because I feel like there are so many that I should be reading. 

On one level, books can create a lot of clutter, so that’s something to think about. On another level, those books might be preventing you from purchasing and reading the books you really want to read, because you feel like you need to get through the books you already have. In this way, you might be limiting yourself. The books on your shelf served a purpose at one time, but that doesn’t mean they are useful to you now. Some of your books may have also been given to you by other people, and are not things that you really wanted in the first place.

Books also represent knowledge, wisdom, and information. This is true of fiction, too, since they often include metaphors that can be sources of wisdom. Something to pay attention to is whether you have any books that represent old ways of thinking. If you are holding onto books with ideas that no longer resonate with you, you may also be holding onto old ways of thinking that could be holding you back. It’s really important to revisit the structures in our lives, and choose which ones we want to keep and which ones we want to let go of. Letting go of books can be a beautiful way to let old ideas go as well. By making space on your bookshelf, you’re opening yourself up to new ideas and innovation.

I invite you (and everyone reading this!) to give away one book today. You can donate it to a used book store, your local library, or another organization that accepts used books. Choose a book that represents an old way of thinking, or a part of your life you're no longer resonating with, and let it go with the intention of making space to invite in something new. Instead of filling our lives with preconceived notions, we can make space and be an open container for new ideas.

How can you make space to receive something new, maybe something that you couldn’t have even imagined? 

by Anjie Cho

Thanks for reading our "Q&A Sunday".  We will be answering questions submitted by our readers. Click here to submit any Feng Shui questions!

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

Q&A Sunday: Closet in the Career Area

Photo by chuttersnap on Unsplash

Photo by chuttersnap on Unsplash

Hi Anjie! I noticed that my closet is in the career area of my bedroom, and I’m wondering what that means. I do feel a little stuck in my career and am not sure what to do next, so I would like to know if that’s related.

Thanks so much for your question! Closets can be very interesting areas to look at from a feng shui perspective. Feng shui encourages us to peek in dark closets and corners of our homes and begin shifting the energy there. The area of the bagua map where a closet is can also tell us a lot, so a closet in Kan, also known as the career area, could very well give you clues about what is going on in your career.

I would encourage you to take a look at your closet and see what is going on inside. If you haven’t been using your closet, this could mean there are some issues you are not acknowledging. Sometimes closets that we ignore can represent areas of our lives that we don’t want to look at. If this is the case for your closet, maybe there is a career path that you haven’t seen yet. Are you open to seeing a new, different direction in your career?

Often closets can be magnets for clutter as well. If your closet is cluttered, you may be blocking new career opportunities. A closet full of clothes you haven’t worn in years is a source of stale, stuck energy. By going through your closet, you can shift the energy and welcome vibrant, life-affirming qi. 

A full closet could also mean that you are keeping yourself too busy to welcome new opportunities. If your closet, home, or schedule is too full, you have no room for anything new. This is true both literally and metaphorically. If you let go of some of the items in your closet and create a vacuum, the universe can fill it with something fresh and exciting. By letting go of old items, you are also encouraging your heart and mind to let go of old behaviors and beliefs that are no longer serving you. Go through the items in your closet and donate anything you haven’t worn in the last year or two. Even things that are no longer in good condition can often be recycled. 

As you start to clear out and shift the energy in the career area of your home, you may find that you have more clarity on what to do next in your career. I would also highly suggest working one-on-one with a feng shui practitioner, because they will be able to help you dig more deeply and give personalized recommendations based on your unique situation. 

by Anjie Cho

Thanks for reading our "Q&A Sunday".  We will be answering questions submitted by our readers. Click here to submit any Feng Shui questions!

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