Feng Shui and Sadness

Photo by Mehdi on Unsplash

We’re moving into autumn now in the northern hemisphere, which is related to the element of metal. Autumn is also related to death and things dying away as well; think about how trees shed their leaves at this time of year. While I was hesitant to talk about this on the blog, I think it’s important to recognize that not everything is all about joy and happiness and making lots of money. There are really so many aspects to feng shui practice and philosophy, and also to dharma. I also study meditation and Buddhism, and feng shui and spirituality are very interconnected. 

Sadness is a part of life too, and it’s important to find a balance between yin and yang. This is something I’ve been working with personally. I think during this global pandemic we’ve all been hoping for things to stay the same or go back to how they were, and there’s an aspect of sadness to it. 

I’ve been reading a lot by Chögyam Trungpa recently, who is the teacher of my dharma teachers. One of the things he wrote is a really wonderful book called Shambhala: The Sacred Path of the Warrior. Something that’s been resonating with me a lot is connecting to tenderness and sadness, which I think a lot of people don’t like to talk about. In this book, Chögyam Trungpa asks us: “How much have you connected with yourself at all in your whole life?” I would add to that: “How much have you connected with your home, your family, and all of the people in your life?” Feng shui is really about beginning to look at those details in your environment and your home, and seeing how you and your home are connected. 

That’s also what the practice of meditation is about. It’s about connecting with yourself and spending time with yourself. When you do this, you may start to see that your home is empty, or that your heart is empty. With this feeling of autumn here in the Northern Hemisphere, there’s also a poignancy and a crispness in the air. We’re starting to say goodbye to summer and to the year, and there’s a feeling of endings. Just like we talk about people entering the autumn of their lives, there is also an autumn to every moment, every year, and every joy that we feel. There’s always a cycle of endings and beginnings, and we have to recognize that our lives go through transitions.

I could talk about how you could bring more joy into your home, but really I think the best way to start to do that is to include the experience of sadness and things falling away in your home as well. That might mean recognizing that it’s time to let go of a plant that isn’t doing well, trim some leaves that are no longer healthy, or change the summer bedding to the warmer bedding. We can begin to realize that things are always shifting around us, and what really leads to true joy is knowing that joy is connected to tenderness and sadness. We can see all these cycles happen in the environment around us, and then we can begin to work with them and have compassion for them in our daily lives, our spaces, and our interactions with other people. We begin to see that we’re interconnected and interdependent with our homes, our environments, the people in our lives, and all living beings. 

Instead of looking at feng shui as a way to always try to make things happier, I hope that you include these feelings of sadness that may come up as part of your feng shui experience. Know that happiness and sadness are two sides of the same coin, like yin and yang. I would encourage you to look at the details in your home as a metaphor for how things are going in your life, and to recognize and accept what is coming up. 

by Anjie Cho


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

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Jewelry and Art in Everyday Life

Photo by Tessa Wilson on Unsplash

Photo by Tessa Wilson on Unsplash

Today I wanted to talk about different types of rituals that you can incorporate to bring more art into your everyday life. Did you know you can also apply feng shui principles to your body, in addition to your spaces? The core of feng shui is about looking at your qi, which is life force energy. Your energy is not separate from your space, other people, or the cosmos. 

One way that I like to enhance my qi in my everyday life is through the jewelry that I select. Sometimes, I do this by wearing representations of animals that inspire me. For instance, I have a bee necklace that was given to me by my flower teacher. I didn’t wear it a lot at first, but later I felt very called to wear it. One of my healers actually told me that the wasp was an animal I could learn from at that time. Learning from an animal doesn’t always mean you have to read about it or listen to someone speak about it. You can also learn through wearing something that symbolizes that animal. 

I also received a beautiful turtle bracelet a while ago. I love the turtle, because there’s a really beautiful story from Buddhism that talks about how precious each human life is, and I think sometimes we forget that. Wearing something like this on my wrist is a constant reminder of how precious our human lives are. I wear it intentionally on my right wrist, which is for giving. The left hand is for receiving. This Buddhist story is about how each human life is as precious and rare as a blind sea turtle swimming through the ocean. Once every hundred thousand years, the sea turtle comes up to the surface and happens to pop its head up through a yoke that’s floating in the middle of the ocean. That is how rare our human lives are. This also gives me a spiritual reminder to value every single person that I interact with, and to value all that I receive in my life

Lastly, I also like to wear my jade bracelet. In feng shui and in Asian cultures, jade represents purity, long life, and good luck. It also has a weight to it, and it reminds me of my Asian lineage. The color is quite interesting too . It’s a light green, which is connected to the wood element in feng shui. Wood is about growth and vitality. My jade bracelet also has some white, which is the metal element, and metal brings in this idea of beauty and precision. This is something I’ve been working with recently: how can I start to see more beauty in all aspects of my life? 

I hope this inspires you to bring more awareness to your personal feng shui, and to invite more beauty into your life through the things you intentionally put on your body. 

by Anjie Cho


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

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The Dark Side of Feng Shui

Photo by Sia Moore on Unsplash

Photo by Sia Moore on Unsplash

The title of this post is a little misleading, because there isn’t really a dark side of feng shui! However, I was recently reminded about the importance of looking at your darker side. I pulled the sorcerer card from one of my favorite decks, the Mystical Shaman Oracle Deck. It’s from Four Winds School, where I studied shamanic healing. This card is about looking at your darker side, and how you may be harming yourself, or maybe setting yourself up to feel as if there’s not enough in the world. 

In reality, the world is an abundant place. The universe is abundant and it wants to support you. One of the ways that I have a poverty mentality is that I start to worry about not having enough time. I often try to multitask and do two things at once. However, it doesn’t have to be that way. The world is an abundant space, and I don’t need to try to fill it up.

How does this reflect in our feng shui? Most obviously, we clutter up our homes. If there’s an empty space in a client’s home, they often ask what they should put there. Sometimes, space is all you need. Are there areas of your home, life, or schedule where you’re always trying to fill up space? How can you feel more abundant by being more spacious? 

I invite you to do this with your home, and to also do it in tandem with your internal environment. One way I’m going to work with this is to let go of nine things a day for a certain period of time to create more spaciousness in my home. I’m also going to work on saying no and letting go of schedule obligations. I can also be more generous to myself by not trying to multitask, and by doing things I love just for the sake of doing them. 

Does this resonate with you? If so, I invite you to also take a look at your dark side, and see how you can be more spacious! 

by Anjie Cho


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

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