Introduction to Feng Shui

The most complicated part about Feng Shui is the pronunciation – FUNG SHWEE. But it doesn't really matter how you pronouce it, the most important part is embracing it into your life!

Let's begin with a question I'm sure you've asked yourself at some stage. Is Feng Shui just some kind of crazy superstition? Go on, admit it! It's crossed your mind, hasn't it? Maybe you've even dabbled a bit and encountered judgment from other people who think Feng Shui sounds a bit strange. That's why we're going to start by clearing up a few myths about what it is, and what it's not, giving you a little background on Feng Shui, where it comes from, why we use it, and what it can do for you.

What is Feng Shui?

Feng Shui is all about energy, or chi. In essence, you can think of Feng Shui as acupuncture for your home. It's a way of keeping the energy flowing in and around your home. The practice of Feng Shui is about making that energy as positive as possible, aligning your home for the highest good of you, your life, your business, your relationships, your opportunities, and the home itself. Originating in China, it uses the same Five Elements theories (Fire, Water, Earth, Metal, and Wood) as Traditional Chinese Medicine, Tai Chi, Qi Gong, and the Five Element Theory itself.

Feng Shui is a complex practice with many layers. There are also different schools of Feng Shui, but going into each and every one of those layers and schools is not within the scope of this book. However, for the purposes of The Happy Home, we are looking at the layers of Feng Shui that can bring you to a beautiful place with your home and a good level of understanding. To do so, we'll look at the layers of Feng Shui that use compass directions.

As a Feng Shui consultant, I use the traditional luo pan compass in the personal readings I do in my work which, as you can see, is highly technical. Although it's available to you if you wish to do a personal reading; in this book, we won't be going into such complex layers. We're still using the compass as a mapping tool for your home, just a much simpler one. Later, you will learn how to use the compass directions to map your home and find all of the corresponding life areas so that you can make them more supportive in your life.

Feng Shui may be complex, but this is for a good reason. In China, where Feng Shui originated, the first houses to be built according to Feng Shui were built with intention. That was 4,000 years ago, when Feng Shui was brought into its first form. In those times, people took into consideration where the sun rose, where the sun set, the situation or positioning of the home, and the land around it. Home-building was intentional. In fact, everything was done with powerful intention. What Feng Shui did was to bring that intention into people's environment, and into their homes.

Intention is the most important aspect of Feng Shui, because it seems to me that intention has been lost in the world to a large degree. If you look at the way we create homes now, we just knock up houses anywhere. That is reflected in our lives too. Living with intention has shifted a great deal since the times when Feng Shui first came about.

What is Feng Shui for?

The purpose of Feng Shui, when the ancient Chinese first built those houses with intention, was for good health and a good harvest. And isn't that what we all want in the end? We want to be healthy and vibrant. We want everyone in our home to be happy. We also want a 'good harvest'. Back then, agriculture was the measure of prosperity; whatever the farmers sowed was harvested and became their abundance. Today, a good harvest is measured in whatever way you choose.

All in all, Feng Shui tunes into and honours the intentions you can set from within your home, using the energy in the most powerful ways. Feng Shui helps you create a space where you can feel more confident, supported, and empowered in your home, your life, and your business. Feng Shui exists to feel positivity; to harmonise interactions between the people in the home and between those in your life; to reduce arguments and disagreements; and to create a solid foundation; to flourish.

Feng Shui can influence a number of areas in your life, allowing you to spend time with and analyse each one. As you spend time with a particular life area, you may notice how it's mirrored by the energy in that part of your home.

Feng Shui is also oh-so subtle, making it important to trust the process and not rush through. It's not about immediate results, though that can happen. As the energy shifts in your home, it allows your space to become more magnetic to joy, love, pleasure, abundance, and success for you and everybody else living there. It breaks old patterns of lack and draws in the energy of abundance.

Does it work?

If these claims sound unbelievable to you, I get it. (I'm a Feng Shui consultant, so I'm biased after all!) But you don't just have to take my word for it. I'll let you into a little secret. An increasing number of successful people and organisations are investing in Feng Shui. This includes many large corporations, global entrepreneurs, hotels, banks, Hollywood directors, movie stars, TV presenters, and more. They all use Feng Shui. Why? Because they are the kinds of people and organisations that use whatever they can to make their lives and businesses better and more successful. That's what you are doing here too and you're in good company. The sheer number of people using it should give you some comfort, but that's not all.

Feng Shui has long been the object of scorn for people who are dubious or sceptical of what we are doing here. All I can do when people tell me that Feng Shui is "new-age hippie rubbish" is to laugh. Feng Shui is ancient. It's over 4,000 years old. It's so old that it's being reignited for the modern world. By using Feng Shui in your life today, you are tuning into an ancient practice.

We will harness this ancient power, power that can, and should, be available for everybody today. Everybody deserves to have a home that is supportive of their happiness, health, and wealth. So yes, it may be complex, but Feng Shui gets amazing results, and the rest of this book will attempt to make Feng Shui easy for you to implement to make your home feel good.

Anatomy of Your Home

Your home remembers

Did you know that your house sees, hears, and feels everything that goes on inside it? Not only that, but your home has a memory. It remembers all the happy times, the sad times, the angry times, the past owner's stories, everything. It takes in all the emotions and witnesses all the goings-on. This directly affects your experience of your home. It directly affected everyone before you with everything that had gone on before them, and it is having a direct effect on what's happening in your life today.

Your home is also a dense physical manifestation. It is solid. It is fixed in place. It is bricks and mortar. It is not going anywhere. When energy comes in - whether happy, sad, angry, or something else - it stays, unless you allow it to be released. It is important that you move this negative energy out and make space for your desires and intentions to come forth. For your home to be a fertile place for amazing relationships, incredible abundance, joyous success, and happy families; old memories must be cleared.

Your home is a mirror of you. You are a mirror of your home. So, to begin your Feng Shui journey, you must start by treating your home like a person and cultivating a beautiful relationship with it. This begins by clearing your home of negative associations with the past.

Anatomy of your home

If you are going to create a friendship with your home, you must imagine it as a friend. Think of your friends for a moment. Each one has their own qualities, as well as their own flaws. Your home is just the same. It has its own personality, its own energy, its own persona, from hearing, seeing, and feeling everything that has gone on inside it. This makes it interesting and unique, but just like any relationship, it can become strained.

If your house isn't your friend or if it has been your foe in the past, the likely conclusion is that it would not be supportive of you in your life. Why would your foe support you? Why would someone who has been disrespected help you to achieve great things? Likewise, why would a home that hasn't been looked after be a harmonious space for you to live in? Why would a place full of broken stuff treat you well? If the relationship between you both is tainted or stressed, you can only expect more negativity. But if you create a friendly relationship with your home, the opposite is true. It can be a powerful ally in your life. So, thinking about your house as a person - is your home a friend or foe?

It's not only in its ability to relate and support you that your home is like a person. Metaphorically, you can understand your home being like a person, with eyes, ears, and a mouth. The windows are your home's energetic eyes, 'the windows to the soul', bringing clarity to the inside from the outside. The walls are your home's energetic ears, hearing everything, soaking up every conversation, every argument, every party, everything. The front door is your home's energetic mouth.

Can you imagine functioning without your eyes, ears, or mouth? Difficult, right? If you don't look after those parts of your body, you would struggle to communicate or progress or nourish yourself. If you don't look after those corresponding parts of your home, guess what? It's difficult to see, hear, speak, and eat. In fact, it would be hard to live any kind of life of abundance, joy, or happiness if you were not clear on where you were going and creating the nourishing conditions for it to happen.

Your home sees

First, let's look at your home's eyes - the windows - to see what this means in practice. If your eyes are somehow blocked, you can't see what's coming for you or where you're going. By clearing the eyes, literally cleaning the windows of your home and removing the dirt that obscures your view, you receive more clarity about your life. You are able to see what's coming. You can find your way again, instead of being lost or confused. And you will avoid hurting yourself or getting injured.

EXERCISE: See clearly

Clean the windows of your home. Repeat the affirmation, "I can see clearly where I am going and what is coming to me."

Your home hears

Next, let's look at the ears - the walls - and clear away the negativity. The walls have contained all the words ever spoken within your home, all the stories of the past. Just like your ears hear what you and others say, the walls of your home have heard the arguments, the conversations, the upsets, the secrets, and the broken promises. The walls remember those moments and the emotions held within old stories. That energy is still housed within the walls of your home, still impacting you and your life. To let go of everything it has heard, you must flush the negative memories out of the home.

EXERCISE: Release past stories

1. Take your journal and write out all the memories and past stories you have from being in your home. Anything that comes up that you want to release, write it down. Anything that you remember as a particularly happy moment, write that down as well. And anything that you know about the previous owners or residents in the house, write that down too. If you don't know of any traumatic experiences that went on in your house before you lived there, just write down what you do know from your time there.

Here are some prompts to help the memories flow:

• Anything traumatic

• Anything emotional

• Anything that caused anxiety or stress

• Interactions with neighbours

• Interactions with friends

• Interactions with family

• Interactions with your partner

• Arguments

• Something breaking

• Something upsetting you

• Times you upset someone else

• Times you received bad news

• Stories or rumours about past owners

2. Try not to overthink this writing process. Allow the memories to come up and flow out onto the paper without judgment. If it's a memory within you, it is a memory still in the walls of your house that needs to be released. By committing it to paper, you begin to release the memory from your energy system.

Note: This process will have an impact on your energy system, the energy systems of everybody who lives in your home, and energy system of your home itself. While your home will become your best friend by releasing all these memories in the long run, this process can leave you depleted in the short term. You may feel tired after doing this part of the exercise. You may also feel huge resistance to sitting down and doing it. If either of these are the case, know that it is completely natural and be gentle with yourself. Take a break. Sit outside and take a few breaths or go out for a walk, then come back to it.

3. Once you have your list, go through the negative memories one by one and consciously decide to let go of each one. To do this, look at the memory and ask aloud, "Do I want to let go of this?" Then answer aloud, "Yes, I do." Alternatively, you can ask yourself, "Am I ready to release this memory now?" And you would respond, "Yes, I am ready to release this now."

Note: If you think your partner or family may think you're a bit strange for doing this ritual, try to do it when you have time to yourself.

4. Once you have gone through each and every one of the memories, put them into a small fireproof container and burn the pages. Please take care doing this and make sure you stay safe. I recommend doing this outside if you can, or throwing the pages into a lit fireplace, if you have one. If not, I suggest a metal dish for burning the pages, then washing the ashes down the sink or toilet with running water.

As you burn the negative memories, you honour your house by completely letting go of all that has been held inside your energy system and the energy system of your home. If you can't do any of these, visualise the release of bad memories from your home. If it's not safe to burn them, just tear them up and put in the bin.

With the physical release of the ashes of those burned pages, you may feel an emotional release. If you feel the need to cry when anything comes up, it's okay to shed some tears. Remember, you may have been holding this inside of you for quite some time. You may really want to get rid of these memories quickly, but be gentle with yourself. Afterwards, I recommend going out into the fresh air, even going out barefoot onto some grass if you can, taking some more deep breaths, going for a walk, and allowing yourself to feel cleared of the past. Drink plenty of water to flush all the emotions out of your body too.

If some of the memories are still lingering, download my 'letting go' audio from: www.patricialohan.com/ happyhome or read the guided meditation here, and do it for yourself:

Letting Go Meditation

Get yourself into a nice, comfortable position on a chair or on a bed.

Making yourself feel as cosy as you possibly can.

Giving yourself permission to take this time out from your day, from all of the experiences going on in your life. Affirm and know that everything is working perfectly and that it is safe for you to take this time out of your day to check in and drop into a safe space of deep relaxation.

Watching your breath come in and out – in and out.

Slowing it down.

Drop into a safe space of relaxation.

With each exhale, allow yourself to go deeper and deeper and deeper into relaxation.

Take a moment now to scan your body from the crown of your head for any tension. Scan down over your face, your jaw, your neck, and your shoulders. Allow the tension to just melt away. Continue to scan down your arms and your hands, your shoulder blades, your spine, your diaphragm, all of your internal organs, all the way down into your hips, your pubic bone, your thighs, your knees, your ankles, and your feet. As you do so, feel totally relaxed. Go deeper and deeper into relaxation.

Now watch the rise and fall of your breath, the gentle rise and fall of your breath. And realise with every inhale the capacity to breathe out is part of the natural life cycle. The inhale is an opportunity to breathe new, fresh, positive, powerful breath into your body, to rejuvenate your cells. And the exhale is an opportunity to let go of any thoughts, worries, or things that no longer serve you. This natural cycle of inhale and exhale is how we breathe and how our body moves and brings fresh, new oxygen into our body and cells every day. Notice that if you don't exhale, you cannot inhale and bring new energy and fresh air into your body.