Real estate investors are always on the lookout for the next flip or fixer-upper that they can scoop up, fix up and flip for a profit. I know this because I get at least three cold calls a week from various companies begging me for a list of distressed properties they can purchase. While most investors want to buy low, make the least expensive upgrades necessary and sell it at a profit, what happens if they inadvertently buy a lemon? By this I mean, what if by getting a good deal on the purchase price, they end up getting a house that doesn’t give back in the way that they hoped? If you knew up front that the investment property you were considering had a high predictive index for losing money, would you still buy it?
One of the most common reasons why people become curious about Feng Shui is because they discover its potential impact on their finances, reputation and relationships. While all of the life areas represented on a bagua are important, these three are what I call the heavy hitters. When they are in balance the others will be as well. This is because each one enhances the next. Can you imagine just how beneficial a working knowledge of investing with Feng Shui can be? I can, and I am about to share it.
If you are wondering how all of this works, let me explain. The first tool used to help determine the financial potential of a property is a bagua. The bagua helps us locate the various life areas as they relate to each specific home. Other life areas that are of interest include career, family, health, creativity, children (fur-babies included) and much more. Every area of life that touches us in some way can be found within the bagua’s nine life areas.
While an investor might jump at the chance to get a distressed property for a bargain, there is one cardinal rule in Feng Shui that cannot be ignored. If you are getting a great deal on anything, especially a house, then someone else is getting a bad deal. The questions to consider are why would the seller be willing to get a bad deal, and is there something about the home’s design that is contributing to this “great” price?
A smart investor will hire a Feng Shui expert and real estate agent like me to help discern the existing design pattern for blockages that can limit profit. When wealth areas are missing in the land, and the design of a home, a pattern begins to form. Some of the designs that create this energy are poorly placed bathrooms, stoves and fireplaces to name a few. The good news is that Feng Shui can overcome design problems.
One thing to understand is that a house will have as many wealth areas as it has rooms. When the design pattern points to financial loss, there is no amount of fresh paint and carpet will overcome that unless you hire a Feng Shui specialist to mitigate the problems.
“If you get a great deal on a home and don’t repair or remove the wealth drains within it, you will either break even or lose money.”
My investor consultations will both identify designs that limit and drain abundance, as well as offer unique and specific instructions on ways to correct these problems. The cost of hiring a Feng Shui specialist is negligible compared to buying an investment property that drains money like a sieve.
If you are an investor and want to make sure that your next investment property provides long-term profits, then it is time to invest in a little Feng Shui wisdom and knowledge from your friendly Feng Shui expert. Email me today and let’s schedule a call to discuss how Feng Shui can help you chose an investment property that increases profits indefinitely by ensuring a high rate of return. Consultations are available in-person and remote.
Did you know that there is one place in particular that benefits the most from spiritual objects in Feng Shui? There is and I am going to share that in this blog, but first, let’s discuss what qualifies as a “deity”. What I mean by this term is anything religious from any religion, not just Christianity. Some examples of the types of items that I often see in people’s homes include Buddha, Jesus, Saint Francis of Assisi, Kuan Yin, Shiva, Ganesh, Archangel Michael and others. Through my many years of teaching yoga, my interest and understanding in the Hindu deities expanded, and I have been inspired to mix them with others that I consider important throughout my home.
In order to understand about the proper placement of your spiritual objects, it is important to remember that many spiritual beings who lived on our planet took a vow of poverty, so they are an unlikely symbol for wealth or abundance, and that is why this area of the bagua is not ideal for placement. In case you need a refresher, the bagua consists of nine life areas and that bagua grid is placed in alignment with your front door so that it becomes possible to discover what is where within your home.
The nine life areas are: Career/Life Journey, Relationships, Family/Health, Abundance/Prosperity, The Center is a neutral area that is best kept clear, Service/Helpful People/Travel, Creativity, Knowledge, & finally Fame/Reputation.
Once you locate your front door and mentally place it over your home, you will be able to understand this next part. Since our deities and spiritual objects are meant to be of service, the logical place to put them is in the area of your home, yard or room that aligns with the area of Service and Helpful People. This area can also be a good place for your altar if you have one in your home for meditation, intention and spiritual focus.
Remember, you can apply the bagua to every room. So in that respect, you will have several career areas, and several abundance sections and multiple service areas, etc. If you want more information about the Feng Shui bagua, I go into depth about it on my website. The easiest way to find this area is to visualize a hashtag symbol that is enclosed in a box. The service area is in the bottom right corner in relation to the front door.(#6) The ever-changing mouth of chi (your front door) is commonly found in either the #8, #1 or #6 portions of the bagua, but not always.
If this all seems too confusing, I am available for in-person or remote consultations, so please reach out if that is something you would like to pursue. The best way to contact me is at Logynn.ascher@gmail.com or you can text/call me at 720-653-6710.
Finding the perfect house is a lot like searching for the red-flag-free relationship that we continue to seek if we are single and hope to maintain if we are in a committed relationship. And just like relationships, when we walk into a home that is an energetic match to the invisible vibes we are radiating, we will willingly overlook all the red flags and say yes based on the emotion we feel rather than logic. I say this 100% from experience so hear me out.
When I was living in Austin, I moved in with my friend/real estate agent while she searched for a home that I could love. When she finally found one in my price range that allowed my son to stay in his existing high school, I was hopeful; and the minute I walked into the golden yellow living room, I was hooked. I immediately went to work, analyzing the location of the stairs within the Feng Shui bagua and checking for fighting doors, missing areas and draining energy in finances. I was determined not to buy a house with obvious design issues that would impact the life areas of abundance, relationships and family, but that is exactly what I ended up doing.
It had three bedrooms, 2 1/2 bathrooms and the garage had been turned into a makeshift room with exposed sheetrock and concrete floors. What I ignored immediately was the ship/shod way that the back patio had been installed which was creating rot between the house and the roof flashing, the clearly not-to-code installation of the hot water heater and oh yeah, a giant missing area in the money area of the house. I also ignored the dust bowl backyard where grass should have been, gapping holes created by an invasive junk tree along the back fence and the hoarder who lived next door.
Rather than get my own inspection, I used the one from a previous potential buyer and relied on my then boyfriend to help me decipher just how bad things were. I have no recollection of my agent taking me aside to talk sense into me or encouraging me to get my own inspections before moving forward. But let’s be honest, even if she had it wouldn’t have mattered because I was determined to make that house mine. I was already reacting to it on an emotional and unseen level. I knew that I would be able to correct for all the Feng Shui design issues that I saw, but I didn’t yet recognize that the house in question was acting like a mirror showing the parts within me that still needed healing.
Why am I sharing all of this now? After years of helping people with only one side of a home purchase, namely the Feng Shui solutions that they need after purchasing a home with poor Feng Shui design, I am now a licensed real estate agent and can use both skill sets to get you into a house that you love. When you choose a home with a balanced design based on Feng Shui principles, the time you spend there will be filled with abundance, health, work/life balance and growth.
Feng Shui is a system of guidelines that have real life consequences. You don’t have to believe in Feng Shui to be impacted by it. Chi is energy and energy needs to flow. When we build homes that ignore the natural pattern that energy wants to take, we either inhibit or support that flow.
In regard to the house that I had in Austin, I replaced the flooring, painted every wall at least once if not thrice, created a yoga studio out of the ugly garage and tore down the rotting back patio, put in grass and replaced the fence. By the time I left that house, we had both healed deeply. I ended a dysfunctional relationship, I learned to set boundaries, and walked toward a future that offered a lifetime of adventure. As I said goodbye to my home, I had an embodied sense of confidence that enabled me to move to a new state without a job, a plan or any friends. Eight years later, it was the best decision I ever made and I can’t wait to see what happens next!
Since I sold my home in Austin, the price of homeownership has skyrocketed. We no longer have the luxury of buying a home blind without paying attention to how its design is going to impact the life we plan to live in it. If you want to ensure that your home will increase your bottom line, enhance your relationships and improve your level of opportunities, then let’s chat about your housing needs and let me use both my real estate skills and my knowledge of Feng Shui to give you an edge over all the other buyers competing for your future home. Schedule your free 20 min. call today. https://www.fengshuidesignconcepts.com or https://logynnascher.yourcastle.com
If you’ve ever loved your job, but hated your physical workplace surroundings, Feng Shui could be the solution you didn’t know you needed. We often talk about Feng Shui as it relates to our homes, but applying the ancient wisdom and guidance of Feng Shui to our workplace is just as important. All the things that can go wrong in the design of a home also apply to our workspaces, and now that more and more employers are requiring their employees to show up in person at the office, now is a great time to tap into the benefits of using Feng Shui at work.
How is Feng Shui useful at the office? Well for starters, door placement and alignment issues continue to be one of the most common design problems that I see. Let me give you an example. I recently had a client with public/employee restrooms in the center of the building, a place where it should be grounding rather than draining. The restrooms were opposite one another and off-aligned by almost half. This can indicate a potential for abusive energy of all kinds including mental, emotional and physical. In addition, each restroom door had a closet door behind it that could “fight”. This design indicates behind the back criticism among other things.
“Feng Shui problems have both a push and pull energy about them.“
As damaging as the above example is from an energetic standpoint, it was mostly an energetic match for the employees that worked there at the time of the consultation. Shortly after some of the changes were implemented, four employees left abruptly and went on to find other work that was a better match for them. Healing our surroundings happens from the outside in. The outer layer shifts which creates deeper, more holistic changes with time.
Here’s another example. Early in my real estate career, I interviewed several different brokerages to join. One in particular was in a renovated home, it was local and seemed like a slam dunk of a choice. Unfortunately, as soon as I walked inside, I saw a set of three off-aligned doors called Piercing Heart Doors. This type of door alignment can pose problems involving the physical and metaphorical heart energy that we all carry within us, but it is when we look at their placement within the bagua that a more clear picture emerges.
In this case, the doors were located in the Fame/Reputation area when accessed via the front door of the office and in the Career/Life Journey area when accessed via the back door. No mater which way one entered the space, one or both of those life areas would be triggered. My initial desire was to share this information with the managing broker, but I did not. Much like you can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink, leading a person to awareness about energy requires a belief and interest in energy. I did not get the sense that the managing broker at this location would be open to change, so I found a firm that does.
Using Feng Shui for the Good of All
Just for a moment, let’s turn our focus on what it might be like to work in an office that intentionally created and designed a workplace for its employees that included Feng Shui. What if every person working in this “utopian” office was sitting in a commanding position, facing one of their top four most powerful positions for Success, Love, Personal Growth and Health? If every area in the office flowed evenly from the Career to Relationships, Creativity and Reputation and if all the doors in the space had proper alignment without a fighting door in sight, it would be a hub of productivity, connection, flow and joy. Employees would feel creative, empowered and allowed to be their best self. They would work well together and enjoy coming into the office. Any disagreements that might occur could be handled with communication, trust and empathy.
Is it so hard to imagine a workplace like this? We have the power to do better, and Feng Shui is a tool that all businesses should consider employing in order to improve the work/life balance of its employees, reduce turnover and to make a bigger impact of connection throughout the world. I remain as ever, an instigator of hope and healing. That is the work that I am here to do, and my tools of choice are Feng Shui and “the power of the pen”.
Now this is just a sample of the possible benefits of using Feng Shui in your workplace. If you would like to learn more about scheduling a personalized analysis with specific corrective steps to make your place of business a magnet for success, we need to talk. You can call, text or email me at 720-653-6710 or Logynn.ascher@gmail.com in order to get started.
In this month’s newsletter, I touched on the problems that attached garages have on the overall balance of our home’s Feng Shui and I quickly realized that this is a topic that needs more space to be explored. Read the full newsletter and additional blog post below.
The last house that I owned didn’t have a garage, and it wasn’t until I put it up for sale that I realized how much people love their garages. The truth is that it HAD a garage, but the previous owners enclosed the space without proper building permits or HVAC connections, making it difficult to sell a few years later. Fortunately, I was able to use Feng Shui knowledge to overcome all of these limitations.
Traditionally, garages are in the front of the house and they are attached to the main roofline. If you are of the mind that your garage is not part of your house and isn’t creating havoc, I have news for you . . . it is. The only way that your garage is not causing some sort of imbalance in your home is if it is a completely separate and “detached” building.
The reason that I chose garages for this month’s topic is because builders are getting a little bit too creative with their garage placement these days. One style in particular is the option of placing the garage behind the house. A lot of people with this style like it because it no longer detracts from the view of the front of the house, but when the garage is attached to the back of the house, it is taking up space in your three most important life areas: Wealth, Fame & Relationships.
Conversely, I recently saw a house with a stand-alone garage placed directly in front of the main door. Another popular design is when the garage fills one entire side of the house consuming the right side that incorporates the relationships, children and service areas of a home, or when it takes up the entire left side of the home/bagua which aligns with the abundance, family/health and knowledge areas. For the record, neither of these is ideal.
In the house I owned in Austin, the garage was in the Helpful People/Service area of the house. Since I eventually turn it into a tiny yoga studio, I felt that I was successfully offering a service to the community and therefore it was in balance with my intentions and goals for my life at that time. Not having a garage was the number one comment from potential buyers when it came time to sell my house.
Garages are a complex topic, mostly because they are typically the overflow storage area for all the things that involve the outdoors: Think paddle boards, skis, bikes, camping gear, and if you are lucky, your car! When I was growing up, using the garage for a car only happened the one time that my parents surprised me with a metallic plum Volkswagen Bug and somehow managed to squeeze it in. After that, it went back to being the place for the extra freezer, the tools and the washer/dryer and oh so much extra stuff.
Before we go any further, let’s find out where your garage is within the Feng Shui bagua. Standing in from of your home from the driveway, locate your front door. That is the mouth of chi for your home. Now locate the garage door in relation to your front door. When you mentally visualize the Feng Shui bagua over your home, everything starts to make sense. Armed with this information, you can determine how this might be impacting your life. Each area of the bagua has a corresponding element, color and shape.
In the example pictured below, the garage is taking up the entire right side of the house. The front door is not clearly marked, but it is next tot he stairs, so the garage is taking up three areas of the bagua. Can you name them? (answers listed below). Considering the types of things that get stored in the garage, it is safe to say that it would be difficult to effectively enhance these areas without professional guidance.
The answer to the above garage example is that the garage is taking up the relationship (#2), child/creativity (#7) and service/helpful people (#6) areas of this home.
In the next example, you will see that the garage can create havoc no matter where it is located. Once we understand the location and how it fits into the overall bagua of our homes, we can address the challenges and enhance them accordingly. Below, you will see an example of an attached garage to a home when it is in the front of the first floor. In this example, it is taking up at least a portion of four different life areas: Career, Knowledge/Wisdom, /Family/Health and the Center of Unity and a very little bit of the Service/Helpful People areas.
We’ve talked about the placement of the garage as it can show up under the roofline of the main house, but there are equally challenging locations when they are in front of the house, or behind a house and totally separate. When in front, they create a blocked entry which will limit opportunities. When they are the back of the house, they create some confusion as to the actual front door and create a blocked entry to the door that is being used as the entry to the house.
One of the things that we see quite often in townhomes, is that the garage is placed on the first floor underneath the living spaces above. If this area is cluttered with all the overflow of a typical house, in addition to having cars going in and out, it can have a very unsettling effect on the inhabitants. Primarily, this would show up in a feeling of instability or having a difficulty being or feeling grounded.
Garages are one of those things that feel like a true dichotomy: Can’t live with them, and we can’t live without them! This is why it is important to use Feng Shui wisdom, and all the principles of de-cluttering, to have a garage that is in harmony with the rest of your home. A savvy home owner will use their space to their advantage by understanding and applying Feng Shui to every aspect of their home. Through my newsletter, blogs and upcoming vlogs, I can teach you the generic ways to enhance your home, but having a personalized in-person or remote consultation is the best way to access over 20 years of experience without the wait.
As a new real estate agent, I have started previewing homes in all of my favorite areas, including the homes surrounding Sugarloaf Mountain in Boulder, Longmont, and Loveland Colorado to name a few. When a buyer reaches out and is looking for something specific, I will have already previewed a home that quite possibly matches their desires. I’ve only previewed about a dozen homes so far, but one thing is becoming abundantly clear; very few of them are Feng Shui ready! What does it mean for a house to be Feng Shui ready? Well that depends on whether you are counting on your clients knowing a little something about Feng Shui or knowing nothing at all about it.
Since the 80’s when Feng Shui had its initial heyday in the West, it is safe to say that most people know at least a little something about Feng Shui, even if they don’t understand the long-term impact. For example, your buyers most likely know that they should be wary of stairs running out the front door. They may also have heard about fighting doors, and how annoying they can be, especially in tight areas like bathrooms and entry ways. And they might have some reservations about a house that sits at the receiving end of a dead end street or has a giant electrical transformer casting shadows onto a home that they love. The question is, will that bit of knowledge and awareness be enough to eliminate their interest in one of your listings?
It is our job as real estate agents to inform, educate and assist our sellers and buyers with the things that they see, feel and fear about homeownership. Considering that the internet provides a lot of conflicting information about everything related to Feng Shui, a savvy realtor will be able to assist in helping their buyers and sellers get the best deal and the house of their dreams without all the worry about stairs and doors and sha-chi roads and shadows. It really comes down to preventing a worry or dispute that can make or break a potential deal. An informed buyer or seller is an empowered buyer and seller.
While structural issues like stairs in line with the front door are difficult and costly to change, a Feng Shui consultant with proper training can easily give specific solutions, or “cures” to make their impact less overwhelming and draining. They can also help an agent understand what it is about their listing that can pose problems or keep it stuck on the market longer than usual, and take preventative measures.
For example, today I looked at an adorable ranch house in Loveland. It had clearly been staged, but the items used did not add the correct balance of elements that create a feeling of cohesive welcome. The front door was painted red, which I don’t always recommend, but as soon as I walked in, I could see that it had some merit. The front door opened immediately into waterfall stairs that were intentionally not shown in any of the online photos, indicating that the owner is aware of this Feng Shui issue. Another thing I noticed was a room that had been added to the back right corner of the house. The room itself was cute, but adding it created a new problem that I am sure the owners did not anticipate. Adding rooms without understanding the Feng Shui implications of doors is never a good idea, and this door’s placement will create on-going relationship issues for it’s owners and future owners.
You may think that your listing clients or even your buyers won’t notice the things that I did today, but I am here to tell you that they will. We are all affected by our surroundings. Even if we can’t come up with a concrete and tangible explanation for how a place makes us feel, we definitely feel it on a subconscious level. Don’t you want your listings and your potential buyers to respond to the best version of the home you are representing? A Feng Shui consultation and/or Feng Shui staging can save you, your listing clients and potential buyers, a lot of time and money. In today’s tight market of limited inventory, and high interest rates, it makes sense to do what we can to make sure that a listing we are representing will receive and provide on-going value. Using Feng Shui will ensure a positive outcome for everyone involved. Call or text Logynn at 720-653-6710 or email at Logynn.ascher@gmail.com to schedule your Feng Shui listing consultation today!
Doors are important in Feng Shui, because they allow the prana or chi, which is life-force energy to enter. The invisible, yet powerful energy of chi is what sustains us. Where and how it enters into a space tells us where to place a bagua, the 9-square grid that is used in Feng Shui which aligns with all aspects of our lives. Doors can be blocked by trees & shrubs, they can sit at an odd angle, they can be recessed and they can be hidden. Different people will be drawn to homes with all of these examples and more. I say this because our homes are an external reflection of our internal lives.
In other words, your home reflects you and it is here to help you heal. So from this perspective, there is no wrong front door placement, and there is truly no home with bad Feng Shui. There are however, home designs that will match any and all of our limiting beliefs. The key is to know what yours means to you.
The front door is where our story begins and it’s placement is significant. The first thing that you see when you enter is also important. If there is childhood trauma, it may show up here, especially if it is unhealed. When people have been through a trauma and that trauma hasn’t been released, it is always energetically within and around them. Luckily, Feng Shui can help.
His Holiness Grandmaster Professor Lin of the Black Sect Esoteric Buddhism Feng Shui refers to front doors as the Ever-Changing Mouth of Chi. This is because front door placement typically falls in one of three areas.: The Knowledge/Wisdom Gua, the Career/Life Journey Gua and the Service/Travel Gua. These are the bottom 3 guas that can be found on a typical Feng Shui Bagua as seen in the diagram below. However, the mouth of chi can enter into any of the life areas and guas depending on the design or shape of the home.
The question is, what happens when the front door enters through one of the other guas? I will use my own former house as an example. (Pictured below) The home that I owned in Austin, had a front door that was further back from the front of the garage. (Remember, if your garage shares the roofline of your house, it is included in the bagua). My walkway was alongside the garage and the front door wasn’t in the “typical” place. In fact, it was actually so far back that it was entering through the Family/Health area of the Bagua. Another way of saying this would be that I had to walk through the Knowledge area (which was outside of the roofline of my house, or “missing”) in order to reach my front door.
The symbolic significance of this is actually profound, so I’ll say it again. I had to walk through knowledge and wisdom in order to allow the chi to enter my home through my family gua. If you treat this statement as a metaphor, it has more impact. The metaphor of using my front door as a pathway to heal familial patterns and habits means that I activated that life area each time I used my front door; for better or worse.
On the surface, it does not appear significant, but because I like to understand my patterns and habits through this practice of Feng Shui, it is profound to me that I needed to heal the impact of my family life experiences by developing a deep sense of curiosity and self-awareness. My family dynamics have had a huge impact on who I am today: some good and some tragic. I know that many of us had experiences in our childhood that left emotional and mental scars. The gift of Feng Shui is that we can move through and move on from this past by understanding our present.
My former house in Austin, TX
In retrospect, my former home was a virtual laboratory for healing family trauma and dysfunction. As aware as I was when I lived there, I still had a lot to learn, and once I was ready, that energy shifted and so did I. When it did shift, I gave up the security of home ownership for the life I had been dreaming of living in the mountains of Colorado. I sold my home, packed my bags and drove to Colorado to start a new version of life on my terms.
If you are looking at the above photo, you will also notice that there is a second front door. The former owner enclosed the garage, so I turned that room into my Inspire Me Yoga studio. That second doorway led to peace, community support, stillness, meditation and flow. One door offered an active practice for self-reflection and grounding, while the other offered familial triggers that shifted to healing. What happens if you have two or even three front doors? If each door is equally placed, choose the one that allows your energy to enter gently and not be drawn into a flurry of activity. One of the best rooms to see upon entry is the living room for this very reason.
It’s funny because as I look back at this photo today, I would change so much. I would have painted the doors a different color, like a deep sage green and used a darker brown on the trim. I would also have made the yoga door the main door and done more to make it the obvious choice. You may be wondering how to make one door more dominant than another. In this example, placing some tall, bright blue ceramic planters on either side of the door with lavender or another healing and sun-loving perennial would help to establish it as the preferred entrance.
Practical tips for optimizing front door placement 1. Determine the life area (gua) that relates to your front door’s placement. 2. Enhance it with a color that aligns with that life area or gua. 3. If you have multiple front doors, chose the one that provides a gentle welcome. 4. If your front door enters through one of the life areas in the center of the bagua, be willing to consider that it isn’t an accident that you were drawn to a home with that door placement. 5. Use the creative and destructive elements to energetically enhance the front door with color, shapes and elements.
Looking back six years later at my former home, I see it with new eyes. One of the reasons that I left Texas had to do with my family. It also had to do with a need to take my power back. I felt that I had exhausted every option when I lived there. I was ready for a change and I was ready to allow myself to leave the comfort, familiarity and expectations that had defined every aspect of my life up until that point.
As I travel through life and use my homes as a tool to continually become my best self, I can no longer settle for a house with obvious imbalances. When I bought the house in Austin, I was coming from a place of desperation. I felt like I had been backed into a corner and had to make a decision quickly. I was living with a friend, who also happened to be my real estate agent, as she looked for a home that I could afford and was in the proper school district for my son. I was ready to have a space to grow a garden, to paint the walls and make my mark on one little piece of the world. I did all of that while I was there, but it is only today that I can admit that I moved into that home as a knee-jerk reaction. It was impulsive and I overlooked a lot of things. That is actually a really good description of the person I was back then.
Today I look at that house as an old friend. We helped each other to heal, shift and grow. The last time I was in Austin, I decided to drive by my old home. I wanted to see if she had changed as much as I have. To my sad surprise, she had lost all the sparkle that I had infused her with. It was as if all of the healing progress that we had made together had come undone. The pathway was overgrown with weeds, trash was piled up and it looked as disheveled as it did when I first moved into it. At first I was angry, but then I realized that the new owners are on their own journey to healing, and that home still has a job to do for them.
As an Associate Broker with Your Castle Realty, I combine my 20+ years as a Feng Shui consultant with ensuring that the next home your purchase is a perfect match for you. If you want to sell your home, using Feng Shui to assist the process has helped me to sell three different homes at a profit, and this was years before the housing market went off the rails! You can reach me at logynnbascher@yourcastle.com, fengshuidesignconcepts@gmail.com or through my websites at www.fengshuidesignconcepts.com or logynnascher.yourcastle.com.
If you think that Feng Shui is just about moving furniture around, you are in for a surprise. One of the more complicated aspects of Feng Shui involves the elements and how to use them to your advantage. Feng Shui is all about layers and this is one of the layers that is simple but can also be a little confusing. There are two ways that the cycles work together. One is creative or “feeding” and the other is destructive or “destroying”. Both of these cycles have their benefits and both are positive, in spite of the names.
In both cycles, we consider the individual characteristics of each section of the bagua, their corresponding colors and shapes to add strength and power to a room, or space. As you may know, we lay the bagua mentally at the front door of any space. Now, let’s apply this to the “ever-changing mouth of chi”. The front door is typically placed in one of the front three life areas of the bagua: Knowledge/Wisdom, Career/Life Journey and Travel/Helpful People. Each of these areas can be enhanced by using its specific color or associated element. If the front door enters through the Knowledge gua, using the colors black, blue or green would be a good way to strength it. If the door enters through the Life Journey/Career area, a dark watery color like Black or Dark Blue is one way to use the elemental color for that gua. If the door enters through the Travel/Helpful People gua, a good color would be White.
Now, since lots of people seem to think that a red door is the premier color regardless of the door’s placement, let’s consider the impact and elemental relationship between the color red (fire element) and a front door placed in the Career area of the home (front, center). We know that the element for that area is water and dark, watery tones like black and dark blue. When we introduce a fire color like red into a water area like Career, there is a tendency toward drama. What happens when water hits a hot pan? Lots of sizzling and steam, aka drama. While there may be times when this is necessary, there are many more reasons why it is not the best option.
If you are unfamiliar with the individual sections of a bagua and their corresponding elements and colors, I have a bagua on my website that is easy to read and understand. You can check it out here: https://fengshuidesignconcepts.com/feng-shui-tools
Let’s switch gears and discuss the benefits of applying the destructive cycle to your home’s elemental balance. The destructive cycle is used when there is too much of one particular element. The destructive cycle uses the elements in a way that creates balance by energetically destroying too much of one element. A good example to illustrate this cycle is to consider a client who loves white. They love the crisp, clean palate of all shades of white from the floor, to the walls to the furniture. If you look at the bagua example in the link above, you will see that the color white is associated with the metal element. While it may be the client’s preferred color scheme, it can feel overly sterile and uninviting as well as harsh and cold. The question then is how do we balance the elements of an all white space without adding any color?!
Looking at the diagram to the left, we can see that the Fire Element “destroys” Metal. One idea to employ would be to add a white candle on a wood candle holder. The fire energy of a candle can “melt” the metal by using it up a little. In the above example, metal chops and destroys wood. So putting our white candle on a decorative wood candle stand is one way to give the metal a “job” so that it is using up some of itself. This will activate a shift by adding other elements while preserving the client’s desired color scheme. During a personalized in-home or remote consultation, many other such solutions would be given to bring about a sense of balance to a space like this.
As you can see, employing the creative and destructive cycles to our Feng Shui cures adds an entirely new way of understanding the many benefits of Feng Shui. This is equally true in the business world. If you walk into an office that is filled with black and metal furniture, gray walls and no other color anywhere, there is a distinct imbalance and it is one that repels more than attracts new clients. Feng Shui is an intimately unique system of balancing both a person’s personal energy with the shape, color, style and design of their home or office. There is much to be applied, learned and shifted when using Feng Shui. People who view Feng Shui as a trendy party trick simply need to be educated about its ever evolving uses and benefits. That is why I am here, plugging away at new ways to share this ancient practice. If you would like to learn more about Feng Shui, check out my Instagram and Facebook pages, sign up for my FREE newsletter or schedule your very own personalized consultation. You won’t regret it.
There is a common belief in the Feng Shui world that painting your front door red is always a good thing. I am here today to help clarify that misconception with some solid facts. Once again, placement and understanding the elements is crucial. First, let’s consider the color red. In Feng Shui, red is a very powerful and protective color, so I can see why someone who is dabbling in Feng Shui would be drawn to the conclusion that this makes it a good color candidate for the front door. The truth is red is first and foremost the color of the Fire Element. Certain places in our homes love the fire element, and certain places don’t.
Whenever we introduce a color in Feng Shui, we first must see the bigger or macrocosm point of view. This begins with knowing the location of your front door. While this seems like a no-brainer, trust me that it can be complicated. In the BTB style of Feng Shui, the mouth of chi is “ever-changing” because the placement of doors changes from the path on the property to the path from the front door and the path into each and every room.
Let’s say that your front door’s location is pretty straightforward and is in the front, middle section of your home. That would make your “mouth of chi” in the Career or Life Journey area. That area is defined by the Water Element. If you were to arbitrarily paint your front door red, you would be inviting the Fire Element into an area that prefers the Water Element. What happens when you put two opposing elements together without a deeper understanding? At the very least, the Water puts out the Fire, but it can also create a bit of drama to this area of your life.
Before you start to justify the fact that it’s okay, because you don’t use your front door, I’m here to tell you that the elements don’t care that you use a different door. The elements are going to interact the way that they do regardless of which door you use, but I will also say that using a different door will also change how the Bagua is laid upon the structure of your home. In other words, everything matters, so be aware and mindful before jumping onto the bus of Feng Shui trends.
If you want to DIY your way through the Feng Shui of your home and life, be prepared to make a lot of mistakes and learn things the hard way. I say this tongue in cheek because that is exactly how I started, and it is also why I made a point of learning from those wiser than myself. I made a lot of mistakes, and I learned it all the hard way. Don’t be like me!
As strange as it sounds, using Feng Shui to schedule your next haircut is almost as good as finding a fantastic stylist that you love and trust. A few months ago, I got my haircut using the information on Lillian Too’s website for choosing the best day to cut hair and it was truly the best haircut I’ve had in a year. Since I am growing out my hair, I don’t get it cut very often, so after four months, it was that time again. To my surprise, my stylist had an opening the same week that I called, and it fit my schedule perfectly. The thing that I neglected to do was to double-check that date on the Best Days website.
After my hair was cut and styled, something seemed off. Normally, I love the results because I really like my stylist. This time though, I looked at it and said, “I don’t like it”. I was almost as shocked that those words came out of my mouth as my stylists. She did her best to tame the bangs I hadn’t wanted, but they weren’t cooperating. She had cut it totally different than I had told her I wanted it. Basically, she questioned me halfway through, and so I just gave in and let her do what she wanted. It’s been two weeks and it’s finally grown out enough to style the way I like.
This all got me thinking and I realized that I had missed the important step of choosing an auspicious haircut day. Out of curiosity, I pulled up the website and scrolled to the section titled, “Good and Bad Days to Cut Hair.” When I looked at the date of my appointment on the calendar, I was not surprised to see the words BAD in bold type. In order to further test my theory, I messaged a friend who recently got a fresh cut from her longtime stylist and had also been disenchanted with the results. I looked up the date of her appointment and saw that she too had chosen a BAD date for that cut.
I don’t believe in coincidences, so I figured that there had to be some truth to this information; but to be certain, I took my little experiment one step further. I looked back to the last haircut that I loved and guess what? It was a GOOD day according to the Good Days calendar. Maybe she was just having a bad day or I was, but either way, I highly recommend you give it a look the next time you schedule a haircut. In the end, I decided to break up with my stylist and now that I found a new one that I trust, but I still schedule my appointments on “Good Days to Cut Hair.”
I would love to hear from your about your experience using this information. If you know someone who would be interested to know about haircuts and Feng Shui, feel free to share this post!
