DECODING YOUR ENVIRONMENT FOR ULTIMATE SUCCESS REPORT
2 Front Door The Mouth of Chi The front door is the gateway where you meet your life and your life greets you. It is literally the entrance to your palace whether yours is a closet size studio in the back of a five-floor walk up or a ten thousand square foot estate atop rolling hills. The front door makes or breaks your ability to succeed in life. The front door, referred to as the mouth of chi, is akin to the mouth on your body. You have to get oxygen, nutrients, water and food in your mouth in order for them to transform into vital energy. Your home (or office or building or warehouse or.) needs to inhale chi, the invisible life force. The quality of chi coming in will either support or deplete the vital energy of the home. I invite you to take a deep breath right now. Stop reading. And seriously, take a breath. Inhale from your belly. Feel the oxygen flood your body. Now, imagine a time when you were out of breath. You might even take a shallow nasal breath right now to feel the difference. On the shallow breath, can you sense your body contracting rather than expanding? This is exactly what happens if your front door is not in tiptop shape. It will struggle to bring you success, love, good health and positive relationships. However, if your front door healthfully inhales, the world is your oyster. There are numerous criteria for having a chi-full, deep breath inducing, arms-wide -open front door scenario. They are: It is visible from the street It is bright, well lit and inviting All the knobs, locks and latches function perfectly It is clutter free (inside and out) The actual door can open a full 90 degrees If any of the above are an issue for you, I highly recommend getting up, going to your front door and start shui-in right now. Seriously, don t read any more of this report. Go to your door, check it out and make the assessment. If you need to purchase supplies, call a handyman or do any other additional step that will result in you having the ultimate chi-full front door DO IT! The front door is the Grand Poobah of all doors, which makes all the other doors the Poobah s minions. They are each mini-mouths of chi. You can fine tune your life by investigating all the doors for functionality with knobs, locks and hinges. By doing so, you will smooth out adult relationships, support your body s joints and alleviate headaches.
3 Stove The Energy Generator The stove is the energy generator of your home. It is akin to the heart in your body or the engine in your car. It takes the vital energy of the domicile and keeps it pumpin and flowin. Many people refer to the stove as a modern day fire pit. It s a spot that attracts attention in Feng Shui because it affects the success (or lack thereof) of careers, relationships, health, safety and overall wellbeing of the home s inhabitants. A common mistake people make is to only use one or two burners of the stovetop. The ideal situation to create an even distribution of opportunity and abundance in your life is to use ALL your burners. There s no need to fire them up at the same time and play Iron Chef. However, you want to rotate the use of them. One day use the bottom right. Next day use the bottom left. Next one use the top left and then use the top right. The order of how and when you rotate them isn t important. What is is that you fire your life up in all possible ways. Are you reading this and thinking, Deborah, I don t cook. I barely boil water. Not to worry my friend. Neither do I for stretches at a time. My little trick is using the stove to light incense. Takes care of igniting stove chi and freshening up the vibe of the home with some good incense at the same time. In fact, the stove is revered in Chinese culture to the point where they create altars for it. I m not saying you should go all native, but you might want to place an incense holder on the stove or next to it as an added incentive to utilize this trick in lieu of becoming a gourmet chef. Now, remember what we said about clutter around the front door. Same thing goes for the stove. Newsflash: the stovetop is NOT a storage place for pots and pans. If you must, put them in the oven. Keep the stovetop free and clear ready to do its job in a moments notice. Do all your burners function properly? If you need to manually light them, that s not proper. Get it fixed immediately. One burner down on a four-burner stove means ¼ of your life is stalled. This could manifest as a threat to your wealth generation, relationship harmony or health optimization. Be mindful of your stove and it will ensure you success. You want to see the door of the kitchen while standing at your stove to cook (or light incense). This allows you (and your subconscious) to relax and feel at ease. I always say, it s the Feng Shui enthusiasts and Mafioso who know best these folks never want their back to the door. Too vulnerable. It s impossible to see what s happening and keeps the subconscious working overdrive. And an overworked
4 subconscious leads to frenzied adrenals, which leads to a stressed out person. Therefore, always place yourself in a room in relation to seeing the front door of the space. If you can see the stove from the front door, you are lacking ideal strength. It s important to have a barrier between these two key spots of the home. When it s missing you are vulnerable to the outside world, potential scoundrels, accidents and unusual illnesses. Bed The 3 R s The bed is for Rest, Romance and Rejuvenation. That s it. It s not for building your empire from a laptop or exercising or studying or eating or watching TV day in and day out. It is a specific item of furniture for a specific purpose. Get clear about that. If you re rolling your eyes or mumbling to yourself right now because you are someone who does one or a few of the things listed above from bed, just know you are drastically reducing the quality of your health and romantic relationship(s). It s no wonder the bed has the greatest affect on our life because we spend a third of our time there. Most of the time is for the first and last R s rest and rejuvenation. Quality sleep is key to being an alert, healthy individual. Therefore, the kind of mattress, bedding and color choices one uses is key to supporting high quality rest. Choose things that look and feel good to you. It s advisable to lean towards subtle tones and textures. Over stimulation in the bed for elongated periods of time tend to blow out the nervous system. The position of the bed within the room will put you in the driver s seat of your life or, if done poorly, at the back of the bus. Prime NASCAR positioning is when you can see the front door of the room (think back to seeing the door of the kitchen from the stove). Do not be in direct alignment with the door. And have the widest scope of vision of the entire room from the bed. Absolutely without a doubt no matter what is going on never have your bed facing feet out the door. This is called the death position. One thing that is too often overlooked is the simple addition of a quality headboard. I can t tell you how many bedrooms I ve been in over the last 12 years of Feng Shui consulting that do not have a headboard. In full disclosure, when I started on the Feng Shui path I had the lamest bed. I had a headboard, but it was a wrought iron antique one. Not very stable and the whole thing swayed a bit. Needless to say, I utilized numerous Feng Shui cures to remedy the tragic situation
5 and my life did improve a bit. However, it wasn t until I took the plunge and purchased a proper Feng Shui headboard that my life jumped into 5 th gear. That headboard was solid. No spaces to poke my fingers through. No random loosey goosey swaying. I became the poster child for how a strong solid headboard with no footboard will absolutely create your life s desires. Each and every time I work with a client who is riding the life wave without a headboard, I reiterate my story and remind them of the Feng Shui headboard tenet- Having a strong headboard is exactly like having the mountain at your back. It gives you full support for your entire life. The other crucial factor affecting way too many people is clutter under the bed. Please people, get it out. Move it. Throw it away. Give it to charity. Or find another home for it. You must without a doubt have a FULL 360 degree flow of energy around you to have access to all the opportunities potentially available to you in life. When you re sleeping over stuff realize that you ve cut off 180 degrees of your life. Sounds gross, right?! As one woman wisely said, move your stuff change your life. Bathrooms/Plumbing/Leaks Feng Shui literally means wind and water. The origins of this ancient Chinese system of placement was wholly concerned with harnessing the power of these two vital elements. Water represents the flow (or lack thereof) of financial abundance and emotions. It s no wonder in modern day shui interpretation that we pay so much attention to the flow of water via plumbing systems. The first key to gaining control over your flow is through the bathroom. Bathrooms are fabulous modern day facilities (I m really not into using outhouses). However, they are the greatest source of draining. Everything is being flushed and washed away in them. They are places for toxin removal and releasing. All avenues point down and out. You might be thinking, yeah and...? Well, your bathroom is not just a bathroom. It is a storehouse of money and health. It is also in a specific part of your home or office dedicated to one of nine key areas that represent a particular part of your life. That life aspect is in the shitter (pardon my French, but I m simply stating the facts). Whether you know what part of your life this is or not, here s what you can do right now to stop the draining and save yourself: Keep the bathroom door closed at all times when it s not in use. Put the lid of the toilet down when you are done using it.
6 These two unbelievably simple lifestyle rules will dramatically improve not only the way you feel, they will up your finances in a short period of time. Remember water represents money and emotions. This one fact should motivate you to take a squeaky clean look at all plumbing systems in your home. Give them the triple-over specifically looking for any pesky leaks or irritating drips. The slightest leaky faucet will sap you dry faster than you can drive down the freeway with all your windows open throwing cash out willy nilly. Plug em up, call the plumber and do what you got to do in order to retain your wealth. If you re experiencing constant clogs and back ups, you are probably feeling stagnant with your money flow or feeling backed up emotionally. Pent up. Same rule applies as above. Deal with it and you will experience immediate relief. Our physical health is intimately connected to the plumbing systems in our environment. These pipes relate to the circulatory, immune and nervous systems of our human body. Optimum blood flow functionality is supported when the plumbing systems are clean, clear and working smoothly. The Ba Gua Energy Map for your Life The key diagnostic tool utilized in Feng Shui is called the Ba Gua (bah GWAH). That s fancy Chinese wording for Eight Areas. These eight areas correlate to specific aspects of your life. They are: Knowledge, Career, Helpful People, Family, Creativity, Relationship, Fame, Prosperity Traditionally, this map is octagonal in shape (see attached diagram). The eight areas are on the perimeter of the octagon and they are supported by the center referred to as the tai chi, yin/yang or grounding stone. This center is the core from which everything is birthed. It s very much like the hub on a wheel. Without it, the spoke would go flying akimbo. Therefore, the center of every home or office is vital to life s overall stability. How you identify what room relates to what life area is important to understanding how your home affects you. For instance, if your bathroom is in your relationship area you know it s not only your Aunt Ida s poor choice of blind dates she s setting you up on that s keeping you from the love of your life. It s that pesky bathroom scenario we reviewed in the previous section. Or maybe ever since you moved into your house, your family constantly argues and gets sick. Look into the family area of the home.
7 Maybe there s a bathroom there or it could be the junk closet keeping everyone feeling pent up. No matter what s happening in your life, using the Ba Gua will help you to take control by learning how to consciously interact with the different areas in your home. How to apply this map is fairly simple. A good tip is to draw out your floor plan from a bird s eye view. It can be a simple sketch. It doesn t need to be an architectural rendering. Do try and get it as true to scale as you can. From here, you must locate the front door of the space. This is your official front door. Not the garage door that you use as the front door every day because you park there. And not the back door or side one you use on a regular basis because it s more convenient. I m talking about the literal front door of the space that the Fedex/UPS/mail or flower delivery person would use. The one associated with your actual address. Once you locate this front door, you ll extrapolate the front doorway wall to the right and left. This line becomes the front doorway wall line. Now take your Ba Gua map and superimpose it over the floor plan with the bottom three areas of the map lining up with the front doorway wall. That means the Knowledge, Career and Helpful People areas will be along the bottom of the floor plan. Your front door will fall into one of these three areas. If the door is left aligned on the plan, you walk into Knowledge. If the door is in the center, you walk into Career. If the door is right aligned, you walk into Helpful People. Once you have the front doorway wall line areas placed, you can now see how the remaining areas fit into the home. Family is on the middle left area. Prosperity is in the top left. Fame is in the top middle. Relationship is in the top right. Creativity is in the middle right. And the center (the tai chi) is the Health area of the home. An excellent example of how to apply the Ba Gua can be found here: www.atmajewels.com (Click on the How to Use button under the ABOUT menu tab)
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9 The Five-Element Color Theory As you can see from the Ba Gua map, color plays a key role in Feng Shui. Each area of the Ba Gua corresponds with a specific color. One easy peasy way to take a baby step into the world of shui is to place a bit of the corresponding Gua color into that area of your home or office. If you re interested in supporting your career, locate that area in your environment and then place something black there. What about if you need some creative stimulation? Find the creativity area and swish in a bit of white. Ready to fire up your recognition? Locate fame and heat up the area with something red. If you re after family harmony then you want to head straight to the family area and plunk down something green. Overall healthy vibe you re after? Get grounded with yellow and browns in the center of your space. I mentioned the above areas and colors because those are the ones that represent the five elements (white, red, yellow, green and black). Notice they are on the vertical and horizontal axis of the Ba Gua. They are the fixed strength upon which the Ba Gua rotates. The corner area colors are all created by the blend of the two neighboring Guas. These five element colors, when used in conjunction with one another, create a total harmonic balance. The combination makes any area of your life smooth out. Like taking your party dress after the big event to the dry cleaner. All the kinks are massaged and worked out to feel fresh as new. It s a good idea to consider how you ll incorporate the colors and where. Some Feng Shui enthusiasts enjoy having a little bit of each five element color in every room to provide and overall sense of health and well being throughout their entire life. Others prefer to choose a main focal point (whether it be aesthetically or Gua based) and place them there. Another way to make use of the five-element color theory is by walking slowly through your space room by room. Pretend to gaze through a color detective s eyes. You are on the hunt for rooms with an overwhelming amount of one of the five element colors. Maybe you ve got a room with red painted walls. What else is in there? White trim? Black and white photos? A green plant? Or is it red red red and nothing but red? If that s the case, then you want to balance it out by adding the other four element colors in the room. You can do this tastefully and subtly according to your design aesthetic. A great example of how to incorporate the five-element color theory in any room, hallway or other area is by hanging the Blessings Crystal. You can view here: http://www.atmajewels.com/index.php?page=site/jewels/home/blessings It s a powerful and highly effective way to make immediate use of this Feng Shui tool.
10 Money Money Money.(does that get your heart racing?) Feng Shui is a fabulous method to improve the quality of your life by making simple changes in your environment. You can pinpoint what part of your life you want to shift or improve, locate it and take action right away. It doesn t take fancy tricks, strange potions or massive renovations. It does require an honest desire to stretch yourself. It commands you to take a proactive stance, suspend doubt and open up to the possibilities surrounding you at all times. It is NOT a magic pill. It is NOT a quick fix. It is NOT a fad. Feng Shui can and will work for you if you allow it. Sounds simple, however there are times when it feels as if everything is pitted against you. And in that moment where you feel really lousy, where it all seems for naught, where you want to give up that s the moment you are about to step into the golden zone. But most people walk away before touching the handle of the golden zone door. Why? Because it s easier to remain in what you know then to plunge into the space of the unknown. This is when I look you square in the eyes and say, Hey. You. The one reading this report. Yeah. Are you interested in having a life of satisfaction? A life that fulfills your heart s desires? The one that you know in that deep down quiet small spot of yours gently glowing a constant yes. Well, you ve got to get a little (or maybe a lot) uncomfortable. And the secret to that is giving yourself permission to be comfortable with feeling uncomfortable. Applying Feng Shui to your life can create what I call the detox effect. It s when you feel worse before you feel better. Like when you do a cleanse or fast. Have you ever done that? If so, then you know by day 3 (well, who are we kidding?! Probably by day 2) you are guaranteed to feel crappy. Sluggish, cranky, toxic and ready to give up. Then, for whatever reason, you stay the course and finish up the cleanse and you feel like a million bucks*. You have a new lease on life. You have more energy. Your eyes are brighter, hair shinier and skin glowy. It s the same thing when you Feng Shui your home. The detox effect is possible. Why? Because you are clearing out the old, stuck chi. It s usually not happy to go. It s generally comfortable where it is. It s likely lived there for quite some time, made house and dug roots. It s understandable then that it might make some noise on it s departure. When it does, I always applaud. Why? Because that noise, that detox feeling is a sign that the chi is on the move and then I know the shui is working. Remember, it often is darkest before the dawn. Deep belly breath. Another. OK good. Allow the shui to work for you. And then you won t have to work as hard.
11 * Interested in paving your way to a million bucks? The fastest path to cash with shui is to take care of the Three Pillars Front Door, Stove and Bed. Review those sections and take action. You are guaranteed to see results in your life if applied with an open mind. The Power of 27 A lot of us get comfortable where we are. It s common and understandable. Things get set in a certain way and plant roots (literal things as well as thoughts). Think about your family home? Does it look today the same way it did when you were growing up? Is Mom s spice rack faithfully resting on the counter next to the stove? Dad s lounge chair perched in the exact corner of the den it was 30 years ago? Your stuffed animal collection peering into the room from the upper shelf of your childhood bookcase? Or maybe you ve lived in your current home for less than a year and all your little knick knacks are in the precise place you put them the first time you took them out of the moving box. Any which way, when your environment stays stagnant so does your life. A simple no brainer way to jump-start your life is to move 27 things. Literally. Pick up the rose quartz heart on your nightstand and move it to the coffee table. One. Take the little glass bowl from the coffee table and put it on your nightstand. Two. And so on and so on until you ve reached a total of 27. This activates the chi in your home by stimulating each and every Gua. It s like taking your car in for an oil change. Afterwards, it feels zippier and happier. The number 27 is significant in Feng Shui because of the power of nine. Nine is the highest Yang number. It represents power, vitality, completion and manifestation on the earthly/physical level. Three nine s make 27. Three is a number associated with the realm of the Gods. It is widely used throughout all religious and spiritual cultures (i.e. The Father, The Son and The Holy Ghost, The Triple Goddess and so on). When you embrace the Feng Shui path, you will be met with many nines and twenty sevens. How to avoid or reverse the affects of manmade and/or natural disasters If you find yourself in need of enhanced luck due to extenuating challenges, perform 10 good deeds every day for 27 consecutive days. The deeds can be simple. You don t need to do anything extravagant. However, you MUST do this for the consecutive amount of days. If you skip a day, you will need to start over from day one. By allowing yourself the opportunity to support others, you are opening a window to be blessed by the ten directions, the three realms and all religious sects. This method will in turn change the tides of your luck. They will reverse the negative affects of the disaster you ve encountered. And in the meantime, you ll have made 270 people happier in the process.