Please Visit My New Site!

By Jessica Hoelzel
 
After over 150 posts on Day to Day Feng Shui, I’ve decided to put my full blogging energy into my new site, www.rejuvenatespace.com

Please visit it, and check out what it has to offer in the way of tips and advice for rejuvenating your space. Still a new site (started just January of this year) I have plans to expand it over time, including enhancing the design and functionality. Like with feng shui, it’s always a “work in progress”.

Day to Day Feng Shui will remain for now, so don’t hesitate to use the search feature or scroll through previous posts for answers to your specific feng shui questions.

Catch ya later – at www.rejuvenatespace.com

Work from home? 9 Ways to Minimize Distractions

By Jessica Hoelzel

Getting work DONE from home can be a challenge at times. Especially if you often get distracted by people, pet, outdoor noise or electronic interruptions.

Here are 9 Ways to Minimize those Distractions:

1. Work in a room that has a door you can close. And close it.

2. If you don’t have a door, fashion some separation with a tri-fold screen, bookshelf or other piece of furniture that serves as a divider.

3. Move your desk from facing out the window to facing the entry, the command position.

4. If you can still see out the window when your desk is in the command position, put a buffer in front of it. Sheers or plants still filter in light but minimize the distractions that can pull you away from what you’re meant to be focusing on.

5. Establish work times/boundaries with your family.

6. Kennel pets for short periods of time when you need intense focus.

7. Wear headphones and turn it up loud! Listen to soothing or motivating music – whatever moves you.

8. Disable the email pop-up feature on your computer.

9. Turn your phone on silent and put it in another room.

When you minimize distractions, you honor your time and your work, enabling you to be at your best.

Quote for the Day: Office Feng Shui

“The ideal office is a room of your own with a regular shape (preferably square or rectangle), natural lighting (at least one window), a solid door you can close, and a good position for your desk.”

- David Daniel Kennedy

Where is your home office? Is it working for you?

Come on, don’t be shy! Feng Shui FAQ

Feng Shui Frequently Asked Questions

What do you want to know about feng shui? I'm here to help!

Click the comment section below to leave your question...

What Can Feng Shui Do For You?

“Many of us in the West have forgotten what life can be like. We feel separate and disconnected…there is so little sacredness in our lives. When we are out of balance with our surroundings, we become physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually sick….

“Feng Shui offers hope. It offers the means to reconnect and bring the sacredness back into our lives.”

- Karen Kingston, Creating Sacred Space With Feng Shui

FAQ on Feng Shui: What are yours?

What do you want to know about feng shui?

Please leave a comment below!

Quote for the Day: About Cleaning

“Cleaning creates an empty space where something new – life – can happen, leaving a free area for a fresh approach. It creates neutral ground. More than that, this is sacred work, creating hallowed ground – a space that is returned to its cleared wholeness.”

- Kathryn L. Robyn, Spiritual Housecleaning

Feng Shui for Mo’ Money Luck

By Jessica Hoelzel
 
Diffuse Abundance Essential Oil

Feng shui is all about energy. Subtle adjustments that you make to your environment can bring about changes that are beyond our logical mind’s understanding.

Something I like to do to shift the energy in my house is to diffuse with essential oils. Abundance is one that I choose when I feel like cultivating the energy of having plenty, living a rich life, with lots of good things (material and immaterial) and being in gratitude for all of it.


Email me today to get some Abundance for yourself.

Best Feng Shui Advice

By Jessica Hoelzel

Some of the best feng shui advice I can give is to stay inspired. To be inspired means to be “in spirit”. When we don’t change our home environment on a regular basis, the energy becomes stagnant. Rather than filled with life force energy, it becomes void of it. I encourage you to live “in spirit”, to continuously be aware of how you can create space around you that fills you up.
A great resource for home inspiration is my friend Lisa’s blog, Inspire Chi. Check it out!

Quote for the Day: Why Do Feng Shui?

“When you practice feng shui properly, you’ll first notice the difference in your environment – your body, mind, spirit and energy level. Good feng shui makes you feel wonderful because you’ve aligned your personal energy with your home or office.”
- Angi Ma Wong

Happy Valentine’s Day! Questions to Ponder Today…

By Jessica Hoelzel
 
Do you have a strong partnership?
In feng shui, 9 areas of your life correspond with 9 areas of your home. One of the most often adjusted areas is Partnership. Why? Like money, we all want love.

Do you have it? Have you done feng shui in your Partnership area to attract love, or enhance certain aspects of your relationship?

Leave a comment below.

Your Bedroom Should Be First Priority

By Jessica Hoelzel

If you have a lot of rooms in your home that could use some rejuvenation, and aren’t sure where to start, I suggest starting with your bedroom. The energy in your bedroom is the closest energy to you, because it is the most personal space, and where you spend the most time (sleeping). What can you do in your bedroom to make it more of a space that supports you? Decluttering? Cleaning? A little design sprucing? When you pay it some loving attention, it will pay you back in nurturing dividends.

Quote for the Day: About Bedrooms

“To work on a personal intimate relationship, the best room within which to incorporate some Feng Shui adjustments is the master bedroom. When there are relationship issues it is important to keep this room in a balanced and harmonious state.”

- Carole Hyder, Wind and Water, Your Personal Feng Shui Journey 

5 Things You DON’T Want in Your Bedroom

By Jessica Hoelzel

For romance and closeness to ensue, your bedroom space must be set up to encourage, not discourage it.

5 Things You DON’T Want in Your Bedroom

• TV
• Computer
• Phone
• Paperwork
• General Clutter (boxes of stuff, misc odds ‘n’ ends, kids’ things, piles of books or clothes)

Read Why Here

 

Unfinished Projects: What to do?

By Jessica Hoelzel

Do you have a lot of things “in the works” – projects you’ve started, but not finished, scattered throughout your house? Honor yourself and the essence of your projects by following through to bring them to completion. The things that you start – give birth to – deserve the respect of you pushing through the labor so they can be born, instead of lying dormant. Then their energy becomes stagnant.

If the projects have lost meaning for you, you should abandon them altogether and eliminate their clutter so they don’t end up as a burden to you.

Paper: Just Pitch It!

By Jessica Hoelzel

Too much paper weighs us down. It is especially burdensome when it overtakes desk or kitchen counter surfaces, and worse, the bedroom. Each piece of paper we receive asks us to make a decision about what to do with it.

Keep your paper burden from being too heavy by pitching it in the recycle bin the first chance you get. Instead of setting a piece paper aside, to figure out what to do with it later, force yourself to make a decision right away. Does it go in the “To Do” or “To File” pile? If you don’t need it, pitch it in the recycle bin.

Question to Ponder: Do you have a place of peace?

By Jessica Hoelzel

It can be a crazy world out there. So in here – in our homes – we need a place that’s sane so we can recoup.

 Do you have a place in your home to:

• Meditate
• Practice yoga
• Drink a cup of tea
• Read a book
• Cuddle up
• Relax
• Be quiet

…a place for you to find some peace?

If not, why not?

Work from Home Survey: I Need YOUR Help!

A fact is a fact – if you’re not set up for success in your workspace you’re not going to find it.

As you may have read, I’m working on a brand new program to help people who work from home create a space that helps them meet their career goals. Whether those goals are:

• growing a business
• making more money
• getting more done in less time
• feeling less stressed out

I’m looking for feedback on how I can help.

Do you work from home, or know someone who does?

Click here to participate in my 2-3 minute survey

And I’d be ever-so-grateful if you pass along this link to any work-from-home professionals you know.

Thanks!

Quote for the Day: About Clutter

“Clutter is like the tide: it comes in every day, whether you want it to or not. It slows down sometimes, but it never really stops. And unless you find a way to deal with it as quickly as it flows in, pretty soon you’ll be drowning in clutter.”

-Lori Baird, author of Cut the Clutter and Stow the Stuff

Bedroom Feng Shui

By Jessica Hoelzel

What do you see when you lie in bed? (Please don’t say a TV.) The wall opposite your bed is called a “Vision Wall”. What you see on that wall, every day when you go to sleep, and every day when you wake up should be inspirational for you. It should represent what your vision is for your life and your true purpose.

Favorite Tip for Office Organizing

By Jessica Hoelzel

One of my favorite products to use to store things in an office is the magazine butler. And one of my favorite tips is to turn them around, so you don’t see what’s inside. You only see the back. Choose a plain design for a streamlined look, or a pattern to get funky.

Some I like

Question to Ponder

Here’s a question to ponder…



How do I feel when I’m in my workspace?



If you feel like sharing, leave a comment below...

Get Rid of Dead Holiday Decorations

By Jessica Hoelzel

In feng shui, anything dead is dead. And that means something – it means that you have the energy of death wherever you have a dead thing. So if you have holiday wreaths or swags still hanging that have lost their chi (life force energy), you’ll want to take them down. Anything withered, yellowing or drooping near your front door will stop the chi from entering your dwelling.

Quote for the Day: About Work

“The same principles apply to Feng Shui at work as they do at home except that in the office the most important consideration is the energizing of wealth and harmony luck to ensure that employees work as comfortably as possible.”

- Lillian Too

Desktop Feng Shui – Mo’ Money Luck

By Jessica Hoelzel
 
Did you know you can lay the Bagua out over your desktop? Besides laying it out over your lot, each level of your house, and each room, you can also use have special feng shui intentions placed on top of your desk. The Wealth area would be situated in the upper left corner. Place a plant there (Jade would be most appropriate) or something else that symbolizes enhanced abundance for you.

Work from Home Poll

Do you work from home? I need your help! click here

(I promise it won't take more than 2-3 minutes.)

Quote for the Day: About Bathrooms

“When you clean out your bathroom and make it all shiny and sparkly, you are telling your body that you are sacred. A dirty temple does not honor its patrons. When the disciple cleans the temple and the temple treasures, she is honoring herself as she honors her Deity. When you enter your bathroom as a sacred purification site, you want it to purify you; if it is filthy if will only make you feel wretched.”


- Kathryn L. Robyn Spiritual Housecleaning

Work from Home Poll

Do you work from home?

 

If so, what is your biggest challenge?

 

1. Staying motivated
2. Getting distracted
3. Keeping things organized
4. Separating work life and home life

 

Please click “Post a Comment” below to vote. And thanks!

 

Drawer Organizers

By Jessica Hoelzel

Keep desk drawers neat and tidy with modular organizers like these from The Container Store. Once in place, it’ll be hard to cram and jumble junk in there.

Take Out the Trash

By Jessica Hoelzel

Make sure to empty the trash cans in your home on a regular basis – ideally each day. If they get too smelly, icky, full/overflowing they will inhibit the free-flow of energy of your space. Especially important if you have receptacles in the Wealth or Health areas.

Sorry to gross you out.

Boost Your Chi by Eating Greens

By Jessica Hoelzel

In my last post I talked about Winter being a time of Yin energy. Things are slower paced. But if you’re feeling a little too sluggish, you want to boost your chi with some Yang energy. Did you know that besides making changes to your environment you can lift your chi by eating certain foods?

Have some greens today with each meal. Spinach, mixed greens, swiss chard, kale…they soak up the Yang energy of the sun. And when you eat them, your body gets a lift.

For a yummy meal idea, visit my friend, Diet & Lifestyle Consultant Mary Langfield's site.

Feeling too Yin? Balance it with Yang

By Jessica Hoelzel

During the winter months, we are in seasonal time of more Yin energy than Yang. Yin is darkness, going within, and inaction. It’s opposite, Yang is light, outward expression, and action. It’s good to honor this time, to embrace the slow pace and reflective nature of this season, but if you are feeling a little too isolated or immobile, add some Yang to your environment. Feng shui is all about balance. Being too heavily weighted on one end of the spectrum is not ideal.

Ideas for adding a bit of Yang energy:

• A lamp or candles for a warm glow
• Shades open wide to let in sunlight
• Lively music...maybe some dancing?
• A blooming plant

Happy Lunar New Year

By Jessica Hoelzel

Happy Chinese New Year! Today marks the beginning of the Year of the Water Dragon. As told by my esteemed teacher, Carole Hyder, this year is forecasted to include shifts, transformation and adaptation for our world, and along with that we have “the chance to fly high”.

In preparation, I did a space clearing and a house blessing on the eve of the new year, last night. If you’re interested in learning more about how to do either, contact me. Today I plan to buy fresh flowers and place them around my space, to honor the blossoming of my intentions for this next year.

Plants for Enhancing Life Force Energy: Chi

By Jessica Hoelzel

Adding a living thing such as a plant can enhance the feng shui of any space. Read why here

Fitting places to put a plant (from a feng shui perspective):


Plants ==> Wood Element


4. Partnership
two potted plants represent separate but equally strong individuals, growing together

Plants for Enhancing Life Force Energy: Chi

By Jessica Hoelzel

Adding a living thing such as a plant can enhance the feng shui of any space. Read why here

Fitting places to put a plant (from a feng shui perspective):

Plants ==> Wood Element


3. Health Area
life force energy representing vitality, “blossoming”

Plants for Enhancing Life Force Energy: Chi

By Jessica Hoelzel

Adding a living thing such as a plant can enhance the feng shui of any space. Read why here

Fitting places to put a plant (from a feng shui perspective):


Plants ==> Wood Element


2. Fame & Reputation Area
the wood element feeds the fire that is the spark in you, so people know you in a positive light

Plants for Enhancing Life Force Energy: Chi

Adding a living thing such as a plant can enhance the feng shui of any space, by adding chi (life force energy) to lift the energy. But there are a few often-suggested places to put ‘em…

4 Fitting places to put a plant (from a feng shui perspective):

Plants ==> Wood Element

1. Wealth Area
in harmony with this gua’s wood element, strength (roots), upward growth, green=money

Plants for Enhancing Life Force Energy: Chi

By Jessica Hoelzel

Did you know certain houseplants can actually clean toxins from the air in your home?

Here’s a list of some of them:

• Bamboo palm
• Chinese evergreen
• English ivy
• Gerbera daisy
• Janet Craig
• Dracaena marginata
• Corn plant
• Snake plant
• Pot mum
• Peace lily
• Warneckii
• Golden pothos
• Heart leaf philodendron

 Courtesy of my avid gardener and green thumb grandmother, Martha Simms. Thanks, grandma, for all the plants you’ve given me – which lift my chi and make my home healthier!

Plants for Enhancing Life Force Energy: Chi

By Jessica Hoelzel

If you live in a cold climate like I do here in MN, it’s been a while since you’ve seen anything “alive” outside (besides evergreens of course). It’s important to have living things, including plants, around us to lift our chi in these frozen months. Do you have houseplants? If not, maybe you could consider just one. Place it in an area of the bagua according to what you intend to “bring new life to” right now. If your intention is strong you surely won’t let it dry out and die, now will you?

Clear Your Refrigerator

By Jessica Hoelzel

Since we’ve begun the year 2012, and are soon to enter the Chinese New Year of the Dragon, it’s a good time to assess what’s on your frig. Notes, notices, pictures, holiday cards? Misc magnets? Maybe you clear it all, maybe you keep it that way. Or maybe you just put back what feels fresh. Uncluttered.

I like the idea of featuring a motivational quote on your frig related to what your intention is for the new year. Read why here.

Chinese New Year Horoscope

By Jessica Hoelzel

My teacher, International Feng Shui Expert Carole Hyder, says this Year of the Dragon we will be “riding” the dragon. To me, that means we must be flexible (not one of my greatest strengths). If we are too rigid will be chucked right off. If you’re like me–thrown off when things are chaotic–how can you remain adaptable, hold on and ride with the movement of life?

I’m thinking one thing I can do is make sure to spend time in that peaceful place in my home. So I can relax, reflect and detach from needing to have control.

Chinese New Year Horoscope

By Jessica Hoelzel

Have you gotten the Chinese horoscope for the Year of the Dragon, for the outlook of the overall year and for your particular animal sign?

I’m a Sheep. And I can’t say I’m excited about what it predicts. If you feel the same way, what can you do in your space to off-set any negative predictions?

Chinese New Year Preparations

By Jessica Hoelzel

Before the fresh start of the Chinese New Year can be fully celebrated, you want to tie up any loose ends. That way you can fully experience a sense of closure – being done with the past year and open to the possibilities of the next. What projects or tasks do you need to finish? Get ‘em done, and cross them off your to-do list by January 23. If there are larger projects you won’t have time to complete, make sure to schedule time for their completion, and stick to it.

Chinese New Year Preparations

By Jessica Hoelzel

We’ve got 9 days before the Chinese Lunar New Year on January 23. Before the new year begins, it’s feng shui tradition to clear out clutter – so you don’t take last year’s burden into the next. I’ve made a sweep through my closet and my office, and I’m feeling good about going into the new year with only what I need. Can you make a sweep through in the next 9 days? Keep me posted on how it goes.

Chinese New Year Intentions

Sharing time!

My Personal Intention for 2012: To live in light, love and joy, with confidence about my true purpose!

I plan to strengthen my intention (put the added power of feng shui behind it) by finding a special spot for a piece of artwork which symbolizes this intention, and placing it there when the Chinese New Year starts.

Have you shared an intention of yours? Please do so in the comment section below.

Chinese New Year Intentions

Have YOU set any intentions for the new year? What are they? Share in the comment section below.

“An intense anticipation itself transforms possibility into reality; our desires being often but precursors of the things which we are capable of performing.”

Samuel Smiles

Chinese New Year Intentions

By Jessica Hoelzel

The difference between New Year’s “Resolutions” and New Year’s “Intentions”:

2. Instead of being involved in the negative energy of what you don’t want, or being set back by failing at your resolve, setting an intention frees you to put the positive energy of what you do want out into the universe, to magnetize that back to you.

(Read Difference #1 below)

Chinese New Year Intentions

By Jessica Hoelzel

In practicing feng shui, it’s important to have special rituals and set intentions for the new year. This is similar to what we do in the West (but we call them new year’s resolutions). What’s the difference?

The difference between New Year’s “Resolutions” and New Year’s “Intentions”:

1. A resolution implies that something is wrong and needs to change (you “resolve” to change it). An intention simply identifies something you intend – to do, be or happen. There is less negativity, such as wrong-doing, guilt, shame and inadequacy involved.

Chinese New Year Preparations

By Jessica Hoelzel

Traditionally, the Chinese are very ritualistic in their preparations for the new year. Before they can begin their celebration on January 23, which will last for a couple weeks, they must have things in order. This means: have clutter cleared, debts paid, loose ends tied up. As of today, you’ve got 15 days before the Year of the Dragon starts. If you see this as a meaningful tradition to adapt for you own life – getta move on!

Chinese New Year 2012: The Water Dragon

What will this new year of the Dragon hold for us? Read what Feng Shui Practitioner Marina Lighthouse of Lighthouse Feng Shui and fengshuishopper.com has to say about it here.

Chinese New Year

By Jessica Hoelzel

If you’re still in catch-up mode after the holidays, and haven’t even had a chance to fathom what your intentions for the new year are, never fear. We always have the Chinese New Year! This new year of the Dragon commences on January 23, 2012. So get your bearings and get ready to set intentions for new beginnings and possibilities.

New Year, New Intentions

By Jessica Hoelzel

What’s your main intention for the new year? Take that intention and make a physical statement of it in your space, in the “gua” that’s the most fitting. i.e., if it has to do with money, place an object in the Wealth gua, or if it’s related to your job, place a symbolic object in the Career gua. Feng shui adjustments can put more power behind your intentions.