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.