Feng Shui at Work: Watch Your Back

By Jessica Hoelzel

I’ve written before, in an earlier post, about the importance of your desk being in the “command” position of your office. You want to make sure you:

Have a view of the door

Are not too close to the door

Are not in direct line with the door

Are towards the back of the room (ideally diagonal from the door)

If you don’t work in an office, but rather a “cube”, you are usually at a disadvantage because they are designed so that you face into the cube, not out. You back is, most often, to the entrance. This is troublesome because, energetically, anytime you have your back to the entrance, it sets you up to be vulnerable, at risk for being “stabbed in the back”, “blindsided” or “taken by surprise”.


Feng shui is all about metaphors. It’s based upon the well-founded, scientific idea that everything in our universe is energy. So even though it may seem preposterous to move your desk away from the lovely view out the window, turning it so it faces out (What? It doesn’t have to be up against the wall?) and then diligently organizing your computer cords so they are not unsightly, and no one breaks his or her neck tripping over them…it is not. (Preposterous, that is.)

When you rearrange your desk to be in the command position, you change the flow of energy. Instead of blasting you in the back, you are there to meet it. Hello world. Whatever you present me with today, I am fully prepared to meet, head on.

If you’re in a cube, situate yourself the best you can, and put a mirror in front of you. Either hang one or put one on your computer, so you can see what (and who) is coming. Here are some convex mirrors from fengshuishopper.com that will work nicely.

By enhancing and directing chi flow, we are able to direct our fate in a positive way.

- Kirsten M. Lagatree

Good "office luck" to you! Please comment if you have a workplace challenge you'd like me to address.