How to Increase the Qi/Chi in your Home

Here in our home, with the holiday season winding down, the dust has finally settled and the boys are back in school.  Over the holidays, our house felt like a massive transit station with boys coming and going, all day long.  It was hard to keep track of who was home or which friends were over.  This level of activity would drive some people nuts, but coming from a large family, I find comfort in this type of chaos.

It wasn’t only me that felt comfort, the house felt alive too.  It may sound crazy but you could feel the house come back to life, as if it was breathing again.  It was as if it had a purpose and I was embracing this chi.  In feng shui, we say life brings life.  This means an empty large house with no one to occupy the space means there is little energy and little life.  That’s why a big home with only a few people begins to feel cold and lifeless.

What should one do with a large home but not enough people to sustain the chi?  Go ahead and throw parties, invite friends and use the space.  If circumstances only allow you to use the extra space over the holidays, make sure that during the rest of the time, you close all the doors of the rooms you don’t use.  Confine your living space.

In the same way, when there is no life and very little chi, a home can’t be sustained.   There’s an unoccupied house near my parent’s home in Honolulu.  For reasons unknown, no one has lived there for many years.  But you can see through the windows that the curtains are all shredded, like someone ripped them apart.  How does that happen?  With not enough chi, abandoned homes deteriorate quickly.

If life brings life, here are 3 points to help increase the chi in your home.

1. Fill the space with people.  Don’t be afraid to invite your friends over, even if the place isn’t picture perfect.  They’re not there to criticize your space, they’re there to enjoy your company!
2. Pets have energy too.  They are sensitive to people’s chi and know if you like them or not.  Pets actions reflect your own actions.  Spend time with pets!
3. Plants have energy too.  They also have the ability to clean the air we breathe by removing toxins.  If you have artificial plants, maybe this year you can exchange them for real plants.  There is more energy to a real plant than a fake plant, so there is more of connection.  If you live in a place surrounded by greenery, open your windows and exchange the air.  If you must close the windows due to weather conditions, the air becomes stale.  In this circumstance, make sure you have lots of indoor plants!

These points are extremely basic, but when you put them in practice, you can feel the difference.  I was not born with a green thumb but now I love my plants and have had them for years.  Funny how you do begin to feel a real connection to them.  Yes, life does brings life!