When Feng Shui Conflicts with Common Sense?

Have you ever read or received feng shui advice that really didn’t make sense to you?  Sometimes I read other feng shui advice on the internet and I just have to shake my head.

For example, someone advised painting a laundry room purple to bring in more finances.  A reader claimed they followed instructions and lo and behold, the next day they received money.   They said, “wow, feng shui works!”  Well, what happens after that?  Do you constantly paint your laundry room purple to improve your finances?  It really doesn’t pass the smell test does it?  Often we want a quick fix, but that’s not what feng shui is really about.

Did you know that there are many different schools of feng shui?  When I first began studying feng shui, I thought there was only one feng shui.   Meaning, all feng shui was the same.  Little did I know there were so many different schools.  And each school has their own set of rules and practices.

It’s kind of similar to, fortune telling.  In the fortune telling world there are many different methods of predicting the information of your future.  Some of the more common ones are horoscopes, tarot cards and palm reading.  The goal is the same.  You are searching for answers that give you a glimpse of the future.  But, the method to get there are completely different.

Feng shui is the study of how our environment affects our lives.  Each school has their method of finding the best layout that allows chi or living energy to flow smoothly.  When chi flows smoothly it relates to how our lives will be more auspicious.

But depending on the method and practice of feng shui, the results can be very different.  So, knowing what the principles of each school is makes a big difference.  Be aware that there are some schools that make ridiculous claims.  You need to take those with a grain of salt.

The feng shui I practice is called Form School.  It’s just as the name says.  The feng shui is based on the form of the space.  That’s how we assess the energy of a space and how it affects us.  It’s pretty straight forward.  Through the understanding of chi and form, we are able to make assessments that can be explained from a logical and common sense approach.

Other common feng shui schools are based on cosmology.  It’s like astrology.  They incorporate your birthday and the date your house was built into assessing the feng shui of your house.  It’s like your horoscope and your house have to match.  The popular ones are Flying Star and Eight House or sometimes called Eight Mansions.

Here is an example of how they differ.   Let’s say you are a male born on March 3, 1990.  You are looking for a house that will have good feng shui for you to live in.

In Form School, your gender and birthday don’t matter.  If the form of the house is good, it means the house has good feng shui regardless of who lives there.  Your birthday and gender are not relevant to the assessment.  Good feng shui is good for everybody.

In Eight House School, your birthday and gender goes through a calculation process.   A house is divided into eight cardinal directions:  north, south, east, west, northeast, northwest, southeast and southwest.  For a male, born on March 3, 1990, they say there are certain directions that are auspicious when sleeping and sitting.  For this case, his good directions are southeast, east, south and north.  So basically, there are lucky directions and unlucky directions.  This also applies to your front door.

The problem is if your house isn’t compatible to one of these auspicious positions.   Another problem is if you find a partner who has an opposite auspicious direction from yours.  This means the house is good for you and bad for them.  That’s not really what we want is it?  With all this compromising, we really need to ask some questions.  Is this system really a helpful tool that will support your lives?  Does it really make sense?

The reality is, common sense should trump all these other suggestions.  A good house is one that supports your family, lifestyle and goals.  A good house may change over time as your family changes.  And that’s okay, because nothing is constant.  When someone suggests something that doesn’t make sense to you, don’t be afraid to question them.  Ask them “why?”  If they don’t have an answer, you should question their knowledge.

That’s why I follow my master.  I always ask him “why” and he always has an answer for me.  Being able to explain and support his reasoning is what keeps me wanting to learn more about how energy works and how we can use feng shui as a tool to help us in our daily lives.

Remember, feng shui should be a guide for you to find the best environment that supports and enhances your life.  If it makes your life more difficult and stressful, it’s not feng shui and you need to make changes for the better.