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Feng Shui and Energy Flow

Everything—everything in the universe—vibrates at its own frequency. Colors, chairs, tables, people, dreams, and longings—all are in continuous motion, though it may not be visible to the naked eye. How can I say that? Well, scientists have recorded the vibrational frequency of many if not most things: light and sound frequencies in ranges we can see and hear, visible and infrared light, radio frequencies, X rays, chemicals using spectroscopy, tuning forks . . . the list goes on. Perhaps you remember the recording of the vibrations made during the earthquake in the Seattle area in 2001—a pendulum suspended in sand drew a rose pattern, and beauty emerged from the shifting of the earth itself.

Feng shui recognizes that everything vibrates and focuses on encouraging harmony among the various vibrations by creating alignment. Creating harmony is about singing the same tune as the things surrounding you and as your dreams and heart longings. That like attracts like, vibrating at similar frequencies, creating resonance between the objects, is a basic scientific statement and a major step toward manifesting your heart's desires. Picture people singing "Auld Lang Syne" on the Fourth of July with the fireworks in full display. Seems a bit off to me! There is no harmony between the holiday and the music; they are out of alignment. Yet when you're in harmony and alignment, your River of Gold flows peacefully, you move with ease and comfort, and wealth and abundance flows to you.

Abundance has a particular vibration, a signature energy field. Learning to resonate in harmony with anything leads to both more flow and more energy between you and your focus. Coming into resonance with the vibration of abundance opens the flow in your life so your heart's desires flow to you.

Resonance, in electronics, is the condition of adjusting a circuit to allow the greatest flow of current of a certain frequency. In physics, it is the reinforced vibration of a body exposed to the vibration at about the same frequency as another body. Used here, resonance is allowing the vibration of a certain frequency to match the frequency in your body, your space, and your life. Resonating in harmony with the frequency of abundance leads to more money and a greater sense of financial freedom. My goal is to enhance your abundance as open-hearted energy. Now what does that mean? Open-hearted means being in tune with your values, in alignment with your deep inner guidance, knowing what you value with your most positive emotions and thoughts, and knowing what brings you joy as you create abundance.

Feng shui is based on noticing where energy is felt on the land and in a building or a room—your physical environment. Wealth and abundance have a different vibration from relationships, career, or family. You'll come to know this in your body and your environment as we continue on this journey. There is a natural order and flow in life that includes a sense of abundance. Consider how many leaves are on one tree. Now think about how many trees you see in a week's time. In the middle of winter you can still remember the leaves that were there last summer. Acknowledging the cycles of the seasons reminds us that patterns and changes are a natural part of life. Feng shui connects you to the harmonious patterns and gives you reminders before you go too far in any one direction. Remembering and experiencing abundance in one area of your life creates a pattern, an energy field, that you can use to experience abundance in other areas of your physical environment and your life.

Feng Shui

More money is about more flow—economic flow. Wealth and abundance are about accumulating part of that flow. Let's cut to the chase: Does feng shui really work for enhancing money flow and accumulation? There is only one way to know: results. In the end, it is the final outcome, the results, that determine whether it's thumb's up or not. The bottom line: Everything gets reduced to one simple answer: more money or not; yes or no.

Surprised that an accountant would use the term "bottom line" and focus on results? I hope not. I love the warm, sensitive aspects of life, and I also appreciate having real money to spend and invest. Balancing both leads to floating with ease on the River of Gold and enjoying the abundance I desire.

Why would an accountant approach money from a feng shui focus? Because it actually works! Feng shui reveals what and how you think about money, and the flow of economic energy in your life, themes that are covered in detail in Chapters 2 and 3 and woven throughout the book. There are suggested changes, called "cures" in classical feng shui, to enhance your life and to produce results. Changing your environment eases the path to changing your thoughts and actions and experiencing more abundance in your life. What and how you think about money, the thoughts you hear yourself say and those that just flow out of your stream of consciousness show up in your physical environment. What you truly believe about yourself and your relationship to abundance is reflected in the setup of your physical environment. Strange as it may seem, where you choose to physically place your possessions reveals your relationship with money. Things are symbols and give a message each time you look at them. You also issued a message when you placed the physical objects and when you agreed to occupy the spaces you live and work in. We literally mirror our environments. Like attracts like and vibrates in harmony. The mystical actually influences the practical.

Feng shui can be a rich and somewhat complicated philosophy taking years to master, yet the basics can be understood in a few minutes. The first concept to be aware of is the nine areas in both your physical environment and your life.

Your Wealth and Abundance area is one of the nine. Chapter 2 covers this in detail.

The other areas are

*Fame and Reputation *Marriage and Relationships *Creativity, Children, and Projects *Helpful People, Travel, and Angels (Benefactors) *Career and Life Path *Self-Knowledge and Wisdom *Ancestors and Family *Health and Unity

We will also discuss the concepts of ch'i (chee), breath or energy and its flow, yin and yang, and the Five Elements. All of these forces affect the nine areas.

A basic idea that permeates feng shui is that your home and work space represent your life and mirror what you think and experience. Changing your physical environment will change your life. This will become much clearer as we proceed. Understanding the message comes through the language of symbols. The words we use, orally or on paper, are symbols of something real, some object, mark, or experience. Rather than carrying around these physical things and showing them to one another, we use symbols to communicate. We also use symbols to communicate what is abstract and intangible. Metaphors and poetic language are especially useful here, and they are used throughout this book. Physical things have a double meaning, that of the thing itself and then a message that depends on its placement in your space. Sometimes the message is right in front of us and we misinterpret it, until we check our results. For now, just notice the results.

Here's an example: My Wealth Area in a former home was 90 percent windows. Too many windows allow energy to leak out. I had hung crystals in the windows when I first moved in, a classic feng shui cure, assuming that that was enough to contain the energy flowing out. I also have always shared my time and abundance very easily and freely. I was the person you could always count on to volunteer to help, from decorating Christmas trees for a charity to dropping everything to meet an unexpected friend at the airport. The year I was bitten by a poisonous spider and nearly died, I began to reexamine my life. One day I realized that I literally gave myself away, expecting nothing in return. Energy and money just flowed out of my life. It was then that I truly saw the significance of the wall of windows. I immediately closed the lower shades and rehung the window coverings on the corner windows in my Wealth Area to hold more energy inside. Within a week I received four checks. My new motto? "How can I honor my self and share my time and energy, so that I also benefit from the flow?" Quite a radical shift!

The goal of feng shui is to create alignment and flow in all areas of your life. If your home office is in your Relationships Area, or if you have romantic pictures and flowers in your Wealth or Ancestors areas, those parts of your life will not be as harmonious as they could be until you realign some things and create more harmony. Even more revealing is where your Wealth Area is located in your living environment. It may be your bedroom, bathroom, kitchen, or another room; each holds a different energy and a different message about what you think, feel, and experience about abundance.

One businesswoman shared with me that a good relationship with her clients was more important to her than making a lot of money. I wasn't surprised to see a bathroom in the Wealth Area of her business space. The lidless toilet and open floor drain both allowed water, a symbol of the flow of money, to go down the drain, indicating its lack of importance in her business life. True to form, she made very little money with her business. I'll address cures and enhancements in Chapter 3.

To produce the best results, my focus is on what is efficient and effective. Many times the most effective method, that which results in the most positive outcome, starts with an indirect approach. The ability to see more than what is in front of your nose, more than the obvious, is the gift of the indirect approach, of metaphors and poetic language.

Three questions that lead to results you can count on are:

1. Am I breathing (full, deep breaths)? 2. Is my body moving and flexible, even in a subtle manner? 3. Am I emotionally and mentally ready to take the next step?

Creating abundance requires "yes" answers. Realizing that you are frozen or stuck in some way begins to release the blockages you are experiencing.

Feng shui may seem indirect as we begin this journey. It is a language of symbols and energy flow. These two things are not commonly associated with our Western education and experiences with money—unless you watch the stock markets. There the stock quotes are noted by symbols, in various combinations. The fluctuations in stock prices and number of shares changing ownership represent huge amounts of energy being added to or withdrawn from that moneymaking activity.

Rivers are currents of moving energy. Feng shui is a current of moving energy. Living in harmony with abundance requires that you move with the flow of all aspects of the current, mentally and physically, and stay flexible and alert so you can accept what you truly want when it comes into view.

Here is another indirect approach: Top salespeople are using their Creative Current when they post pictures of their career goals in plain view—vacation destinations, a new home or vehicle, whatever their heart desires. When they have placed that picture in the correct feng shui area, their Career Area of their work space, they can literally see the abundance that lies ahead. Salespeople who use this technique have consistently better results than those who don't use it. Try it out for yourself.

Robert, a computer programming consultant, found an old goal list one Saturday, while cleaning out his files. "I had been wondering when I would meet my current income goal when I came across this list. I realized that I now had twice the number of clients and more than twice the income I had when I created the list only two years earlier. I had to laugh as I noticed that I had passed that 'finish line' without any acknowledgment on my part. I then wrote in my calendar a semiannual goal of check-ins and a week's vacation with my wife as well." Goals have both due dates and celebrations. The journey can be fun!

Some Fundamentals

Here are some concepts that are fundamental to understanding both feng shui and flow. They are immediately useful and essential to your understanding of metaphors as the book progresses. Feng shui is the language of symbols. Think "symbols" and see pictures in your mind. The symbols are not the thing itself, but they are how we communicate with written and spoken words.

Ch'i. Ch'i is energy and breath to the Chinese. It is the life force, the cosmic energy that is around and in everything, the energy that moves water and creates waves, that causes things to grow, the sun to shine, and the earth to turn. To the Western mind, it is often attributed to God or the Creative energy of the Divine Spirit. I use it in both ways, combining the Eastern feng shui with the Western approach to creativity and movement. For both traditions, ch'i is what is unseen and yet causes movement and growth in all areas, humans, plants, animals, businesses . . . wealth and abundance.

Ch'i circulates and pulsates on the earth, and in humans, plants, and animals. Healthy ch'i flows harmoniously and is in dynamic balance. Too much ch'i, too much energy and movement, and you can have a tornado, hurricane, earthquake, or flood. Too little ch'i, too little breath and flow, and things stagnate and die, as in a desert or swamp. Focusing on your own breath and on the movement of air in your environment are ways of tuning in and sensing the flow of ch'i.

Yin and Yang. The Chinese concept of yin and yang (yin and yawng) represents the two energies that govern the movement of energy, the ch'i. From the circle, the oneness, they emerge as opposites that compliment each other and are held in dynamic balance. These energies flow from one to the other to create movement and the beginning of patterns. In the West we call them polar opposites. Yet nothing is truly totally the opposite. The Eastern approach recognizes this with the dot of the opposite within the main body of each. Each is found within the other, interdependent and interrelated. And when they are balanced they easily create flow.

While yin and yang originated in Asia, there are Western counterparts. In a text that is esteemed by many people in the West, we have "the Spirit, breath or wind, moving upon surface of the deep waters," (Genesis 1:1 and 2), and from that movement an enormous creativity flowed. So the symbol also works for a very basic Western concept of something intangible, Spirit or breath, moving or touching something tangible, water. Again, "wind and water" interact in a Western context. In the West we are beginning to recognize that nothing is ever truly black and white. There is always something else to consider when things appear to be cut and dried. Both the Eastern and the Western approaches include the mystical and transcendental, that which cannot be totally explained by the rational, the logical.