Tag Archives: Feng Shui Home Designer Portland Oregon

The Bagua: Build The Life You Want.

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“I’d always believed that a life of quality, enjoyment, and wisdom were my human birthright and would be automatically bestowed upon me as time passed.  I never suspected that I would have to learn how to live – that there were specific disciplines and ways of seeing the world I had to master before I could awaken to a simple, happy, uncomplicated life.”
-Dan Millman

You have an intimate relationship with your home. Every object within your space has been hand selected by you. What story are these objects telling about you? More importantly how are they talking to you? Are they reminding you there is something more waiting for you? Or knickknacks on the shelf?

Great filmmakers leave no room for chance when it comes to storytelling. With singular artistry, they shape their tale and bring their vision to life with lighting, sound, ambiance and placement. They create a super reality that transcends time and space. If your home isn’t reminding you that there is something more to your life, more wholeness, more joy, more creative expression, more adventure, you too can use your artistry with your home as your set to envision a new story; a story that transcends your current reality and builds the life you want to live.

The Cornerstones: Build The Life You Want.

Gratitude
Being grateful for the goodness that is already exists in your life fills you with wholeness, wellness, happiness and more of what you have. Develop a gratitude routine. Either write about or speak out loud five events in your day that you feel thankful for – especially if they set you on a trajectory to achieve a specific goal.

Intention
The universe is listening to every word you say and everything you think. Becoming still is a sacred space in your heart-mind where you create a place for your vision to unfurl because this allows your imagination to design a new reality in vivid detail without distraction. This intention stabilizes and transformation invokes the events and people who will help you manifest your intention.

Purpose
When you commit wholeheartedly to doing what your soul is here to create, “it comes fully-equipped with an ineffable force”. Your devotion and dedication create a momentum that cannot be denied. It is an immersion of joy and creativity. Let it take you places you could not have imagined if you chose a lesser inspired path. Take time to ask yourself questions and check your responses to each. You will know it is the right one as your heart will release a flood of endorphins and fill your body with love so build the life you want.

Elevated Emotions
Your heart holds the key. Expanding the energetic field around your heart through mindful meditation expands your capacity to attract magic – those synchronous events that cannot be predicted. The more you brand the emotion to the image of joy, abundance, and freedom, the more your brain pays attention to this elevated emotion and it begins to identify with the future. Build the life you want with a morning practice of breath work combined with meditation. These will release attachments, decrease distractions and enhance your awareness and receptivity of the positive experiences coming to you.

The Corners of Your Home: Build The Life You Want.

Knowledge
We know ourselves best when we find in our hearts home. The Mountain symbolizes taking the time to climb to the quiet heights within ourselves, to contemplate our experiences. There we find a lush verdant hill of knowledge that we can access any time we view the Knowledge adjustment. It could be a picture of a mountain that you once climbed or feel an affinity to. Or place a gong in this area to wake up your awareness. If you want to do well in the stock market, hang a wind chime from a red cord.

Wealth
Wealth is the Persistent Influence of Wind. When we take our time to shape our wealth through slow and steady persistence, adopting the yin qualities of patience, trust and self control we build a solid financial foundation. It is the quality of mind in this gua to be adaptive and bend with circumstances. A koi painting of eight red fish and one black bring Yin Yang balance to your dealings with others. The 12 Jade Zodiac animals strung with a red cord bring wealth because money comes from harmonious relationships. People you work with affect how you bring money into the household. Visualize that money comes from your relationship. The image of grasses blowing in the wind attract the qualities purity, subtlety, leverage and perseverance, investing you with the acumen to magnetize what is important to you.

Partnership
In the I-Ching this is Receptive Earth. It is associated with adaptability, devotion and unconditional support – qualities that we find in self love, true love and happy marriages. Cultivate the dance of responsiveness in this gua. Place a bowl, a cauldron or a ceramic container (in your garden) in this area. Visualize it holds all there is bringing an open heart, simplicity, nurturing (if you have a troubled mind) support and stability.

Helpful People
Benefactors and mentors are gathered by the energy of complete abandon with which you pursue your task because Heaven opens the skies for power, synchronicity, inspiration and confidence to flow into this area of your home. Cultivate grace and ease and accept all benevolent guidance that comes to you when you place an image of an animal associated with this gua. The Five-toed Imperial Gold Dragon will bring boons. Horses mean success. Lions bring courage and good heartedness. Heaven opens the door for opportunities to knock when you visualize your intention.

Allow me to help you arrange your home where you feel fully supported. I am available for a full consultation service or for an hour telephone conversation. Details are at this link Feng Shui A La Carte. Think of it as a fairy godmother for your house.

What I have discovered about our homes is that creating a heart healthy space leads to peace and contentment. The bedroom is where it begins. Start with my complimentary pdf: 27 Bedroom Concepts To Maximize Your Health, Happiness and Peace of Mind. Design your space to your best advantage. Subscribe to my blog and special offers. You’ll receive this valuable Feng Shui Guide as a thank you gift.

Want Wealth? Mirror Abundance With Feng Shui

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“The daily practice of gratitude is one of the conduits by which your wealth will come to you.”
–Wallace D. Wattles

Warmed with food and spiced with sweet greetings and joy, Thanksgiving day our homes mirror simple abundance. and invite a timeless grace to wash over us filling our hearts with love, laughter and appreciation.

We can reflect this feel-good abundance often. A mirror in the Feng Shui metaphor has many functions. It draws in auspicious Ch’i, expands an image, strengthens an image, reduces a threat plus much more. If we want happiness, a robust career, prosperity, success for our children, a loving relationship, time for travel…Feng Shui can support our desires. In deep gratitude for you I am sharing seven wealth cures I believe will bring you comfort and joy for the holidays.

If you want more wealth. Place a mirror on your office desk face up in the Wealth area. Your intention creates a deep well to hold the money you gain.

If you want draw money in quickly. Place a concave mirror in the Wealth gua of your home to attract money quickly. It may come in the form of a lump sum from a single source.

If you want to expand the range of money sources, place a convex mirror in the Wealth gua of your home or bedroom to expand the dimensions of offerings.

If you are working hard and are seeing no results for your efforts especially in the area of financial gain, you may have a contrary door (the door opens to a wall). Place a large mirror (do not cut off   the head of the tallest person in the house) on the wall to dissolve the blocking wall.

If you have felt closed off and stifled check the placement of your bed. If the foot of the bed is close to the wall, place a mirror on the wall at the foot of the bed to broaden your thoughts. You may be inspired with big ideas about making big money.

If you and your partner argue about money, place a round mirror above the bed in the bedroom to soften harsh words between you. You may come to agreements quickly and plan how to use your finances more equitably.

If money comes in and goes out quickly, place a convex mirror over the door in the Wealth gua to absorb money that is leaking out the back.

If you are hindered by bad luck in your financial dealings, place a mirror on the ceiling above the stove. It will lift up your assets as the stove is symbolic of your money source.

Thank you for being here. I appreciate you! Please have a healthy and happy holiday season.

Allow me to help you arrange your home where you feel fully supported. I am available for a full consultation service or for an hour telephone conversation. Details are at this link Feng Shui A La Carte. Think of it as a fairy godmother for your house.

What I have discovered about our homes is that creating a heart healthy space leads to peace and contentment. The bedroom is where it begins. Start with my complimentary pdf: 27 Bedroom Concepts To Maximize Your Health, Happiness and Peace of Mind. Design your space to your best advantage. Subscribe to my blog and special offers. You’ll receive this valuable Feng Shui Guide as a thank you gift.

The Creative Power of the Pumpkin

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“I’d say the first thing you need is … a pumpkin.”
– Cinderella

For centuries the Chinese have displayed pumpkins in their homes in the fall believing this edible squash has the alchemy to create golden opportunities. It began with a folk tale. A scanty village girl named Huang Hua lived with her sickly parents who were unable to care and feed themselves. One day searching for food she came across an oddly shaped melon in a field and took it back to her thatched cottage. She figured out how to prepare the large melon and fed it to her parents. Not long afterwards they made an inexplicable recovery. Since it was found near South Mountain they named it “south melon” or “nangua” which is the Chinese word for pumpkin. 

Since that time eating pumpkins have become an integral part of the Chinese Mid-Autumn Festival that is held at the full moon (the 15th day of the eight Chinese Lunar month). The tradition started in ancient China. Poverty stricken families living south of the Yangtze River ate pumpkin because they couldn’t afford the fancy ornamental mooncakes.

In folkloric tradition, farmer’s wives would carve out the belly and place items in them to attract wealth.

Their symbolism is as generous as their size. You may expect to increase:
• Prosperity
• Abundance
• Attain good luck from your ancestors (this quality derives from the ‘flood myth’).
• Insure your children will have illustrious careers.
• Acquire an enchanting life
• Draw the earth energy to manifest gold.
No wonder they are so revered around the world.

Welcome prosperity Ch’i and good fortune with pumpkins lined at your front door or incorporate them in arrangements at the inside entry to magnetize abundance.

How did the old couple survive just eating pumpkin you ask? Pumpkin has high levels of carotenoids, proteins, antioxidants and vitamin C. It health benefits are as massive as its size: it will boost your mood, keep your eyes keen, help you repair after a work out, assist in weight loss, reduce your cholesterol and advance your immune system. Its even thought to reduce the risk of cancer.

If you are looking to build a new home, remodel, plan a wedding, purchase a home or sell one, when you begin has tremendous influence on the outcome of your event. Beginning on the right foot with an auspicious date and time will bring success to your endeavor. Contact me, bette@shenmenfengshui.com for details of how I can assist you with getting started.

Allow me to help you arrange your home where you feel fully supported. I am available for a full consultation service or for an hour telephone conversation. Details are at this link Feng Shui A La Carte. Think of it as a fairy godmother for your house.

What I have discovered about our homes is that creating a heart healthy space leads to peace and contentment. The bedroom is where it begins. Start with my complimentary pdf: 27 Bedroom Concepts To Maximize Your Health, Happiness and Peace of Mind. Design your space to your best advantage. Subscribe to my blog and special offers. You’ll receive this valuable Feng Shui Guide as a thank you gift.

Take Your Dreams To Heart

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“One moment can change a day, one day can change a life and one life can change the world.”
– Buddha

You have an amazing heart and for that I have a special blog for you this month because I know it’s been a big job to hold strong, to have faith, to practice your best self when Covid-19 has pulled the rug out from under your plans and your future feels hijacked. You’ve got this and I want you to get more. I want you to know there is a benefit to the reality that is shifting before your eyes. These are fertile times for personal illumination and destiny is calling us to live our dreams through our hearts. 

Recently I have been enjoying a beautiful meditation by Gregg Braden. It opens the heart to the extraordinary feeling of bliss because this is the space from which dreams come true. And I am supplementing this opportunity for expanded intuition and creativity with four Feng Shui adjustments that correct and enhance “Li” the gua related to the heart.

Gregg shares we have 40,000 brain-like cells,  ‘sensory neurites’, concentrated in such a way that they are called the ‘little brain in the heart’. They can learn independently from the neurons in our brain. They can think and remember independently from the neurons in the brain. They communicate separately to us from the neurons in our brain…When we marry the heart and the brain together, when we harmonize the heart and the brain together, this extended neural network makes us different from all other forms of life. This is where our deepest empathy, compassion, intuition comes from. When we harmonize the little brain heart with the big brain in the head we can process information very quickly. Really fast information recall. Here is the reason why: when we access with our heart, using our intuition we don’t go through the logic and the fear, self esteem and all the doubt that we have in our brain which defends with ego resistance nor are we slowed down by our mental functions.

Our heart doesn’t work that way. Affirmations are powerful tools to implement change in our lives at any time. They are especially potent when we are communicating with our subconscious in a language that our subconscious recognizes. When we harmonize our heart and our brain, this is the hot line to our subconscious. Our affirmations of our perfect relationships, our healing, our dreams begins in our bodies. Extraordinary states of deep intuition are available through harmonizing the heart and the brain. There are three steps to creating this harmonious awareness that come from ancient traditions. (This can be performed just as you awake or go to sleep because these are excellent times for intention setting and opening the channel to the subconscious. Enhance the meditation with background music, lighting a candle, burning incense to clear energy, diffusing sandalwood or frankincense essentials oils. – Bette Steflik)

• Simply and gently place either one finger or your hand or your palms or the prayer mudra on the sternum of your heart. Your awareness will always go to the place in your body where you feel the touch, the sensation. Allow your awareness to move there.

• Slow your breathing. Five seconds on the inhale. Five seconds on the exhale. This sends a powerful signal to your body, from your mind to your heart that says I am turning my attention inward. You are telling your body that “I am safe”. That frees your body to let go of the stress hormones and the feelings of stress. When that happens the healing chemistry begins….Now the body is awakening to its powerful immune response and anti-aging hormones. Breathing slower you are telling your body it is safe.

• Create a feeling in your heart where you feel the touch. Feel one or some combination of the following four feelings: care for anything or for anyone. Appreciation or anything or for anyone. Gratitude or anything or for anyone. And compassion for or anything or for anyone. Researchers have found these four key words will trigger the experience between our heart and our brain to create that coherence .1 Hz. To the best of your ability feel those feelings and breathe from your heart center. Do that for 60 seconds. This ritual is ancient and primal. It is the key to the deepest truth of who you are in this world. The positive vibration you created will hold for six hours after you open your eyes. 

Why do this? This is where the super learning comes from. Or when you are working to solve or create something new: a book, poetry, music. Your creativity comes from this deep space.
– Gregg Braden

In the Bagua formation, Li, the Fame gua is connected to the Fire element of the Five Elements. The heart which is known as the Emperor in Traditional Chinese Medicine is the organ that represents this phase. When standing at the front door facing into your home, the location is the central back section of your house. It rests between Hsun, the Wealth gua to the left and Kun, the Partnership gua to the right.

If this area is missing or depleted by a design feature such as a bathroom it may be difficult to excel in your career, pass examinations, receive recognition for a promotion, improve your status, and connect with networking groups that can enhance your visibility and that affects your sense of esteem and well-being. Physically you may develop eye disorders. Mentally your clarity, whether it’s your goals, being self directed or your vision of your future, may be obscured. A side note when Fame is enhanced this activates and improves your career. Want more name recognition? More heart in your relationships? More joy in your life? Here are four Fame tips to increase your influence.

Correct A bathroom in the Fame gua depletes this area (see above). Place a mirror on the outside of the door. It will reflect whatever is in front of it and the bathroom will transcendentally disappear. The nuance from Professor Lin the door may remain open and the cure still works.

Color Red is associated with Fame and Fire. Color may be used to fill in a missing area. Painting the wall red with the visualization that the color is pushing the wall out will transcendentally correct the missing area of the house. The added bonus is you’ve added your “Wall of Fame”.

Center Stage Li means “bright”. When you project yourself from a place of courtesy, professionalism and regard, you raise your esteem and others will view you as confident, considerate and connected. This place of power raises your status. Activate this area with diplomas, awards, and recognitions. The triangle shape is associated with this gua. Animals that represent Li are the tortoise, crab, pheasant (from The Form School) and shellfish. Illumination is a quality of this gua. A framed sunset or a rainbow are suitable for this gua as well.

Credit Believe in you, find your mantra and light your fire with an empowerment. Place an affirmation in this area, such as “I am so grateful and happy that I am now…(fill in the blank) or I am endlessly abundant with talent, skill, intelligence and joy that I utilize everyday. 

If you are looking to build a new home, remodel, plan a wedding, purchase a home or sell one, when you begin has tremendous influence on the outcome of your event. Beginning on the right foot with an auspicious date and time will bring success to your endeavor. Contact me, bette@shenmenfengshui.com for details of how I can assist you with getting started.

Allow me to help you arrange your home where you feel fully supported. I am available for a full consultation service or for an hour telephone conversation. Details are at this link Feng Shui A La Carte. Think of it as a fairy godmother for your house.

What I have discovered about our homes is that creating a heart healthy space leads to peace and contentment. The bedroom is where it begins. Start with my complimentary pdf: 27 Bedroom Concepts To Maximize Your Health, Happiness and Peace of Mind. Design your space to your best advantage. Subscribe to my blog and special offers. You’ll receive this valuable Feng Shui Guide as a thank you gift.

Year Of The Fire Rooster. Craft The Ultimate 2017.

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“As the new year energy crosses your threshold there is a moment of transition, a pause, which will be an opportunity to place inspiration and good fortune on your path. Seize the moment.”
– Marina Lighthouse

Engaging, charismatic, compassionate and enthusiastic, the fearless Fire Rooster steps onto the zodiac stage January 28, 2017. Be prepared to awaken to your divine spark. This year you will be inclined to gather around the home fires, where you draw upon your insight, feel the succor of intimacy, quiet your busy mind with solitude and as the indigo night descends, harmonize with your family and friends.

Facing an uncertain year, cultivating diligence, reliability and strength stabilizes the ups and downs. We see these qualities in the crimson-capped proud Rooster who performs his diurnal dawn patrol. Flying to the highest peak, proudly throwing out his chest and with his kikeriki seizing the rosy dawn, he motivates his comrades to take charge of the day. The Chinese believe it is the Rooster’s crow that loosens the divine spark within us. A spark that awakens the virtues of courage, perseverance, efficiency, generosity and punctuality.

Inventing solutions that create a break through in energy renewal, real estate, construction, high tech, textiles, communication and entertainment will receive the green light. This is the year to emulate the Rooster’s virtues of commitment and hard work to get the payoff you desire.

Wasting energy in this reality-show-kind-of-year is not what you will find the Fire Rooster doing. Fire atop Metal is Fire conquering Metal. You will see drama, possible explosions, perhaps witness bigger than life conflict. However don’t let yourself be paralyzed by what is beyond your control. See the drama for what it is–a reshuffling of an old paradigm that is going extinct. In your personal life walk away from what no longer serves you.

Make this a year of balance between achieving your goals, living your values and enjoying your life when you seize the moment to craft the ultimate 2017. I encourage you to think outside your usual strategies and goal setting. Be generous with yourself: create moments of peace, seconds of hope, hours of stability and days of flexibility. For these are the building blocks of self-love and true happiness. When you take care of yourself, you can give to others. I have created the 2017 Fire Rooster Playbook of Feng Shui Strategies that I believe will invite good fortune over your threshold and good luck into your home.

Position Yourself On Solid Ground. – Improve Your Feng Shui
Your front door, bed, desk and stove are populated with your energy and your family’s. Because these areas receive lots of use, their placement and condition is important to your well-being. Here are some Feng Shui guidelines you may have forgotten or did not know. If you do not use the front door, it can cause a sense of suffocation in the house. And you will lack health Ch’i, wealth Ch’i and all kinds of Ch’i. Open your front door once or nine times a month. If shoes clutter the entrance, this attracts chaos. Purchase a cute cubby to arrange your well-heeled foot gear and start the year on the right foot. If you are prone to headaches or find you get overlooked at work, brighten your entry with the maximum wattage that won’t blow a fuse. Visualize you are receiving recognition for your outstanding job. Your stove represents how you attract money. A microwave, over your stove oppresses your wealth Ch’i. Remove it or place a 3″ round mirror on the hood, over the stove to lift up the hood. Lack of command at the bed and desk can create an inability to see both opportunity and trouble coming. You miss out on support and good advice. “Command position” places you where you can see what is coming through the door and take charge of your affairs. Nurture your partnership with a headboard, it connects the two sides of the bed and you and your partner. 

Pay It Forward – Do Kind Deeds
If you do nothing else, this is the adjustment to perform. It comes from His Holiness, Grandmaster Lin Yun and it’s a great secret to a successful life: perform a good deed every day. By helping another person, you shift, not only their reality, but yours as well. A kind deed will improve your luck, lift your esteem and change your circumstances. This creates an opportunity to place good fortune on your path. For emphasis do nine good deeds a day and if you need a boost, perform twenty seven good deeds in one day. But remember that your sincerity is the most important part.

Awaken To Wholeness – Perform Sacred Rituals
BSTB Feng Shui ceremonies are an integral part of beginning anew. They remove the dust of past deeds, attune our hearts, call out our appreciation of the inner space and bestow blessings on what is to come. Taking time to prepare the ground of our home allows what is to come to fully materialize.

Bad Luck Cure: If an entire household is troubled by lots of inauspicious events, do the following: Buy a new black pen and red paper. Or purchase cinnabar ink and buy yellow paper. Cut a circle in 3 inches to 5 inches in diameter. In Chinese or English, write, “One good deed wards off one thousand evil spirits.” Place the charm in a conspicuous location. Complete with the Three Secrets Reinforcements (red envelopes requested for the Three Secrets Reinforcements).

Enact New Year Ceremonies – Invite Prosperity And Fortune
Cultural Chinese Lunar New Year Eve ceremonies: The Five Fold Happiness https://shenmenfengshui.com/articles/the-meaning-behind-chinese-lunar-new-year/

Join the party January 28, 2017. Besides making a “lucky eight” foods dinner, perform BSTB ceremonies to bless your home and invite good fortune. Revel in “Welcoming the Wealth Gods” into your home. Delight in peeling away bad luck during “the Golden Cicada” ceremony and jump up for joy when you throw the orange peel as the clock strikes 12:00 a.m. during “Changing the Ch’i…You will receive these + two bonus cures in the “Three Lucky Feng Shui Secret Traditions Packet”+ Two Bonus Cures and the Three Secret Reinforcements. The packet is normally $36. I have discounted to $27 + nine red envelopes. My way of saying, “Thank you!” Payment by check and red envelopes need to arrive at my doorstep by January 19, 2017 to ensure your mailing will arrive in time. Contact me: bette@shenmenfengshui.com for details. 

Set Your Intentions – Make Known What Is In Your Heart.
When making Feng Shui adjustments to your home, visualize your intention for the cure. Calm your mind and see as many details as possible and create the process from beginning to end. This allows the cure to be more real. All things are created twice. First we create something in our minds, then we find a way to bring our creation into the third dimension. The clearer we can visualize our intention the more easily it is to bring it in. What is held in your heart is so powerful that even if you make a mistake with pronunciations or hand gestures the intention and visualization is still more powerful. Intention is always more powerful than form. As long as your intentions are clear your cures will work.

Carry The Animal Talisman For The Year – Offset Bad Luck.
The theory behind getting a new charm every year is that buying something new symbolizes a fresh start and new opportunities are coming your way. The ancient Chinese did not celebrate Christmas, but instead the Spring Festival which celebrates the importance of family. During the two week festival beginning at Chinese Lunar New Year they give little gifts for good luck. In the Year of the Fire Rooster, it is Dragon who is Rooster’s good friend, for it is said when Rooster and Dragon come together “the joy of this encounter is enough to offset any bad luck that the year may harbor.” As a transcendental cure: carry a three dimensional representation of a Dragon (made of boxwood, porcelain, bone or jade) with you during the year, either in your pocket, purse, on your wrist or around your neck.

Wan Shi Ru Yi – May Everything Go As You Wish!
H.H. “Professor” Lin Yun’s commentary on the 2005 Rooster year still applies today. He urges to keep the five virtues (literate, courageous, compassionate, trustworthy and punctual) of Rooster close at heart and to teach it to one’s young. Encourage them to be reliable and true to their word, to be fearless and to be devoted to their jobs. Encourage them to sober up as the Rooster announces the coming of dawn. However tumultuous the times, however great the setback, one needs to be encouraged to work hard and work one’s way out of the problems we face – hopefully this will be a productive year for all. 

Have you decided this will be your year? “Boldness has genius”…start with one hour of Feng Shui A La Carte. Think of it as a fairy godmother for your house.

What I have discovered about our homes is that creating a heart healthy space leads to peace and contentment. The bedroom is where it begins. Start with my complimentary pdf: 27 Bedroom Concepts To Maximize Your Health, Happiness and Peace of Mind. Design your space to your best advantage. Subscribe to my blog and special offers. You’ll receive this valuable Feng Shui Guide as a thank you gift.