Ringing in the New Year

My January 2009 article for Tokyo Families magazine

New Years herald the potential for new beginnings. Feng Shui helps you to use your physical surroundings to highlight the life path you are choosing to walk, and as such can serve as a means to assist you in planning your New Year’s Resolutions. A few simple shifts in your space can provide the focus to aid in manifesting your heart’s desires.

First things first

Before looking at where you’d like to go in the next year, it is important to acknowledge the shifts you have made in the past 12 months. Make a list of the changes experienced in all areas of your life, and another list for those made to your home space, in both cases highlighting what worked and what didn’t. While a Feng Shui consultant might connect the two, it is enough for you to observe both sides and to have gratitude for all that has come into your life – when it comes to the ‘negative’ aspects, bring awareness to the valuable lessons you might have learned from these. This will give you a more solid foundation on which to walk towards your future aspirations.

Part of this acknowledgement should include what you have purchased, and this can serve as a guide to what it is that you might be willing to let go of, whether it is something new that didn’t work or something that you have had for a long time and are ready to release. In our age of consumption, it is important to recognize that there is only so much that you can acquire before you need to get rid of something for practicality’s sake. Holding on to too much, even things that you like, limits your ability to attract new things into your life.

Paving new paths

Once you have acknowledged the past, it is time to imagine your ideal future and the steps that you can take this year to get there. The Bagua map used in Feng Shui reveals 8 life aspirations that can provide focal points for your goals: Career & Life Path, Self-Cultivation & Knowledge, Family & Health, Wealth & Blessings, Fame & Reputation, Love & Partnership, Children & Creativity, and Helpers & Travel. Each of these can be further divided into personal and professional areas so that you can create greater consistency in creating a balanced life. Making a list of goals for each area will help you decide where to focus your attention.

In your home itself, the most important areas to focus on are the entrance and the bedroom. The entrance represents your interface between the inner and outer worlds, and therefore relates to how you reach your goals. The New Year can be an excellent time to tidy up the area and to find something new that captures your attention – what do you look at as you leave and as you enter? Having a ‘moving out into the world’ inspirational image to launch you on your exploits in the outer world, as well as a ‘Honey, I’m home’ object to welcome you back, can help you find an ideal balance between your inner and outer worlds. A beautiful landscape, a meandering pathway, or another inspiring setting can be a wonderful support near the door, while something bright and warm that brings you a feeling of peace should ideally catch your eye as you walk into your home.

The bedroom, being where you likely (and ideally) spend more hours than elsewhere, sets an important energy for you to marinate in. Adding a new piece that catches your eye and promotes harmonious relationships and joyful rejuvenation will support you on your new path. The view opposite your bed is important – outdated family pictures, piles of laundry, and crowded cabinets are not recommended. Aim for a peaceful, relatively water-free scene that inspires peace and tranquility (water imagery in the bedroom can stimulate excessive emotion). Harmonious pairs, whether in image or object form, help stimulate unity and bonding in all relationships, both personal and private. Pay particular attention to the right-hand corner opposite the door when aiming to ground gracious relationships – this area holds the energy of relationships particularly strongly.

Manifest your heart’s desire

Images that symbolize what you wish to attract provide a powerful means to manifestation. It is vital to focus on the essence of what you want rather than just the form, and to be open to deeply having the whole package. As such, maintaining conscious attention primarily on the feeling (physical, emotional, mental, spiritual) that you wish to create through your envisioned goals – and then feeling that NOW – will serve to assist you greater than thinking about latest gadget that you want. Be patient, and continue to train yourself to physiologically sense the feeling you desire – let your surroundings be the trigger for that feeling. As you raise your mood, you enhance your life, and then countless blessings follow.

(c) Mark Ainley