Feng Shui For the Office

 By Erica Sofrina

Creating an inspiring work environment is an important factor in generating more abundance in your life. The more your spaces uplift and stimulate you, the more time you want to spend there and the more energy you put into what you are doing.

We spend a lot of our life at work. I don’t need to tell you how uninspiring an office full of faceless, featureless cubicles can be and how drastically that lowers morale.

Whether you work in a home office or in a big corporation, you can still do something to make your workspace more inspiring for yourself and raise your energy level or chi.

When you feel safe, comfortable and happy in your space your energy field expands. As a result people want to be around you. When people are drawn to you they naturally want to spend time with you and bring you opportunities. You thus might find doors starting to open, blockages starting to unblock and people offering you options that often translate into more money and more general abundance.

In this article we are going to investigate simple and inexpensive ways to revitalize your workspace by shifting the chi.

Safety

Our basic instinct is to be safe. It is in our DNA and a part of our genetic makeup. When you are sitting with your back to your office door you are going to feel disempowered and vulnerable. One key component in making us feel safe is to make sure your desk is placed in an empowered position facing the door. It’s also important not to sit directly in front of the door because chi flows strongly through doorways and you will never feel at ease. It would be like standing in a strong river current. It is too stimulating to sit in for long periods of time.

Here are some other ideas for how to place your desk and still be in the empowered position facing the door.

If you have a window and you want to enjoy the view, turn your desk to the side that allows you to see the door along with the view.

You can also bring a desk facing the wall out into the room and sit behind it, arranging printers and file cabinets behind you.

For those with built-in desks that can’t be moved, buy a rear view mirror with a sticky back (sold at auto supply stores) and position it onto the top of the monitor so that you can see what is happening behind you.

Another aspect of safety is physical comfort and prevention of injury. If you feel uncomfortable sitting at your desk and are straining or aching after a few minutes, hours or at the end of the day it is not set up correctly. If you are hurting as a result of working, the message your body sends to you is “don’t go in there, it is an unsafe place that will injure you.” This is why it is important that your office is set up ergonomically and that your chair, desk and computer are all at the right height for easy work.

A last area of safety is to make sure all cords are housed in safety runners so that people cannot trip and injure themselves. From the Feng Shui perspective if anything feels like it can be unsafe you won’t feel truly at ease in the space.

Besides the safety factor, clutter is also disturbing to us. A tangled snake pit of cords will disrupt our sense of serenity in the space. Roll them up, tie them up and drop them into an attractive container such a beautiful basket.

Nix the fluorescent lighting and bring in incandescent lights whenever you can. Even turning off half of the fluorescent lighting in your office and using a desk lamp will make a huge difference in your energy level at the end of the day. They may be energy saving but they are also energy sucking and are extremely draining to your energy field.

Protect yourself from EMF’s or electro-magnetic fields. This is a subject that deserves an entire article dedicated to it, but in short, studies have shown that EMF’s scramble and weaken our energy fields and are suspected to contribute to serious illnesses. However EMF’s are prevalent in our lives, especially in areas that use a lot of technology. Protect yourself by not sitting close to the back of a computer monitor and using laptops whenever possible. Use landlines rather than cell phones if you can. You can purchase devices and pendants that will help re balance your energy fields and that can be used on electronic equipment such as cell phones. Two tried and true products I recommend to clients can be found at these web sites: Gia Wellness and Omega products. Both are reputable companies that sell EMF protectors. You can find many more on- line.

Clear Clutter and Organize

I know this is always easier said than done. If you are overwhelmed by this piece, as many of us are, give yourself the gift of a professional organizer. Don’t berate yourself if this is not your forte. Hire someone who can instantly see how to arrange things in your office for maximum effectiveness. After this you will get the knack yourself and be able to continue on your own. Don’t underestimate the importance of asking for and hiring help, even for two hours. It can make a huge difference in your life. Offices are often the most disorganized spaces in hectic lives but order in this sphere is actually crucial to your success in the world. To take care of your physical environment also takes care of your mind, body and spirit.

12 Tips to End Clutter

Inspire Yourself!

Bring in art that you love. Even when your bookshelves are filled with those unattractive binders and manuals that you need for your jobs, juxtapose them with art and objects that bring you joy. Make sure your shelves reflect who you are and what inspires you in life. Make sure every object has its space so that it does not look like a haphazard arrangement of clutter.

Bring in Nature

At our essence we are ancient creatures who came from 100,000 generations of ancestors who lived in the natural world. Surrounding ourselves with objects and art depicting those origins are essential to mental and emotional well being, reminding us who we truly are. Studies have shown workspaces devoid of nature cause depression and lower productivity among workers. Commit to having beautiful plants or fresh flowers. Bring in a water feature and nature art and calendars depicting beautiful landscapes. Bringing in the five elements of wood, fire, earth, wood and metal is a key component of the Feng Shui teaching. In terms of your family pictures, a few are comforting but too many are distracting. Your workspace is for the development of who you are in the world and what your contribution to that world will be. Reserve the private spaces in your home to display images of your loved ones.

Bring in Environmental Affirmations

Use the important ‘real estate’ of your office walls for affirmations of what it is you want to bring into your work life. For more private home offices this is a great space for your career vision board. Create a collage with words and images of the true work you imagine doing, whether you are there or not. Your pictures and images create powerful environmental affirmations, sending this message continually to the conscious and subconscious mind. We must think it first in order to create it, so make it up and put it on your walls and watch it manifest in your life!

Offices are Yang Spaces

Offices are places where you want to generate energy and should be light, bright and happy spaces that by their color schemes contribute to lifting your spirits.

Remember that your office is your space for manifesting who you are in the world. Think of it as your altar to call in that energy in your life and let your imagination soar!

Yin and Yang, the Key to a Balanced Home

By Erica Sofrina

Have you ever been in a room that didn’t feel good to be in but you couldn’t figure out what was wrong? Chances are the Yin/Yang components were out of balance.

Yin and Yang is at the foundation of the Ancient Practice of Feng Shui. It has to do with the recognition that the universe is made up of opposite forces of energy, which cannot exist without each other. They are finely balanced and, like polar sides of a magnet, are innately attracted to each other.

The Yin/Yang symbol (picture at top) depicts two fish gliding together in perfect balance. Each carrying components of the other; the black fish with the white eye and the white fish with the black eye. The two swim together in perfect harmony creating a circle, the most ancient symbol depicting wholeness.

Feng Shui acknowledges that we are ancient creatures who naturally seek balance. If our living spaces are not balanced, our lives feel out of balance as well. By learning to work with the Yin and Yang components in our homes, we create supportive spaces that bring our lives back into harmony as well.

The concept of Yin refers to the feminine principle, which is passive, dark and yielding. Yang refers to the male principle, which is bright, active and extroverted.

In physical environments Yin objects would be reflected by circular shapes, darker more muted colors, lower darker rooms, upholstered furniture of soft chenille, velvet and corduroy fabrics, carpeting and area rugs, and smaller detailed prints. In building materials adobe, brick and stucco would be considered more Yin materials. In design history, the eras that incorporated Yin qualities would be the Victorian era, Louis IV and VI and the Baroque period.

In architecture the Bauhaus period in Germany from around 1919 – 1933 was the beginning of modernist design utilizing more Yang components. Slick glass and mirrors, metal and plastics, high, vast ceilings, bright angular spaces, bold stripes and geometric patterns, square, hard angular furniture without detail, flooring of hard woods, cement and tile, all reflect Yang design materials and features.

In balancing a home we want to first determine the use of the space and then incorporate the Yin and Yang qualities appropriate for it. Passive spaces should incorporate more Yin features and active spaces more Yang features. The key, however, is to make sure we always have some of both qualities and not an over abundance of either.

Yin rooms are the places you want the energy to calm down to support rest, relaxation and rejuvenation. Yin rooms would be bedrooms, dining rooms, living rooms, possibly family rooms and bathrooms.


In these rooms we would want to bring in more Yin features such as comfy furniture, more muted colors and lighting, plush fabrics and more detailed patterns and accessories. Having a bright, light ultra-modern bedroom with high ceilings and slick fabrics would not serve the occupants and will often translate to sleep disorders.

Yang spaces are the more active spaces such as children’s playrooms, kitchens, gyms, home offices, laundry rooms, family rooms (depending upon the use), hallways and garages. These spaces should incorporate more Yang components with brighter lighting, whites and/or bolder colors, more angular shaped furniture and accessories with less detail.

In using modern Yang qualities make sure to choose furniture with more rounded edges. Sharp-edged furniture is considered weapon-like in Feng Shui. It may be subtle, but you will never fully relax in a space that has objects that can injure you. Our homes always need to be ‘people friendly’ no matter the style of decor you are drawn to.

We also want to bring in all of the Five Elements, which include plants and things that are either from the natural world or represent nature. Ultra modern homes devoid of nature will never allow us to feel truly ‘at home’ because of our deep innate connection to the natural world.

The key is to have a balance of both Yin and Yang qualities in every room, emphasizing more Yin or Yang features depending upon the use of the room. Yang features will make the space more active and Yin features generate a more restful atmosphere. Make sure your design choices and styles are serving the people who need to occupy the space, and not the other way around.

Once we have achieved an appropriate Yin/Yang balance in each room, we will be well on our way to creating a balanced and harmonious home that supports, uplifts and nurtures our lives!

The Importance of Bringing Nature into the Home

By Erica Sofrina

This picture is of the creative Thanksgiving table created by my nephew at age 12. It was a sad time, the Thanksgiving after his mom passed away. She had always created wonderful holiday center pieces with her children  and  we were all feeling bereft. I asked my nephew to create the center piece from the wonderful collection of pumpkins and gourds that I had, thinking he would just use these. He went out for half hour and and brought back ferns and nasturtiums, nuts and berries, autumn leaves and  many other fabulous treasures and created the most marvelous arrangement. I saw that her spirit lived through him and that he would teach this to his children and on down the ages she would be remembered. Her creative and wonderful spirit influencing these marvelous creations for generations to come.

The fact is that we need to bring nature into our homes especially when the days get shorter and colder and the weather more inclement. It is is our DNA to respond positively to nature. When stressed , just spending 20 minutes in nature will balance and rejuvenate our energy field. Bringing nature into our homes is a key component of the teachings of Feng Shui (See last week's article on Beating the Holiday Blues with Feng Shui).The goal is to have all of the five elements of fire, earth, metal, water and wood balanced in every room of of our living space.

The elements when closest to their natural state will contain the most vibrant 'chi' or energy. However, there are colors, objects and shapes that represent these elements as well. Some are more subtle and some more obvious. A tall cylindrical shape (reminding us of a tree) represents the wood element, along with medium blues and greens, anything made of wood, plants and trees and pictures of them.

When the elements, or an element is not in balanced in a room it can have a profound affect on us, especially children who are energetically very sensitive.(See my article on Feng Shui for Children's Bedrooms). A bedroom with soft green walls, wooden furniture, floral prints on the walls and and a floral print bedspread will have an abundance of the wood element. When in balance the wood element represents healthy growth. Too much of the wood element, however, will make us feel over expanded and overwhelmed.

This is why that green bedroom you thought would feel so soothing is making you feel agitated. The wood element is out of balance and you are responding energetically to this You can bring it back into balance by removing some of the wood element and bringing in things that represent the element that controls wood, which is metal.

The metal element is represented by white and cream colors, pastels, circular shapes, rocks and stones and metal. Just by changing the floral bedspread to a pastel or cream color that is not a floral print and accessorizing with whites and pastels will begin to bring the room back into elemental balance.

If we find we are staying 'too small' in our lives, our environment will often reflect too little of the wood element. Staying too small is a symptom of too little of the wood element. Perhaps your bedroom is all whites and pastels representing the metal element. This is the element which controls the wood element, which is not serving our needs here because the little bit of the wood element we may have in this room is being overpowered by the metal element. In this instance we might add a floral bedspread, a green chenille throw and pillows on the bed and some floral prints. Just remember to get the right amount of all of the elements, not too much and not too little.

The Feng Shui Five Elements theory can provide invaluable insights as to why our lives are out of balance by looking at the elemental imbalances in our homes. In future articles I will demonstrate how some of my clients teens went from combustible to manageable just by elementally balancing their often 'too fiery' bedrooms.

I encourage you to learn more about these powerful concepts to help make your home into a vibrant and rejuvenating place that feeds your soul and nurtures your spirit!

Beating the Holiday Blues by Bringing Nature into the Home

One of my favorite fall rituals is to fill my trunk with an abundance of the multicolored, unusually shaped pumpkins and gourds that richly grace the Half Moon Bay, N. California coast side where I reside. I especially love the lime- green and tangerine ones with exotic curly handles. I throw in handfuls of dry, crackly autumn-colored corn and drive happily home where I arrange them artfully around a haystack on my front porch.
Inside I arrange a bountiful ‘horn of plenty’ with the smaller multicolored gourds and mini-pumpkins along with the acorns, dry corn and colorful autumn leaves I have collected. This is my celebration into fall. I don’t really feel it has arrived until I greedily scoop up nature and feature it prominently in my home.
The Chinese art of Feng Shui emphasizes the importance of bringing nature into our living space, which is called the Five Elements Theory. This is the part of Feng Shui that I have found the most powerful when working with
my clients, and the part that I most enjoy teaching to my students. I think it must be because this teaching is so intuitive and simple, yet transformational. As human beings we are connected to 100,000 generations of ancestors who lived in the natural world. It is embedded into our DNA to feel a deep sense of balance and well being in nature. Studies have shown that people become depressed, lethargic and unproductive when deprived of it. We don’t need science to prove the joyousness we feel sinking our feet into white sands while watching a magnificent sunset. We experience it healing our soul and nurturing our spirit.
One powerful way to remedy winter blues is to work with balancing the elements that begin to diminish during the fall and winter seasons. In working with the Feng Shui five elements of fire, earth, metal, water and wood, we work with the controlling and the nurturing cycles. When we have too much of an element we control it by bringing in the element that is stronger. An example would be the element of earth, which we would enhance in order to control the element of water. When we have too little of an element we can nurture it with the element that feeds it, such as the element of wood which will strengthen and feed the element of fire.
By bringing into our homes more of the elements of fire (red), wood (green) and earth (gold) during the colder months, we overcome the abundance of the water element and bring them back into balance. Because we are deeply affected by our physical surroundings, our physical bodies come back into balance as well. As a result depression and lethargy often naturally lifts.
It was no surprise to me to discover that our ancestors had been decorating in this same fashion for centuries. As creatures of comfort we will always try to bring our environment into alignment. In so doing they were naturally balancing these seasonal imbalances. My favorite winter ritual is to fill my trunk with large branches from the unclaimed fir trees and berry bushes around my home. I give them their seasonal ‘haircut’ and into my trunk they go. That evening, I put on my favorite holiday music and immerse myself in the creative process of adorning my home with these bountiful earthy treasures. Always preferring to save a Christmas tree, I create my own ‘greener’ recycled version and adorn a tall vase with pine boughs with twinkly white lights, shiny gold balls, strings of red cranberries and my collection of small unique ornaments. I cover the mantle with pungent greens, red poinsettias, strands of magical white lights and shimmering silver and gold ribbons. A cherished Angel holds the place of honor at the center. Every tabletop gets a
unique variation on this theme creating a sense of interest and visual surprise everywhere the eye rests. I encourage you to play, create, feel and experience the objects, textures, smells and magic of nature. Bring it into your homes in abundance during this time and especially emphasize the more earthy, woody and fiery aspects. It will replenish your soul and create a deep sense of joy and well being within you, making the fall and winter a magical cozy and happy time to be in your home.

"Entrancing" Entryways that Call Opportunities to Your Front Door

The ancient Chinese Practice of Feng Shui puts a great deal of emphasis on the entryway to the home. It is considered the “mouth of chi” where all of our opportunities come to us. This may seem like a bit of a stretch to westerners, however, in recently reviewing my old Interior Design textbook from years ago, I saw that it presented some of the exact same concepts as this 3,000 year old practice.
It stated that choosing the right entryway was the most important part of the design of the building and should be chosen after a great deal of study and care.  A poorly designed entryway would hamper the success of the business and/or negatively affect the occupants of the home, which is also a primary Feng Shui teaching.
It went on to say the entry should be strongly differentiated from the immediate surroundings making it easily identifiable from the street, and should make a graceful transition between the street and the inside. If it was not easy to see and people had a hard time finding it, they would arrive grumpy and out of sorts which would negatively impact the occupants.
It talked about how people need 15 feet to adjust from the outer to the inner domains. How the experience of arriving at a front door after enjoying a fragrant and attractive garden was considerably more enjoyable and helped make the transition. If the transition was too abrupt there would be no feeling of arrival and the inside of the home would fail to be an inner sanctum.

What special things do you do in your home or garden for the Fall?

Send me your comments and ideas and pictures of how you decorate for the Fall!

Fall Pumpkins and Feng Shui

Me with my Fairy Godmother, Anne delivering a bounty of pumpkins

I love pumpkins. They combine the earth and fire and wood elements and bring such a nurturing earthy quality into our homes. One of my greatest joys is getting a car load of pumpkins and making beautiful harvest arrangements on my porch and in my home. I also create wonderful pumpkin arrangements for dear friends, my special fall gift to them.  Here are some pics of my fall pumpkin arrangements. Do you have creative ideas for pumpkins?

Your Home is Attracting Your Future!

 By Erica Sofrina

A missing component from the popular book The Secret is the important role our environment plays in manifesting the life we desire.
According to the laws of attraction, every thought radiates a signal and attracts a matching signal. Every object in our homes is a physically manifested thought-form of our conscious and unconscious belief system about what we believe we deserve to be, do and have in life. The single woman who desires a relationship but surrounds herself with single objects and pictures of single women is vibrationally anchoring into her home unconscious affirmations of the opposite future she desires.
Feng Shui is powerful because it teaches us to become conscious of the hidden messages in our physical surroundings that may not be serving us, giving us valuable insights as to why our lives may be headed in the directions they are! It provides valuable tools for getting our lives back on track and teaches that we can literally shift our future by shifting the vibration of our physical environments. As we arrange our space to reflect what we truly want, our lives follow suit. It is simply the law of attraction: like attracts like.
Feng Shui addresses the subtle things in our environment that wear on us over time and bring our chi (energy) down. Examples might be clutter piles, the sharp-edged furniture that can injure, plants dying or limping along, objects from past relationships that bring us down, dis empowering or disturbing art, heavy objects like beams or ceiling fans overhead create a feeling of being unsafe. Beds and key pieces of furniture placed with our backs to the door will also create a feeling of dis empowerment. Highly manufactured products like plastics and synthetics not only pose health issues because of the out-gassing, but will also carry a denser vibration.

Is Your Child Not Sleeping? Feng Shui Tips

At its essence, Feng Shui is a collection of practical, tried and true ideas about how to create living and working environments that support, nurture and guide our lives in a direction that promotes optimum well-being.
If our children are not happy, healthy and thriving, every family member is impacted. Creating a child’s bedroom that supports rest and rejuvenation is a key component of a happy home.
You might be a well-meaning parent who believes in empowering your child to design their own room. Your little girl may have selected bright purple, pink or yellow wall colors with bright pink sheets and a bedspread to match. She filled it with stuffed animals, dolls and wall art depicting Disney animals and people whom she admires. She loves playing in her room during the day but, when night comes, she wants to sleep anywhere else but there.
You may have designed a little boy’s room with bright yellow or blue walls filled with jumping, zooming, flying and crashing action figures. He loves his room, but getting him to sleep at night leaves you exhausted and him in meltdown mode.
Children are ultra sensitive to energy. I have helped numerous clients change their nocturnal monsters into little lambs that can go to bed easily and sleep through the night. The key is to change the balance of Yin and Yang. and create a more restful space conducive to sleep.
Yin and Yang are the balance of activity and rest, or the play of opposites. In a home, Yin energy encourages rest, rejuvenation and relaxation and should be used  in bedrooms, dining rooms, family rooms and living rooms. Yin spaces use more muted colors, ambient lighting, soft and sumptuous fabrics, curved and circular furniture and peaceful artwork.