It’s “Happy New Year” again — the perfect time to start fresh, make those New Year’s Resolutions, and improve yourself! Feng Shui is a “cure-all” to self-improvement. Not only will feng shui help you get your New Year’s Resolutions off to a great start, if you do them feng shui style, they’ll be easier to keep throughout the year and beyond.
What Are the Most Popular New Year’s Resolutions?
The Nielsen Company surveys thousands of people every year about their New Year Resolutions and it turns out that as a society we’re quite consistent on what we pledge to do each year to improve ourselves. The most popular New Year’s resolutions always include these three:
- Lose weight
- Get more organized
- Save more money and or make more money
This is a feng shui dream list! There couldn’t be a stronger call to action for those who practice feng shui than the list of New Year’s Resolutions people make every year! Feng shui is by nature a provider of practical long-term solutions!
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Nielsen’s annual survey results on New Year’s Resolutions are closely reflected in Google searches as well. Popular search terms related to the most popular New Year’s Resolutions always peak around the first of the year — every year in fact! Additionally, we see the same subjects spike every year on Google searches. You can see this for yourself by searching the following terms on Google Trends over a five-year range:
- how to lose weight
- how to get organized
- how to save money
Okay, now that we’ve established there is a very predictable trend on certain self-improvement topics when people are making New Year’s Resolution, let’s explore how feng shui can help you with your New Year goals.
Feng Shui To Lose Weight
Many people struggle to lose weight, especially long-term, but feng shui can make it easier to shed those pounds and keep them off! The first step is to balance the yin and yang of your home. Yin is more subdued, quiet, passive energy whereas yang is a more lively, passionate, active energy. If the kitchen is more vibrant, more yang, than the rest of the home, this can have the effect of over-stimulating the appetite and diverting attention from other activities toward fattening food or overindulging in food. Use feng shui to infuse more yin energy into your kitchen and add yang energy to other rooms in your home. To balance the yin and yang in your home, consider creating a really cool hobby room, a theatre room, or turning your bedroom in a private haven!
Basically, you want to design your home to draw your interest away from the kitchen and into other pleasurable pursuits. If you have red, orange, or yellow dominating your kitchen, try changing your color scheme more toward yin colors like blue and gray. You can always maintain a splash of cheery color, just don’t overdo it. Here’s another interesting feng shui tip for losing weight: ear from blue plates and you’ll subconsciously eat less — it’s true! Psychologists have actually tested this! Related to this, don’t use white plates because you’ll subconsciously eat more! You can also try using smaller plates because psychologists show that you’ll feel fuller with less food and you won’t overload your plate.
Many people don’t realize this but if you get more sleep, and increase the quality of your sleep, you’ll lose weight naturally without doing anything else. More sleep and better sleep will also enhance the success of any weight loss program you happen to be on. There are two relatively simple principles of feng shui that can help you achieve more and better sleep. The first is to place your bed so that you can see the door when laying down in the sleeping position. The second is to make sure you have a nice sturdy headboard.
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Both of the simple bedroom feng shui practices above provide a feeling of safety and security that will have cascading effects on your body and mind when it comes to sleepy time. These feng shui sleep tricks are conducive to falling asleep more easily because you’ll feel more relaxed in your bedroom. They’ll also help you get more of the deep restorative cycles of sleep which can improve your metabolism and help your body recover faster from any exercise you may be doing to aid in weight loss. Deeper sleep will also help you stay more motivated to lose weight and stick with any weight loss plan (or weight maintenance plan) you’ve developed.
Feng Shui To Get Organized
A messy home will drain your energy and depress you! Clutter and disorganization will also prevent positive energy from flowing through your home, business, or workstation. Old stagnant energy will just hang there with your clutter bogging you down with it. If you hire a feng shui expert to help you feng shui your home or office, one of the first things she’ll tell you is to “get organized!” Organization is at the very heart of feng shui. Decluttering will give you immediate positive energy and this will spread to all other aspects of your life, from your performance at work to your love life! Getting organized will also elevate your mood.
Start the organization process by removing clutter from around your main entryway so that positive energy can have unfettered access to your home. Do the same around every doorway into each room in your home. Is something blocking a door from being opened all the way? If yes, unblock it! Do you have to navigate around something to walk into a room? Get rid of that and store it properly! Your home or office should not be a maze! Once you’ve tackled this, you can move on to organizing each room from top to bottom. Yes, clean out that refrigerator and pantry! Get some organizers too, even if it’s just clean free boxes from the store.
See what’s lurking at the bottom of your closet heap! Here’s one feng shui closet tip: hang all your clothes on hangers that point in the opposite direction and then only turn them around as you wear them. Then after a few months, you’ll be able to easily see which clothes you actually wear. At that point, consider giving away the clothes on the hangers that have never been turned. If you have limited space in your closets or elsewhere, you can always use your walls and ceilings to help you organize, just like they do on ships and RVs. In the closet, wall hooks and hanging baskets can help a lot. The same is true for your kitchen and the kids’ bedrooms! Consider putting lights and other items that are currently on tabletops on the walls and ceilings too.
Get the whole family in on the action and make it fun. Bebop around the house to your favorite tunes and spend quality time with your loved ones while you organize. In fact, working with your family while you organize helps you know in your heart which items are most important to you and which items are simply material possessions with little to no sentimental value or real utility. As a family, decide beforehand on a special reward for when you get done. Set an organizing goal for the day and then reward everyone when it’s completed.
Feng Shui To Save Money and Make More Money
If you have the goal of attracting more wealth and saving more money, there are many feng shui principles and practices that can support you in this endeavor. A strong well-kept front door is a traditional feng shui practice to attract more money and financial success. Even if you rent, you can ensure your front door is in tip-top shape. First, clean your front door, both inside and out. If it squeaks, take the time to oil it and adjust the hinges if necessary. If it has peeling paint or the paint that is old and faded in the sun, paint it. Make sure too that there are no impediments to opening the door fully. Consider adding a tasteful wreath or decoration to enhance the door.
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If you have a home office or business office, make sure your desk is in the feng shui “command position.” This is where you place your desk so that you can see the door and everything that enters when you sit at the desk. This will welcome opportunities to make, grow, and retain your money. Try to use elements of wood in your office, such as a sturdy wooden desk and or pictures with sturdy wooden frames that attracts money according to feng shui principles. To nourish the wood, try to also include elements of water too such as a nice aquarium or a desktop water feature. Paintings of water, particularly those with running water that include fish, will also help nourish the wood and draw more financial stability into your life. If you can select a painting with a vast open view that is clearly seen from your desk chair, this will help expand your horizons and opportunities for monetary abundance. You may also want to incorporate citrine crystals into your office decor as these are feng shui symbols for money and wealth.
There are also several “feng shui cures” that can help you attract and save more money! Hanging Chinese coins on decorative tassels is one of the most popular ways. The tassel is most often red because red is a feng shui color associated with money and abundance. You can hang these on the wall, attach them to your curtains, or simply lay them on a shelf. The Laughing Buddha statue is another famous feng shui symbol that brings auspicious energy into your home or office, and with this, brings wealth if that’s what you seek. The best placement for a Laughing Buddha statue is near the front door, inside or out. Either position will help bring auspicious financial energy in. A feng shui money tree can also attract more wealth and encourage you to save more money. Be sure to take good care of your money tree so it will take good care of you! You can also look for a feng shui wealth vase online or a feng shui wealth ship to attract more monetary abundance into your life!
Final Thoughts
Once you start practicing feng shui to aid in one particular aspect of your life, you’ll be pleasantly surprised at the “bonus benefits” you’ll receive in all other aspects of your life. For example, studies have shown that getting more organized and decluttering improves health, both physical and mental. It even helps people who need to lose weight, lose weight naturally, sometimes without even “going on a diet.” Dr. Brian Wansink, a food psychologist at Cornell University, who has been studying eating habits, overeating, and mindless eating for more than two decades, gives as his FIRST solution to losing weight organizing and decluttering your kitchen! Organizing your office and home can also help bring more money!
The real power of feng shui is subliminal. It infuses you with positive energy and subdues the negative energy. It creates harmony and balance in your life. In this way, feng shui is a holistic method that improves all facets of your life, no matter what specific task brings you into the practice of feng shui. Therefore, if you feng shui your New Year’s resolutions, there’s a good probability that you’ll experience many other benefits as well. We wish you a HAPPY NEW YEAR and good success in keeping your New Year’s resolutions!
