Feng Shui: The Chicken or the Egg?

As I was sitting at a local haunt for a working lunch – feeling pretty worn out all things considered – I took a moment to wonder why I felt not only tired but off-kilter.

And see if there was anything I could do – besides rest – to help myself feel better.

As part of the self-assessment I considered the “bomb cyclone” that reconfigured the landscape around me.

It also enabled me to unplug since not only did we have no power but no internet and flaky cell coverage.

Since I can work offline unplugged did not equal not working.

Morning routine gone with the wind

Literally

I set out on my morning walk only to discover I had to crawl beneath a rather massive tree laying across the road and sidewalk to achieve it.

Where I got to witness Mother Nature’s redecorating first-hand.

A fellow walker cleverly noted it was all Christmasy with plenty of garland.

Pine branches and boughs lying all over the place.

Tis the season.

I’m still going to purchase a decorative wreath from a local farm.

Since I slept through the entirety of the storm I couldn’t lay blame there.

I considered that from a professional perspective I’d been busy recently.

Since I love what I do I couldn’t put the blame here either.

I turned my attention to a recent home project that involved mental and physical exertion.

Feng Shui!

What’s ironic is that I was employing feng shui cures to address various life challenges.

As well as stabilizing the energy of certain areas in the home.

I’ve been doing “feng shui” since I found Terah Kathryn Collins’ book The Western Guide to Feng Shui Room by Room in 1996.

Sensitive as I am to my surroundings I’ve been utilizing the concepts instinctively for over a decade.

While there is planning and execution involved I understood the toughest part is what comes after.

Every Action = Equal and Opposite Reaction

Newton’s Third Law of Motion

Some 18 months ago we did a major purge/donate.  Shortly after life seemed to punch me in the gut.

I immediately recognized the cause and effect and vowed to do it better next time.

The reasons behind the feng shui tweaks – which include decluttering and donating – weren’t only about fixing energetic deficits.  

Life changes often necessitate action.

I decided that in the future any feng shui changes would be done methodically as always but slowly.

The idea being to sit with the change or changes for a period of time and see how things were playing out before moving on to the next.

This last round went better as I’d stuck to the plan.

Which Comes First?

The chicken or the energy egg?

I pondered the impact of feng shui activity on energy and in a moment of clarity realized that regardless of whether I did it in a big fell swoop or poking along like a tortoise when we do feng shui we are signaling to the universe we’re ready for change.

I think it’s unconcious.

I honestly believe some part of us just gets sick of looking at the same something day after day and decides to move it across the room.

Or throw it away or pass it on.

I think the work was done up front meaning we knew on some level we were ready for change.

Ready to let go.

The after chaos is reflective of the whole but the entirety of the arc of change hits us energetically.

No wonder I’m tired!

Go with the Flow Peeps!

And be well!

Manifesting: Clearing the Path

As the Sharing Perspective to Share Smiles project evolves a natural rhythm to the posting will too.  In the meantime, I’m sharing perspective as I feel inspired.

The intention is to make a positive difference and there is always someone – if not a lot of someones – who can use positive.

As I look back over the months that led to this moment I’ve come to see the most important action I took when working on manifesting goals was to clear what stood between me and the goal to the best of my ability.

Release!

It’s natural to focus on the people, places, and actions you need in order to obtain goals but what about the inverse?

Yes, sometimes people can be an obstacle.

Chicken or Egg

It’s hard to determine which came first, releasing other people’s ideas of what my career focus should be or purging physical items that acted as messengers cluttering my mind.

In Terah Kathryn Collins’ book The Western Guide to Feng Shui Room by Room she explains the reason items in our visual space chatter at us and stresses the importance of making sure what they’re saying to us is positive.

The two were so intertwined it was hard for me to see which was doing the most good.  What I do know is that it turned into a process that lasted over a year and culminated – from a career perspective – with the decision to focus on the positive and share that positive with the world.

Slow and Steady

I did not put a timeline on the process though I did work to clear physical clutter as soon as I decided what needed to go for the simple reason that each time I passed the reconfigured space I got validation I’d made the right career decision.

Now What?

After the furniture and other items found new homes I gave consideration to the importance of what was next, taking time to “just be.”

Already burned out the last thing I needed was to push myself to take action without enough data.

I spent the early part of 2023 considering what information I needed before making a decision as to what would come next, along with where I might gain that important data.

State of the Union

When a virtual writers workshop popped up on my radar not long after I considered it the answer to a prayer!

The focus of the conference was exactly what I’d been wondering about – What was the state of the traditional writers market from the publishing side of the equation? Had things become friendlier for writers in the era of ebooks?

I knew before attending this was the final piece I needed to go forward with a decision that had been in my head for some time.

It’d been in my heart too but I’d been so inundated by the noise of other people’s thoughts and opinions on the matter, I couldn’t hear it.

The conference speakers were wonderful and I gained a wealth of information.  The kicker?  It only took one slide, shown early on the second day of the 2-day conference, to validate my belief that moving to the Share Perspective to Share Smiles project was the right direction for me.

I invite readers to read the updated Welcome Message.

A bonus was that attending this conference showed I’d achieved goals I set for myself when I started down this path in 2003.

Leaving Corporate to pursue my childhood dream.

The Cost Benefits Analysis.

I’ll admit, considering the cost of the conference in light of validating what I already knew with one slide gave me a twinge of heartburn.

One slide?  Not even the full breakout session.  One slide!

A close friend offered a wonderful spin on it.  He pointed out the cost of the conference was nothing compared to the time and energy – and cost of doing business – I would have lost had I continued on for months or years only to come to the same conclusion.

In other words I got a solid return on my investment.

The weeks after were a flurry of activity.

I’d removed the last bit of doubt and was free to move toward my new goal.

Most of that activity was mental and spiritual as I realigned my identity with my writing.

As I’ve stated, I needed to return to my writing roots.

In terms of actual actions, I spent most of the time releasing anything keeping me from moving forward.

Fear, doubt, regret, or any other fear-based emotions or thoughts that would only act as debris on the path.

I took small steps to align myself with sources of support.

Including Kenneth Wong’s Feeling Good which, like Paulo Cuehlo’s The Alchemist stresses the importance of listening to your inner guide, something I’d lost touch with thanks to all “the noise.”

These steps allowed for more releasing, even as I took other actions that drew more positive energy into the space created by releasing “the noise.”

I’ve referred to this as letting go of that which no longer serves.

It’s an energy intensive process and one needs to be vigilant about staying focused.  At this stage of the journey?  I’ve come to see that taking time to clear obstacles on the path to the goal is equally if not more valuable than getting tools to theoretically speed the journey.

Tools can be helpful but if you’re weighed down by the other, the tools just add more weight which may and likely will hinder your efforts.

My advice for those working to manifest a goal is to see where you can remove hurdles in the way.

Including and especially mental and spiritual hurdles that may be weighing you down.

TO FIND YOUR FREQUENCY TUNE THE DIAL

For a day following one that ended on such a high note, today is filled with sobering thoughts.

Good stuff, but sobering.

I’ve mentioned I utilize a white board to track various tasks.

I mentioned in a post yesterday the task list is rather lengthy now.

This morning I added a new task to the very top

Tune the Dial

What does this mean?  Unlike the t-shirt in my store it is not about avoiding negativity.

Though that is wise.  

Rather, it’s about the opposite.  Focus on the positive.

Specifically a person or a situation that will put a smile in your heart when you think on it.

The idea to take such deliberate action came as part of a post-mortem analysis of the previous winter.  It was, due to a variety of circumstances, a low point in my life.  

Fortunately, months of introspection revealed it is unlikely the stars will line up in such a way again.

Lessons

That isn’t to say I can be heedless of the fact some of my own vulnerabilities make it so if I’m not careful I could wind up in a smiliar place.

It was one of those where stress led to a behavior to address the stress but ended up bringing different stress which led to…

It was for this reason I spent months dissecting everything that took place including my role in any of it.

How did my actions contribute to my own suffering?

Once I finished that I identified actions I could take to avoid getting sucked into such a place again. I further considered how I might raise my energy vibration back to what it was prior to the chaos.  One idea I toyed with was starting every morning by thinking of someone or something that put a smile in my heart.

To achieve the higher vibration I needed to refocus my attention.

I had to Tune the Dial.

What gave me the idea was that I’d noted whenever I composed an email to a certain friend I felt absolutely fantastic.

Energized and ready to face the day!

I decided to test and see if I felt that way even if I didn’t write to this friend but simply thought of them.  

It worked!

I went through other evaluations in order to gauge how various events affected me.

Including interactions with other people.

I periodically tried the morning email thought to see if it consistently got me smiling.

It does.

Wanting to be thorough in my efforts to see how various events affect me I spent the past few days doing a number of tests, including reading headlines.

I discovered that my interactions with people affect me far more than what I read in the headlines, regardless of whether or not those headlines are negative and/or upsetting.

I alluded to this in Under Siege: Tools and Strategies for Dealing with the Pillars of EMF Sensitivity in the section on Esoteric EMFs.

I considered activities that bring joy.

  • Conversations with Family
  • Philosophical conversations with others who love to stretch their minds
  • Conversations with people pursuing their dreams or who have achieved them
  • Writing
  • Thinking of Fans**
  • Music
  • Walking

I considered there are some activities I haven’t done in a long time but knowing they brought happiness determined I would reengage.

Specifically a workout routine I did for decades, a combination of stretches and weight lifting.

I determined I got the best response by making a point each morning to think of someone or something that makes me smile.

I may write a message to them I don’t intend to send just to get that frequency tuned correctly.

I also determined it is in my best interest to make changes in how I handle situations that bring me down.

Especially interactions with people who drain me rather than juice me up.

I decided that each time I think of individual(s) who have caused grief or in some way drained me I will automatically send them thoughts of love and happiness.

I used a modified Silva technique to program myself to do as much.

I am getting good results.

Felt as if the weight of the world tumbled from my shoulders.

I am determined to make Tuning the Dial to bring in positive energy a habit.

Lifelong.

**Thinking of the people who stop by to visit my websites and who subscribe brings such a smile to my heart!  Thinking how people are enjoying the stories I write brings joy.