Today Huffington Post Home posted another article about Feng Shui that made my blood boil. Publishing articles like this on a topic that is already often misaligned and misrepresented only further portrays this ancient art of placement as hokey and superstitious! The article stated that mirrors in the bedroom are bad because “When you see a human image in the mirror, you’re inviting another person into your relationship, whether that’s your relationship with yourself or with your partner.” This was a “Feng Shui” quote given by someone who’s website says she is a professional stager/designer and calls herself a “marketing professional”. (And this quote makes me wonder “what does inviting another person into the relationship- not with your partner- but with yourself mean???”). Huffington Post Home, you can do better!
I get the confusion. I get the myths. I’ve been ardently teaching/lecturing/writing/consulting about this for fourteen years and hearing the feedback from classrooms to cocktail parties. Feng Shui has been around for thousands of years and there’s many different schools of Feng Shui (with many different conflicting styles of thought) so there can be a lot of room for confusion, misinterpretation and erroneous myths. Most myths are fear-based, because often people may be hesitant to think differently or question what they’re told and they find that clinging to superstition is easier than rolling up your sleeves and getting to the core issues in both their space and their self. Fear’s job is just to keep you from harm. It does not belong as a foolish, nonsensical Feng Shui tenant to dictate whether you hang a mirror or not. This breeds more fear and negativity for yourself and your environment. Feng Shui – in its ideal form – should begin and end with principals that uplift, inspire, motivate and cause you to deeply question your own inner emotional landscape and connect how it mirrors and manifests in your own environmental landscape (your home). Ideally, it enables you to create a home that intentionally and positively supports every aspect of who you are are and who you want to be. Creating a space out of fear begets more fear and negativity into your life.
It’s my mission to put this ancient art forward in ways that are modern, fresh, relatable, positive, ground breaking and deeply profound. Hopefully my upcoming book, The Holistic Home: Feng Shui Your Mind Body Spirit Space (Skyhorse January 2016) will help clarify some of this. In the meantime, if you are still in doubt, how about you watch my recent video from About.com on breaking Feng Shui Myths!
