Can feng shui improve your cash flow? |
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Feng shui cram course
Feng shui (pronounced "fuhng shway") evolved more than
4,000 years ago in China, where the earliest practitioners observed
that physical objects and their orientation seem to have an effect
on the flow of energy (called qi or chi and pronounced "chee")
around us.
Feng shui posits that all aspects of life, from career
and health to relationships and even childbearing, can flourish
or flounder based on how well or poorly qi is flowing through the
corresponding sectors of our immediate environment.
We humans also are the sum of our personal qi, hence
our individual energy makeup and orientation is of equal importance
in optimizing our environment. The goal is to have neither too much
nor too little qi, but a balance thereof.
"Qi is the life stuff that we are as people;
who you are is actually your qi," says feng shui consultant
David Daniel Kennedy, author of "Feng Shui for Dummies."
"In
the West, we've kind of gotten the idea that if I'm not in my body, I must be
my mind, that's who I am. But the Chinese viewpoint is, you really are your qi.
All of these different areas of your life are based on your qi." Since
the presence or absence of qi can be felt but not measured, Western science has
tended to pooh-pooh feng shui as little more than folkloric mumbo jumbo. But like
such other Eastern imports as acupuncture and martial arts, feng shui's popularity
continues to grow as Westerners see results from using it. Show
me the money
To no great surprise, our No. 1 question of feng shui
practitioners is: Can you show me the money? It was the first
question Davenport asked a decade ago when she was working in corporate America.
After picking up a feng shui book on a whim, she activated her abundance, money
and power corner using her 10
feng shui money tips.
"Within two weeks, I got a large bonus and a
$250 a month raise," she says. "In that moment when my
boss was slipping me the check, he said, 'Do not tell anybody! We're
not giving raises.' I knew that, because of what I did in my space,
I attracted it in."
Davenport soon left to study feng shui under Berkeley,
Calif., Grandmaster Thomas Lin-Yun. Today, she offers feng shui
services in the home for $100 per hour (a typical home takes two
to three hours), and to small businesses at $150 per hour. Her corporate
and nonprofit consults start at $500.
Kennedy says having intention, in essence putting
your qi out there to manifest in results, is particularly important
to shift your fortunes for the better.
"The
intention is related to attention, and one of the rules of energy is that energy
flows where attention goes. So what you put your attention on is what you get
in life, which is the whole point of having goals. What is tracked or looked at
is what tends to improve," he says. | 
