Move Your Stuff, Change Your Life

by Karen Rauch Carter

  2. Tell a friend that you would like to take him on a guided visualization to help you with a decision.

  3. Here’s the fun part. You can take him anywhere. Pick something that you think would appeal to him or something that you think he could visualize well. Some of my favorites are the beach (three things wash up on shore), the mall (three new stores), the Let’s Make a Deal show (choose the box, the door, or the curtain), a new house (enter three rooms), and a restaurant (taste three dishes).

  4. Tell him to close his eyes, and then describe where you are taking him. For example, you say: “There’s a new mall in town. You decide to go. You enter and start to explore the interior. You are intrigued by what you see and become curious about some of the new stores. You come upon the first store and go in. Tell me about it.” Then you let him tell you what he found inside—for example: “It’s a Western wear store. There’s some pretty neat stuff, but I don’t wear this kind of stuff. I’m kind of bored and uninterested.” Then you guide him up to the next store and let him describe what it is all about. He replies: “It’s a great little gift shop, complete with fragrant candles, fun stationery, and cool T-shirts.” You might ask him if he is interested in anything, to get him to describe how he feels about the store. Then he says, “Yea, this stuff is really cool. I would definitely come back to this store.” Then it’s off to the third store. He says, “Ugh. It’s a hardware store. Icky fluorescent lights and obnoxious beeping forklifts. I’m aggravated. I wouldn’t want to shop here.” As he is describing the stores, you listen to his descriptions as if you asked him what he thought about refinancing. The western wear store (1) was the choice to get a loan from a new bank. The gift shop (2) was the choice to get a loan with your existing bank. And the hardware store (3) was the choice not to refinance at this time.

  5. Finally, you lead him out of the place and ask something like, “Which store do you need to go back to, or would you like to go back to?” (Don’t assume, by his descriptions, which one you think he would choose—it may surprise you.) He says, “I would go back to the Western wear store. Even though I don’t use this stuff, I would go back to buy something for my dad for his birthday. It’s my most immediate need right now.”

  6. From his reply, you should get a loan with a new bank—number one on your list. Even though he liked the stuff in the gift store (number two), he chose to go back to choice number one. He has made your decision about refinancing without even knowing it.

  | Everyone Is the Teacher and the Student |

  Relationships are the best classroom for gathering so many skills. Life’s biggest lessons usually involve a relationship of some sort. Think back on what you learned so far about being a child, a peer, a best friend, an employee, a student while in a relationship with a parent or guardian, a peer, a friend, a boss, a teacher, and you’ll see where I’m going here. It is no coincidence that Skills and Knowledge and Relationships and Love are directly opposite each other on the bagua (see Figure 39). Pick a cure and go for it. You won’t regret it!

  FIGURE 39

  It’s All in the Hands

  * * *

  Hands are the thing with this gua, so give those old callused, dry, or overworked paws a break and enhance this area for them.

  Lucky Number 7

  * * *

  The vibration of the number 7 is the closest fit to the gua of Skills and Knowledge (wisdom). This number carries with it the energies of contemplation, inner strength, and spiritual enlightenment. If you find there are a lot of sevens in your life, you have hit the jackpot in the casino of wisdom. Watch out, though; if it’s money you are after, your luck may have just run out—spiritual enlightenment and contemplation usually don’t pay well in the material-wealth department.

  Immediate Action Items for Skills and Knowledge

  * * *

  1. Get drugs, alcohol, and anything you smoke away from here.

  2. Clear the clutter.

  3. Add enhancements as necessary.

  | Skills and Knowledge in Summary |

  Power Tools: blue, books, light, food, things that remind you of wisdom, symbols of mentors or wise people, metal, water, black, wood, green, meditation items, altars of thanksgiving, symbols of the skills and knowledge you want to have.

  Hazardous Materials: clutter, things that stop the thought process, unwise symbols.

  Opposite Gua: Relationships and Love

  Body Part: hand

  Associated Number: 7

  chapter 9

  * * *

  How Not to Play Family Feud—Family

  Oh, that touchy subject—family. Everybody’s got their own thoughts and feelings when they hear that word. To some, it brings back painful memories of sibling rivalry and teenage angst, and to others it’s a feeling of belonging that cannot be re-created with anyone else. And there is every other possible thought and feeling in between. The Family area of the home is your foundation—your place of refuge and safety. If you don’t have this, your world is endlessly affected. You may make decisions that come from fear instead of love—which will veer you from the happiness you should have in life. Family can be either blood relatives or not, so don’t give up on this chapter if you have no blood relations.

  If you intentionally move the appropriate feng shui stuff in the Family section of the home, you may

  feel more secure in all areas of your life

  improve your sex life

  build a stronger foundation that allows you to meet life’s challenges with more confidence and less stress

  improve family relationships and bring harmony into family matters

  start being treated like one of the family by non–blood relatives

  enhance your business and increase your income

  get a promotion

  create a situation where you always have the money to cover the bills

  find balance with your emotional stability

  improve your physical and mental health

  make better choices in life

  If you enter from the main door and head left toward the center of the wall on that side, you will find the Family area of the home (see Figure 40). The energy in this zone of the house influences how safe and secure you feel in life and how you relate to family members (blood relatives or not). The energy here is your foundation in life. Look around to see if you have been undermined in this area by the bad feng shui in your home.

  Family location in bagua.

  FIGURE 40

  Here are the power tools and hazardous materials you need to know about.

  Power Tools for Family

  * * *

  Wood Wood is the element for this area of the bagua. Wooden frames with family members in them are great in this area. If you have none, no big deal. There is plenty of other wooden stuff in the world. Sports fans, use your Louisville Slugger or hockey stick.

  No wood around? Scrounge through kitchen drawers for toothpicks or chopsticks—a little wood is better than no wood.

  Recycle the outdoors—gather up a bowl full of pine cones or acorns from under a tree and bring them in as symbolic seeds for family (watch out with the nuts if you already have a family full of them). Other wooden products are paper, wicker, rattan, and bamboo.

  Green Stuff Wood and green mean the same in feng shui, so if those family photos are in green wooden frames, so much the better. I asked a client of mine who said she wanted children to place a symbol of wood in this area of her home. I suggested a treelike plant. When I returned a few weeks later I saw that she had chosen a big branch of dead corkscrew willow that florists use in arrangements. What a choice for starting a new family! Moral of the story—no dead stuff.

  No green, and you’re desperate? Dig out that cheesy Saint Patrick’s Day pub T-shirt you won last year in that drinking contest and put it to work here. If all else fails, try a wooden bowl full of avocados or artichokes. In the Family section, make your produce work for you.

  Plants Nurture them here and they will r
eturn the favor.

  Rectangular or Columnar Objects A vertically oriented rectangle symbolizes wood. Objects that have this shape can help bring in the ch’i you are looking for in this gua. About those green wooden frames we’ve been using—make them rectangular frames.

  Water We’re back to the Creative Cycle again—water feeds wood. I enlarged three vacation pictures of Venice canals, complete with gondolas and striped poles, and placed them in the Family area of my master bedroom (which is in the Children gua of my home). They hang just above my black-framed water bed. Now, that’s a lot of water—literal and symbolic. But the room is balanced with soft earth-toned walls and floral fabrics. My romantic Venice retreat did wonders for my family life—I have my new little son to prove it!

  (My enlarged pictures are mounted on lightweight board and have no glass in front. I say this because hanging items over the head of a bed is sometimes unsettling—especially for those in earthquake-prone areas. Don’t use this cure if you feel uneasy about anything overhead while you sleep.)

  Black Black is the water color. Use it here and see how things start to flow with family, children, and basic money needs.

  Undulating Forms Since water is the element that takes any shape, any shape other than round or triangular is considered OK here.

  Hazardous Materials for Family

  * * *

  Metal Sometimes my friends ask for my advice but don’t really want to hear it. When she was visiting me, my friend Melody asked what feng shui tips I had for her home in Florida. (She was the one throwing all her pink stuff out in the Relationship chapter.) She said she found a cool metal bed and was going to buy it as soon as she got back home. I immediately explained to her that she would be placing this bed in her Family section of the home (Fame area of the room) and that it might get her out of balance with Family matters (metal chops wood). The news seemed to deflate her. Seeing that she really wanted to buy that bed, I then told her what I would do for someone who already had this problem. Red, the symbol for fire, would help to melt some of the metal; she could use the Destructive Cycle to her benefit in this fashion. (Red would also boost the Fame area of the room.) Since she didn’t think red sheets or pillows or a red comforter were her thing (talk about making a red-hot love life!) I told her to tie red ribbons around the legs of the bed, and perhaps place some red cloth or felt under the mattress with the intention of reducing the impact of the metal. I also told her to get some water element item in the area. (Even though this is the Fame area of the room and water would seem to be destructive, the larger of the baguas—the Family gua of the home—needs to be in balance to support the room.) The water will create wood for her.

  Just as the universe holds our little tiny planet up in space, the planet holds the oceans and landmasses together. And just as those landmasses (let’s say the environment or property) support our homes, the home supports the rooms within. And as the rooms hold the furnishings in order, the furnishings support the people who live with and use the furnishings. Good feng shui is always making sure the bigger picture is in balance so the smaller pictures can do their job.

  I told her about all the power tools and hazardous materials for this space and let her make her mind up about what to do. She said she would reconsider the bed purchase, thanked me for the advice, and went back to Florida.

  About three months later I get a call from her. “My family is driving me crazy! I’m about ready to disown all of them,” she griped. I’ve know Melody for sixteen years and have never heard her talk about her family with such disgust. She was really peeved. After listening for a while I suddenly remembered our last visit and cut her off in midsentence, asking, “Did you buy that metal bed?” After a few silent seconds she replied, “Yea, but I put a two-by-four under it!”

  “Did I say anything about a two-by-four? I don’t think so!” I shrieked. “But if you really want a two-by-four in your house, I guess I can work with that. Obviously, the wood is still being overpowered by the metal. Either add more two-by-fours and pump up the feng shui with a bunch of intention, or get something red in there to take care of all that metal!”

  What’s a friend to do . . .

  She has since added red candles, a red heart, and a red piece of flannel fabric to calm the metal, and (you guessed it) things have calmed down with the family as well.

  White Stuff White is the metal color and is not the best thing to have in the wood area. But if you do, here is an example with some helpful tips.

  I happen to have a big white couch along the Family wall of my living room (the Health gua of the house). When I ordered the couch, I knew I would have to do something to balance it. But, of course, I didn’t do it right away. I was pregnant (thanks to all the water in the master bedroom—oh yea, and my husband!) and I was trying to get the house done before the baby arrived. People were giving us all kinds of stuff for the baby, which was adding up to quite a pile in the storage room (Family gua of the house). I had my Prosperity corner of the storage room energized with all the goodies and could see the events unfolding that would bring me my fortunes, so I was not overly concerned with money. And since I was five months pregnant, I thought my family life looked great despite the baby clutter gaining strength in the storage room.

  If you feel you have to have a gun in the house, for God’s sake, do not place it in the Family section of anything. This is what I call deadly metal—not a good thing for Family.

  Now, as I stated above, the Family part of the home is associated with money for the basics in life and is linked to the opposite gua—Children. Two months later I started to live the life of a person whose living room (in the center, or Health area, of the home) and storage room (Family) are out of balance.

  My son was born—two months premature. He had to spend almost a month in the hospital—which, by the way, racked up a ton of bills. We used the money we had stashed away for quarterly taxes to pay the hospital and doctors. That also meant two months of lost working time, which made us cash poor in a hurry. Once the little guy got out of the hospital, we started accruing all the usual new baby bills and felt even more strapped. The one thing I did do when we finally brought him home from the hospital was totally feng shui his room—colored paper baguas everywhere (no time to paint)—and it seemed to work. He never ever got sick.

  One day, I finally had time to get a hold of myself and take a look around to see what I could do. Then I remembered. I had never done anything with the white couch (my intention had been to buy a big throw in red tones to place on it). I quickly started cutting red triangles, black baguas, and green rectangles out of construction paper and taped them on the wall behind the couch. I kept adding them until I felt that there was enough of each (red to melt the metal, green for wood, and black for water to feed the wood).

  Then I tore into the storage room, in the Family gua (now stuffed with baby junk). I organized, cleaned, and purged unnecessary items, and hung a crystal in the windowless room to brighten it up. I then reinforced it with intention and blessings (described in Chapter 12) and faithfully expected that everything would be all right (“faithfully expecting” is the toughest part of feng shui when you are in the middle of a crisis).

  Construction paper makes a good cure because it’s cheap and fast, and you can easily hide it.

  And here is the result of doing all that.

  In less than one month, my husband’s grandmother offered to pay off the rest of the hospital bills. Two months later, out of the clear blue, my mother gave us several thousand dollars, which got Uncle Sam off our backs. And about a week after that, my husband’s mother told us that she would be managing and paying all of the family’s health insurance premiums. I don’t know about you, but I have never had someone offer to pay any of my bills in my life. All the results came through family members and had to do with health and children—the three areas affected by my feng shui intentions.

  When Cole was about fourteen months, I finally committed to creating a real baby
room for him and losing the temporary feng shui look (all those paper baguas taped around the room were getting pretty droopy). I took everything down to paint the walls. Would you believe, within forty-eight hours he had his first ear infection? Upon returning from the doctor, I immediately threw up a bagua daisy and hung a crystal from the center of the room’s ceiling. Cole was back to himself within two days, without antibiotics.

  Even though I am a feng shui consultant, sometimes I can also get caught up in the moment and feel as if there’s no connection between my stuff and my life. But after these kinds of events, I become more of a believer than ever. I also think I am a better feng shui consultant because of it.

  Round Things This is not the best place for the set of white china, the heirloom doilies, or the coveted baseball collection, because round is the symbolic shape for metal.

  “Charlie Brown” Trees I visited a home where there stood, in the heart of the Family section, the saddest little excuse for a plastic fig tree I have ever seen. This thing was limp, dusty, and leaning out of the pot at about sixty degrees. I said to the owner, “Well, here is your family tree. What do you think?”

  “Yikes! I get it!” she said as she tossed the little tree out of the house.

  (Change this hazardous material to a power tool for Family by replacing it with a beautiful, healthy, strong tree—a tree that represents what you are looking for in your family. I would also give it a name, and lovingly treat it like a family member.)