Feng Shui For Beginners

For a novice, understanding and implementing feng shui can seem quite daunting. But it’s easier than you think to add the ancient Chinese practice to your home.

Feng shui, in a nutshell, is an ancient art and science developed over 3,000 years ago in China. It is a complex body of knowledge that reveals how to balance the energies of any given space to assure health and good fortune for people inhabiting it.

Feng means wind and shui means water. In Chinese culture wind, and water are associated with good health, thus good feng shui came to mean good fortune, while bad feng shui means bad luck, or misfortune.




Feng shui is based on the Taoist vision and understanding of nature, particularly on the idea that the land is alive and filled with Chi, or energy.

Mary Dillin-Shurtleff is a Salt Lake City-based feng shui consultant, radio personality, author and clinical hypnotherapist.

She said: “Feng shui is the art of placement. Feng shui is simply energy and how well your physical body, mind and spirit interacts and responds to your living or work area. Are you happy, sad, healthy, prosperous, stuck in a rut or have an all round great outlook on life? In scientific terms it can be called bioenergetics–the study of energy exchanges between living organisms and their environments.

“The first steps to understanding feng shui is learning the natural element interaction, ba-gua layout and the behavior anchored in the home through pictures, color, and furnishings.”

Dillin-Shurtleff said feng shui can add a great deal to a home if you choose to embrace it.

“The questions I ask my clients are: Do you feel stuck in job or relationship? How is your health in the home? How are your family and love relationships in your home? How is your money in the home? Does the home fit your future goals or does it keep you stuck in your present?

“If you are able to say ‘great’ to all those questions, your feng shui is probably already okay,” she said. “Feng shui can also be inherent and you already know what to do to make it pleasing. However, if you can’t answer those questions enthusiastically great, it is time to explore other possibilities.

“The home is created by its occupants at the time and place of move in. As the family evolves so must the home. As goals change, so must the home. If one wishes to make changes in their life, they must also make them within the physical anchor of the home. The home is the subconscious message created from the subconscious mind and conveys that message each day, hour and minute to the conscious mind. If one wishes the message to change, so must the home.

“We are sensual people. What we hear, see, taste, touch, and smell triggers our memories. The home has to be esthetically pleasing to all the senses. If one piece is out of order, it affects our peace of mind. Feng shui helps you to identify the trigger and fix it.”