Where Energy Flows

Surround yourself with the things you love and your energy will stay high and positive and joyous. Can you imagine it? Can you allow it? Is it possible? Yes! Yes! Yes! Travel without baggage. Stay light.  … Clearing clutter in your environment is opening up to change and faith and allowing the universe to become active in your life. We can open the chakras of our homes to flow the energy positively.

The Ch’i of Body and Place:
Linking the Chakras with the Bagua Map.  A Manual for Feng Shui Practitioners

by B. J. Gorman

Once you have a feel for the personality of the class as a whole and its individual personalities you can begin to set your intention for the class for the day, week, project, month, season or year. Part of that intention could be to have yourself and your children seated to maximize the learning experience. Here are some ideas to consider when setting up the classroom.

First, consider your needs:

• place your desk in the “command position” where you have a view of the room which includes the doorways and windows.
• have something solid behind you such as a wall or bookcase to give a feeling of stability.
• have easy access to what you need to work efficiently at your desk.

What are the children’s seating needs?

• try sitting in the children’s desks to see, hear, feel and smell what they do. Is this consistent with your intention for what they are learning at this time?
• individual children may need to be closer or farther from the blackboard or to the right or left of where you stand to teach in order to hear/see well.
• does the child see constant movement through the window/door or are they under a buzzing flourescent light?
• does the desk size fit the child?
• does the child need to see you for cues as to how to behave or activity change?

Another intention may be to have a classroom with a relaxed easy feeling. What about the energy of the room?

• is there a clear path so that you can walk easily through the room?
• is there adequate ventilation or do you need to open the window for 2-3 minutes on a regular basis?
• active activity areas such as an art center may benefit from mobiles hung above to keep the energy moving, clear colors such as yellow to keep children on task
• quiet activity areas for reading/writing/listening may benefit from individual squares of carpet to sit on facing a corner for increased attention.
• children may benefit from energy breaks. Using voice, song, musical instruments, stretching, jumping on the spot or marching will increase the energy of the child and the room in general releasing pent up energy to allow more focus. To focus on quiet activities have the children lay their heads on the desk, cover their eyes with their hands, or give themselves a big hug to settle.
• Breathing can help wake up or settle the room. Ten slow deep breaths for older children or pretending to blow out candles for younger children can increase focus.

Teachers juggle many, many things at once every day. Let the setup of the classroom help you to create the best year ever!

Copyright 2007 Brenda Rosenberg All rights reserved.

When working with feng shui it is important to follow recommendations which resonate with you personally. Choose cures and enhancements which appeal to you culturally and aesthetically. It is my belief that introducing changes which you don’t love and don’t suit your home will have limited benefit to you. There may be other options which fit with the decor of your home and your personal taste.

Analyze suggestions to see whether they feel good to you. Do they give you a warm glowing feeling or do they bring your energy down, like when someone mentions that you look tired. It is important to be honest to yourself to ensure that you are not avoiding an issue, such as clutter clearing. There is no point kidding yourself that your clutter is energizing you.

As an example, many people worry about furniture sending out poison arrows, a form of negative chi. I like to consider whether the furniture bothers me when I look at it. Does it really look threatening? Is it places in such a way that it is easy to bump into it, or is it at an odd angle?

Surrounding yourself with things that you love will lift the energy of your home to resonate with your dreams and aspiration. People who visit won’t know what you’ve done to your home, just that it feels really good to be there.

As Denise Linn, founder of Interior Alignment says in her book Feng Shui for the Soul “If it feels good, it’s good feng shui“.

Copyright 2007, Helen Harvey, all rights reserved

The words feng shui mean wind and water. Wind and water are the two main forces of energy that surround us. Wind is the flow and movement of energy in the form of air, and water is the gathering and containment of that energy. Wind is a metaphor for invisible energy because we can feel the effects of the wind but we can’t see it directly. It is the spirit world. Water is a metaphor for the types of energy we perceive directly. It is the material world of substance and form. I like to think of feng shui as the dance between the visible and invisible forms of energy.

from Odyssey of the Heart: Paths to Wholeness through Feng Shui, by Deborah Redfern

As you sit comfortably listening to birds singing, the wind blowing through the trees, or wind chimes softly ringing as they sway with the breeze, you become aware of a sense of calmness coming to you.  This feeling of calmness increases as you close your eyes and breathe slow and deep.  Some may call this meditation, other may call this contemplation, we, practitioners of Interior Alignment™ call this the beginning of a Synchro Alignment session.  Synchro Alignment is a tool that is unique to Interior Alignment™ that is used to assist a client to connect with their Spirit or Soul.

As Interior Alignmen™t practitioners we are trained to assist our clients in the relaxation of their physical bodies and mental mind so that they can connect with their Soul Self.  The client’s Soul Self already knows the answers that the client seeks.  The Interior Alignment™ practitioner is a facilitator of this form of guided meditation to assist the client in connecting with their Soul Self.  Synchro Alignment is a very useful tool to assist clients to identify what they truly want such as what kind of energy or feeling they want in their home.  Synchro Alignment can also be helpful if the client is undecided or unable to choose between multiple options such as paint color.

My undergraduate degree is in psychology. I worked with a professor as an assistant on her study of acute and chronic pain back in 1986-7.  In this study I was trained in guided meditation to work with clients.  I have to admit, I was pretty good.  Little did I know that I would be drawing on this skill for my Interior Alignment™ practice and teaching this skill, tool, in my Interior Alignment™ certification courses. As an Interior Alignment™ Master Teacher, I find it very gratifying to teach new practitioners the art of Synchro Alignment.  New practitioners can be self conscious at first, but I find it is best to just jump in and practice as much as you can.  I found it helpful when I was a new practitioner to audio tape myself as I practiced to hear my voice and how my voice sounds to a client.  I even had my husband go through Synchro Alignments so that I practice as much as I possible.

There are some attendees who come to my workshops at least once a year so that they can go through another Synchro Alignment meditation and learn more aspects about their connection to their home. 

Synchro Alignment is unique to Interior Alignment™ as we are the only trained feng shui professionals who use this type of meditation to work with a client. If you ever have the opportunity to experience a Synchro Alignment, please take the opportunity and meet with your Soul for the answers you seek about your home. 

Copyright 2007, Neshi Lokotz. All rights reserved.   

As a bodyworker for many years I wondered what happened to the clients who left my office relaxed and flexible that brought them back the following week a wreck.  Why did some clients get better fast and some slow?   When I trained in Feng Shui I wondered what in their homes did not support their bodies.  I knew the two were connected but did not know how to explain it.
I just ran into an article called Proprioception: the Seventh Sense by Mark Beck in Massage Therapy Journal Winter 1992.  Here I found a description and explanation of how various bodywork modalities affect the whole person.  The five senses are taste, smell, touch, hearing and sight.  The sixth sense he called intuition and the seventh sense, proprioception.

Proprioception is the body’s feedback system that provides information about the body’s position and rate of movement.  It restricts extreme (dangerous) body movements and assists in precise movements.   This sensory system reacts to trauma, pain, physical habits and a whole range of life experiences.  These experiences shape a person and how they function.    Once a movement is habituated the body will do it the same way every time because the feeling is familiar.  Some patterns may develop that feel normal even if they are wrong or dysfunctional.  Through posture and non-verbal messages we convey who we are and how we feel.  These patterns or habits can also result in physical conditions that limit flexibility, cause pain and irritibility, depression and many other seemingly unrelated symptoms.

When a therapist manipulates the body’s tissues new information is sent to the sensory/proprioceptive system and the brain creating new patterns and possible choices.  By freeing up the body they also free up the mind.

In Feng Shui you are working with your home environment and how it affects your body/mind/life.  Your sensory system is affected by the sights, sounds, and smells in the home as well as the layout and placement of its contents.  For example, how you move through your home, where you sit most often and the positioning of your bed all send subconcious information to your sensory/proprioceptive system.  Over time your body reacts to what it is sensing and habits are formed in response to feeling uncomfortable, irritated, unsafe or restricted.  After a time you may no longer notice that what you see, sense and feel in these places are limiting your life experience.

By manipulating your surroundings to free you from the  sensory input that is not supporting your body/mind/life,  you can move easily, sit comfortably and sleep soundly.   You can alter habits and create possibilities.

Copyright 2007, Brenda Rosenberg,  All rights reserved.

Anyone who knows me understands that insects are just not my thing.  So, it’s kind of funny that yesterday I was inspired by a spider.  And, today it’s bees.

For seven months now, a colony of honey bees has been living on our balcony.  I am scared of most insects.  But, I have to say that I have become rather fond of the bees.  I see them as a symbol of sweetness, productivity and community.  And, I have found myself regularly going to the window to watch them. 

Well, today someone in our building decided it was time to get rid of them and asked some visiting exterminators to spray them - using our neighbor’s window while he was away at work.  As soon as we saw the toxic cloud wafting past our window, my husband and I reacted quickly.  I’m pretty sure that we scared the heck out of the exterminators - just a couple of young guys - yelling at them to stop!

We think we saved most of the hive, but we won’t really know till tomorrow.  If the bees survive, we will arrange for a proper bee keeper to relocate the hive.

One reason I am an Interior Alignment™ Teacher is to awaken people to the interconnectedness of all things.  All creatures are a vital part of the web of life and we human beings balance carefully on the shoulders of all other life on this planet.  It is essential that we live in harmony with the rest of the animals and plants on this beautiful rock we call Earth. 

Bees and other pollinators are recently and suddenly in decline due to disease, loss of habitat and pesticide use.  In some areas of the world the bee loss is being described as “catastrophic”, with some beekeepers reporting between 30-90% losses.  Consider for a moment what will happen if the pollinators of our planet disappear!    Nearly losing our little bee hive brought it home for me, in a personal way. 

Copyright 2007, Deb Swingholm.  All rights reserved.