Re-claimed and updated from Divorce360,  January 2008

What exactly is Feng Shui and how can it help me in dealing with my Divorce?

So often during this transition we find ourselves simply responding to the events surrounding us, causing us to stay focused on what we don’t want, instead of the kind of life we do want.  To develop a life we love, it’s not enough to know what we are moving away from, we must know what we are moving toward.

Choose Your Destination

Research in Quantum Physics has shown that our thoughts and emotions influence events, because we are in constant communication with others at the energetic level.  We also know that getting clear about our intentions is a powerful tool in co-creating the life and relationships we choose.  Notice, I used the word choose here and this is where Feng Shui comes in. 

The ancient practice of Feng Shui combines the sciences of ergonomics, psychology, spiritulity and Quantum Physics—making it equally suited for modern life. It asks that we first determine what we choose for ourselves in each of the nine Life Domains:

• Career
• Spirituality
• Family
• Finances
• Reputation
• Intimate Relationships
• Children
• Mentors (Helpful People)
• Health

With those choices in mind, we can then create the physical environment that supports them.

Drawing the Map

While environmental adjustments are an important part of this practice, the initial step of consciously stating our intentions is extraordinarily effective and accomplishes several powerful goals:

• It defines the destination and provides a focal point.
• It shifts the emotional energy from negative to pro-active.
• Positive thoughts literally shift brain chemistry and make us feel better.         

            This new vision of what we want life to be acts like a road map to help us navigate the transitions to come. It shines a beacon of light on our destination and helps us reach it with grace and commitment.

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Reclaimed and updated from Divorce360  February 2008

I’m newly divorced and trying to choose a house based on the Feng Shui model, but am confused about the Feng Shui map.  I want to create a sense of balance in my new life and I hear that the choice of a floor plan can make a difference.

Put Your Floor Plan to Good Use

You’re correct. Feng Shui is based on the understanding that our home environment influences the way life unfolds. The layout of a house matters partially because it relates to the efficiency and flow of the space. It’s also important for all of the nine Feng Shui life domains to be represented in the floor plan, though corrections can be made.

All of that said, if you find a place that feels good and that you love, you can change the balance and flow of the physical space through the use of Feng Shui adjustments. Those include furniture arrangement, ergonomics, symbolism, color, and light – to list a few.

Staying Centered

In addition, life feels more centered and is less likely to be derailed when there is balance among these aspects. A square or rectangular floor plan is ideal because all nine life areas are represented. In western schools of Feng Shui, the map (Bagua) is oriented to the architectural front door, not compass direction.   If the shape of the house is a square or rectangle the map would look like the map below. Just remember, the areas are energetic, not defined by interior wall placement.

When speaking of floor plan, you’re concerned with the actual footprint of the house and what falls under the roofline of the property.   (And yes—the garage counts, to answer a question I am frequently asked.) If one or more of these areas is missing, it can influence not only the way the house feels, but also the way life flows.  If you know this going in, you can make the adjustments before moving in and pre-empt issues.

TIP: Position the bottom of the Map with the front-most wall of the house on a line that is parallel to that of the front door. If the front door is set back from leading wall of the house, the bottom of the map lines-up with the front edge, not the door.

Reclaiming Missing Areas

Missing areas can be reclaimed using both literal and symbolic adjustments. Just as a plant sends out an energetic template into which a leaf grows, the layout of a house seems to act as a template into which life unfolds. It’s important to know that the symbolic corrections made are as effective as architectural ones. It’s all about energy.

How Do YOU FEEL Standing in the House?

Some of the most interesting houses, have floor plans that don’t conform to the map, so that shouldn’t be your overarching concern. The external environment is equally important. What do you see when you look out the windows and front door? What are your other senses telling you? Is it lined up with a T-intersection? Such houses are heavily impacted by the energy moving down the street directly at the house.

Do your due-diligence on the house (inspections, etc.), but otherwise: Does the house FEEL good and does it have the potential for adjustments?

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Divorce is the ultimate end-game in crisis management. Generally, if we find ourselves there, it’s because one or both of us stopped being fully aware and have been operating on autopilot for so long we missed cues, and therefore the opportunity to make a mid-course correction.  Divorce is what happens when we have strayed so far off- course that we can no longer “get there from here.” Or possibly, the destination has changed entirely, because we’re not the same people we were when we started the journey.   It’s the wake-up call that came too late.  

Auto-Pilot

Often, when we marry, we simply collapse ourselves into the relationship and our new roles. Maybe we unconsciously begin to live by the rule-set we learned at the knees of our parents.

Looking back, we can see that we became who we thought we needed to be and—at the time—it seemed natural.  I used to believe women were more apt to lose themselves in the roles of wives and mothers-perhaps because that’s what I did after having been a professional in my work life. But it is clearly not that unilateral.  Men also operate on autopilot and fall into default patterns created by work demands and the roles their fathers played. 

The problem with operating on auto-pilot, is we can fly into stormy terrain before we realize it.

Re-writing Contracts

As time passes, one or both partners look up and realize the marriage no longer works and that they have become different people.  Life created through default as opposed to conscious choice serves no one.  Some couples rise to the challenge, re-write their original “contracts,” and move forward re-inventing the partnership as they go. Others opt out and vow to live life differently. 

Following divorce, we are exhausted and generally just trying to put life back together. It’s normal to fall back into the old routines, where they still exist.  They feel safe. But over the years, the repetitive nature of our thoughts and actions has created large neural networks.  When things happen that disrupt those automated behaviors, neural networks become disorganized and we feel anxious and often try to re-trench into old patterns, running the risk of re-creating the same patterns and relationships we just left.   

The Gift

The gift in this stage has to do with the fact that it’s easier to re-wire the brain when we are already in situations that require different responses.  In neuroscience there is the rule: neurons that fire together, wire together.  Those that no longer fire together fall away— pruning themselves like dead branches of a tree—and new associations are formed,  The result is new networks and a new brain chemistry to match.  This is news you can use when dealing with re-formatting life after any transition that disrupts engrained patterns.  

When exposed to the choice of returning to the old or creating new and deliberate pathways, it helps if we have thought about what we want these new paths to be.  Yes—a  “better life,” is always the choice, but that’s too vague.  Having a structure around which we can build, makes the process easier.  So where do we start?

In my business, I help people manage their energy and personal resources (mind, body, spirit and environment) to live deliberately and create lives characterized by choice    After a lot of research, the best I have found has been around for thousands of years.  It’s more practical and target specific than any of the others and addresses nine different life domains that everyone can relate to:  Career, Spirituality, Family, Money, Reputation, Intimate Relationships, Children (Creativity), Helpful People, and Health.   The name of the practice that defines these areas is Feng Shui and its methodology  uses thought, emotion, intention and environment  in concert to bring us closer to our goals and dreams.  

Setting Intentions: In a Nutshell

1. Start with writing down your  heart’s desires in each of the Nine Life Domains.  The rules are:

• • Write in the affirmative  (eg. A fulfilling job…)
• • Avoid referencing what you don’t want.  (eg. Avoid saying:  a job where I don’t hate my boss…)
• • Write as though it already exists (eg.  I have a fulfilling job, an  excellent boss…)  

2.  Arrange your space according to Feng Shui Concepts and remove items that evoke negative associations.

3.  Whenever you find yourself thinking/feeling old patterns, remind yourself of your new intentions to help continue the neural re-wiring.  Partnering this thought with a genuinely positive emotion expedites the re-wiring process.

Although the population addressed is different, all of these concepts are addressed in my book Moving Your Aging Parents:  Fulfilling their needs and yours before, during and after the move.  Why?  Because they are basic to every life transition and the act of  living a deliberate life, whatever your age.

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Reprinted from The Austin Homesteader, 2002

This piece is a bit of a departure form the “tongue in cheek” fare you’ve received from me in the past, but it is no less authentic. I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about this season – both in terms of it being Chanukah and Christmas, as well as it simply being that time of the year when the focus turns inward.

What’s Important to You?

As we enter this season, our thoughts turn to loved ones, peace, celebrations, feasting, giving thanks, shopping – decorating – shopping – decorating – more shopping…. You get the idea. With ever increasing commercialization surrounding virtually every holiday, it’s easy to lose the real meaning of the season. And whatever it is – it’s a personal one. It’s actually helpful to sit down, get quiet, and make a list.

For some folks, it is primarily religious; for others a way of connecting with friends and family and for showing people we care. Somehow it is easier to give a plate of cookies to someone at this time of year, than it is to say a heartfelt “thank you.” Christmas and Chanukah give us permission to express joy, gratitude and celebration when our more reserved selves might have a harder time at any other point in the year.

Too often this time of year brings on feelings that we need to compete with our previous spending levels. Maybe we lack the funds. Alternatively, we might like to do something more personal, handmade or symbolic, but others expect us to buy something. If we haven’t considered it ahead of time, it easy to allow outside influences to constrain us into rituals we may have inherited, but that no longer fit us. We feel compelled to honor them even though we would rather redesign them. In that light I’d like to make a proposal that we give ourselves permission to create the holiday that is right for US, our families and our heartfelt desires for this season.

Permission to Simplify

So often I hear, “Oh how I would like to simplify this year!” Sometimes “simplify” relates not so much to “how much” but quality. It might mean something like becoming more “mindful” of what we are doing. Have you ever found yourself trapped in the mall at the last minute, bleary eyed and frazzled simply trying to find SOMETHING – on Christmas Eve?

Well – here’s a thought. Before you get to that point, this would be a good time to think about how you really want to experience this season. There are no “rights” or “wrongs.” It’s absolutely as personal as how you would like to experience any other moment of your life. But instead of doing life by “default” i.e. living it in response to everyone else’s mandates, for just a moment F-e-e-l what it would be like if you could construct it from your heart.

Shift Paradigms

We have, for the most part, become excellent responders and crisis managers. When asked, “What do you want?” how often have you responded – “I know what I don’t want.” In my contact with groups and individual clients, I am struck by how often we approach what “we want,” through the back door. We want peace, but we approach it through anti-war rhetoric or the war against something. Professing to want more time with our families, we orchestrate complicated schedules. Then we even defend against what is taking up our time. When “all roads lead to Rome,” but you want to go to Paris, it makes sense to build another road. Create a new map – a new way of getting to where you want to go. Try a new paradigm.

For more years than I can remember, we have been hearing about ”positive thinking.” It’s a good concept – as far as it goes. There is no question that thinking differently changes our view of possibilities. In fact, it literally changes the opportunities available to us – partly because we begin to recognize more possibilities. But it gets better.

Quantum Physics?

Quantum physics sheds some light on this business of thought creating reality. This branch of science reveals that everything is energy – and everything is connected. Furthermore, it’s where physics, neuroscience and spirituality meet. You may have heard the expression “You create your own reality either through default, or through conscious intention.” Any of you who know me, know this is my mantra. I see the most amazing life changes when people finally identify what they truly want. Once they shift their thinking and emotions, new circumstances and opportunities evolve. No, it’s not always done in a heartbeat, but it could be if we could let go of our old rule set long enough to explore a “new road.”

While this might sound a little esoteric, or a little “new age,’ it’s been around since biblical times, before there was he science to explain it. “Ask and ye shall receive.” Here’s the trick underlying it all. It has to do with the emotion you are feeling at the time you set your vision and how you maintain that. It also rests on underlying belief systems and you sense of worthiness.

Emotions hold the key

The Native Americans had an expression: “Your dreams are carried to heaven on the wings of an Eagle.” In setting your intention, it works this way: your goals (dreams) become real (are carried to heaven) by the power of your emotions (on the wings of an Eagle).

In other words, whatever you are feeling at the time resonates with events of similar frequency. You can think positive thoughts all day, but if you do it from a foundation of fear, anger, worry or depression – guess what events resonate,? Other events resonating with fear, anger, worry and depression show up in your field. The good news is, you can shift your emotions by managing your thought process. which in turn changes the synaptic response and the neurotransmitters released!

Breathe…

So, this year, when you find yourself in a snit having stood in the gift wrap line for 30 minutes, or after the cat jumped off your refrigerator landing with each of his four paws in a separate freshly baked pie (actual event from my childhood) – take a breath.

Before you skin the cat, or call off Christmas/Chanukah – go to your fantasy vision. Get in a good mood and set your sights on what you want. You will find – more and more – that in spending a little mental energy on how you would like things TO BE, it will become so. Look for signs of “miracles” in every gesture, every moment, and every kindness. If you want joy – give joy! If you want peace – give peace in your heart of hearts.

Be the Change

Ghandi said it best: BE THE CHANGE YOU WANT TO SEE IN THE WORLD.

Merry Christmas and Happy Chanukah. May this season bring you the hope of a child, joy in the present, peace in the contentment of life, and a belief in miracles.

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