Reprinted from The Austin Homesteader, 2003

I don’t know about you, but I’m not big on New Year’s Resolutions. I feel guilty before I even start. Besides – they have always tended to be the same – and too general to do much good. You know the ones: loose weight, make more money, exercise, have more private time…. These are all noble pursuits, but why not just say “Live a better life?”

Specificity

The problem with resolutions is one of specificity and the fact that they are usually grounded in something negative that we are trying to “make right.” Face it: you wouldn’t be making a resolution like “Loose 10 pounds” if you hadn’t eaten everything that wasn’t nailed down during the holidays. So that worthy thought is really rooted in the frustration that you gained weight in the first place. It’s the same with things like make more money, etc. Most resolutions are based in something that didn’t happen last year or something that did happen and we would like a magic pill to fix.

So my approach is a little different. And – yes – it’s grounded in Feng Shui, but for different reasons than you may have guessed. A lot of folks think of Feng Shui as a form of decorating or a somewhat esoteric practice that’s hard to apply to everyday living. While it’s true that a space that has been Feng Shui’d might feel like it’s been re-decorated, Feng Shui at its core is about transformation – using one’s environment as a blueprint. It involves getting clear about what you choose in all of the major aspects of life, and integrating those with your environment.

Creating the Vision

Prior to a consultation, I ask my clients to be as specific as possible about their goals, using the Nine Life-Aspects detailed below. Create the vision, stopping just short of the point where intellect kicks in as says, “No Way.”

That heart’s desire, once fleshed out, is brought to the conscious level and then into the physical world through symbolism and other mechanisms. How’s that? Well, Feng Shui uses symbolism as a way of reminding us about our aspirations. The next step is to think about what might symbolize each desire and place the item in the space according to Feng Shui guidelines. Every time you see the object it acts as a trigger to remember that specific goal. In other words, it keeps our goals, intentions, wishes, desires) always close to the heart, lifts the spirits, creates a visual image, and literally brings us closer to the event becoming real.

The Nine Life-Aspects

The Nine Life-Aspects are areas of life we all live, but may live them in different ways and with different balance. Each area impact the others, so achieving as much balance contributes to well-being. They are:

• Career (New Opportunities coming to our door)
• Knowledge and Wisdom
• Family (also New Projects)
• Prosperity
• Reputation (Fame)
• Relationships
• Children (also Creativity and Future)
• Helpful People (getting help from the world around us) and
• Health. Each aspect has a strong influence on the others.

Getting Clear About Intentions

In setting resolutions, which are nothing more than our goals and intentions for the New Year, using these categories helps integrate the disparate parts of daily life and create a synergy that supports us.. As I said earlier, the concept of “be Happy, or Live a Better Life” is far too vague to really help us on our way toward that goal. Anyone who has ever worked with kids, project management, or motivating groups knows that the simple admonition to “Do Better” isn’t worth the breath it takes to utter the words. First it implies that someone isn’t doing such a great job and that is the death knell to motivating anyone. This brings us to the issue of the language we use in writing our intentions: write them in present tense, and choose words that empower, staying away from should, have to, more, less, ought to, etc. Now, make your list and check it twice.

Sharing

If you really get into this, here’s another thought. Although you should write your aspirations in private, if you are part of a couple or a family – it can be an amazingly powerful process to sit down together and talk about what you would like to see develop in each of area.

Write your thoughts down on a piece of paper, place them in an envelope (red is great because it’s symbolically powerful and it emphasizes the importance you place on the process). You can put them all together, stand in a circle and say a prayer or a blessing over all of them. My family has done this around a campfire as a way to welcome in the new year and it’s powerful and fun.

Rituals

In China and in other cultures, one practice to send these hopes and prayers into the heavens or the universe is to place these prayers or intentions in a flame and burn them. The rising smoke

I symbolizes energy being released so that it can be returned as your wishes- fulfilled. The New Year really does symbolize new opportunity and this is a lovely way to commemorate it.

Further, once you have written down your aspirations, give some thought to what object might be meaningful to act as a reminder when you see it.

For example, if your wish is to increase your earnings in the coming year you might reflect on what making more money means to you. Does that translate into luxury, time to be with your family, safety, travel – what? One client who associated money with feeling loved, chose a small tapestry purse because of the memories attached to it. Seeing the purse reminded her of the abundance in her world.

Symbolism

Feng Shui books are full of suggestions for totems, crystals – amethyst for abundance is one example, baboo is another. Don’t go there unless something on that list really knocks-your-socks-off and has relevance. There are too many other more personal items that speak to you specifically. You needn’t buy anything. It can be a poem or affirmation you create and placed with an attitude of mindfulness.

Feng Shui books are full of suggestions for totems, crystals – amethyst for abundance is one example, baboo is another. Don’t go there unless something on that list really knocks-your-socks-off and has relevance. There are too many other more personal items that speak to you specifically. You needn’t buy anything. It can be a poem or affirmation you create and placed with an attitude of mindfulness.

Every religion, community/tribe observes the practice of ritual as a way of bringing the interior quest into the physical world and honoring it. It’s powerful and it works. It’s not magic and it’s not superstition. It works at a very deep level and signals our commitment to our ideals. And once we are committed – all manner of things begin to conspire to help us reach our goals.

Happy New Year! May it bring forth the best in all of us!

The post Resolve to Evolve appeared first on Nancy Wesson Consulting.

Reprinted from The Austin Homesteader, 2003

I wish I may, I wish I might – have the wish I wish tonight…..

Interesting, don’t you think, that old expression “Be careful what you wish for, you might just get it.” On one hand we are taught as children that wishing is a fantasy. Fairy Tales tell us that “wishes really do come true.” We are told both “You create you own reality,” and “Wishing doesn’t make it so.” So what’s true in this mix? Well, if it were one of those trick multiple choice questions our college teachers, the SAT, GRE and all the others love so much – I would have to choose “All of the above.” But with some explanation.

Passion vs. Fear

In previous articles, I’ve introduced the idea that we certainly have a hand in creating our present and future reality. Also, that positive thinking alone won’t do it – you have to passionate about the desire. Being passionate in either direction will do it – fear pulls in stuff, just as joy does. So I would modify the “Be careful what you wish for – by saying, “Be careful where you spend your emotional time, you might just pull in more of the same.”

If a person can embrace that concept, the next question is usually, “But how do you stay out of the negative and move toward something more positive. Or how do you keep your goal in mind and support it with the excitement of reaching it (rather than the fear of NOT reaching it)? There are some good tricks available from – yep – Feng Shui.

Psychological-Feedback Loop

Most people think of Feng Shui as the art of arranging furniture to be able to create an inviting space… and that’s true. BUT, and it’s a big “but,” – it’s far more than that. Feng Shui is a method of getting clear about what you want in your life, then creating an ergonomically sound environment, rich in the symbolism that keeps you constantly reminded of where you want to be and go. It supports you in your goals, by keeping them at the forefront of your physical, mental, and spiritual worlds. Carl Jung (left), the famous Swiss psychiatrist (1875-1961) called this a psychological feedback loop.

There is a sector in the Feng Shui map or Bagua that relates to the Future, although on most Baguas you will see it defined as Children or Creativity. Understanding that Children represent physical Creativity brought into the Future, helps make sense of the fact that the Future sector is also is associated with bringing projects and desires into the future.

Look Right!

The position of that sector is 45 degrees to the RIGHT of the primary point of entry into a room or a house (via the architectural front door). Put another way, if the entry is in the middle of the wall, (see Front Door Positions in the Bagua image to the right) then the Future Gua falls at the 3:00 position. We know, through the science of Merchandizing, that merchandize placed in that position in the room will sell faster and for the highest price. Pretty interesting that both a 5,000 year old esoteric philosophy and a statistically based science like merchandizing agree on that position being a very powerful one.

News You Can Use

So here’s some news you can use:

• Choose a specific “heart’s desire”
• Find a symbolic representation of that desire ( i.e. a picture, sculpture, phrase, etc)
• Place the symbol in the Future area
• While placing it, state your intention about the desire
• Be observant for subtle changes, interactions, etc that relate to the goal

Superstition: Not really

Some folks wonder if this isn’t just a little superstitious. Well, merchandizing is not based on superstition; if something sells – it sells. The action at work in Feng Shui (a science of observation) is that of looking obliquely-right when we enter a room. Check it out for your self. Every time we walk through the door, we unconsciously notice whatever is displayed on the right. We may even lose conscious awareness of it, but it imprints on the brain just the same. What we are constantly reminded of becomes part of the subconscious – reminding us of our aspirations. Conversely, if you have objects around you that have a negative connotation, you begin to think and feel negatively – placing limits on yourself.

The Power Position

Here are a couple of real life examples. You can interpret these facts however you like, but the “coincidences” are interesting. The first has to do with a client whose home I helped organize. Nearly every room needed work, both in clutter busting and arrangement.

Her husband’s office started with him working with his face to the wall and back to the door. We moved the desk to its most commanding position, known as the power position, and got it organized. In the process we found a picture of a diner in San Francisco (city changed to protect privacy). We hung it in the Future area, because that’s where it worked. There was no current plan or desire to relocate there.

(Note: Position #1 to the left is the power position. Image: from my book, Moving Your Aging Parents)

A week or so later, the husband, who had never requested a transfer and whose job was secure, got a promotion which required him to move to San Francisco. They sold their house and moved within a month.

Subliminal Reminders

Another story involves one of my sons (now 20) who received a large poster made by combining two smaller posters of his favorite things: fast cars and a dense redwood forest with a mountain stream and a bridge leading to a small cabin. This poster – with the title “The Motivation for Higher Education” looked like a clever underground garage housing five super fast sports cars – under the canopy of the redwoods. I’d hung over his desk, where he could see it from his bed and – when he entered his room. And yes – it remained there, in the Future position, for about 6 months and I replaced it with maps.

Choosing an alternative to college, we had reserved him a spot in a fantastic, month long intensive experiential home building course in Vermont or some such place. The week before he was to leave, he broke his heel bone. Not only is this bone nearly impossible to break, it’s nearly as stubborn to heal. He had to be off his feet – no crutches for this break – for 6 weeks, eliminating any possibility of his going to Vermont. He was morose. One night, he stayed up surfing the Web – not usual for him.

The Realization

The next morning he announced his new passion was racing cars. The only school with a racing program that would also teach him a “practical skill” was Jim Russell Racing School at Sears Point Race Way in Napa Valley – northern California – home of great wine and giant redwoods. It wasn’t until we were cleaning out his closet, getting him ready to leave that I re-discovered the poster in his closet. That’s when it hit me – and it still gives me a little chill when I realize the connection.

The little cabin by the stream was waiting there too and up for rent, though we decided on something less primitive. Although he was a normal teenage boy, with fantasies of having the fastest car on the planet, racing had never been in his vernacular as a career. But we won’t go there… Now he’s flying helicopters in Oregon and I WANT TO KNOW WHO GAVE HIM A PICTURE OF HELICOPTERS!!!!!

Do with this, as you will. It’s another example of how the objects in our surroundings impact us and more importantly how we can consciously use artwork and accessories to create a path for ourselves.

As always, I welcome your calls, questions or stories. Let me hear from you at [email protected]

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