The Spiritual Feng Shui newsletter Issue 13 January 2008 A Time to Rest .. A Time to Work Your Career Seachange Also: Feng Shui Tip Inspirational Quotes Dear Friend, Welcome to The Spiritual Feng Shui newsletter for January 2008; it is good to be talking to you in a brand new year! This month we talk about going back to work after the holidays. It can sometimes feel as if you've been let out of prison for the holidays, and now you have to go back voluntarily ... but with Feng Shui to help turn your career and mindset around, it doesn't have to! If you are not going back to the same job next year, we look at how to find yourself the best position for you, with the aid of wind and water. We also have inspirational quotes and Feng Shui tips, as usual. May peace and harmony reign for you for January, and also all of 2008! 0x Feature Article: A Time to Rest, a Time to Work - Get excited, build your career, and love your work life with the help of Feng Shui 0x Q&A: A Career Sea change - Are you determined to change your job - or even your whole career? 0x Feng Shui Tip - Creating a Zen Garden 0x Inspirational Quotes Enjoy! Mike Z. Wang Author of The Spiritual Feng Shui Thespiritualfengshui.com Unit 616, 220 Lake Promenade, Toronto, Ontario, Canada, m8w1a9 Feature article: A Time to Rest, a Time to Work.. After the holidays, many of us are inundated with 'Back to School' ads. Our kids are well prepared for the end of the holidays, but sometimes for us adults, the fact that we have to go 'Back to Work' can be a nasty surprise one Monday morning! However, the New Year is really a great opportunity in your career, to rejuvenate the way you feel about work, and make each morning worth getting up for ... with the helping hand of Feng Shui! So, for those of you who generally enjoy your careers and plan to stay at your current job for the rest of the year, you can set up your home to make a real difference to your career path. Your career gua lies in the middle square of the bottom row of the bagua - this is the middle part of the front area of your house. Your front door may be either in this area, or to the right or left of it. This is the area it is most important to enhance - whether it is a lounge room, kitchen, or toilet, it has a direct affect on your career! However, to give your career a new lease of life, and help yourself to bounce out of bed every weekday morning (rather than roll out listlessly, to flop on the floor, groaning!), it is also useful to enhance: - Your home office - Your computer - Wherever you work while at home (if you use a laptop on the couch, then enhance that area) - Photos of yourself As always, your very first step should be to remove any clutter from the area - otherwise it is like trying to meditate in the middle of a battlefield! Get out your gloves and garbage bags, and get cleaning. A practical and easy way to combine two of these areas is to place photos of yourself in your workspace or near your computer. You can see at a psychological level how this works also - if you constantly see yourself while you are working, you feel more connected to your work, and more real, present, and in the moment with whatever you are doing. How often can you say that happens currently in your career?! I know I have had many times at a job where my body was there, but my mind was lying on a banana lounge on a beach, smothered in coconut oil, sipping something pineapple flavored through a very long straw ... and it almost hurts to drag yourself back! Just make sure the photos you place show yourself happy, in good times, to keep that Chi flow positive. A gorgeous ornamental way to enhance these areas is to place a table fountain or water feature in the area. Water which is stagnant will not help you, though (it's sluggish energy is transferred to your career!) - so make sure it is moving. The sound of gently flowing water can also create a helpful sort of white noise, to aid your concentration while you are working. The ruling element for your career gua is water - metal enhances this element, while earth destroys it. This means that silver, gold and metallic colors are great choices for redecorating or adding ornaments. Be a little careful in your exact color choice though. While gold is a metallic color, yellow is an earthen color - which has the exact opposite effect to what you are hoping. Go for Gold! Any shiny, reflective or sparkly object will be a fantastic enhancement, just as gold or silver objects are. So crystal vases or glass ornaments work especially well in this area. Crystals hung above the window are a dual purpose enhancement - their energy augments your career path, and they also help disperse and even up Chi flowing into the room through the window. Not to mention the fact they create gorgeous rainbows or color bands that move around the room with the sun's movement! You can use these general guidelines, add a generous sprinkle of your own imagination and resourcefulness, and all the help that the Spiritual Feng Shui can offer you, to make your job worthwhile again in the New Year. Although perhaps you might still like to work towards actually being on that tropical beach, with the sun, sea and smell of coconuts...! Q&A: I'd like to use the New Year as a platform for changing my career totally ... how can Feng Shui help me find the best career for me, and then land the perfect job? While it is important to enhance your Career and Success gua when you are dissatisfied with your job currently, if you are looking to change you career completely then there are also other areas you need to enhance. Yes, more work! Everything worthwhile comes at a price ☺ Follow the tips in the main article for enhancing your Career gua - and then venture beyond these parts of your house, into your education and knowledge gua, as well as your reputation and fame area. If you live in a small house, you may end up enhancing the whole thing! That can only be good for you, of course. Your fame and reputation area is in the middle part of the rear section of your home, however the Chi for this area of your life is also affected by much the same areas as for your career. So for maximum impact, you can also enhance the exterior of your homes, mirrors within your house, and the photographs of yourself within your home. Clean up and clean out these areas, and make sure your photos are of happy and positive times. Try to include some recent photographs - don't let yourself become stuck in the past through your photos. The color scheme in this area should be the same as for your career areas also - metallic or reflective colors and surfaces are great, but try to avoid earthy tones here. Your education and knowledge gua is in the left square of the bottom row - just next to your career and success area. Go through the usual process of removing clutter, and try to go a little further than usual - try especially hard (really strain yourself!!) to find an alternate place for anything old or unused. Your aim here is to create a totally new vibe, and refresh the Chi of the area completely. This is what will help you find a new way to use your work energies - in fact, it might give you a bit of energy for work, that you haven't had in years! In this area you need to avoid the metallic colors you have been using elsewhere - go for energetic, fiery colors like red, pink and burgundy. When you are choosing photography or art to place around the room, choose things related to the earth - not just anything that exists on 'the Earth' though! Pictures of mountains are an especially scenic way to bring the earth into your home, but pretty rocks and crystals have the same effect, as do pottery and clay ornaments. And always remember to focus your activities and energies on what you want, and it will find its way to you! Read about different types of jobs, and study things in the field you'd like to be in. Displaying articles about, and photographs of these jobs in your home is also a constant reminder ... pushing you along towards your goal! Feng Shui Tip: Creating a Zen Garden Zen gardens are gorgeous peaceful places - they are also a great enhancement for your education and knowledge gua, and can be something to do in those little mental-blank times that we all need while working at a desk! Zen gardens can be any size you like, but their defining feature is their sand or fine gravel base which can be shaped, raked and shaped again in a sort of meditation. Thy usually contain pebbles, petrified wood and other dry ornaments to arrange and then rearrange. There are no plants, so they do not need watering! They are there to help you relax, not create more work. Check out some of the pre-made kits available over the internet, or use your own resources at home to create a garden which is either small enough to fit on your desk, or large enough to sit in, surrounded by the perfection of the Earth... Inspirational Quotes: Man is harder than rock and more fragile than an egg. ~Yugoslav Proverb New Year's Day is every man's birthday. ~Charles Lamb The number one sign you have nothing to do at work: The 4th Division of Paperclips has overrun the Pushpin Infantry and General White-Out has called for a new skirmish. ~Fred Barling, "Humorscope"