First off, if you haven’t read my original Feng Shui post called “Feng Shui Me”, you should go check it out before coming back to this. I will admit, I haven’t read either of the books I got yet. I wanted to go through and do a huge decluttering before I dove in the details. And can I just say WOW already?! I’m not done with my initial sweep. I still have a couple hallway closets and both bedrooms left but I can feel the difference already. I didn’t realize how much stuff I had laying around meaninglessly just cluttering up my mind.
On big projects that can’t be done in a day (or even 2), I tend to get overwhelmed and either do a half-assed job or get burnt out before I can even start. Because I know this is important, I want to do a good job and not get distracted or have to stop halfway. This means I had to break it down into bite sized chunks. Here’s how I got started. First, I drew out a rough sketch of my floor plan. I don’t have a blueprint for my house, so I had to go off of memory and do my best to make it proportional. Next, I looked up the Feng Shui Bagua Map online. It is split into 9 even parts, so I overlayed it onto my floorplan and started coloring according to the grid.
Each spot on the map aligns with an energy center. Each energy center has descriptions of things that should go in that space and things you should avoid in that space. The easy starting point is that you should avoid clutter in all of these spaces. More details include colors, types of plants, and even shapes. Some might seem self-explanatory. For example: avoid dead plants in the health bagua. Some are a little less obvious but make sense when you actually get into it like having things in pairs in the relationship bagua and avoiding single items or items in 3s.
In my house, most of the rooms seem to have their own section of the grid. Some bleed a little into others, but for the most part, it is easy to say: only focus on this room today. So this is what I did to start. Anyone who does organization or cleaning knows you can’t always stay in that room – sometimes you realize the clothes in the living room need washed or the shoes in the kitchen need to be put on the messy shoe rack in the bedroom. But I did my best to set things down and say “that is tomorrow’s project.” I had to keep reminding myself that focusing on the small task helped me keep it more detailed. I had the energy to pull all of the bookshelves out of the sun room and clean behind them AND to pull everything out of my pantry, clean all of the shelves, throw away expired food, and put it back in a way that made sense. Normally when I clean, I can’t get that detailed before I need a rest… and then get busy with work for a week until I have to start over.
Not only did the huge change in energy from detailed decluttering help me feel less stressed coming home, but it encourages me to do small things to keep it clean every day AND inspires me to come up with future projects that will mold the space even more. I’m thoroughly enjoying this journey of re-energizing my space and I can’t wait to dive into my books and learn even more. Until then, enjoy some before and after pictures of my favorite changes in the house! What have you done to change the energy in your space? 😊 As always, if you take any fun pictures or videos, tag me on Instagram @SmileMakePeopleWonder and use the hashtag #DandelionSmiles. Don’t forget to subscribe so you don’t miss out on the next exciting idea!
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