Learn to Manipulate Home Energy for a Harmonious House
The energy in your home is important. Home is the place where you recharge and reboot, and if you don’t have harmony in your home base, it makes it difficult to have it live a harmonious lifestyle. So goes the thought of feng shui, an ancient Eastern practice that seeks to guide your life according to the energies put forth in your house.
A little about feng shui: it originates from China as a philosophical system of harmonizing the human existence with the surrounding environment. The two Chinese words the practice derives from translate to “wind-water.” Feng shui is one of the 5 Arts of Chinese Metaphysics, tapping into the observation of appearances through formulas and calculations. Feng shui isn’t some random bit of vague, mystical practice; it’s a highly-cultivated, [ancient art] that uses numbers and patterns (/series/feng-shui-life) to bind the invisible forces of universe, earth, and man. It is also very specific to you, your Kua number, your Chinese Zodiac animal, and your birth element (consult the chart on this page for your own!).
Ready to begin? There are just a few tenants you need to be aware of:
Make Some Space
Clean out the clutter. If it’s been in your house for years and you haven’t used it (or have thought of throwing it out on more than one occasion), it should go bye-bye. If this sounds like a horrific chore, you may be surprised. Throwing out old junk and space-taking useless items is quite therapeutic. It’s also not a step you can skip. Sorting through the old energies at home is vital to creating harmonious house feng shui.
Let the Light (and Air) In
You can’t have good feng shui energy without these two elements! Of course, we mean introducing natural light and air into your home more often. Open the shades more often, crack a window, or start growing some feng shui air-purifying plants. Essential oils are a good way to clear the air in your home, as well.
The Feng Shui “Trinity”
While you’re in the planning stages, make sure you pay extra attention to three spaces in particular that are deeply connected to your health. They are the bedroom, the bathroom, and your kitchen.
Bagua
Bagua is the feng shui energy map of your house that you will need to figure out for yourself. The two methods are classical school bagua (staying true to the traditional Eastern conventions or the BTB, or Western bagua. All it involves is a floor plan, paper, and pencils, and then drawing out a grid that will help you align with the correct areas you wish to develop, such as personal growth and cultivation, career/path in life, health/family, and children/creativity.
Five Feng Shui Elements
These are Wood, Fire, Earth, Metal, and Water, and they each have their own colors. Utilize the power of color to bring these five elements into balance in correspondence to the bagua areas. Each color has its own power, as well, such as green for improving health in the East feng shui bagua area in your house.
Your Feng Shui Birth Element
You were born on a certain day and year, and that specific time corresponds to a particular element. Check the chart on this page for your personal element. Be aware, however, that Chinese calendars are different than Western ones, so align your “birthday” with the Eastern timeline.
Kua Number & Lucky Direction
This affects the best energy you stand to gain. By doing things like facing your bed or desk a certain direction depending on your Kua number, you can seek to gain specific fortunes, like Money and Success, Better Health, Spiritual Growth, Love and Marriage, and so on. Figure out your number, and then figure out what you’re seeking, and align your furniture accordingly.
Energy Mindfulness
Energy, by its very definition, is a force in motion. Practicing feng shui once does not keep your house aligned with the energies permanently, so be mindful of your surroundings and make adjustments as needed. Happy Harmonizing!
About the Author
Karmic Numbers: What Your Birthday Reveals About Past Lives
The day you were born says a lot about who you are and where you’re going in this life. In numerology, your birthday can also reveal insights into your past life by date of birth and the lessons you still carry forward. Pythagoras believed that every number carries energy, and the combined vibrations of the numbers in your life shape who you were, are, and will become.
The numbers in your birth date reveal hidden clues to lessons missed in past lives. In numerology, it is believed that our souls are core, but our bodies reincarnate many times in order to further evolve. With each life, new experiences bring growth, but mistakes and past actions also leave behind imbalances.
Along the way, we make mistakes and abuse our natural gifts. Using your birth date, we’re able to identify whether your numerology chart contains one of four important Karmic Numbers. The numbers 13, 14, 16, and 19 are Karmic Debt Numbers, which indicate areas of your past lives that may still need attention. Understanding these past mistakes allows you to balance and heal the karma in your present life.
How to Calculate Your Karma Numbers
There are four Karmic Debt Numbers: 13, 14, 16, and 19. Each one highlights a specific life lesson connected to past actions. To find your Karmic Number, look at three key areas in your numerology chart:
Past Life by Day of Birth
If you were born on the 13th, 14th, 16th, or 19th, then this is your karmic number. This suggests your birthday carries imbalances from previous lives that may still influence you today.
Being born on a karmic date suggests you entered this lifetime with specific challenges to work through. Each number carries a slightly different meaning:
- 13/4 – linked to discipline and responsibility, this number asks you to overcome procrastination or lack of focus.
- 14/5 – tied to freedom and balance, it challenges you to avoid overindulgence or misuse of personal power.
- 16/7 – connected to relationships and humility, this number teaches acceptance and warns against arrogance or over-dependence.
- 19/1 – about independence and personal strength, it highlights the need to overcome selfishness or misuse of authority.
Personality Number
Your personality number signifies the energy that you project to the outside world, as well as how others are most likely to interpret it. This is not your true self, but an indicator of what you allow to be seen at the beginning of a relationship. There are multiple ways to find your personality number; however, we choose to focus on adding your day of birth to your birth month. For example:
To calculate this number, add your day of birth to your birth month. For example:
- Birthday: May 5
- Calculation: 5+5=10=1+0=1
If your personality number is found by one of the following ways, then this is your Karmic Debt Number:
- 4 (13=1+3=4)
- 5 (14=1+4=5)
- 7 (16=1+6=7)
- 1 (19=1+9=10=1+0=1)
Life Path Number
Your life path number represents your true self and direction in life. It is one of the most important core numbers in numerology. To calculate it, add all the digits of your full birthday together until you reach a single digit or one of the master numbers (11, 22, 33).
Example: If your birthday is April 4, 1955, then:
- Day: 4
- Month: April is the fourth month = 4
- Year: 1955 = 1+9+5+5 = 20 = 2+0 = 2
Therefore:
- 4+4+2 = 10 = 1+0 = 1
The Life Path Number here is 1. If your Life Path reduces to a double-digit number that matches 13, 14, 16, or 19 before being broken down to a single-digit number, you have a karmic debt. For example, 16/7 shows the number 16 first, then reduces to 7.
Karmic debt numbers can also appear in other core numbers within a numerology chart, but the Day of Birth, Personality Number, and Life Path Number are the most common places to find them.
