Harmony Is the Key: Feng Shui and Your Symbols
By Elliot Jay Tanzer

In this new series of articles we will explore how applying the 3000 year old Chinese study of feng shui (füng sch’way) can energetically re-shape your home to support you in all areas of your life. According to feng shui philosophy: if the home is in harmonious surroundings and arranged in a harmonious manner, the inhabitants of that home will enjoy good health, joyous relationships and career success.

What Are Your Symbols and What Do They Say?
There are many feng shui approaches that have developed over the millennia to analyze your home and business. One way is how they affect you psychologically. Everything around us has a story to tell. Some considerations can be seen in how we decorate our homes from patterns on curtains and rugs, images in paintings and wall hangings, to figurines on shelves or tabletops. Some are universal symbols and some are specific to an individual’s personal experience.

This applies to your place of business as well. Can you imagine where the building contractor would rather be as symbolized by the windsurfer picture on the wall in front of him? Or the inner conflict the lawyer, as he sits at his desk, must experience as symbolized by the picture behind him of a stairway leading down into darkness? Choose your images well. Perhaps a mountain behind you for support and a picture of something related to business success on the wall in front of you.

The Message of the House
What you see as you look into your house through the front door is interpreted as the ‘message’ of the house. For example, toys scattered everywhere clearly tells us that children live here. An arrangement of healthy potted planets and nature art, we know that this is a house of nature lovers. If we see a large black painting with a red lightening bolt, well, I’ll leave it to you to imagine what kind of people probably live within.

Trying to Get Out from Under the Beam
Many health problems related to stress and inflammation are often resolved with simple feng shui adjustments. An example of a structural symbol that may be problematic is a bed positioned under a weight bearing beam roof support, which to the unconscious ‘feels’ heavy and oppressive. If you understand how the ‘fight and flight’ mechanism of the adrenal glands operates, it should be easy to see why someone sleeping with a beam over their body would wiggle uncomfortably all night long. This night time stress prevents deep, rejuvenating sleep. In this case the solution is: move the bed out from under the beam or cover the beam.

Take a Walk Inside Your Mind
I suggest you take a walk through your house, and as you walk towards any image or object, stop and ask, “What is this picture, statue, arrangement, piece of furniture, or whatever, saying to me?” If it is something you find pleasant, inviting, and something you enjoy owning, great. If not, get rid of it. Change it for something that is positive and uplifting. Something that greets you in a harmonious way. Something that makes you smile.

A brief list of some common symbolic problems, and what to do:
• Do you sit at your desk with your back to the door and wonder what’s going on behind your back? Reposition the desk so you can see the door, or mount a small mirror on the wall in front of you, kind of like driving with a rear view mirror, so you can see what’s going on behind you.
• Do you have a solid desk or a door laid shakily across two file cabinets? Get a real desk and you will enjoy greater stability.
• Do you have a leaky faucet or plumbing? If so, sounds like money problems with all that money leaking out. After all, cash flows, money circulates, and we all want more currency. Fix the plumbing.
• Are the hinges of a door squeaking? If so, have you noticed more arguing and complaining? Try the WD-40 cure, and you will find the people of the house stop ‘squeaking’ at each other, or at least not as much.
• Do you have two kids in bunk beds and is the kid on top ‘lording’ it over the one on the bottom? Get them two separate beds.
• Are you cooking on all four burners? A broken burner also means money problems. Fix the burner, and get back to cooking on all four.
And the list goes on....

Choose the Best House for You: The Feng Shui Checklist
To make it easy for you to discover what you might need to do in your home or business, I have prepared a comprehensive Checklist of over 165 feng shui problems and their solutions. This Checklist in its totality can be found at the beginning of my book, Choose the Best House for You: The Feng Shui Checklist. Simply go down the list, check off what applies to you, turn to the page indicated, and there you can read the description of the problem, and the recommended solution.

In fact you can photocopy the Checklist and give a copy to your family and friends, and soon everyone will be asking you for feng shui advice to improve their health, relationship, career, and whatever else they may need to know to successfully live their lives.


Elliot Tanzer is co-founder of the Integrative School of Feng Shui, teaches internationally, is now living in Temecula, and is available for on site feng shui consultations throughout southern California, and nationally and internationally by phone. To schedule an appointment with Elliot, call: 951-694-0655.

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