Ep 68: Feng Shui to Calm your Child with Candice of Learn Feng Shui

Today I'm speaking with Candice of Learn Feng Shui to help us create more calm in our home with the practice of Feng Shui.  She speaks to us about how we can create an open and calming energy with our furniture, how we should be placing our bed in the bedroom, and other things that may be affecting the energy in the home. 

-Introduce yourself and explain what you do with Feng Shui

-If we think about creating calm in our homes, how would you recommend we look at the entrance of our home?

-For our children whether we are hoping to create a calm or creative environment are there things we can do with their room to help them?

-Is there anything you recommend that all families should be aware of when decorating or moving furniture around the home?

-Tell us about how we can learn more from you.

Bio:
Candice Berlanga is a certified Feng Shui practitioner and Red Ribbon Professional with the International Feng Shui Guild. Candice specializes in Feng Shui for businesses by combining Feng Shui & eastern astrology.

Candice is also the host of the Learn Feng Shui Podcast, which features weekly tips & info as well as fun folklore.

Links:
Article  https://www.learnfengshui.com/post/favorable-and-unfavorable-directions-eight-mansions-and-gua-numbers
Connect & listen https: //linktr.ee/learnfengshuinow

Transcript

Unknown: 0:08

Welcome to raising healthy humans, a podcast created for busy moms where you can easily find information on health and wellness for your family. Enjoy experts who share tips on how to raise children through each phase of life. Gather current information on nutrition and wellness. And listen to Courtney, a health coach, movement specialist and founder of form fit an active and supportive community where she helps busy moms move more on raising healthy humans podcast. Courtney shares her personal life experiences, training, knowledge and conversations with other health and wellness experts so you can raise healthy humans. Today, I am speaking with Candace of learn Funch way to help us create more calm in our home with the practice of Fung Shui. She speaks to us about how we can create an open and calming energy with where we're placing our furniture, how we should be placing our bed in the bedroom, and then other things that may be affecting the energy in the home. I really hope you enjoyed this episode. Hi, Candace, how are you? Hi, I'm great. How are you doing? I'm good. I'm so glad you are here. And you are able to talk to us about saying sway. So can you tell me? How did you get started with Feng Shui? So what are the really the reason I started meeting my husband, we're actually having a lot of relationship issues. I think as all marriages kind of go through, you know. And it was actually his suggestion. He was like, I mean, we're trying all kinds of different things. We've always been kind of alternative and our beliefs and open to, you know, different, different things. And he was actually the one that was like, Hey, have you ever heard of Fung Shui I heard it's supposed to, you know, improve your environment, it's supposed to bring you harmony into your home, maybe that'll help with our issues, you know. And so we were kind of trying to figure things out on our own. And it was through meeting my venture a consultant, we found a consultant in Utah, was there me finding her, she offered a mentorship program. And since I just was really interested in I thought I really want to learn more about it. And so I've just kind of been hooked, every sense of it's really became my passion. Do you feel, did it change a lot in your relationship by doing some of the things that they recommend was things things way. So that is actually one of the one of the biggest lessons I learned, I think, is that you can move things around your home, and it can feel better, but you also have personal energy that needs to be addressed. You know, and sometimes it works in a little bit roundabout way. And so instead of focusing on, you know, making an area better or putting certain items out to improve our relationship, you know, there was other work that needs to be done there. Okay, so then there was other areas of the house maybe you can focus on and you can have an environment that supports your action. So I always tell people it does work but action is also needed. Yeah, I think that's isn't that like with everything that you can six one area, but there are other areas. It's really a roundabout thing like with fitness, you can work on fitness, but you also have to address your nutrition, your sleeping habits and all of those other things. So I'm sure what things way it's the same thing. Yes, yeah, exactly. Okay. Can you tell me if we're thinking about creating a relaxing environment in our home? How would we begin with that? Like, are we looking at the entrance of our home to start how do we start to kind of create that calm in our homes? I mean, that's exactly right. The purpose of punch way a lot of people don't realize it's actually looking at the way your environment supports you. So you know, kind of putting aside the notion that we kind of have the idea that we kind of have a flinch way. And you know, saying we need a Buddha here or we need a fountain here, function way which I practice Eastern, a classical functional way, which is all about the way your Home receives energy. And the way your Home receives energy is through the entrance and I think all forms of functional a kind of follow that and so just having your entrance to be not blocked, you know, people tend to put decorations up, and maybe they'll have seen it where they over clutter their porch with oversized furniture, you know, things like that. You want to really have a nice spacious open entrance. So you know, kind of Maybe scaling down some of the decor, right outside of the entrance and directly fried inside is where the energy is set to collect. So yeah, just creating a spacious environment. Okay, so I'm thinking of my own house. And I'm thinking, so we have two doors, we have our front door and our garage door that both kind of come together. So we need to make sure that furniture throughout both of those are okay. And then for those people who have like, a mud room, because we have like an area where people, the children put their backpacks and their shoes and everything, how should that be? Like? Should we be concerned about the nests? And if things aren't put away properly, does that affect anything or not really a good way, it's kind of the it's the collection distribution of what is called chi or energy. Okay, so as long as you know, I mean, clutter can kind of stop some of that. So, you know, I think people get a good hook kind of on like, Oh, my house needs to be like super tidy to have good punch way or needs to be really organized to have good Feng Shui. But in reality, the way your door opens, you know, the way it's the way you kind of received the energy, the area of the home, that your door opens into kind of tells a lot about the energy. And so although we want it to be, you know, kind of clutter free and clean, it's not the main focus, so I always say Do the best you can, okay, okay, let's type it into your life, not kind of rule it, if that makes sense. Okay, is there any colors or anything that you recommend it or is Fung Shui specifically more about like the furniture in space. So it's more about the way you are using your space? Okay, the way I kind of explained it is each home can be broken down into different like sectors in theirs based on just the geographical like, so you can break it down to like north, south, east or west, you know, and that's kind of getting into, you know, some of the specifics there. But your Home receives and collects energy in certain ways. And so really the way you use your space, you know, you want to have a nice flow to your home. So although some there are some consultants that focus more on colors and stuff like that, it's not the main consideration. I don't I don't believe when doing feng shui least not from my perspective of Fung Shui. Okay, it's really about the way you're using your space, you know, how furniture setup? Okay? And is as long as it's working for your family? Is that okay? Or is it, there's still certain things that you like to have? I mean, you keep saying open. So I would imagine the more open, maybe the less, would you say less furniture is better? Or? Well, it kind of just again, it kind of just depends. So for example, my living room, you do want to work for you my living room, I have an aerial hammock setup, because I have the back issues. And so to incorporate that into my life, you probably know with fitness, you want to have it accessible for you to use. And so what I say is you can there's definitely some rules you want to follow with lunch way. But as far as having things really work for you, i Yes, I believe that you need to have it, where it's going to work for you like you don't want to put stuff away that you use every day, you know, just to have aesthetically pleasing. So, again, looking kind of more about how we're using that space is really important. Okay, so if we think of our children's rooms, and we're wanting to and maybe maybe I need to separate it out, so you let me know, if I want maybe a more calm or creative atmosphere for them in their rooms. Is there something specific we should be doing with that space? Or what would you recommend Dacian be for our children? Well, one of the most important features and functions right really is bed placement. So there are certain kinds of rules for bed placement, and that can vary. But one of the biggest things that a consultant will tell you in any style of Feng Shui is that a bed is supposed to be up against a solid wall, you should be facing a door, not with your back to the door. Because that creates, you know if you think about the energies coming right towards you, so you don't want to be directly in line with the door either because that can create some restless sleep. You don't want to window behind your bed because that can again create too much movement behind you. You know, so there's some different things like that. A headboards really recommended for a good night's sleep so your child doesn't have a headboard and he knows they're kind of restless. You know, maybe that's, you know, could be a cause you could probably add a headboard to their bed. And some kids I noticed will tend to sleep sideways on their bed. I don't know if you've ever notice that sometimes they're just kind of naturally drawn to the direction that they feel more supported in, we do have what are called, sometimes are called Power directions, Best and Worst directions. And it's not required, we sleep in within those parameters. Really the way the bed is set up at the location of the bed, it's probably most important, but sometimes kids will tend to move themselves around. And so I would just let them sleep the way they they sleep if they tend to do that. Okay, well, that's no, I was gonna say, I find it interesting that you just mentioned this, because I remember years ago, that I had heard something, and I'm gonna say it wrong. But that like your head should always be and it was like, either north or south or, you know, whatever. Is that something that you could tend to believe? Because you did say like the power was the power poles or something where your position is based on wherever you feel direction? Well, there's many different thoughts and school styles of Feng Shui. Some people do believe I think more of like the Eastern and kind of Indian, like vast two traditions do believe that you're not supposed to sleep. I believe it's north to south, I'm not really sure. So there's different schools of thought on this. Okay, so depending kind of on who you talk to, but kind of what I was referring to, as everybody has what is called a wall number. So it's the belief that you have four directions that are beneficial to you, and four directions that are supposed to be unlucky to you. So that's kind of what I was referring to. And that's kind of based on the year you're born. And it's probably one of the most popular styles of Feng Shui, but Oh, yeah. Okay, so is that something? Is that information we could find through you on your website? Or is there somewhere where we could look into that? Because I find that that's very interesting. Yes, I do have an article on the it's called eight mansions fun choice. I do have an article on that on my, my website can shoot you so we can put Okay, yeah, but make sure it is pretty ready readily available. Like I said, it's probably one of the most popular forms of Feng Shui because it's probably seems to be the easiest to use. But again, I always tell people, there's kind of a rule in Feng Shui that says forms before formulas. So the eight mansions, the power directions, is more of what is it starts getting to what is called the formula feng shui. And so forms really, I tell people to start there. And what that is, really is the way your house is set up, those kinds of fluctuate rules, you know, face the door, you know, your back to the wall, that those type of rules. So it kind of just talks about your supportive environment, and the location in which you're sitting some. Okay, now for the bedroom? Is it? Are you really thinking just bed for the purpose of this? Or do you then go into looking at like their desk, if we want to think about providing creativity for them? Is there things that you recommend for that as well? There is yes. Okay. So again, we follow some of the same kind of principles, you know, when you set a desk up, if you notice, I have a wall behind me, I usually don't work in this direction. This is my aesthetic direction that I recorded, because it has all the aesthetics behind it. And so I work with my you know, my back is set to the wall, again, that says to offer support, you want a nice, supportive chair. But if you want it to get more in detail, you could start using some of those, you know, the quote unquote, Best and Worst direction, because there is one that enhances creativity. Oh, yeah, you could definitely start tapping into some specific energies. And some of those can be even specific to the person. Okay, I was going to ask that. So you said some will depend on the location for opening up creativity. But is it based on like you said, the year you were born, like, each person has an individual direction? They do. Yes. Yeah. Okay. Okay. So and then you also mentioned about desk placement, which I'm finding this is funny because I was just speaking to my husband about aesthetics and how my space that I work in is not aesthetically pleasing. So I was discussing moving my desk completely. And like you mentioned, I want my I want a wall behind me, but then that means my desk is sitting out in the middle of the room is that he was like, that's gonna look ridiculous, but you're recommending that that that for feng shui purposes, that's a good thing. Yeah, you could always try it. You can definitely try it and if you hate it You know, again, sometimes you have to kind of work on what works for you, if it's really been working for you, and you feel like, even though it's kind of violating maybe some of those fungi, quote unquote, rules. Remember, there's always exceptions to the rules, right? So yeah, there's, there's a thing that says, a bunch of a practitioner will know all the rules, but a master knows the exceptions. And so it kind of just depends, you know, and that's what I'll say, um, but yeah, I, you can definitely try it. Okay. And if you hate it, you know, it's not really working for you, maybe you're in a good direction, again, you know, some of those power directions, maybe you're actually facing a good direction for you, and it just happens to be working for you. Okay. And when I think about this, do you find yourself and maybe you haven't worked with like an interior designer? Do you work well with them? And do you find that your ideas conflict? Or are they more kind of in line with one another, you know, there's a lot of fun try practitioners that do Interior Design, like maybe they've gone to do interior design, or like, I want to add Fung Shui principles to it, I've, I've worked with some too. And, you know, it really is there really is a lovely balance in there. I mean, I think most interior designers, they want to create some sort of sense of harmony and balance. And although the fungemia practice, it's more about the use of the space, as opposed to what is in it. It's, you still want to have it to be aesthetically pleasing, you know, you want to be calming, you kind of were talking about the kids rooms, you know, and asking if that's all we want to consider, wait, you want to consider you know, colors and stuff like that, because there are colors, at least you think color psychology that are set to be more exciting. You know, if you put reds in a room, it's going to be more energetic looking, you know. And so using some of those common colors in this space, we want to you know, feel calm, can really be beneficial in interior designers, I think are for the most part, they've been on board with it. And again, there's a lot that do punctuates type of design. It looks really lovely. Okay. Do you notice with families? Is there any rules that we should all be aware of? With families? I'm sorry, can you repeat that my son was leaving. I was telling me by I'm sorry, because you know, that's okay. So for families, is there anything that we can, like rules that we should be aware of, in regard to our home? And not not generally for our family, I think I mean, you can get pretty specifically with each family member, again, there's a lot of factors you can consider. But again, I think just having that nice flow there. One of one of the schools of thought and perspective of punch way kind of looks towards the East area is what is called a family area. And so it's a place where you could you know, locate the east part of your home or your living room or your living Hall. And you can maybe put family pictures there. You know, there's also an area that is said to govern relationships, you could fit put family pictures in what is some schools of thought referred to as the relationship area. So there's definitely some things she could do to kind of, you know, I always tell people, because for their perspective I come from, it's, again, more about tapping into specific energies. And so I don't tend to follow some of the areas of what they call the life areas within the home. But what I tell people is, you know, if they want to do that they can definitely look at is it intentional reminder, you know, like, they see the family pictures there are they maybe they want some punch by type items. And they can use that as an intentional reminder to kind of serve as you know, let's create harmony in the family. Let's remember to, you know, gentle parents or whatever they're trying to do, you know, okay, is there any items that you would say, to make sure you don't have in your home? Like, if I'm thinking, go ahead. So, I know people tend to love a good garage sale, and it's not so much what they're putting in their home, but what kind of energy they're bringing you with it. And I know, I've talked to people that they're like, specifically one lady, she got a painting at a garage sale, and she was having activity in her home afterwards. She realized later on, it was actually like, like a Celtic Warrior Goddess that was like, you know, this painting, and so she I think she did some sort of cleansing to it and the energy calmed down. So I will say be careful to secondhand items. And if a lot of people tend to like, Oh, they're going to pick up like a boot Uh, or, you know, they're gonna pick up, you know, something to, you know, place in their home. And what I've heard also, and this is more of like kind of a Taoist perspective of things, if you don't connect, kind of connect with that deity, if you don't feel like it's kind of lucky, and if some of most of them are smiling, but if you have one that has like a bad face, or, you know, stuff like that, I would say don't bring those into the home. Okay, yeah, if you feel good about it, bring it in. But also be careful of those secondhand items. Okay. It's interesting that you mentioned about that the energy of things, because I was just listening to a podcast or and he was speaking about how there's this other realm that we haven't tapped into to understand about the energies that are surrounding us. So just hearing you said that say that makes me realize, like, how much we don't even know. Exactly, yeah. Sometimes we don't know where things come from either. And, you know, what, sort of, you know, what the energy was of the person that was holding on to that or what it meant to them. So I do believe items can carry, you know, different types of energy. So, okay, so for families, like I know, my family, we have a lot of pieces of furniture and things that have kind of traveled down through time with us if there are pieces like that in our home. And I mean, we could assume it's okay, as long as we don't feel any negative energies, right. And then, if you do feel a negative energy, there's a way to create less of that negative energy. Yeah, there is ways to go about that. I, myself, don't really perform that for people. But I know you can do the classic phage you know, there's a sea salt and sometimes just getting rid of the object altogether, and kind of or maybe even burying it or burning it sometimes, if it's particularly strong. You don't want to pass it along to anyone's. You don't want to, you know, give to Goodwill. Right, right. Okay, now, you had mentioned a relationship point in our household for families. What I have noticed over time, is things get a things change in the relationship. Is there anything that you recommend for and you had mentioned, that's kind of what gotten you into the Fung Shui? Is there anything that's recommended for us for the two individuals who are together to continue to keep that grounded? Yeah, there is. So there's different energies you can kind of tap into like, there's I tend to tap into to some of the yearly energy so energy is always changing, it's always moving. Just like we have different seasons, you know, different energies will come into our home. Really based on planetary alignment, you know, some of these energies come in based on the planets and so you can kind of tap into some of those energies, there's actually ways you can activate an area and usually does kind of include using water because water is it's supposed to conduct energy you know, it's in the name function way means wind and water. So that water is collects, you know, energy or cheap so there's different ways we can kind of activate or hold chi or energy in an area to promote different energies and some of them content you can tap into a relationship and your new love you know, okay, I'm with the fountain do you recommend having some sort of water in the home? I do. But again, as a classical Feng Shui practitioner, I'm very careful about where I place water because you don't want to activate an area that's doesn't need to be active there's just like there's really good energies you can tap into sometimes it you don't want to collect energy in an area that has a negative energy therefore the the time so yeah, you just have to be careful this little tabletop fountains and stuff, I don't believe have enough water to you know, activate something bad so if you love a tabletop now and you'd like the sound of it, would you really the way it said that energy collects is like he's a big fish tank, you know, there's some things like that. So you have to have an open water source basin with water in it, you know, little pump putting little bubbles out, you know, so you just want to it's really a generation of the energy. Okay, so yeah, tabletop fountains are fine. You can kind of put those anywhere so Okay, so I want to ask you a question. Because when, when I was younger, and it was when those small little fountains were very popular, and I I had one in my bedroom. And I started getting ear aches. Do you know what like I, the only way I could explain it was my ear must have been really trying to focus in on that while I was sleeping. Because it was while I was sleeping, I'd wake up with a terrible earache from it. And then once I moved it out of the room, the problem went away. Yeah, so it's perfect that you say that, because I did forget to mention, you do not want water in your bedroom. After for when you're sleeping. And so I always say keep fish tanks out of the bedroom. I mean, like images of water are fine, from my perspective, but it's the sound and sometimes the sound does create it, especially if it's kids to be annoying to you. Like if you don't love the sound of it, then that's a whole separate, you know, it's not really promoting a great energy with Nero. So yeah, so yeah, keep water as a bedrooms, it's kind of too active to like, be think about our, our bedroom is meant to be calm, like we mentioned earlier. So yeah, just keep the water out of the bedroom. Okay. Okay. So is there anything that you would recommend for families? If we are like a tip that you would leave for us? If we want to really start working into this? What would you Where would you say for us to begin, um, kind of, like we talked about earlier at the front, not just making sure that the, you know, front entrances, just decluttered. But even like, you know, old leaves, like, really around our home, not not just specifically the front, but around our home affects us too. So I mean, sometimes will tend to, if you've done a renovation, we've piled some stuff up on the side of the house, you know, are really the energy, it comes from our external environment. That's the biggest way we get energy, you know, from everything that surrounds us. Again, Feng Shui kind of comes from the name, wind and water, you know, and that kind of gives us a clue into how important it is for our external environment. And so, cleaning up around us making sure there's not old trash, old leaves, old piles of stuff, you know, really, that's going to kind of promote the flow of energy around our home and be able to bring energy into our home. Okay, so usually, I asked that in the sense of like, closing everything out, but you've sparked a thought and in me, because we do have an area where we have kind of left, I won't even say what it's from, because then everybody will know, like, how old is a long split? It's okay. But it's like the firewood that we've had over the years, could that be affecting things within our home? Like, if we're constantly dealing with certain things breaking or a lot of water damage type situations occurring? Could that be, like part of that whole energy where we might be? I don't know creating a block or something. I'm not sure exactly what that would be doing? Yes, that's, that's exactly right. So again, one of the biggest ways we receive energies from our environment, I'd say about 70% of our Fung Shui comes from our external nervous external environment. And that kind of talks about in relation where we are in relation to like mountains and water, you know, kind of looking at that, but looking more at the kind of our macro environment, just looking at our yard or space, you know, what are we see around her home, things like electric pylons, telephone poles, you know, some of those things like that we can't control, you know, and it's okay, but looking at what we can control, you know, build up and stuff like that. Clutter trash of it does kind of stop the flow of energy. And sometimes, again, I kind of mentioned the yearly energies, monthly energies, even daily energies will change. But one of the, I think the biggest impacts was when the yearly energies change, which is occurs around February. So those will see a big shift in either our health or, you know, something is breaking in our home or maybe a relationship issue. And we're like, I don't know what happened or what's going on. And it's because maybe a negative energy has moved into the space that has negative what are called negative forms or negative features. And that could be where we have clutter or we have trash. Maybe where those telephone poles are so yeah, so it kind of aggravates the area if there's a negative energy there, so just kind of clearing that away and taking that away, could help if you have some issues going on. Okay, that's very interesting. All right. So do you have a lot of information about these different? I know you mentioned the one article, but if someone's really interested in learning more about it Maybe the direction and these different energies that affect us through the years. Do you have information on your website or? Yes, every month I put out a monthly energy report and I give the as you also do Chinese astrology. So I talk animal signs that talk about the potential areas for insight. I'll do that on the podcast and I have a companion blog that has all kinds of information in it. Okay, so tell us where we can find you. Um, at learn Feng shui.com. Okay, and your podcast is learn Fung Shui. Okay. Make it simple. Yes. Okay. And is there anything try to Oh, I'm sorry. Go ahead. No, no, you go ahead. I was just gonna say I named it that because I'm really tried to simplify a lot of things. And so if somebody comes into Fung Shui, they're like, Okay, I can understand this thing. No, and it's great. I it's very interesting. Definitely very interesting to me. I think for many, I don't know, if you deal with this kind of hard to wrap your head around it, in a sense, just because it's, you know, it's something you can't see. So it is very hard. I don't know, do you do get a lot of pushback from people? Not really. I'll just say this. Have you ever moved your furniture around? And you're like, Oh, it feels really good in here? Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah, exactly. And then have you ever gone to somebody's house? And you're like, it has a certain feel to it? Right? Yes. Yes. Yeah, that's the way I explained things. Yeah. Yeah, has a certain feel to it. So I think that's the easiest way, I think you can kind of think about it, you know, if you go to maybe you've gone to your grandparents house, and, you know, they tend to like maybe Hoard. And they don't open their blinds a lot. You know, they don't air their house out, you know, if feels a certain way, maybe it feels very oppressive. But if you go to somebody's house, that's, you know, very, they open their windows up, its, you know, like, kind of, you know, keep it decluttered and stuff like that. Yeah, if it's going to feel different. Okay. And that made me think of one more thing, and then I'll let you go. So for lighting, if we think of lighting, if you have like a dark space, just because of where it is in the house and doesn't have a lot of windows. Do you recommend anything for lighting? Yeah, so there's a thought of school thought and punch way and they talk about the up lighting. And so if you want to re kind of raise the energy in a room, you can get a light that cleaning up, you know, out and you can definitely buy light bulbs that mimic this, like sunlight and stuff like that. Okay, those type of bolts. Okay, perfect. All right. Thank you so much for taking time out of your day for this. Yes, thank you. Thank you so much for having me on. 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