Fast Feng Shui Blog

September 29, 2008

C-Shaped Apartment Layout

Q: Dear Stephanie, I came across your site and was delighted to find a simple yet easy to use Feng Shui. I then bought your ebook and find it very down to earth and useful for me. However since we've moved to a new flat, with an irregular C shape, I cannot make up my mind on how to position the ba gua. The front door of our flat is in the top side of the "C", so if I align the ba gua with the front door I will only cover the top section of the C (which contains the hall, kitchen and living room) but it leaves out the rest of the flat (2 bedrooms, a corridor, a toilet, and a bathroom). I hope you can help cleari my confusion on how to position the ba gua, because I really want to decorate our new flat according to Feng Shui. One of my goals is to have a baby. In addition to activating the dui area of our bedroom, I would like to do something in the tai chi area as well, but am not sure how to do that because I’m not sure where that is. A: Although I greatly prefer to use the modern “doorway” approach to the ba gua (as detailed here), it does get trickier the farther a layout strays from the tidy rectangular structures for which the modern ba gua works best. There are three ways to approach an odd-shaped layout like this: 1) Toss out the doorway ba gua and use the compass directions instead. 2) Apply the ba gua to that part of the home that lies “ahead” of the doorway as you enter (that would be just the top section of your "C"). Yes, that does leave a big area of the home “outside” the ba gua. You can see those areas as a kind of extension of the Knowledge, Career, and Helpful Friends areas, but it is literally quite a stretch to do so. 3) Don’t worry about trying to contort the ba gua sufficiently to get it stretched over your home, and focus instead on the ba guas for each room in the apartment. If you’re wondering what I’d do, pick option 3. When dealing with very irregular shapes such as this one, it’s a good idea to set the ba gua aside (at least temporarily) and take a look at the shape as a whole. You’ve already done that by describing it as a “C” shape, which it is. Activating the tai chi is going to be difficult, because you don’t have one. It’s in that big empty space in the middle of your C layout, regardless of what you decide to do with the rest of the ba gua. The tai chi is the center, and this apartment doesn’t have a physical one (unless you are on the ground floor and have exclusive use of a garden or courtyard in that area, which is probably not the case). You can’t do anything about that. It is what it is. You do, of course, still have a tai chi for each of the rooms in the homes, and you can if you like designate one particular space (such as the living room) as the emotional center of the home even though the physical center is missing. The best advice I can give you is resist the temptation to view this layout as a problem. Yes, it’s unusual. Yes, it does make working with the ba gua a bit of a challenge. But why not decide that this unique and unusual home is the perfect place for you to conceive (and birth, and raise) a child? Hey, look at that: conceive and child both start with the letter “C”. What a happy coincidence… I think we could even call that a synchronicity. I suggest that you get a nice big piece of poster board, and in great big letters in the middle of it, put the phrase “C is for CHILD!” Surround that phrase with pictures of mothers and babies. Or, if you make the letters really big, you could make each letter a mini-collage of pictures of pregnant women and of mamas (and daddies) and their happy, healthy, charming children. Frame your collage and put it either in the room that will be the baby’s (if you’ve got one), or on the wall wherever the baby’s crib/bassinet will go if bambino will be sharing your bedroom for a while. Spend a few minutes each day looking at your imagery (first thing in the morning or last thing at night are the best times) and feel how wonderful it will be when you are holding your child in your arms in your C-shaped apartment. Although I like having a physical collage hanging on a wall somewhere in the home, I've recently discovered a new technology which you may enjoy. It's called MIND MOVIES (click on the banner on the right at the top of this page for details: it's a software package that makes it really quick and easy to create an inspiration slideshow of any words and imagery that addresses your dreams and desires). My husband and I have already made 3 Mind Movies (I'll post a link to a sample in the upcoming email newsletter) and are having so much fun with it. I think a Mind Move would be a phenomenal asset to you in your quest to have a baby, so if you make one be sure to let me know how it works out! Wishing you a joyful motherhood, and much happiness in your new home, Stephanie R. Labels: ba gua, children, Feng Shui Q+A posted by Stephanie R.  # 9/29/2008 12:50:00 PM << Home

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