Can feng shui help your karma?

The Chinese have an old way of ranking what shapes a life. First comes destiny. Second comes luck. Third comes feng shui.

Some people hear that and decide feng shui hardly matters. I hear it the other way. Nobody chooses their destiny. But luck sits right next to feng shui, and that means there is something you can do about the second one with the third.

Feng shui is about balance, harmony and drawing particular kinds of energy toward you, and it is believed to go back about 3,500 years. Change your surroundings with care, and the tradition says your life changes with them. When your life changes, so does the karma that follows it.

Where karma comes from

Some of it comes down through a family. Some traditions say it comes from past lives. And some of it comes from how we lived this life when we were younger and in more of a hurry.

How we change it is tied to how we live now. How open we are to love. How much goodness we put out. The goodness you send out is the goodness you attract, and you can work on it from two sides at once: inside yourself, and in the rooms around you.

Intention, and time

A change made with real, heartfelt intention, one that is not selfish and does not harm anyone, is said to bring good karma and slowly soften what came before.

Slowly is the word to hold on to. Nothing like this changes overnight. A change has to be lived with, committed to, felt and believed by the person making it. Once your life changes for the better, your karma does too, and the longer you keep at goodness, kindness and balance, the more of it comes back.

If it is love you want

Then open your own heart to it first. In feng shui the south west of your home is the area for love and relationships, and so is the south west corner of your bedroom. Things in pairs belong there, with a hint of red for passion.

But no amount of red will help if you do not feel you deserve love. That is the energy you will attract instead. Love yourself first. Then the house has something to work with.

Start small

Choose to live with love, on purpose. Look for small chances to be kind, keep at it, and watch what it does to your life over a year. Pay more attention to the good in your life than to what is missing.

You will be amazed at the goodness that starts to follow you around. Feng shui can set the room up. The karma part you do yourself, one kind act at a time.

From the archive. First written for my journal years ago, and rewritten for life after 50.