Feng Shui and Your Health
Authentic Feng Shui is considered one of the eight Chinese medicine branches, including Acupuncture, Exercise (Qi Gong, Tai Chi), Meditation, Body Work, Herbal Medicine, Diet, and Cosmology. Health is the primary concern in Feng Shui.
Applying Feng Shui properly helps remove Qi's blockages in the environment that prevents us from manifesting our highest potential. The buildings we live and work in must support our health, wellness, and quality of life.
To understand how applying Feng Shui to your environment can improve overall health and well-being, we must comprehend that we are deeply connected with our environment and are composed of and in a relationship with the elements of nature around us.
We are intimately interconnected to the Universe in every atom of our being. On every level of manifestation, all energies of creation move as one universal field of Creative Intelligence. Learning to work in harmony with these natural forces instead of against them is the key to achieving greater balance and harmony in our lives.
"As is the atom, so is the Universe,
As is the human body, so is the cosmic body,
As is the human mind, so is the cosmic mind,
As is the microcosm, so is the macrocosm."
- The Sanatana Dharma
When Feng Shui Principles are applied correctly, the air becomes ionized, which we breathe in. When negative ions are abundant, we feel good, whereas too many positive ions contribute to headaches, fatigue, anxiety, lethargy, breathing problems, muscular pain, etc. Qi is also absorbed through our Human Biofield or Subtle Anatomy, also known as the Aura (biofields), including the Chakra System (local fields) and Meridian System (energy pathways.)
According to Beverly Rubick," Ph.D., Biofield structures emit and absorb energy. The body is also an antenna capable of sensing extremely low–level energies. It is an endogenous field emanating from our physical being, consisting of electromagnetic and possibly more subtle energies within and surrounding it and radiating this energy into space all around us. The Biofield is a complex, dynamic standing wave within and around the body."
Ancient sages created the Ba Gua Map used in Traditional Feng Shui as a model of the Universe based on very specific calculations associated with the cardinal, and intercardinal directions of the compass and is a key to understanding which area of the body is affected when the Qi in a specific area of a building is imbalanced. Esoterically, the energy of a building directly corresponds with the energy it receives from the direction it faces.
When applying Feng Shui to improve health, it is necessary to use the Ba Gua Map as it was originally created based on each building's precise compass directions, its construction date, and the occupant's Ming Gua information. Each building and person is unique; there is no one size fits all solution.
The Ming Gua or Natal Trigram provides information on "Human Qi," derived from an individual's birth year. An individuals Kua or Gua is a number affiliated with one of the five-phase elements (fire, earth, metal, water, wood) and one of the Eight Trigrams (Kan, Kun, Chen, Sun, Ch'ien, Tui, Ken, or Li). Ming Gua provides information about a person's character, how they relate to others, and which directions are favorable or unfavorable to them. In Chinese Medicine, each element is associated with a season, Meridian, yin organ, yang organ, sense organ, tissue, color, and weather phase.
According to Chinese Medicine, the main causes of disease are explained next:
Climatic Factors/External Causes
(Exopathogenic Influences)
- Dryness
- Heat
- Dampness
- Cold
- Summer heat
- Contagious Diseases
Internal Causes
(Endopathogenic Influences)
- Improper diet
- Emotional instability
- Physical and Mental stress/strain/overexertion
- Prenatal and Congenital influences
Though imbalances in our buildings are not considered a climatic factor, they are considered an external cause of disease. In a building, everything in it (colors, shapes, forms, textures, etc.) is composed of matter which correlates to at least one of the five elements. An imbalance or block in elemental flow introduces a stressor into the environment, which the body can absorb. At this time, a person may experience signs of irritability and discomfort but is unaware of the source. Unless remedied, the imbalances over time can become somaticized, possibly contributing to an illness's development. In Chinese Medicine, just as we now understand today through Energy Psychology and Epigenetics's new science, the environment controls our life.
Any building with inadequate positive Qi will influence the physical, emotional, and psychological well-being of the occupants in a negative way which can manifest as :
- Physical illness
- Depression
- Lack of enthusiasm
- Decrease personal confidence and satisfaction
- Relationship challenges
- Inability to manifest the fullest potential in life
As Qi circulates throughout the environment, it merges with the shapes of the rooms, energy emitted by the other elements, the color of the walls, and the positioning of the furniture. Detecting Qi's flow throughout the environment enables the practitioner to locate areas where the Qi is blocked, stagnant, oppressive, or flowing too strongly. These combinations create specific forms of invisible energy patterns that draw to us like a magnet, certain life situations (relationships, health issues, jobs) that reflect those same energy patterns. Your environment is full of clues that can alert you to energetic problems. It only takes a small change in the local electromagnetic field to alter information received by human DNA. Deciphering the clues and implementing changes can restore harmony. We must not only think of Feng Shui in terms of managing our physical spaces with the placement of furniture, color, and other traditional Feng Shui cures but on a broader level, includes cures that bring balance to our physical bodies and into better resonance with the energies that surround us.
How We Absorb Qi Physically and From Our Environment
Qi enters and influences the body in a variety of ways. On a physical level, we absorb Qi from the air we breathe and the food we eat. It also travels superficially along the skin and deep within the cells of the body. It is transported internally throughout the body in a subtle system of channels known as the Meridians. There are 12 Meridians located in anatomically precise lines throughout the body and are classified according to Yin and Yang's opposing forces. Each Meridian is associated with an element, color, season, Yin organ, Yang organ, sense organ, and tissue. Similar information can be found on the Ba Gua map corresponding to one of the directions. Qi is stored, transformed, and released by the organs. Meridians have both internal and external pathways. The Meridians are thought to be located in the Fascia of the body. Chinese medicine utilizes needles, massage, herbs, exercise, moxibustion (heat), cupping, diet, lifestyle adjustments, and meditation to influence the meridians' Qi.
The Human Biofield/ Subtle Anatomy (Energetic Body)
In 1992 a committee of CAM practitioners suggested the term "Biofield" to describe the energy field that surrounds and permeates the physical body composed of a combination of measurable electromagnetic energy and hypothetical Qi or subtle energy. Shamani Jain, PhD describes the Biofield as consisting of layers of interacting and interpenetrating energy fields that regulate our health. These fields stretch from the cellular to the interpersonal, and even the planetary. This conforms with previous concepts, often depicting the Aura as halos in religious paintings and described in Eastern healing traditions. In the 1960s, a Russian electrician, Simyon Kirlian , developed a way to photograph the auric patterns and subatomic fields surrounding living things.
"Scientists investigating the Biofield have suggested that it holds information about an organism and transmits this information throughout the organism in a manner that is analogous to the way a holographic plate distributes information throughout a hologram. The Biofield is comprised of extremely weak but measurable electromagnetic field-with; its own waveform, intensity, polarity, and modulation patterns that surround and permeates all living systems. ( Six Pillars of Energy Medicine: Clinical Strengths of A Complimentary Paradigm, Donna Eden, David Feinstein, Ph;D)
The Aura is generally recognized as having seven layers. The outer auric layers are concerned with the soul and spirit, while the inner layers relate to the mind, emotions, and health. Every thought, feeling and experience we have affects the vibration of this energy field. Each layer operates on the same vibrational frequency as its correlated Chakra and provides energetic protection, filters information, and transfers psychic information. The related Chakra then determines how the corresponding auric field is functioning. The environment affects the auric field, which then transmits energy to the related Chakra.
The Physical body is made up of two layers, the densest layer of the physical body visible to us, and the Etheric Body is a blueprint or an exact duplicate of the physical body, except that it vibrates at a higher rate.The Etheric body serves as the interface between the physical body and subtle forces. It is in the Etheric that illness can show up before it manifests physically. Most Energy practitioners work at this level, cleansing and balancing in the etheric before problems can arise. (Methods of working with the etheric body are Reiki, Crystal Healing, Pranic Healing, EFT, Color Healing, Therapeutic Touch etc)
The Layers of the Auric Field
Physical Layer: Lowest vibrational frequency. Regulation of the human body
Etheric Layer: Blueprint for the physical body. Transfers life energy from the universal field to the body—interface between physical body and other subtle bodies of the Aura.
Emotional Layer: Regulates emotions. Bridge between the mind and the body .
Mental Layer: Mental processes. Conscious and Sub-conscious thoughts.
Astral Layer: Connects us to higher dimensions of reality.Doorway to the astral realm.
Etheric Template: Blueprint of the perfect form or highest ideas for the Etheric Layer to take.
Celestial Body: Template for Etheric Field. Accesses universal energies, experience of unconditional love.
Causal Body: Contains all the auric bodies associated with the present incarnation and individual is undergoing.
Note: Dr. Kim Bonghan suggests that the meridians interface between the etheric human energy field and the physical body.
The Chakra System
The Biofield/ Aura has seven distinct layers of energy that are connected to what is known as the Chakra System or concentrated local energy fields located along the spine. In Energy Medicine, a Chakra is an organ of the body that manages energy, similar to how the lungs manage respiration and the heart manages the circulatory system.
One of Biofield/Aura's main functions is to draw in white light, breaking down its component color energies to send to the appropriate Chakra. The Chakras exist on the etheric plane (layer of the Aura) and resemble whirling energy wheels. They interpenetrate one another, and each one corresponds to a particular color frequency, element, and a particular organ in the meridian system. They vitalize the body and are associated with interactions of a physical, emotional, and mental nature. The chakras' function is to spin and draw in Universal Life Force energy to balance the body's spiritual, mental, emotional, and physical healing.
The energy that surrounds us through our external environment influences how the energy flows within our bodies, and just as importantly, the energy within us manifests outwardly. When we understand how to achieve balance within ourselves, and externally, true magic happens. Most illnesses develop in the Biofield long before showing up as physical symptoms. Our energy systems are intelligent; when something is disrupted, blocked, or slowed down, information is sent to the conscious level that something is wrong and needs to be addressed. Every illness has its specific energetic vibration and frequency associated with thought and emotion. The way we process our thoughts and emotions affects the molecular structure of the body. Most of us are so busy in our contemporary lives; we have very little time to observe and therefore have disconnected ourselves from the natural flow and our innate sense of knowing when something is not quite right. Feng Shui's practice can help us reconnect to ourselves and the life forces that directly affect us. By harmonizing our environment's energies, we can improve our health and, consequently, our entire being.
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