Serene Makeover Inner Edition: Feng Shui Your Life from the Inside Out. Ariel Joseph Towne

heart and a larger spiritual energy center outside of your entire body. The energy center of your head represents your thoughts and intentions. The energy center of your heart represents the power that fuels your intentions. The energy center around your body regulates how much energy you draw to yourself at each moment. Each of these energy systems (as well as anything you ingest) influences and affects your physical body.

      Inner feng shui is the idea of balancing all sides of yourself using the same three-step process you would apply to your outer spaces like your home, office and car. The three steps are: declutter, organize, and beautify.

      Why should you feng shui yourself from the inside out? If certain areas of your life aren’t progressing in a positive direction, you may be stuck. If you find that your romantic life isn’t progressing, your finances aren’t progressing, or you don’t feel good or healthy in your skin and you keep coming up against the same spiritual lessons over and over, consider this: the inner reflects the outer and the outer reflects the inner. Cleaning house internally is a big step toward making space to allow what you want to flow to you. By applying the three-step process of decluttering, organizing, and beautifying to your energetic and physical self, you clear the way for the grandest vision of your life to become reality. It’s an attitude: you can have it all.

      How do you get it all? It’s a process that requires honest inner digging. Some people believe that we get what we aim at, big or small, right or wrong. Our intentions direct our thoughts and actions toward our goals like arrows that fly toward their target. What happens if you aim at one portion of your life, such as work, but not others, like your health or relationships? It’s likely that at some point you will have to stop what you’re doing (being a workaholic) to help bring your life back into balance. This creates a win-lose outcome. But if you conceive of the bigger picture of your life and aim at it in its entirety at one time, you may be surprised at what is possible.

      That’s not to say you have to work on everything at once; you don’t. Simply keeping the bigger picture in mind as the backdrop behind everything you do creates a win-win situation where all your needs are met, and it sets the stage for waking up in a more balanced tomorrow. What you excavate by doing the internal digging creates clarity of the vision you want for yourself, and what you need to do to get it becomes crystal clear. Once you’re clear, you can manifest everything on your wish list.

      With that in mind, this book is designed to lead you on a journey through the nine feng shui areas of life (Abundance & Prosperity, Passion & Romance, Fame & How You Are Seen in the World, Career & Service, Health & Balance, Family & Past, Creativity & Future, Wisdom & Self-Awareness, and Faith & Benefactors) and encourage you to reflect on how those parts of your life currently feel. These areas are part of a westernized system of feng shui known as Black Sect feng shui, and they relate to something called the Bagua map. This map is generally applied to a home or property, but in this case, we’re navigating a path to your best you.

      My feng shui master was Hawaiian and always included teachings from the ancient Hawaiian Huna secrets in his feng shui classes (huna means secret). He later created the Tibetan Hawaiian Feng Shui Foundation where I was trained. There are many crossovers between the principles of Huna and how they relate to energy and intention, which we will explore along with the feng shui principles in this book.

      If the actions presented in this book feel good to you: start now. If they feel overwhelming: stop, and resume later. Sometimes a little bit at a time feels really good. Break the process down into bite-sized chunks and create your own path. Your ideal life is waiting for you and you can get there at a pace that feels just right to you. Let’s get started.

      Abundance and Prosperity

      “The well of Providence is deep. It's the buckets we bring to it that are small.” —Mary Webb

      Feng Shui Principle

      

There are seven ancient Hawaiian Huna secrets as taught by their shamans (Kahunas). One is Kala, which means There are no limits. The idea behind this and the Mary Webb quote is that all limitations are set by people’s own minds.

      Color your world

      The best colors for abundance and prosperity are deep purples, grounding golds, vibrant reds and grand greens. Think of the celebrations of Mardi Gras, the colors of the fall harvest and ceremonies of royalty.

      The Highest Good Principle

      I think that many people in life are concerned that if they get what they really want, something bad will happen. W.W. Jacobs warned in his 1902 short story The Monkey’s Paw: “Be careful what you wish for, you may receive it.” The story was a horror tale, and the warning may stick in the back of our minds from childhood: if we receive something we really desire, someone could take it away, our friends might be jealous or we may feel guilty for having something while others suffer. But we don’t have to think this way; as we can do with any thoughts that are no longer serving us, we can place them into a sacred fire of our own choosing, allowing them to be released once and for all.

      In feng shui, we talk about intentions being the seeds that grow into the gardens of our experience. My feng shui master always said that we are allowed to ask for anything we can imagine, anything under the sun, and to never set limits to our desires. He also tempered this by saying that we can ask for anything we desire because we always add the phrase: “…as long as it is for our highest good and the highest good of others.” This is like a spiritual or energetic insurance policy that can help allay the worries that stem from dreaming big. (The section Highest Good of All, explains this concept even further.)

      Don't put limits on your manifestations

      Now that you’re thinking about your specifics, don’t put any limits on them. It’s funny how sometimes people put so many limits on their beliefs before they even get started—sometimes even on their fantasies. The tree is the symbol for wealth in feng shui. They say your branches can only grow as high as your roots are deep. If you can’t dream big, how can you receive big?

      Prosperity and abundance are often thought of as money, and having lots of it. Some people think of monetary wealth as abundance, while others think of health as abundance or a relationship as abundance. Those ideas seem to be hinting at a bigger picture, which is the good life—all areas of your life. The good life is the concept that you can have it all. Why choose? Why have a life where your career is thriving at the expense of your health, or have financial gain at the expense of your relationship? If you get what you focus on, why not conceive of a win-win scenario where you can aim at all of it and have it all? If it’s overwhelming to focus on all the areas at once, then focus on one section at a time and the rest will come.

      Clarify Your Intentions

      The first thing to do is create a clear image of what prosperity and abundance is for you. For example, let’s say you feng shui the prosperity corner in your home and a few days later you find $20 in the street. Does that mean it’s working? Technically, you have more money than you had before, but if you don’t have a clear vision of what you’re aiming at to begin with, then you won’t know when you’ve received it. See if you can figure out how you will know you have accomplished your intentions. Picture it in your mind’s eye. See the cast of characters who are present. Being specific about your intentions can allow you to track your progress to your goal.

      Feng shui is about balance in all of its forms, especially in regard to your intentions. This means addressing all nine areas of life, not simply focusing on one area like wealth. If you were working out, it wouldn’t make sense to use just one arm to lift a dumbbell every day. You would look funny, and you would hardly be in shape. The same is true when we define