16 Effective Steps to improve the Feng Shui of your Bedroom
Dr. Michael Oon
The bedroom is the most crucial room in a home for you to prepare for the next day. It provides you with the facilities for your body to have a good rest and recuperate. An auspiciously laid out bedroom brings harmony to the family, who will then enjoy good health, a successful relationship or marital bliss. This is a plan to help you achieve by doing the Feng Shui of your Bedroom
It is imperative that the ambience in this room has more yin energy to make the room restful and induce sound sleep and that no malevolent energy is present. The bedroom must be clean and clear of the clutter that would otherwise cause the flow of energy to stagnate.
This article uses the 8 Mansion Formula, where the terms like Nien Yen, Kua number, Fu Wei are explained.
Get your personal Kua number from this automated site
Step 1. Shape of The Room for the Feng Shui of your Bedroom
An auspicious bedroom should have a regular shape with no missing areas. For example, an L-shape room, which can be the result of an en-suite bathroom and toilet, will present problems. It creates a missing corner which destabilises the flow of energy in the room while 'poison arrows' could also emanate from the sharp corner formed by the walls - worst of all if this is pointed at the bed. The room should ideally be rectangular or square.
Step 2. Type of Bed
Like the room, the bed must be regular in shape. Avoid water or circular beds. Water beds significantly disturb the feng shui of a bedroom. Couples should sleep on a double bed. Sleeping in two separate beds or one bed with two single mattresses suggests an unstable relationship and may lead to the couple separating.
Step 3. Position of The Bed
The most important aspect of a bedroom is the orientation of the bed.
Make sure the bed is not positioned under a window - this symbolises a lack of support. The end of the bed should not face the bedroom door directly as this is known as the 'death position '. The bed should have a sturdy headboard and be positioned against a solid wall to indicate strong support in your life. Make sure it is not sharing a wall with the toilet.
Ideally, the bedhead should point in the direction of your third best position or nien yen for family relationship and harmony. To find out your nien yen, calculate your kua number based on your date of birth. This will give you four auspicious and four inauspicious directions in which to orientate the directions of your bed, your work, or where you eat and cook. We will follow up on these other orientations in future issues.
The kua number will also determine which feng shui group you belong to - East House or West House. If the partners in a couple belong to different house groups, place the bed in the nien yen position of the main bread winner of the family. If a couple is planning to start a family, it is advisable for the male partner to sleep with his head pointing in this direction. If wealth is a priority, then position the bed to point in the best direction or sheng chi of the main breadwinner of the family.
Step 4. Door Alignment
The bedroom door should not be in alignment with the door of the toilet or face another door or staircase in the corridor or landing. If the bed lies between the toilet door and the bedroom door, it may cause an ill fortune. This can be rectified by placing a screen in front of the en suite bathroom door to shield off the offending negative energy from the bathroom.
If the bedroom door faces another door in the corridor, it is reputed that this will bring about confrontation and quarrels between the occupants. In such a case, hang a beaded curtain or some other furnishing material on the bedroom door to soften the effect of the confronting doors.
Step 5. Mirror, Mirror on the Wall
One taboo of feng shui is the reflection of sleeping bodies in a mirror. It is said that mirrors reflecting sleeping bodies will cause restlessness and disturbed sleep. Prolonged exposure to this harmful effect may result in bad health or strained relationships between couples, causing a rift which may lead to either party seeking solace with someone new. It is often said that a mirror facing a bed will introduce a: third party into the relationship.
If the mirror cannot be re-positioned, a simple solution would be to cover the mirror -or television screen -at night before retiring to bed. If the mirror is part of a wardrobe and cannot be moved and the bed cannot be relocated due to the constraints of space, install a curtain rail on the ceiling by the wardrobe door and hang a curtain to cover the mirror at night. With the suitable fabric and design, this could become an attractive feature in a bedroom.
Step 6. Poison Arrows
Watch out for sharp corners - particularly from the corners of walls, edges of wardrobes, cabinets and other furniture - which may produce 'poison arrows' or harmful energy. Bedside lamps with sharp edges should also be avoided, so choose a round lampshade. Pendulum lights or ceiling fans should not be placed directly over the bed as this will generate poison arrows and cause disturbed sleep.
Step 7. En suite Bathroom
If a bedroom has an en suite bathroom and toilet, it is advisable to place the bed away from the door of the bathroom. If space permits, the toilet should ideally be confined in a corner inside a cubicle to keep the bad energy in check. Alternatively, keeping the lid of the toilet shut when not in use also helps.
Step 8. Look out for Beams in the Feng Shui of your Bedroom
One of the greatest culprits for producing poison arrows is single heavy beams. These are quite common features in some older homes. While many small beams are fairly harmless, a single large beam can be detrimental to the well-being of the occupants if they sit or sleep under it for an extended period of time.
If a single large beam exists in the bedroom, avoid placing the bed directly underneath it. If this position cannot be avoided, hang a pair of bamboo flutes suspended by red threads on the offending beam, leaning them towards each other at 45-degree angles. Position the mouthpiece of the flutes at the bottom to lift up the energy of the beam. This alleviates the 'pressure' of the beam and renders it less harmful.
Step 9. Hanging Cupboards
Similar to the harmful effect of beams are cupboards and wardrobes that are suspended over the head of a bed. This is a popular wardrobe design as it creates extra storage space. Similar to a beam, negative ch'i will emanate downwards from the suspended cupboard towards the people lying in bed underneath. This might cause headaches and unsound sleep.
Try to remove the suspended section. Alternatively, if space permits, pull the bed out of reach of the suspended wardrobe and place a set of cabinets behind to fill in the empty space. Another approach is to design a tenting feature of thick fabric to cover the bottom of the suspended cupboard like a canopy. This creates a romantic feature in the bedroom while at the same time protecting the occupants from oppressive overhead energy.
Step 10. Taboos in the Bedroom
The presence of aquariums, water features, or waterscape paintings is taboo in the bedroom. It is said that the presence of water in the bedroom indicates the probability of a robbery, burglary or financial loss of some kind.
Step 11. Using Colours in the Feng Shui of your Bedroom
Never paint the bedroom in black, which is too yin or bright red, which is too yang - keep a balance of energy. Blue is an excellent colour to use in bedrooms - it is a yin colour which brings calm and restfulness to the room.
Step 12. Plants and Flowers
Plants and flowers which produce abundant yang energy are another taboo in the bedroom. Flowers or plants in the bedroom are known to suppress the Romance Luck of single people, and they can cause acrimonious feelings and even unfaithfulness between a couple.
Step 13. Open Shelves
In feng shui, open shelves are not encouraged anywhere in the house, as poison arrows may emanate from their blade-like edges. It is especially harmful in the bedroom to sleep opposite a row of open shelves as prolonged exposure to this harmful energy while sleeping can cause sickness. Either convert the shelves into cupboards by adding doors or pack the shelves tightly with books so that it looks like a uniform mass, reducing the effect of the poison arrows.
Step 14. Who Sleeps Where
The allocation of the bedrooms to members of the family follows a hierarchy in accordance to their ranks in the family based on the trigrams on the pa Kua. The location of bedrooms for each member has an influence on the well-being of that individual.
For example, if there are elderly people in the house, it is advisable to allocate a bedroom in the North-west area to the elderly patriarch and the South-west to an elderly matriarch if they are not together. In the absence of elderly people, this area should be assigned to the mother and father of the house, the room chosen depending on whoever is the main bread-winner.
Sons are best placed in bedrooms in the East where the trigram chien is associated with thunder which indicates an abundance of yang energy. This sector is especially auspicious for the eldest son of the family. The eldest daughter should ideally be in the South-east sector of the house while the middle daughter should occupy a South facing room. The youngest daughter will fare best in a room in the West.
Step 15. Symbols of Good Fortune
While it is not advisable to over-activate a bedroom, symbols for enhancing harmonious relationships may be helpful to couples or single people seeking romance. A famous symbol is a pair of yin-yang ducks or mandarin ducks, which usually come in colourfully hand-painted wood. These should be placed in the South-west corner of the bedroom or near the bed. To enhance Romance Luck further, it is prudent to unite the ducks by binding them with a red ribbon.
Another potent symbol is the 'double happiness' sign which is the Chinese calligraphy for happiness and love, popular in bridal chambers at Chinese weddings. These signs are usually written in gold embossed on red cards - an auspicious colour combination for good luck.
A faceted crystal suspended from a red silk cord tied in the Chinese Eternal knots is also conducive to activating Relationship Luck if hung in the South-west corner.
Step 16 Children's Rooms
For children's rooms, place natural crystals like quartz or amethyst on the study desk to enhance their Education Luck. If possible, position the bed of the child to point (when they are lying down in bed) in their fourth best direction or Fu Wei to inspire inner knowledge and personal development. To inspire their academic aspirations even further, display portraits of learned and famous role models. in their room, such as Einstein or someone the child or student aspires to be (we don't mean a rock star). This is said to attract scholastic success.
Commentary:
These are the 16 Effective Steps to Feng Shui your Bedroom. The steps are straightforward and easy to implement.
