5 Ways to Stay Positive in Negative Times

Life is a series of ups and downs. It may seem like some people have it easier than others, but that’s rarely the case. Most people have their share of problems and their successes.

The ones who get through the problems to make their life more successful, though, are those who have some common traits. And, with the economy the way it is, a successful person will be looking at how to adapt to the situation and capitalize on the times as they are – not as they wish they would be.

In 1990, my husband and I bought a $60,000 house (below) that was run down and smelled like urine inside. We had a 12% loan to pay on this “gem.” But, our house was in a great neighborhood, and I could see that with a little effort, we could have a beautiful home in about a year – and more value in our home, too.

Everyone said this was the “worst possible time to buy a home” because values were inflated and interest was, too. But you know what? We could buy one and did, but we bought smart. We bought under the market and it put us on top after it was over.

Three more houses later and we’re in a gorgeous home and life is good. These are the lessons I’ve learned about taking positive steps in difficult times. And it’s good feng shui, too.

1. Stay involved.
As easy as it is to throw your hands in the air and sit on the sofa, that does no one any good. Look at new opportunities. Learn a skill and look for ways to hedge your bets. Just like buying an undervalued house in a good neighborhood was a good investment, you can find ways to profit even in the worst times. Look for them.

2. Put more in.
Rather than sit and wait to see what was going to happen with the recession we were in 1990, we invested in our home and our environment and it paid us back. FDR showed us with the WPA that investment into yourself is a good thing. By putting money and time into America’s infrastructure, we reaped the benefits of the good energy and improved bridges, roads and other public works – and got ourselves out of the Great Depression. Work on your landscaping, repaint a room, install organizers. Improving your home will improve your life; trust me on this one!

3. Be detached.
Feng shui is about balance, and where does a balance pivot? It balances in the center – neither negative nor positive. Learn to watch the news with detachment about the rumblings of the sky falling and don’t fall into the trap of believing that the sky really is falling. Detachment will keep you balanced in the face of hysteria of either the positive or the negative kind.

4. Seek out opportunities.
Continue to make efforts on your behalf and don’t give in to apathy. Learn to be invaluable at work and to your clients and learn a new work skill. Find something unique that you can do – or a unique offer or twist on what you already do to improve your prospects.

5. Be daring, be BOLD.
The worst thing you can do is sit on the sidelines like a cardboard cutout in a store window that watches the parade go past you. An Israeli friend of mine recalled a story about a bomb that exploded close to a restaurant where he was eating with an American friend. The friend was alarmed and wanted to run out. The American asked the Israeli why he wasn’t running away from the restaurant. “Because this fish is so good,” he recalled licking his fingers. My mother was hugely disappointed that I didn’t cancel a trip to London in the early 80’s because the IRA was setting off bombs. There will always be crises and catastrophes. Enjoy the fish every chance you get.
© K Weber Communications LLC 2002-2008

Kathryn Weber is the publisher of the Red Lotus Letter Feng Shui E-zine and certified feng shui consultant in authentic Chinese feng shui. Kathryn helps her readers improve their lives and generate more wealth with feng shui. For more information and to receive her FREE Ebook “Easy Money – 3 Steps to Building Massive Wealth with Feng Shui” visit www.redlotusletter.com and learn the fast and fun way how feng shui can make your life more prosperous and abundant!

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6 Ways to AVOID Success

Success is often elusive and yet we wonder and study how people become successful.  For some success is merely tied to a financial figure.  For others, success is fame, a certain dress size or material possessions.  Yet, for others, success represents a rounded and balanced life.

Your environment either supports or suppresses you, and if you’re surrounded by broken, unattractive, cluttered or negative environs, it’s going to take a toll on your health, your life, your bank account and your career. Get “your house in order” and you will see your life follow suit.

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© Kathryn Weber, All rights reserved

Kathryn Weber is the publisher of the Red Lotus Letter Feng Shui E-zine and certified feng shui consultant in authentic Chinese feng shui. Kathryn helps her readers improve their lives and generate more wealth with feng shui. For more information and to receive her FREE  E-book “Easy Money – 3 Steps to Building Massive Wealth with Feng Shui” visit www.redlotusletter.com and learn the fast and fun way how feng shui can make your life more prosperous and abundant!

The Five Elements – Feng Shui’s Building Blocks

There are five elements at the foundation of feng shui, and understanding them is key in feng shui. This knowledge helps you control the feng shui in your home and office. Understanding the five elements is an essential part of building the good energy in your home and controlling the negative energy — so learning about the five elements is an important investment of your feng shui time.

The elements include metal, wood, water, earth, and fire. They’re collectively called Wu Xing. Each element is related to an energy present in the earth and to a season of the year. For instance, fire is related to the summer months. Each element represents a different type of chi, such as growing chi, ripening chi, or spreading chi.

The way these elements interact with one another can either create harmony or disharmony. That’s because the elements correspond to one another differently. There are three ways in which the elements respond to one another: 1) Generating or productive, 2) exhaustive or reducing, and, 3) destructive. In a generating cycle, the elements enhance one another. For instance, water makes plants grow. Therefore, the water element enhances the wood element.

What does all this mean for you? Well, if you have an east sector that you want to enhance, you would improve it by adding water. The same is true for southeast, because it’s also a wood sector. If your home faces south (the fire direction), then what do you throw on a fire to make it grow? That’s right, wood. So, by painting your home brown, if it faces south, or adding plants in this area, you will be “enhancing” or producing more of your south/fire element.

Likewise, when you have a problem area, you’ll want to exhaust or destroy the energy. A good example of this is the bathroom located in the center, northeast, or southwest sectors of the house. These are all earth sectors. Plants, whose roots dive deep into the soil for nourishment, destroy the earth by using it up. Likewise, metal is also taken out of the earth, exhausting it.

So, in the earth sectors you can either destroy or exhaust the negative energy of the toilets by either adding more metal elements or wood elements. In this case, you could choose to paint your bathroom white, or simply add a plant in the bathroom. Either way, you’ll help to hold down the negative toilet energy.

Let’s go through the elements one by one…

1. Water
Water is the direction of the north. It’s color is black, blue, or deep purple. It’s enhanced by metal and destroyed by earth (dams contain water) and exhausted by wood (plants drink water). This makes having metal in a water location a benefit, and wood or earth a detriment. It’s associated with the number 1.

2. Earth
Earth is associated with the northeast, center, and southwest sectors. It’s enhanced by fire and destroyed by wood and exhausted by metal. It’s color is beige or yellow. It’s associated with the numbers 2, 5, and 8.

3. Wood
Wood is associated with the direction of east (big wood) and southeast (small wood). It’s enhanced by water, destroyed by metal (think of an ax against a tree) and exhausted by fire. It’s color is brown or green. It’s associated with the number 3 (east) and 4 (southeast).

4. Metal
Metal is associated with the west (small metal) and the northwest (big metal). It’s produced by earth and destroyed by fire and exhausted by water. It’s associated with the numbers 6 (northwest) and 7 (west) and the colors of white, gray, and gold (metallic gold, not ochre).

5. Fire
Fire is associated with the south. It’s enhanced by wood, exhausted by earth (think of throwing dirt on a fire), and destroyed by water. It’s associated with the number 9 and red is its color.
This diagram shows graphically how the elements work together

Now that you know how the elements work, you can begin making beneficial changes to the feng shui in your home.
© Kathryn Weber, All rights reserved

Would you like to use this article on your website or publication? You can. Simply include the entire, unchanged article with the blurb below with a link back to this site. A courtesy email would be greatly appreciated!

Kathryn Weber is the publisher of the Red Lotus Letter Feng Shui E-zine and certified feng shui consultant in authentic Chinese feng shui. Kathryn helps her readers improve their lives and generate more wealth with feng shui. For more information and to receive her FREE E-book “Easy Money – 3 Steps to Building Massive Wealth with Feng Shui” visit www.redlotusletter.com and learn the fast and fun way how feng shui can make your life more prosperous and abundant!

Feng Shui Yourself for Success

Feng shui is often called the Chinese Art of Placement. But you can use feng shui in so many ways beyond how you arrange your home.

Feng shui is all about energy movement and includes the way things look, how they feel, and the energy they possess. There are so many
ways that you can apply feng shui that can impact your life. Let’s talk about a few of them….

Signature and handwriting. My mentor and feng shui master, Lillian Too, often recommended people make changes to their signatures to give them more influence. Some signatures have letters that curl backwards — this means lackluster growth and success. Some tilt left — this causes the same problem. Even this graphic (right) shows writing that tilts to the right and looks like it’s going forward. Look at your signature and make sure yours says “affluence” and that it tilts right and up — not left and backwards.

A client of mine had a tough time being promoted even though his income kept going up; he simply never got the nod. I told him his signature tilted backwards — as though he turned his back on others or looked backwards. In fact, all his writing has a tendency to lean left. He changed his signature and the money flowed into his life — and he leap-frogged at his job being promoted up two levels! One of my wealthy clients has the most gorgeous handwriting — and she always writes in purple. I often admire it and wonder about its effect on her life.

Email. This may sound strange but your email address conveys ideas about you to the people who read it. What we call ourselves can have an influence in the way we are treated. One email I received came from a person looking for love. The woman wanted a man in her life and was seeking a permanent partner, yet her email address was “Beethovens wife.”

I told her that her email said she was already married — to a dead composer. I suggested she change her email to something more generic like sally@abc.com, but she refused and gave every excuse in the book why it wasn’t possible to make this simple adjustment. I said as long as you’re already someone else’s wife, then you won’t find a mate. People also have a tendency to write about themselves and write their names in email all in lowercase letters. This diminishes you. Don’t do it.

Change. Are you willing to make some changes in order to get what you want? Many people talk about change and then fight it every step of the way. They also may not understand how “easy” it is for other people and be so hard for themselves. What they don’t see is that change is not easy for anyone, it’s just that those who make the effort understand the discomfort of change isn’t just discomfort — it’s growing pains.

Receive. Many people are uncomfortable with receiving. They’re more comfortable with giving the advice, making the effort, slugging it out themselves. You have people and circumstances that are willing to help you and come to your aid. And if you do — are you willing to receive it and take the advice? I have a business mentor who gives me tough love — and I pay handsomely for it. That makes me value the advice and I am open to receiving it — and then implementing it! Be smart enough to take advice and then implement it.

Beautify. Do you live with clutter? Is your house dirty? Maybe your desk had a paper bomb go off…. Affluent people don’t live with mess. They work at keeping their environments beautiful and supportive and energizing. You can do the same. Make an effort in your home and office to make it appealing and beautiful. You deserve a clean, beautiful, organized space — whether that’s in the bedroom or the office or the living room.

While you’re at it, beautify yourself. Get to a new stylist, or a make-up counter at a department store. Improve your image and your look. We all get into ruts, just have the good sense to get out of it and make some improvements. Changing yourself keeps your energy flowing and active!

There are situations and circumstances in every part of your life that say subtle things about you and influence your life. Open your eyes to your habits of speech, your writing, your email name, your resistance to change and openness to receive. This is part of applying feng shui to yourself and to your life, to keeping energy positive and moving and flowing for yourself. Sometimes the change to your environment isn’t as important as the changes your make to yourself.

© Kathryn Weber, All rights reserved

Would you like to use this article on your website or publication? You can. Simply include the entire, unchanged article with the blurb below with a link back to this site. A courtesy email would be greatly appreciated!
Kathryn Weber is the publisher of the Red Lotus Letter Feng Shui E-zine and certified feng shui consultant in authentic Chinese feng shui. Kathryn helps her readers improve their lives and generate more wealth with feng shui. For more information and to receive her FREE E-book “Easy Money – 3 Steps to Building Massive Wealth with Feng Shui” visit www.redlotusletter.com and learn the fast and fun way how feng shui can make your life more prosperous and abundant!