By Kathryn Weber
Have a friend trying to get pregnant? Please share this article.
When it comes to places that increase our odds of getting pregnant, many of us probably think more about the doctor’s office than we do our own home. But just as you look for underlying medical reasons that might impair fertility, you might want to examine your home to see if it supports conception.
From the perspective of feng shui (pronounced fung schway), infertility can be attributed in part to energy, called chi, that’s been blocked or is stagnant. This ancient Chinese art aims to balance the energy of a place for the health and well-being of those living or working there. With a few simple feng-shui fixes, you can create a home that encourages positive energy and conception.
The mouth of chi
When all is in harmony, chi flows like a river. But when an environment doesn’t follow the key principles of feng shui, energy stalls. The result? Everything from headaches and fatigue to job troubles …and infertility. To bring your home into balance, start with the front door, which is considered “the mouth of chi,” where energy enters your home. You should be able to look out your front door and see an open space, such as a lawn.
If anything blocks the entryway—a hill, a tree, a telephone pole in line with your front door—the energy that encourages conception can be blocked, too. By hanging a wind chime on either side of the door you can help draw away the energy emitted by an obstruction (and it’s a lot easier than moving). Placing a mirror anywhere near the front door can push away energy and opportunities, too, but it’s especially crucial to avoid hanging a mirror so that it reflects the front door; instead you want to promote energy to enter and flow through your home.
Energize your bedroom
The bedroom is an important space in feng shui, since it’s where we sleep, recharge, and make love. When you’re trying to get pregnant, your aim is to balance female energy (called yin) and male energy (called yang). Start by beautifying your bedroom, but use gender-neutral designs and hues; you’re aiming for the calming, neutral feeling of a luxury hotel room. Incorporating colors like white, ivory, tan, brown, pink, or gold promotes relationship harmony and sexual desire. But avoid fresh flowers; floral pillows and bed coverings; and wallpaper with a flower design: In feng shui terms, flowers are the yang, or male, expression of a plant, which can compete with your husband’s yang energy.
Be sure to remove books and the computer and television from the bedroom when you’re trying to conceive; these take time away from what should be the only two purposes for this room: sleep and intimacy. And make sure that no dripping or running water can be heard from the bed, since this represents a loss of energy, too. When the nights get steamy, try using a stand fan instead of a ceiling fan, which can disrupt the recharging of your and your partner’s body chi during the night, depleting the precious energy of conception. You may need to give up your favorite side of the bed too: When lying, a woman should be on the right side and a man on the left; this is thought to harmonize and balance the couple’s energy.
Make room for a baby
Even though your child isn’t here yet, or even on the way, in feng shui it’s important to symbolically create space for a new baby. And that means getting rid of clutter. If your home is cramped or overrun with things you don’t need, this is a good time to consider donating, tossing, or storing about one-third of what you own (this represents clearing space in your life for a child, a third member of your family). Hiring a cleaning service and a professional organizer helps ensure you stay clutter-free. If your house or apartment is small, this could also be blocking your potential for pregnancy. Ideally, you’d want to move to a roomier home, if you can.
Power symbols
Another simple way to invite in energy that encourages a pregnancy is to surround yourself with uplifting photos and items that represent conception, fertility, and children. Chinese couples wanting to conceive traditionally place in their bedroom a classic image of one hundred children playing to encourage a pregnancy. Other potent fertility symbols include hollow bamboo, symbolizing humility and fertility; pictures of magpies, the bird of happiness and joy; a red lantern on both sides of the bed to bring good yang into the bedroom; and pomegranates, which also represent fertility.
Even if you don’t completely understand feng shui or how it works, this age-old art can help you see your home in a new light and encourage you to recreate your living space with simple touches that make it a more peaceful, beautiful sanctuary to support your efforts to become parents.
This article originally appeared in the Fall 2008 issue of Conceive Magazine.
Bonus feng shui fertility power tip: Make sure that you spend as much time as possible and have sex in the annual fertility sector of your home. This is the corner of the home that hosts the 9 star, the “baby” or “fertility” star. The sectors are listed below:
- 2014 North
- 2015 Southwest
- 2016 East
- 2017 Southeast
