Chapter 7
Do you remember those long nights when you were small, when you couldn’t sleep because you just knew there were monsters lurking under your bed? Now, the monsters are in the clutter under your bed, atop your dresser, and in your closet. They may not be as scary as the bogeymen of your childhood, but these monsters can prevent the flow of healing energy that you need in order to enjoy all the benefits that flow from a good night’s sleep.
Unless you built your home from scratch, you obviously did not have anything to do with where your bedroom was placed. Chances are that when you bought or rented your home, you didn’t think about feng shui or even know much about it. The questions of which direction the bedroom faces in and where it is in relation to other rooms or doors or bathrooms did not concern you. If, after you learn a bit more about ideal placement, these aspects do begin to concern you, don’t lose sleep over it! No matter what your bedroom situation is, there is usually a remedy that will allow you to get a restful night’s sleep.
Contrary to what many people think, a small room is best for sleeping, because the energy is contained (just as long as the room is not filled with clutter). The best location for your room is far away from the front door of your home, where so much energy flows through.
If insomnia is a problem for you, “west is best” for the direction in which you should face, because that’s where the sun sets. However, if you find it easy to fall asleep but difficult to wake up, try facing east. The direction of the sun, rising or setting, will help you determine what works best for you. Room color can help offset too much or too little sunlight, as well.
If you slip into dreamland almost as soon as your head hits the pillow, you probably can move on toanother section of this book. But if you’re having trouble finding a smooth transition from wakefulness to dreamland, it could be because your bedroom feng shui is closer to a nightmare than a dream.
First of all: Get rid of the clutter! Having remnants of your day, your work, and other aspects of your wakeful life scattered about your floor, hiding under your bed, and covering the surfaces of your dresser and any other furnishings impedes chi and your sleep.
Try not to sleep directly under the bathroom on a floor above you. Being close to plumbing tends to drain chi.
Have calm, soothing colors on your walls, floor, and furnishings—and keep electronics out of the bedroom as much as possible to avoid the constant flow of energetic electrical current while you’re trying to catch some ZZZs.
Put only soft, comfortable sheets and blankets on your bed, and avoid using dead animal skins. No bearskin rugs on the floor! Dead animals in a room are very bad for chi.
Keep your work area in another room, or cover it up when you sleep. Work and sleep just don’t mix—and you don’t want one of those frustrating dreams in which you’re at work, only to wake up from your restless sleep and actually be there already!
Safety and privacy in your bedroom are important to restful sleep, too. A bedroom that is too open to the rest of the house may be disquieting. If you must sleepin a space that otherwise lacks privacy, such as a living room, you should try to define the sleeping area clearly and protect it with a piece of furniture such as a bookcase or perhaps a tall screen.
Remember, too, that your bedroom should offer a contrast to your hectic, daily life.
Your bedroom should reflect your personal style, but mirrors should not reflect you—or you and your partnerin your bedroom. Mirrors displace the energy in your room, affecting your sleep, and even could draw a third party into your romantic relationship. Mirrors over the bed are especially bad for that reason!
For one thing, you might be startled by your own movements in a mirror if you should get up in the middle of the night. It’s also thought that each night, as we sleep, our souls travel through space and time. As they begin their journey, they, too, may be jarred by reflections in a mirror, including those of anything that is less than aesthetically pleasing in the room.
The advantages of mirrors in interior decorating—opening up space and making a room appear larger and brighter—are serious disadvantages in the bedroom for those very reasons.
A mirror opposite the door of your bedroom is a bad idea, too, because it will reflect energy back toward the entrance, interrupting the energy flow of your room. Exceptions to the no-mirrors rule are:
If you cannot simply remove the mirrors in your bedroom, you might consider covering them, such as with drapery or fabric art. If you do so, though, remember to use fabric of a muted shade because bright colors are stimulating and can disturb your sleep.
Where should your bed be? Let’s first talk about where it should not be. Your bed should not be facing a doorway, with the foot of the bed toward the door. This is viewed as the death position in many cultures and is highly unlucky. Your bed should also not be aligned with the door because you should be able to seeanyone coming through the doorway. Also, this parallel position will create a disruption in energy flow that could disturb your sleep.
Placing your bed against a window is not a good idea either, since the chi will flow too quickly out of the room.
Another inauspicious location for a bed is under a beam, sloping ceiling, ceiling fan, bright light, or overhanging shelf or cupboard. All of these things disturb or suppress energy flow. Don’t put your mattress on the floor, either, because that causes disturbed sleep and will literally hold you down from achieving your dreams. In your bedroom, you should seek to elevate yourself!
If possible, you should not sleep on a bed that was owned by someone else. Beds absorb a person’s energy, and chances are that you do not know whether the energy of the previous owner was good.
Don’t sleep in a metal-framed bed. Not only is metal cold, it will also enhance the electromagnetic energy of electrical appliances in your home, which could prevent a restful night’s sleep. Speaking of currents, unplug as many of your electrical appliances in your room at night as you can to cut off the constant flow of electricity through the wiring.
Don’t sleep in a room directly below a toilet on the floor above, and if there is no door between your bedroom and bathroom, use something to separate the rooms. Bathrooms are believed to be “draining,” literally, of your energy.
If you are part of a couple and you value your relationship, it’s recommended that you not sleep in a king-sized bed, which is too large and can have the same effect as sleeping separately.
Some more tips: You should have a solid headboard (but not one shaped like a headstone). Use a canopy to separate your bed from what’s over it if your bed is under a sloping ceiling, structural beam, or toilet on the floor above. Place the bed diagonally opposite the doorway to your bedroom, in a corner, so that you will see the door without directly facing it. Being able to see the doorway provides added security, which facilitates sleep. The idea is to be out of alignment with the energy flowing through the doorway while still keeping the doorway in sight.
Many people have a tendency to allow their bedrooms to become filled with stuff. They rationalize that any guests who visit them will be highly unlikely to see their bedrooms, so why not throw all of those old boxes and magazines underneath the bed? It’s that kind of thinking that can keep you up at night!
Bed Unrest: Clutter on, under, and around your bed can make for restless nights—don’t sleep on unmade decisions like these.
For the best possible energy flow and a good night’s sleep, you really do want a room that is free of clutter. For instance, clothing that retains energy from your daily life should be put away. The space under your bed should be just that—space: no storage boxes or fuzzy bedroom slippers, no snack food or dishes. No clutter of any kind. Also, except for the reasons noted earlier, there should be no mirrors in your bedroom, and few, if any, knickknacks. No electrical appliances, including television sets, radios, stereos, computers, hair curling sets, or hair dryers. No exercise equipment, and absolutely no work desk!
Try to reduce the amount of things you have, from the menagerie of glass animals to the jungle of real or artificial plants. In fact, living plants in your room at night are a bad idea, anyway. Nighttime is when plants give off carbon dioxide and take in oxygen, just the reverse of the process during the daytime.
If you must have a workspace (like a desk or computer) in your bedroom, just be sure to cover the work area at night, especially any electrical items such as your computer.
Too many pictures on the walls, piles of books and magazines on the chairs and floor, and similar clutter will block the flow of natural energy and prevent you from achieving the best possible night’s sleep. Even very large bedrooms should be sparsely furnished. Don’t feel compelled to fill every inch of space, unless you truly enjoy insomnia.
Eliminating clutter doesn’t mean you have to eliminate the things you enjoy. Instead of banishing books from your bedroom, find a way to accommodate them and enhance the energy flow that induces sleep. Just place a pyramid-shaped bookcase in the wisdom corner of your bedroom. The books will be much more neatly arranged, and the shelf’s pyramid shape works nicely because it is an ancient symbol of higher knowledge.
First and foremost, your bedroom is a place to rest your body, mind, and spirit. Be mindful of your decorative elements and their sensory impact. Calm colors, soothing fabrics, and subdued lighting will help you release the stresses of your day and prepare you for the sleep your body needs.
Colors can do a lot to enhance your bedroom, but they can cause disturbance, too. Be especially color conscious if you have difficulty sleeping. For instance, bright red is a great color for a fire engine, but not for your bedroom. Just as it startles and wakes up drivers and pedestrians, who rightly associate the color with emergencies and adrenaline, it will keep you awake at night.
Vivid colors of any hue will interfere with a restful night’s sleep. Similarly, avoid the day-brightness of solid white; use it sparingly.
Instead of using bright or glossy white, try off-white, like eggshell or cream. Soft yellow, for instance, is considered an excellent color for a bedroom and is very conducive to a good night’s rest. Gentle, warm colors, like some shades of pink, are exceptionally soothing.
Very strong colors, including deep purple, red, and orange, are too strong for a relaxing bedroom. Green and blue are cool colors, better off in the bathroom or elsewhere in the home, and probably should be saved for accent, rather than serving as the dominant color scheme. Light green is preferable to dark, and dark blue, like the color of deep bodies of water, should be avoided.
The same is true for patterns. Busy wallpaper and/or carpet will keep you buzzing all night long. Also avoid the skins of dead animals in your bedroom, including sheep or leopard skin. Solid, soft colors, fabrics, and textures, preferably of natural materials, are your allies in winning a nice, long rest.
It’s generally recommended that overhead lighting not be used in a bedroom because of the intensity of light that will shine over your bed. Remember, too, that light is energy and therefore must be taken into account when the switch is on.
Remember: It is generally best to keep computers and other electrical devices out of the bedroom if you want peaceful sleep. Electricity is forced energy, and therefore can interfere with good sleep.
Even when the lights are off, however, electrical current continues along its merry way, affecting the energy flow in your bedroom and, ultimately, your ability to sleep. Rather than an overhead light—and that includes single or dual reading lamps that some bedrooms feature—try standing lamps or table lamps off to the side, not shining directly over your bed.
Not all of your time in bed is spent sleeping, of course. And if you’re very fortunate, you have a wonderful, loving partner with whom to explore other possibilities. If you would like such a partner but do not presently have one, don’t despair—feng shui can help you in the romance department, too. With a little planning in your furniture purchases and arrangement and your bedroom decor, you can attract the relationship you desire.
If you have recently ended a long-term relationship, and you can afford to do it, consider buying a new mattress. A bed, like other furnishings, absorbs the energy of the people who sleep in it, and you don’t want any “old business” casting a shadow over your new relationship.
Throw away the holdover, sentimental pieces from your past relationship(s)—the theater or concert stubs and programs, old pictures, small gifts, souvenirs of trips together, et cetera. If you can’t part with them altogether, at least keep them out of your relationship area.
You want to attract a new person and a new way of relating to that person. After all, if your old habits were effective, you wouldn’t be looking for someone new!
The end of a relationship is the perfect time for a clearing. Clear your space, certainly, but also consider freshening up or changing other elements of your bedroom. Your intentions will be for personal renewal, but they should also aim to change and improve the energy flow.
In your bedroom, your artwork should depict happy, loving couples, not wistful-looking men or women sitting all alone. Nor is it a good idea to have pictures of lonely looking, wave-battered cliffs, or isolated islands or rocks surrounded by a cold, blue sea and ominous, gray skies.
You should have pairs of objects in your relationship bagua, located in the right-hand corner of the room as you are looking into the room from the doorway. For instance, a picture of a loving couple (or pair of birds), a pair of red candles, or two heart-shaped boxes. Some consultants suggest throwing sexy red lingerie into the comer and, in this particular area of the bedroom, hanging a round mirror to keep the energy moving.
Be sure to keep your relationship corner clean—no dirty laundry, cobwebs, or dust bunnies. Red is the color of passion, and so some red in your relationship corner is desirable, even though you don’t want that to be the color of your whole room. Symbols of romance and togetherness, such as hearts or a pair of doves or lovebirds, are ideal in that corner, especially since these birds mate for life.
Erotic art can be appropriate in the bedroom, but refrain from displaying it in public areas of your house.
Incorporating elements of feng shui works not only for attracting a new relationship, but also for enhancing one you have. Just keep your intention clear and positive, and don’t place dried or wilted plants or flower arrangements in your relationship corner, since they represent death and decomposition (and you don’t want these things to happen to your relationship!).
Beyond your relationship corner, your entire bedroom should be set up for two, even if one is still your loneliest number. You should have two nightstands, one on either side of the bed, for instance, and a double or queen-sized bed, rather than a twin bed, which screams, “I’m still single!”
Make your bedroom appear welcoming to a special someone who might want to spend some time there with you. It should offer an obvious place for this person to put his or her clothing and other personal items without feeling too awkward about it. The room should, in other words, look like you were expecting company rather than building a private fortress or retreat.
Some lighter, brighter, more whimsical furnishings or decorative pieces are helpful, too, because a loving relationship includes lightheartedness and fun. Avoid having a television, computer, VCR, and DVD, as well as workspace, in your bedroom, because these will distract and detract from your relationship as well as disrupt the energy flow of your room. The only way around this in feng shui is to keep these electrical items tucked away in a small entertainment cabinet with cupboard doors that close when the item is not being used. To get the best sleep, turn all of these things off when you feel yourself nodding off to dreamland.
In keeping with the general advice about bedroom colors, take inventory of yours. Blues connote isolation, for instance. Warm earth colors, on the other hand, encourage closeness. In addition to having pairs of furnishings, you will want to achieve balance throughout the bedroom. Women whose rooms are ultrafeminine should consider adding some neutral or more masculine décor, and vice versa, to allow for a mix of yin and yang, which is ideal in relationships.
Balance larger, heavier furnishings with some smaller, lighter ones. Arrangement of the bed and other furniture should be conducive to good energy flow, and mirrors, except maybe for a small one in your relationship corner, should be avoided. Assess whether all areas of your room are open to the touch of another person, or are you still, in some way, holding back by guarding some precious items that you think of as being for you, alone? Ideally, the person you hope to attract into your life, and your bedroom, will eventually add some touches of his or her own, but the attitude and energy established by you before that point are critical.
Mirrors over the bed invite trouble into a relationship, possibly even leading to one person in it becoming involved with someone else.
Do not sleep with your feet facing the door. The death, or coffin, position, as it is known, is symbolically highly unlucky. If you pay attention to chakra points, you will also know that the ones in your feet will be drained as you sleep if your feet are facing the door.
You want the bed to point toward a wall in such a way that you still are in view of the doorway (preventing vulnerability), but not directly in line with it. This is also known as the emperor’s position (regardless of whetheryou’re in a king-sized bed!). Keeping all of your energy intact can only improve your love life, right?
Instead of placing your bed against a wall, keep the space free on both sides of the bed for ideal energy flow. As noted elsewhere in this chapter, the space should be free under the bed, as well.
When yin and yang lack harmony, they destroy each other. If something is yin, therefore, it must face in that direction. Also, if your home is on a slope in which left and right sides are uneven, negatively affecting yin and yang, you might have some trouble dating and mating.
I’d advise seeking out a feng shui expert who may use intuition or take compass readings (using a luo pan or geomancer’s compass) to determine possible disturbances in energy flow, if you suspect this is a problem.
In general, though, it’s best to have your bedroom in the back of the house and to pay close attention to what you place in your relationship corner, the far right corner as you face the room from the doorway. Think red, hearts, candles, pairs of objects, pictures of happy couples, sexy lingerie, perfume, love poetry, and erotica.
That’s the corner that will help you turn the corner in your love life, so treat it well—make clutter off-limits here for sure.
QUESTION
How can using feng shui improve romance?
If you want to have more love in your life, consider buying a pair of lovebirds and positioning them in the upper right-hand corner of your bedroom. What is more mindful than putting a pair of birds that mate for life in your relationship corner?
Mood music, aromatic candles, soft lighting, soft colors, and soft fabrics all contribute to a sexier bedroom, as well. The art of seduction lies in soothing and sensual, not loud and brassy.
It also helps to relocate the family reunion from the bedroom to another room in the house. That is, remove pictures of your mom and dad, your kids, and your siblings from your bedroom walls. Who can feel sexy and uninhibited with these eyes on them? You might as well douse yourself with cold water and throw on some flannel!