15 Feng Shui Tips That Will Make Your Home Vibrate With Positive Energy

If you could imagine the most peaceful, calming, and serene indoor environment possible, what would that entail? Most likely, thoughts of tranquil mini waterfalls, soothing colors, and fresh, clean air come to mind. All of these relaxing energy techniques are likely to be found inside your local spa and thought of as part of a luxurious, costly experience. We often wonder, though, why that is. Why should the state of being relaxed and at peace be something that is reserved for special occasions only?

Relaxation and positive energy are things each of us should strive for on a daily basis for our mental health, physical health, and happiness. In fact, Chinese culture seemed to catch on to this concept pretty quickly in the earliest stages of human life. In order to ensure the gravesites of ancestors were safe from the elements, the ancient Chinese created a concept that entailed paying close attention to how the objects in our world correlated with unseen energy and natural elements around us (via Marquette University). These ideas evolved over time, and are commonly recognized these days as what we call feng shui.

Feng shui is an ancient Chinese practice that involves rearranging your surroundings in order to create a more harmonious and balanced environment, per National Geographic. The practice has become popularized in the Western world, and more and more individuals are redecorating their homes while latching onto the secrets and messages found within this time-old concept. What are some ways you too can bring this positive and uplifting energy that feng shui creates into your home? Let's discover what exactly will have positivity radiating from every corner of your living space.

People often wonder where and how they should even begin to start practicing feng shui. Feng shui, according to National Geographic, is centered around the chi — the energy or life force within everything. Chi is composed of yin and yang, which can be thought of as the indestructible harmonious balance between opposing forces. By using the concept of yin and yang, it is said that positive chi will enter your life while negative chi will flee. Feng shui is a method of balancing yin and yang: arranging furniture, decor, buildings, and structures with the yin and yang balance is thought of as being beneficial, and people can easily do this in their own homes.

To kick start your feng shui journey, the best thing to do is to set an intention for each room in your home. For example, a home office might be considered a place in need of motivation and feelings of upbeat energy for inspiration; thus, making sure that this room is arranged in a way that enforces these concepts is key. "If the living room is lively and often used for entertaining, adding hints of more energetic colors such as yellow and orange would be fitting. If your living room is primarily used for relaxing at the end of the day, then a restful and subdued color palette would be more appropriate," design expert Amanda Amato tells Good Housekeeping. No matter which room in your home we're discussing, an intention will be your map to feng shui success.

After you've come up with an intention and direction for each room, it's time to focus on your front doorway. This is mainly because it's one of the first things you'll look at inside and outside your home, and it can be thought of as the "mouth of the chi," or the home's portal of energy, per The Times of India. Without a strong front door, it's thought that chi will be unable to flow easily and freely in and out of your home. Most homes have multiple doorways, The Spruce reminds us, but it's your main front door that is considered to be "the mouth." It's also very important to actually use your front door as well because not doing so may block good energy and opportunities.

Furthermore, the front door should appear as if it's welcoming the chi. "The front door is very important in feng shui," feng shui expert Laura Benko says to My Domain. "Think of the chi as a first-time visitor trying to find your home — you want to make sure it's clearly lit, well-marked, and the address visible."

This next step may seem fairly obvious, but we have to admit that in this day in age most of us have a lot of, well, stuff. All the new gadgets you ordered off Amazon but never used, your extensive collection of makeup, piles of mail and packages, and shoes lying around are things that, if not well organized, can create a lot of clutter. Cluttered living spaces have scientifically been proven to play a part in increased general anxiety and depression (via Healthline), and not only will your friends and family avoid walking into that mess but so will positive chi.

"No matter if you're a millionaire or if you're dealing with unemployment, the pitfall everyone falls into is clutter," explains Laura Cerrano of Feng Shui Manhattan to Healthline. "Clutter isn't just about aesthetics — it's been proven to be detrimental to your mind, to the neurons in your brain. It creates stress." This goes for uncleanliness as well. Sneaky dirt that's accumulated on top of fans and entryways should be removed as soon as possible in your feng shui journey.

According to Buddha & Karma, wood, fire, earth, metal, and water are considered to be the elements of feng shui. If you have a room where the energy seems a little off, it may be because not all of the elements in feng shui are incorporated in that room. Each of these elements can evoke different moods and feelings, and each one correlates with different aspects of your life. For example, wood deals with growth, intuition, and manifestation; fire deals with self-expression and inspiration; earth deals with foundation and stability; metal deals with logic and focus; and water deals with wisdom, insight, and spirituality.

In order to help us find ways to balance these elements, HGTV provides us with a guide to harnessing each one. For instance, while it may seem obvious to decorate specifically with each element, there are ways to intertwine items that symbolically represent them. You can use decor that resembles shapes seen in the vertical designs in wood, or images and colors seen in the earth can bring forth the energy from these elements without having to actually have trees or dirt in your home. However, if you've somehow mastered the art of growing a tree inside your house, by all means, go for it!

We all do it: in those final moments as we lie in bed at the end of a long day, we find ourselves on our phones playing games or reviewing something from work. Sometimes it's just so hard to not think about the happenings at the office, or we're catching up on the latest episode of our favorite Netflix show. We know and have heard all about the negative effects of blue light on our eyes before bedtime, but here we are glued to all of these electronic devices anyway. Well, the bad news is that to really benefit from feng shui, electronic devices should be limited in spaces where you're trying to attain peaceful energy.

The electrical and magnetic waves that are emitted from devices such as cell phones and TVs can cause harmful effects on energy flow and even on the immune system and our mental health, per Art of Homes. So, removing these devices from spaces in the home that are intended for peace will help with positive energies while giving you an overall more tranquil and relaxing environment.

For a long time, burning sage had a bad rap in the scientific world due to its connections with spirituality, but in recent years, more and more science has come forth that backs up the positive effects of burning sage — something Native American cultures and tribes have been doing for thousands of years, as noted by Healthline.

According to One World Feng Shui, burning sage is said to contribute to feng shui energy by cleansing the space and ridding small areas and corners of negative energy. You can do a sage burning ritual as often as you'd like, but once a week is recommended to reap the most benefits. One World Feng Shui shares that after opening doors and windows, light a sage bundle on fire and let it burn for a few seconds, letting the flame die out and the embers begin to smoke.

Asking for protection and peace, slowly walk from room to room while wafting the smoke in the air, making sure it touches every corner, under counters and tables, behind curtains and closet doors, and even along ceiling lines. Once you finish cleansing the whole home, it's great to cleanse yourself as well. You can do this by cupping your hands over the smoke and symbolically washing your face with it — moving down to the rest of your body. Safely extinguish the smoke and store your sage in a safe spot for next time.

Because feng shui is focused on balance, the lighting in your space will play a huge part in your overall balance and happiness. Correcting unbalanced lighting will provide a sense of overall harmony to your living spaces, per third-generation certified feng shui consultant Ms. Feng Shui. She discloses, "In feng shui, lighting represents the fire element and is the strongest manifestation of energy. Its dominant influence on the quality of the chi in your home means that it can help bring balance and harmony to every space you spend the most time in."

"The light element needs to be harnessed in certain ways to make the most of its potential," she continues. Therefore, unbalanced lighting is a problem in proper feng shui. Luckily, there are many options you can utilize to identify and fix lighting problems in the home. For example, if you have a multitude of rooms with a single, bright overhead light, installing dimmers or curtains can help balance those, while candles and accent lights can further balance the overall fire energy flow in the room.

Many of us love the "idea" of having plants in our homes, but when it comes down to actually properly caring for and providing a decent life for them, some of us may fall short. In order to have a feng shui-focused home, however, we must learn to take better care of our plants. "Dead plants, dried flowers, and empty pots are not good feng shui," says Ms. Feng Shui. "They represent death and weaken the energy in your house or office. If it doesn't look good, it's not good to have it in your house! Add some life to your home with living plants that represent what you want and put them in the right places."

By the right places, Ms. Feng Shui is referring to those intentions we set earlier on. "Adding a money plant like a Crassula in your Wealth & Prosperity corner, for instance, would be a much better step than adding a desert cactus in your Love / Marriage / Relationships corner," she further states. To expand on this, feng shui educator Anjie Cho says, per the Inhabitat, that placing plants above the kitchen cabinet is ideal because the space above the cabinets is said to be a collector of dirt and "stagnant energy."

What the heck is a Bagua map, and why is it referenced so often in feng shui, you may ask? The Bagua map is composed of nine quadrants, which can be followed on a modern, Western version of the map or on the traditional version, per Invaluable. The map can be used to separate different spaces of the home into the nine quadrants, which are all centered around the heart. Like our human forms, the heart is said to carry energy from the center to other parts of the home.

Certified feng shui expert Marianne Gordon explains via MindBodyGreen, "There are two different approaches to using a Bagua map: The traditional (or compass) Bagua map uses a compass to determine the different areas of the home. The front door method, on the other hand, aligns the bottom of the Bagua map with a home's front door. I like to use this method in apartments since they generally are not exposed to the elements like houses are." In other words, whether you live in a house or in an apartment will determine how you calculate your map. In a home, your "career-focused" part of the house should be facing north, while in an apartment this area will be the front door.

"Once you organize your space into a Bagua map, you can tackle the sections that relate to your goals outside of the home. For example, if you're hoping to bring more financial abundance into your life, you can add some plants to your wealth and prosperity area," Gordon adds. Now, who's down for a trip to the plant store?

There are many small details in our lives that are easily overlooked, but they can cause a major overall negative impact on your chi. These include having dead plants around, as Ms. Feng Shui explains. There are many aspects to be mindful of in feng shui, however. In fact, Anjie Cho shares per The Spruce that objects like cacti, broken mirrors, random Asian decor or knick-knacks, storage boxes under the bed, and even beds without headboards are bad feng shui. She states, however, to "please keep in mind that not everything is a feng shui adjustment, so if you love one (or many) of these feng shui errors, it's okay. Just know you have it in your home because you love it, and not for its feng shui application."

Another concept to be mindful of in feng shui are the color schemes. For example, if you're attempting to invoke tranquility in your bedroom, painting the walls neon pink may not be the best idea. "In Chinese philosophy, it's better to have the space be white, or another neutral color, and have your colors in accents around the room," explains feng shui expert Carol Assa (via InStyle).

If you haven't figured it out already, feng shui is all about the details. One of these important details for maximizing balance is the command position. The command position in feng shui is where a piece of furniture is placed in comparison to the doorway. "You want to be able to see who's entering your private space, but positioning yourself directly in front of the door puts you in a vulnerable spot," feng shui expert Joanna Lily Wong shares with Better Homes & Gardens.

Furthermore, your bed is one of the prime examples of the command position. Anjie Cho explains to MindBodyGreen, "If you're sitting up in bed with your back against the headboard, you would want to be able to see the door without being directly in line with it. Usually, that means you're looking diagonally toward the door. That's generally the best position." She adds that positioning your bed under a window or in the middle of the room with no support isn't the best option, though.

It's no secret that not all feng shui experts agree on the best placement and usage of mirrors. Since mirrors reflect not only you but also all of the space and decor around you, this can make things a bit tricky for attempting balance. "It's believed that mirrors have the ability to activate the energy within a room. Clients I work with will sometimes choose to keep a mirror in their bedroom and tell me that they sleep soundly. Some clients love the idea of no mirrors in the bedroom or may just place a long mirror inside the closet door. If you do that, just make sure the closet is organized, because mirrors double what they project," feng shui consultant Laura Cerrano tells My Domaine.

To expand on this, Laura Benko tells My Domaine that mirrors can improve the feng shui in a home. "Mirrors in feng shui are like aspirin," she says. "They're prescribed often to treat many ailments. They're a quick adjustment when you want to expand a space and bring in more light." Try placing mirrors in different areas of your home and see how the energy affects your mood. From there, you can decide which placements work best for you.

Historically, water is symbolic in almost every culture. The element of water can be seen everywhere from astrology to yoga, and feng shui is no different. Since the word "shui" literally translates to water, the aqua side of feng shui is thought to bring good fortune. Having a feng shui fountain is the best way to incorporate water into your space, according to Total Pond.

Your feng shui fountain doesn't have to be anything too fancy. In fact, a small and simple one such as a tabletop design from Amazon will do the trick just fine, with one five-star reviewer stating, "It brought calm and peace to a very hectic environment." However, the most important thing to remember with your fountain is its placement, which your Bagua map should determine (via Waterfall Now). Depending on what you'd like the fountain to attract — health and family, abundance, a better career, or anything else — it should be in that correlating direction on the map.

Air is not one of the elements looked at in feng shui, but according to feng shui consultant Rosemary Nelson, it should be (via Equate). "In feng shui, the element of air is downplayed because it belongs to the medicine wheel mythology where astrology and seasonal changes are dominant. This purely [references] the origins of each discipline, feng shui originates from Chinese physiology," she explains.

Nelson shares that because air is closely connected to wind, air can be associated with change — the "winds of change," in other words. In order to allow these changes to flow freely in the home, open a few windows, advises Nelson. Opening windows and doors to allow air to flow is said to attract prosperity inside the home, while also energizing the space. Creating pathways for air to enter and exit will aid in that flow, which can be done by moving objects blocking the way between windows and doors.

If you were around for the powerful force of a decade known as the '90s, you'll remember the yin-yang symbol fad that was literally everywhere. Traditionally, however, the yin-yang symbol is much more than a fashion statement and dates back way farther than the '90s. In Chinese culture dating back to 600 BC, yin and yang have long represented the opposing forces we see everywhere around us: night and day, push and pull, summer and winter (via Feng Shui for Real Life). These "opposites," so to speak, in feng shui are what create harmony and balance in everything we see around us. Yin qualities are said to be feminine forces, while yang qualities are said to be masculine.

Using the theory of yin and yang can help tremendously with feng shui; after all, feng shui is a balancing act. "In general, look to have restful places like bedrooms and meditation areas exhibit more yin qualities. This may mean adding black-out shades, keeping the blue-lit electronic devices to a minimum, and having it quiet and relaxing. Soothing and softer colors can promote more yin activities," Anjie Cho tells The Spruce. What's more, Cho adds, "Yang spaces may include the kitchen, exercise rooms, or workspaces. These areas tend to work best when you bring in more yang elements such as abundant amounts of lighting (especially sunlight). Invite a flow of good energy into the space with the proper amount of activity and cheerfulness."

Whichever way you may choose to invite feng shui into your home, following the right path by using traditional customs like yin and yang is a surefire way to know that you're doing everything you can to enforce positive energy.