How to Feng Shui Your Room with 5 Simple Steps
Back in June, I traveled home to Richmond, Virginia, to watch my little sister graduate high school. I drove three hours to my childhood home only to walk in the door and find that my mother had rearranged our entire house—my mistake. She “feng shui”-ed our whole house.
My mother actually hired a feng shui expert to take inventory of our household, calculate my family’s gua and Yen-nien numbers and create a floorplan for maximizing chi (Excuse me, but what is chi?). Now, before I begin with the feng shui jargon, you may be wondering what feng shui even is.
In layman’s terms, feng shui is the idea that you can improve your life and increase your happiness by rearranging the objects in your home to harness good energy (chi) and avoid bad energy (sha). In Chinese, "feng" means wind and "shui" means water. These two elements are symbols for creating chi flow. Everyone and everything possesses its own chi (even inanimate objects), but it is possible for the chi flow to become blocked or misdirected. That is where feng shui comes in.
A blocked chi flow can cause distress, tiredness, procrastination and inner turmoil—no thanks, I have enough of that already. But following the principles of feng shui, even with only a few simple and quick adjustments, “will have will have lasting positive impacts on your relationships, work, and stress levels” (Asia Society).
Now that we’ve defined feng shui, how do we use it for our happiness and lasting positive impact in school? I know that dorm rooms are small shared spaces, which can make things difficult to rearrange furniture, but maybe your roommate would be open to something new!
Step 1: Your bedroom is for sleeping.
Especially with the global pandemic happening in the world, you should try to avoid bringing friends home with you. According to feng shui, the same goes for your schoolwork. Your bedroom should be your space apart from chatting with friends, eating and work. That way, your bedroom is only for relaxing and your laptop and schoolwork EMFs (electromagnetic frequencies) will not negatively affect your sleep and cause stress.
Step 2: Furniture Placement.
You want your bed to be in a commanding position. Try to make sure the bed is facing the direction of the doorway but not in direct line with it—especially not inline with your head. The ideal spot for your bed is against the wall furthest away diagonally from the door.
Step 3: Declutter.
This is one of the most important quick fixes you can do in your dorm room. Get rid of clutter. Having a clean and organized room promotes productivity, happiness and peace of mind… exactly what we want right now.
Step 4: Colors!
Colors are very important in feng shui because they have the ability to influence your mood in specific ways. You’ll want to pick “cool” colors for your bed because they are relaxing and “warm” colors for your desk for stimulation and excitement. See the chart below:
Courtesy of housebeautiful.com
Step 5: Make it yours.
Even with a roommate, make sure you each have space for your personalities. Bring in natural light to increase your productivity and maximize creativity. Maybe purchase a plant or some flowers to bring nature into your room. Plants are often natural air-humidifiers and detoxifiers. Don’t trust yourself to keep a plant alive? Just a picture of a green plant will do too.
These 5 simple steps are basic tips to generate good chi flow in your dorm room that will increase your energy levels and leave a positive impact on your life overall. Remember, stressing about furniture placement or the colors of your roommate’s decorative pillows does not help your mental and emotional well-being. So, responsibly assess what principles of feng shui are accessible to you in transforming your space and helping you stay in balance in the rest of your life.