Ready, Set, Go!
As we get in to the real practice and methods, I realise that my Feng Shui blog started in 2018 and here we are in 2025. It has been a lot of information and learning over the years including changes of countries, cities and apartments along the way and I am still an active student. One of the biggest points to understand is that Feng Shui is about balancing what you can control and then using positive affirmations to attract positive situations. It isn’t about moving the furniture and picking the right cushions and then sitting back and waiting. Your own Chi energy, needs to take action to attract and move in to what you are seeking. That is the first goal, define what you are really wanting and needing. Yes, we all want everything but is it a new relationship, a career, better money prospects or health? Think of looking for a new job, no one would just put up their resume on a job board and hope that a recruiter or company finds them. A real candidate would apply for jobs, connect with people, check on specific companies and websites and keep going.
Feng Shui helps us focus on what we want and by the way, that may not be what we need. Just a note of caution offered by the Scottish poet, Robert Burns, “The best laid plans of mice and men often go awry”. I can attest to that when I look back and see how we have ended up in a completely different direction, city and place than the one we had our eyes on. Yes, it is a fall back position or get out clause, whatever you want to call it but it is worth considering. All of the abundance sectors and methods can be activated and you may not get money but could suddenly find new friends and contacts that eventually lead to potential money making opportunities. Then it is up to the individual to grasp those and run with them.
So once the concepts and expectations are understood about Feng Shui, and the goals have been defined, the next key question is what is the Bagua map and how to use it with your floor plan. This is particularly important if a home, apartment or living space isn’t designed in a classic square box to fit in to the map sections. Look at other blog posts regarding Missing Sectors as well.
That Bagua Map
The modern Bagua map is a square grid of nine sectors focusing on the major areas in our lives with five elements of a lifecycle, Water, Wood, Fire, Earth and Metal. Each sector is associated with one of these elements and a corresponding colour or colours that are recommended to be used to activate the area and balance any issues.
This seems complicated to use but basically it involves drawing a big square for your whole living space, dividing it in to nine equal parts to recreate the Bagua map sections. Place the Bagua map over your floor plan with the Career Sector wall over your main entrance as if you were entering that space. This means that your front door – an important Feng Shui factor, will be in one of three sectors, in the Inner Knowledge or Career or the Travel and Helpful People parts. The Wealth sector will be at the top left hand corner and the Relationship sector will be at the top right hand corner.
When looking at the total floor plan of the house, apartment or studio, include balconies, attached garages and gardens as part of the space especially if they are not used. Don’t forget to include them as part of the overall grid of the nine sections. You should immediately see any areas that are missing and those areas that are not really used in day-to-day activities.
Here is a learning note already, if a part of the whole house or apartment is not used, this becomes stagnant energy. How often is the second bedroom used? A single friend had hers in the Relationship corner and it was empty. She wanted to meet new people and a potential partner which meant quickly swapping the bedrooms around to activate possible romance and voila, she started to meet new people. Then here is where her homework started. She was also proactive by joining new clubs and activities and setting up events to meet other people.
Back to your plan. Take all of the parts of the home and place them inside a square to see how your place fits and don’t worry, there are likely to be missing sectors. Let’s start with the placement and entrance for the Chi. The major door you use to enter in to the whole living space should be on the bottom line of the Bagua map.
If you have a double storey place, you will need to orient the Bagua map from the entrance you step in to on each level. If this is a staircase, go up the steps and where you turn in to the first space, that is the orientation of the entrance. The same with a basement or attic, align the main entrance of that level with the wall of the Career Sector. Sometimes owners use two main but different doors. The main one for everyone else and say, the garage or back door for general use. You need to consider both but the main front door is always the one that should have the most attention with no clutter and should be kept attractive to the outside world.
Here is a past apartment we owned as an example of how to use the Bagua map. See the missing sector for the Travel and Helpful People sectors which is sticking out in to the building staircase. Don’t panic, other posts discuss how to remedy this aspect. It can be seen here that the main entrance is where the black arrow is, the Career & Life Path sector. The Relationship corner is the Living Room, the Wealth sector is in the far top left in the second bedroom which we made in to a dining and so on. This should help you orientate your own place regardless if it is a house, apartment, studio or just one room.
A Bagua checklist
1. Draw a square and divide in to nine sections and then draw the whole place not forgetting to include garages if they are attached and used for something other than parking the car
2. Add any balconies, gardens and pools in the whole plan.
3. Place the Bagua map on the drawing of your whole living place using the wall that has the main entrance as if you are entering in the front door. Your main door is likely to open into one of the following, the Inner Knowledge, Career and Lifepath or Helpful People sectors.
4. Write on your drawing which rooms or areas are in each square.
5. Identify ‘missing’ spaces and sectors and don’t panic, many of us live in L-shape spaces and there are often simple remedies.
6. Highlight the middle of the whole space – the centre may just be a wall, staircase or hallway.
7. Note where the bathroom and the kitchen is as these are key rooms for Feng Shui practice discussed in other posts.
8. Draw where the sink, oven, dishwasher, washing machine and fridge are in the kitchen.
9. Place where the shower, bath, sink, washing machine and toilet are in the bathroom.
10. Draw where you have or would place each bedroom and where the main bedroom is.
11. If you have a dedicated home office, highlight that area as well.
Just remember, there are likely to be missing areas or strange parts to modern houses and there are usually remedies and recommendations that are practical and useful. As G. K. Chesterton said, “It is the main earthly business of a human being to make his home, and the immediate surroundings of his home, as symbolic and significant to his own imagination as he can.”
