The best way to bring good Feng Shui to your home is to understand how the 5 Feng Shui elements work. Learn the qualities of the elements and how they can bring good energy to your home using this guide.
Step 1
Learn the 5 elements. There are 5 elements in Feng Shui that are related to the natural world: wood, fire, earth, metal and water. All of these Feng Shui elements interact in different ways, and these ways can either be good (productive) or bad (destructive). Each element is represented by its own color (or two). And it is the use of color in Feng Shui that is the easiest way to use the 5 elements to bring positive energy and harmony into your home.
Step 2
Match the colors to the elements. As discussed, each Feng Shui element has its own color related to it (which surprisingly has a lot to do with what color you would guess that element to be!) Here is a list of the 5 Feng Shui elements along with the color that goes with each.
Wood: green, brown
Fire: red, strong yellow, orange, purple, pink
Earth: light yellow, sandy/earthy, light brown or beige
Metal: white, gray
Water: blue, black
Step 3
Understand how the colors are linked to certain Feng Shui energies. When you bring a certain color into your home, the rules of Feng Shui state that you are also bringing the powers of that Feng Shui element with it. Here are a few colors and their corresponding Feng Shui qualities.
Green: good for improving health, balancing family life when placed in the east
Blue: when placed in the north, blue will help support you and your career plans; when placed in the east, it will bring you health and positive energies to your family; when placed in the southeast, it will bring prosperity and abundance
Yellow: when placed in a southern area, yellow brings happiness and fellowship
White: in a western location, white will support your creativity
Knowing what qualities each color has will help you to correctly use each Feng Shui element. For example, the Feng Shui direction of south affects your fame and reputation. South is the Feng Shui element of fire (or you can refer to it as your light within you). Everything in the south area of your home will affect this quality in you. So you do not want to bring in the colors of the element of water since water will put out a fire. Don't bring blue or black to your fire area, as these water colors will put out your fire and supposedly have destructive effects on your fame and reputation.
Step 4
Understand that Feng Shui elements can also be found in shapes. Shapes are also said to bring the qualities of Feng Shui into your home. Like color, each element is linked to a particular shape (wood=rectangular, fire = triangular, earth= square, metal= round, and water = wavy). Along with the color of an object, the shape of that object will also affect the flow of Feng Shui energy in your home.
Step 5
Know how to choose which element an item represents. But what happens if an object has the qualities of two elements? Consider how you would decide what quality a yellow rectangular coffee table would bring to your home. Is it the quality of wood, or is it the quality of fire? When in doubt, the general Feng Shui rule is to define the element of an item by the color first, then consider the shape, and then the material it is actually made from. That is, of course, unless some element is obvious, like a metal sculpture (metal element) or a plant (wood element). In this case, the obvious Feng Shui element is the one you define the item by.
It may seem too complex, but the ideas are relatively simple once you understand the value of each element. Some items you bring into your home will bring more than one element into your home. With time, you will come to understand how each Feng Shui element is represented in the items in your home. Use these suggestions to consider the best place for your Feng Shui cures, and you will truly bring harmony to your home.
