5 Ways to Balance and Support Your Energy: Five Element Feng Shui

I have a client who was having difficulty sleeping and felt depleted. Her attractive bedroom had green walls, finely crafted wood furniture and a deep red comforter on her bed. My client is a Wood element person. While her bedroom was beautiful and correct in a design or aesthetic sense, it was working against her personal energy.

As a Wood element person in a wood dominated room – the green walls (green symbolizes wood in Feng Shui) and the wood furniture she was influenced to be restless. Wood is the element of “doing” and a bedroom is a place for “being.” The red comforter represented Fire energy, an energizing element which was consuming her Wood energy. Not a good combination. She needed something to balance and support her personal element energy.

The five elements are an important part of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Philosophy and Feng Shui. The system of the five elements was developed by Taoist scholars over 2000 years ago. Each element represents a form of energy. Wood energy is upward growth – think of a tree growing upward. Fire energy is expansive – think of fireworks. You contain all five elements in varying proportions, with one element predominant. The use of the five elements allows you to go deeper into the wisdom of Feng Shui.

The five elements are usually portrayed in a cycle diagram. There is no hierarchy to the elements, they are all equally important.  In the Creative Cycle one element or energy creates or supports the next. In the Controlling Cycle (sometimes called the “Destructive Cycle”) one element of energy controls or balances the next.

The use of the five elements in Feng Shui can help you support or balance your personal element energy.  As interpreted by Lillian Bridges of Lotus Institute  you assess your element type and then make sure the other 4 elements are included in your bedroom to support and balance your personal energy.

Element energies are symbolized by shapes, colors, textures/patterns and other qualities of materials and objects.

For my client, I suggested adding Water energy to her bedroom. Water energy supports Wood energy and controls Fire energy. I suggested she replace her red comforter with a blue one (we selected several shades of blue which worked well with the rich tones of her wood furniture and had enough “presence” – not a pastel blue in this situation – to guide her shopping. ) She needed lamps by her bed, so I suggested getting some with clear glass bases because glass is one of the symbols for Water energy. The light from the lamps represents a more balanced form of Fire energy in her bedroom. A white curtain is both functional and represents Metal energy. She already had several ceramic pieces in her bedroom that had great positive emotional meaning for her – these represent Earth energy. These things plus artwork on the walls created a bedroom balanced and decorated for her personal element energy.

With this client I emphasized the relaxing and supportive element of Water.  Now she is sleeping better and has more energy.

Warning: This configuration of elements is not a recipe for the perfect bedroom for everyone, or even for all Wood energy types. Five Element Feng Shui is subtle. It requires an assessment of the element type of the person, current issues or stressors, the energy of the room and what are the simplest changes to balance the energy of the room – all with the goal of supporting the energy of the client.

If you would like a personal Five Element Feng Shui consultation to balance the element energy in your space and support and harmonize your own energy, contact me at 781-643-8697 or email me here.

If you would like to learn more about the five elements please let me know by posting a comment below. This blog is here to inform you and meet your needs. Let me know what you would like in these posts. If enough readers say they want to learn more, I will write a 5-part series on the five elements and post it here.