How to Create a "Prosperity Area" in Your Room and Other Feng Shui Tips

Your bedroom or office can be turned into a "prosperity circuit" by following some fundamental feng shui tips. Traditional and ancient feng shui practitioners believe that spiritual, invisible energy flows through all spaces-including, of course, rooms in our homes. The idea, then, is to organize the objects in your room in such a way that the energy's flow is optimized.

The ancient Chinese concept of "chi"-this invisible, but powerful energy-has been around for thousands of years, well before the emergence of Western science and skepticism. Does feng shui work? That is for another article altogether to discuss, but I feel that it can improve a room's aesthetic appearance, and there quite possibly is something to be said for chi-positive rooms. I have been in spaces that feel prosperous and full of energy, allowing me to get a lot of work done and make money. I have also stayed in hotel rooms and friends' apartments that feel "empty" or chi-blocked, as if everything is in the wrong place and the room itself feels way too sterile to be a creative or nurturing environment.

Make use of diagonal lines in your rearrangement of your room. Don't simply place your desk up against the wall-this is Western thinking. Try bringing the desk out a bit, moving it at an angle so it is nearly (but not quite) perpendicular to the wall. This way, the chi energy can flow on all sides of the desk and it won't get trapped behind it.

Do the same with coffee tables, beds, entertainment units, and so forth. Experiment with diagonal positioning for all of these pieces of furniture.

Make sure the room is brightly lit; purchase new lamps that use the long-lasting high energy bulbs made by GE and numerous other manufacturers. Such bulbs last for five years or more. Also consider installing a Zen waterfall or other noisemaking device that will add to the room's chi. Flowing water, especially, is good for making a room more energy-positive.

Also put a plant, preferably a large green plant, bamboo, or fern, in the furthest left-hand corner from where you regularly do your work. It is important to have at least one plant in your room so it will feel natural to you-and so that peaceful energy will flow through and into the room at all times.

Pay particularly close attention to the positioning of your television and other entertainment devices such as your CD player, sound system, etc. With the price of LCD flatscreen televisions at a record low, and with big chains like Circuit City going out of business, now is a great time to get a larger TV. Having it mounted on the wall looks attractive and is also a great energy-positive move: the energy will not get "stuck" around the TV, but will instead flow past it. On a practical level, wall-mounted TVs are also good because you will have more usable space in your room.

Finally, take a few moments to consider your natural lighting. Don't block windows-you want as much natural light as possible to get in. Position a plant so that it will benefit from the hours when the sun's rays come into your apartment or office.