Susan Levitt - Teen Feng Shui. Design Your Space, Design Your Life

Introduction

Finding My Path

I was age seventeen when I found the world of Chinese culturea discovery that completely changed the course of my life. All I knew about Chinese culture before that were the kung fu movies of Bruce Lee. I also was seventeen when I started college in Chicago, but I didnt know what to major in or what classes to take. So I looked through all the books in the university bookstore to see what might be interesting.

One book, Temple of the Golden Pavilion, caught my eye. It was about a teen who was also trying to find his place in the world and to fit in. The book was for a class called Japanese Literature. I had no idea what that was, but I took the class because I liked the book. The class professor, Dr. Takeko Stover, was the best teacher I ever had. I ended up taking all her classes: Chinese Literature, Chinese History, Japanese History, and Asian Art History. Before I knew it, I was an Asian Studies major.

All my friends thought this was really weird. How would this prepareme for a real job? And how could I major in Asian Studies when Im not even Asian? And what was Asian Studies anyway? But I knew I was on to something that I loved and found fascinating, so I pursued it. I took a Chinese calligraphy class at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago and completed my education there with a degree in fine art.

I then moved to San Francisco to study traditional Chinese medicine. I had experienced major health problems that were cured through Chinese medicine, mostly by using acupuncturewhere fine needles are inserted into energy points of the bodyand by drinking brews made from Chinese herbs. As I learned more about Chinese medicine, I also learned about feng shui, the Chinese art of placement. To stay healthy, one must live and sleep in a balanced environment. I had lived in such negative and chaotic environments in Chicago that it was no wonder I was always sick and couldnt get better. And with my art training, I knew how color and design could make a beautiful living space. I really took to feng shui.

Feng shui and Chinese medicine saved my life. I was not on a deathbed, but spiritually I was a lost soul. Now I enjoy excellent health, walk a spiritual path, have a philosophy for life, and know how to create peace, compassion, and contentment for myself and others. I work as a spiritual counselor and also do feng shui for peoples homes and offices.

As you read the pages of this book, you too will be embarking on a new journey of self-knowledge, discovery, and transformation. You can design your room to create whatever you want in life. This is the feng shui book I wish I had when I was a teen. May it inspire you to follow your own interests, listen to your truth, and find great joy.

Part One

The Magic of Feng Shui

H ave you ever walked into a friends house and felt immediately comfortable and relaxed? Or have you walked into a room or building and suddenly felt restless and agitated? If youve ever experienced a spontaneous response when entering a new space, you have been affected by feng shui.

Whether or not you are aware of it, every space you walk into influences your emotions and behavior, and the emotions and behavior of the people around you. Just as a stone at the bottom of a river will influence the current of the water, the way objects are placed within a space will influence the people and energies that circulate around that object. For more than five thousand years people have been designing spaces according to feng shui, the Chinese art of placement. Correct feng shui encourages people and the invisible energies around them to behave in a way that will attract knowledge, health, fame, helping hands, a successful career, fortune, and romance.

This book gives you the basic tools youll need to practice feng shui in your room, and your life, as you see fit. You can use feng shui to make your living space more creative, more relaxing, more social, more inviting, and more in harmony with who you are and who you want to be. Most feng shui books are for adults, who use feng shui to design an entire house or workplace. This book is just for teens and is based on the fact that most of you have only one or two rooms under your immediate control. So, the focus of this book will be on your bedroom or dorm room as the primary place where you sleep, work, create, communicate, relax, exercise, and live your private, independent life. Heres how this book works:

The first part explains where feng shui comes from, why it works, and how it can work for you. It also explains the hands-on tools you will need to do feng shui.

The second part tells you how to apply these tools and gets you started with redesigning your room. In this part youll learn where to put the larger items in your room.

In part 3 you can decide what you want to attract in your lifeeverything from love to fame to peace in your family. You can refine the feng shui arrangement of the items in your room to support your goals.

In the fourth, and final, part of the book youll learn how to increase the power of your room through the use of feng shui cures, astrology, and five Chinese elements.

Feng shui can sometimes seem a bit complicated. It can be challenging to work with invisible forces and find creative ways to apply an ancient Chinese practice to your contemporary room. As you try out the different techniques in this book, I recommend the following tips:

• Be brave. If you want big changes in your life, make big changes in your room. Stretching beyond the familiar is a great way to discover new parts of yourself and invite new, exciting energy into your life. Anything you change today can be changed again tomorrow, so theres no reason not to take risks. Use the principles of feng shui to make changes and then watch what happens, perhaps using notes or a journal as a way to look closely at the results.
• Be creative. Feng shui can apply to any space, from a mansion to a cardboard box. Use your creativity to interpret how feng shui might apply to your specific situation and the rooms of friends and family members.
• Trust your intuition. If something doesnt feel right about a certain feng shui suggestion when its applied to your room, dont do it. Though it can often take awhile to understand and describe the energies at work around us, we can often instinctively sense whether something feels right or if something feels a little off. Trust your own intuition in finding arrangements that work for you.
• Dont take my word for it. The tools in this book should give you everything you need to do feng shui in your own room. But there are many additional resources and schools out there to help you develop and advance your understanding of feng shui and the Taoist spirituality from which it was born. Pay attention to your own experiences and budding interests as you go and dont be afraid to seek out additional teachers to feed the fires of your curiosity.
• Enjoy yourself. Even though feng shui is very ancient knowledge, you can use it in a playful spirit: do feng shui with friends, do feng shui to your favorite music, or do feng shui speaking out loud in the accent of your favorite imagined interior decorator. Whatever your pleasure, have fun with feng shui.

Feng What?

F eng shui (pronounced fung schway) is known as the Chinese art of placement. It is an ancient Chinese tells us how to build our human environmentfrom to townsin accordance with the forces of nature. this, we harness the capacity to attract the things we want, whether it be wealth, romance, or good friends.

Chances are you have used feng shui in your life and not even known it. Picture this: Youre at the beach and youre looking for a place to set down your towel. You look at the position of your towel in relation to the sun, the ocean, and other people around you. You move a few rocks out of the way so youre more comfortable when you lay down. Or perhaps you are entering a subway car or bus and scan the available seats to decide where you want to sit, before choosing one that just feels right. Consciously or not, you choose to place yourself and your stuff in a way that enhances your experience of the surrounding environment. Feng shui does the same thing.