Feng Shui Tips for Your Home Office
Feng Shui is a very popular and intriguing concept in home design today. In addition to the life benefits it provides, it also offers a roadmap, so to speak, of not just how to decorate but why. In short, it offers you, the homeowner, design with purpose.
Did you know that over 50% of women now run their own home business or work from home? Get your compass out and find the following directions because we are going to try and make things run a little smoother for you using the ancient art of object placement – Feng Shui.
The most ideal locations to situate a home office are the North (the career sector), the Southwest (the wealth sector), the Northeast (skills and talents sector) or the South (the fame and recognition sector.) If it is possible, try to locate your home office in one of those locations.
Here are some other general tips that are thought to bring prosperity to your business.
Always sit with a solid wall behind your back to ensure that you have support in your life. Never sit with a window behind you.
In the office place the fax machine, telephone, and computers in the southeast wealth sector, as this will attract more contacts.
Position your desk to have a clear view of the door. If this is not possible, hang a small mirror so you can easily view the door's reflection.
Don't put a shelf over your desk. This symbolizes burdens of the world crashing down on you at any moment. The heavy shelf also symbolizes burdens and difficulties.
Avoid having sharp accessories, such as a paper cutter blade or the corner of a Xerox machine pointed at your desk. It is shar chi that symbolizes the cutting knife-edge or a disapproving finger pointing at you.
Make sure that you can walk completely around your desk in a full circle. The workload should not cramp you. You should have space to breathe!
Do not have clutter in your office. Desktops must be kept tidy and clutter free. Avoid placing “In” and “Out” trays on your desk. Try to keep what is in use on your desktop.
Avoid placing cactuses in your office as the needles of these plants are thought to create negative shar chi. Shar or sha chi is stagnant or harmful energy.
In your office, never have the main door opening into your desk as it causes you to be faced with unexpected situations to deal with. Never have a door jamming against your desk, or your prosperity will always be blocked.
Do not place your desk in a room so that it is between two doors because this causes chi to rush by and pass you by along with all of your good fortune. In other words, the goodenergy walks in one door, right past you and out the back door!
Never set your desk at the top of a staircase as chi will roll down the stairs and cause you loss of opportunity and wealth. If this is unavoidable, place a mirror above the front door looking in and facing the staircase.
If people entering your business immediately face a wall and a long corridor, try placing a hanging crystal in this area to allow good chi to accumulate. Also, place mirrors here to direct the chi into your office.
Do not place large electric equipment, such as photocopy machine or microwave near to the main door. These are considered to be "hot" items that cause energy to dissipate. Heat causes the dispersal of good chi.
Do not place paper cutter or fax machines or any machine with a blade next to the front door. The "cutting" energy can cause staff and customers to be unpleasant and even possibly to back stab and fight each with other.
Do not place an empty vase next to the main door, as empty vessels suck good chi trying to enter your place of business. If you have a vase make sure it is full of flowers!
If you have candles in your office, light the wicks to make sure they are burnt, even if you don't plan to light the candle. An unlit candle is bad feng shui as it represents the limitations of possibility.
Place a fish tank or fishpond in the southwestern corner of your office. If this is not possible consider building a pond in the southwestern sector outside your building.
To enhance your wealth and prosperity, position your indoor water feature in the southeast element of your home or office. For career luck, place it in the north. A tabletop fountain made of bamboo or flat round stones is always good for this purpose.
If you have a company signboard or logo, it should be optimally placed in the southeastern area, the southern area or the northern area of your home office.
burden –груз, ноша
workload –объем работы
to deal with –иметь дело с
jam –зажимать, сжимать, блокировать; давить, жать
dispersal –рассеивание; рассыпание; рассредоточение
to back stab –наносить удар в спину
vessel– сосуд (для жидкости)
wick –фитиль
2. Find the English equivalents in the text:
план действий, размещать (x4), основные советы, видеть отражение двери, символизирует трудности, убеждаться, беспорядок, поверхность стола, потеря возможностей и богатства, накапливать, рассеивать(ся), «колющая» энергия, фирменный знак, настольный фонтан
3. Find the synonyms to the following words:
fascinating theory, profits, arrangement of things, perfect position, wealth, critical, inactive and damaging power, restriction of chances, aquarium, to increase your richness
4. True or false?
1) Feng Shui helps to place pieces of furniture and other accessories in a proper way.
2) Feng Shui is a popular modern trend in design that has recently appeared.
3) According to Feng Shui you can locate objects in strictly definite places.
4) According to Feng Shui there are four sectors in your home.
5) Each sector corresponds to a definite aspect of our life.
6) It is necessary to follow Feng Shui instructions if you want to have prosperity.
7) A heavy shelf can crash down on you at any moment.
8) The space around your desk should not be blocked.
9) Plants in your office can produce a negative energy.
10) Hanging crystals and mirrors accumulate good energy.
11) It is obligatory to have candles and aquarium in your office.
12) You must place the logo of your company in your office.
5. Match the words to their synonyms:
1) to attract a) to be a sign of, to indicate, to mean
2) to place b) to guarantee, to make sure
3) to symbolize c) to limit
4) to avoid d) to pull towards you
5) to cramp e) to stay away from
6) to ensure f) to locate, to situate
Fill in the gaps with the appropriate form of these verbs:
1) He … the book carefully on the shelf.
2) Please, …that all lights are switched off.
3) If you don’t place the objects in an appropriate Feng Shui way, it will … a bad energy to your home.
4) The owl … wisdom and learning.
5) You’d better … placing sharp things near your desk.
6. Combine the words into phrases:
1) to run a) business contacts
2) to follow b) a home office
3) to bring c) business
4) to attract d) good energy
5) to situate e) prosperity
6) to accumulate f) feng shui instructions
Fill in the gaps with these phrases:
1) According to Feng Shui some objects can … .
2) It is necessary … in sectors which correspond to career, wealth, skills and fame.
3) He didn’t … in furnishing the room.
4) She wants … when she graduates from the university.
5) According feng shui, the proper placement of office machines will … .
6) Some people don’t believe that if you design a home office in a feng shui manner, it … .
7. Answer the questions:
1) How can feng shui help us in decorating?
2) What is feng shui?
3) Remember your working place at home. What is arranged according feng shui? What does not correspond to the directions of feng shui?
4) Are you a follower of feng shui? Do you follow feng shui directions in designing your home? Why?
8. Find any picture or photo of an office. Describe the design of the room from the point of feng shui. Use the following phrases in your description:
to be located (to be situated, to be placed) in a sector of …
the sector corresponds to …
it is an ideal location (position, place) because …
to bring prosperity, to attract business contacts, to support in your life
to symbolize
to create negative energy, to accumulate good (positive) energy
Project. Draw a sketch of a study (office, working place) where objects and furniture are arranged in accordance with feng shui directions. Describe it using phrases from the text and ex.8.
TEXT 10
Read the text
Feng Shui Bagua Map
The feng shui bagua map is an octagonal shaped map, which allows you to evaluate in feng shui terms any living or working space. The feng shui bagua is a very important feng shui tool and indispensable when we wish to harmonize a place and the elements in it.
According to the feng shui bagua map, each part of your house corresponds to a different life aspect. The life aspects are nine and each one of them has its own characteristics and elements. By properly harmonizing each of the bagua areas within your home or working place, you will be harmonizing each area of your life.
The nine life areas symbolized in the feng shui bagua are: prosperity, fame and reputation, relationships and love, family, health, creativity and children, skills and knowledge, helpful people and travel, and career.
Prosperity is the area which you should pay attention to when you are having money related problems, its color is purple and the elements you should use in it are wood and water.
The feng shui bagua life area called fame and reputation is the one, which should be paid attention to when wishing a reputation improvement of any kind; it is represented by the red color and its most important elements are fire and wood.
Relationships and love area is the one which should be improved when looking for starting or improving a relationship of any kind. Its color is pink and the elements are earth and fire.
Family is another feng shui bagua life area and you can harmonize family boundaries by working on it, its colors are green, black and blue and its main element is water.
Health, another life area represented in the feng shui bagua map, can be improved by working on that area of your house. Health colors are yellow, brown and orange, and its main elements are earth and fire.
The next feng shui bagua life area is creativity and children. Creativity and children should be harmonized when having problems with children in the family, when wishing to have children or when wishing to improve our creativity. The colors of this area are yellow and earth tones, and its element is metal.
On the other hand, the colors you should use in order to improve the skills and knowledge life area are black and green and the element you should add is earth.
Helpful people and travel is another feng shui bagua life area, it can be improved by using the colors white and black, and by making sure, it contains the elements metal and water.
The life area of career can be harmonized and improved by using blue and white in the space, which corresponds to it as well as by adding some metal in it.
octagonal –восьмиугольный
family boundaries –семейные узы
2. Find the English equivalents in the text:
оценить, соответствовать аспектам жизни, обладать отличительными признаками, гармонизировать, мастерство (умения), улучшение репутации, улучшить творческий потенциал
3. Find the synonyms to the following words:
feng shui instrument, essential (very important), to focus on
4. Answer the questions:
1) What is the feng shui bagua map?
2) How many life aspects are there in our house?
3) Do they have its own characteristics? What do they have in common?
4) What do these areas symbolize?
5) What color and elements correspond to each life area?
6) What do the necessary colors and elements of the areas help to improve?
TEXT 11