Energize your space with feng sui

Spring has sprung, and one way to rejuvenate your home is to follow a few simple and inexpensive tips from local feng shui experts.

Feng shui is a 6,000-year-old Chinese practice that focuses on rearranging one’s physical environment to create positive energy in spaces.

“It’s really about understanding that we are integrally connected to our things,” said Lorrie Grillo, owner of Thriving Spaces, a Denver-based interior design business. “All things are alive with energy. We are all alive with energy.”

Rearranging decorations or de-cluttering is important to practice with the changing seasons.

“Just like we change our clothes in the spring, our houses like to get changed for the season too,” Grillo said. “Try new things. I don’t think you can make a mistake when your intention is to create positive energy.”

A good place to start practicing feng shui is on the front porch.

“Springtime is a great time to wash your door, and change the mat. Sweep your porch and put out pots of flowers or stone statues,” Grillo said, noting that it’s important to make yourself and others smile when approaching the front door.

It’s all about creating a positive energy (chi) at the entrance of a home so that energy continues to move throughout the house.

The living room is often the focal point of the house, so ensuring that furniture, rugs and coffee tables are arranged in a way that doesn’t create obstacles is important, said Boulder-based Eiko Okura, who has practiced the art of feng shui for more than 25 years in Colorado.

She tells clients to look around their rooms and evaluate each item.

“Does it have a memory of joy and happiness, or sadness, or a breakup?”

If particular elements in the room hold bad memories, replace them with things that bring happiness and positive chi.

“In the spring, you can change from warm colors to cool colors,” Okura said. Change the pillows on the couch, get new books about gardening in the spring on the coffee table and use lace curtains instead of heavy drapes.

Another way to bring life to the living room is by getting a bird feeder or bird bath to hang outside the window and observe the birds that change with the seasons, Okura said.

“You become part of the ecosystem. You become one part that is supporting the other part of life,” she said. “You can merge yourself into the nature around you.”

The same is true for practicing feng shui in the bedroom.

“The bedroom needs to be quiet and peaceful to have a good nights sleep and be passionate,” Okura said. “It’s where we dream and make love.”

In the spring, cool color linens and bedspreads or a nice bouquet of flowers can lighten the room.

It’s also strongly recommended that the bed is placed in a commanding position, meaning your head is supported by a solid wall or headboard. ”You want to feel safe and secure. No surprises,” Okura said

Try not to have the bed in a position where your feet are pointing toward the door.

“The chi, the positive life energy comes in and out through the souls of our feet, so when we have the souls of our feet directly pointed toward the door, the chi leaks out the door. That means your body is not regenerating as you are sleeping, and you feel drained when you wake up,” Okura said.

The most important way to create positive feng shui in the bedroom any season of the year is by eliminating a television, she said. “Your brain becomes too stimulated from that blue light,” Okura said.

Take time to think about what you want your home to say about you.