Feng Shui: My Ancient Chinese Secret

I credit Feng Shui as the #1 source of my good luck over the past year. Ever since hiring my Feng Shui consultant and neighbor, Cara Gallagher, to rearrange my house according to the principles of this ancient art, I have been inundated with unsolicited recognition for my achievements in business and have earned a respectable profit in a reportedly unstable economy.

Not bad for a newbie ;)

Not only that, but my health has improved dramatically in ways I never thought possible! Here Cara submits an article below on how Feng Shui can enhance your environment and offers practical advice to make it easy to implementing.

FENG SHUI is the ancient Chinese environmental art that uses geography, interior design and common sense. It not only can bring balance to our surroundings, but it can bring balance to our physical self. FENG SHUI is a lifestyle tool that can transform our lives.

We are connected to our environment and our homes should be that link between our physical body and our surroundings. If we don’t have a healthy atmosphere to live in then we can’t live a healthy lifestyle. Our homes are foundations for good health. A healthy home gives us energy and stability. We need that healthy foundation to build upon. We need to be surrounded by a space that helps our well-being and encourages good health. Our homes should do more than just protect us from the outside world. They should nourish our spirit, reflect our dreams and inspire our aspirations.

Our home ought to be a place where we can rest, relax and restore our bodies. Just as our physical body needs a check up, so does our environment. We should review our environment to see if there are aliments that may be affecting our spaces. Reviewing a building as a body is not a new concept. Temples and places of worship for centuries have been referred to in a human form. European cathedrals were designed to reflect a human with outstretched arms. In the Hindu culture, the body is referred to being in the shape of a temple as a way to bring man closer to God. If we think of our home as a representation of the human body, it can give us a better understanding of the ancient art of FENG SHUI.

If we begin with the most important part of our house, it would be the front door. The front door is the mouth of the house. This is where all the energy or Chi enters the homes and exits the space. We want to make sure that the front door is in good working order and that there is nothing blocking that beneficial Chi from entering the space. Ideally, we want to be able to see the front door from the street. We want to highlight the front entryway. Have something by the front door that captures the attention of that good energy or Chi. For example, a wreath on the front door, potted plants positioned on the front porch or good lighting accenting the area will ensure that we capture the positive energy and utilize its powerful forces.

Next, we want to look at the kitchen. The kitchen is the most important room of the house. The kitchen in FENG SHUI is considered the heart of the home. It houses the most important appliance in the home, the stove. The stove gives us life and keeps us healthy. We want to make sure our stove is in good working order, it is clean and free of clutter. We want to be able to open the door without it banging into something else. The stove represents abundance in FENG SHUI. If we want to increase our wealth we should make sure our stove is properly taken care of. We want to honor that powerful energy that the fires of FENG SHUI can ignite for us.

If the kitchen is the heart of the house then the dining room is the stomach. Our dinning room should be welcoming and relaxing. In order to digest food properly we want to be able to eat slowly and comfortably. In FENG SHUI, we look for calming colors such as green, blue and earth tones. We can always add accent colors to the space. However, ideally we look for colors that will slow us down and make us savor our meals.

Try to avoid red and fiery colors in the dining room. The color red is popular in all the design magazines, however too much red brings in the fire element and that can cause indigestion and heartburn. Picture an expensive restaurant. They have comfortable chairs, soothing colors and a quiet atmosphere. They do that to get you to stay awhile and enjoy the meal. That’s what you want to achieve in your home at mealtime.

These are just a few examples of how we can utilize the principles of FENG SHUI to bring balance to our surroundings. If we have stability in our environment, then we will have a balance in our lives and in our physical bodies as well. We want to honor our living space. We can utilize the beneficial energy or Chi that surrounds our space in order to ensure harmony in our life.

Our home should be a place where we can get away from the outside world. Our body needs a place where we can restore the energy and our home should be a place where we can rest and relax. Using Feng Shui effectively can accomplish just that.

3 Surefire Strategies to Scare Sugar Cravings Straight!

Wish you could look at cake and not care about it? So do most people, but the problem is they don’t know how to stop sugar cravings. If sugar has you in it’s seductive snare, it’s likely you’re prone to food frenzies, food comas and an all out war of the battle of the binge.

People who crave sugar tend to associate it with a lot of guilt, shame and downright embarrassment when in reality the ones who should really be embarrassed are the food conglomerates who shove so much sugar in food nowadays your blood sugar doesn’t stand a chance unless you’re pretty keen at detecting it.

Here are some of my best real-life strategies to help you combat your cravings without leaving you feeling deprived.

1. Eat more protein. This is so overlooked and yet so simple! You want to eat clean, organic protein. Eating protein will slow the absorption of carbs in your system and keep your blood sugar stable, so never eat carbs alone – this will put a great deal of stress on your blood sugar and even tax your adrenal glands, as if they’re not under enough stress nowadays! But this is imperative.

If you’re experiencing digestive issues, you’re gonna want to make sure you optimize your digestion too because you could be eating the best diet but if you’re not digesting it, it’s garbage. Make sure you’re eating complex carbs too like whole grains, not simple, refined carbs.

2. Eat raw chocolate. I’m all about not depriving myself or denying myself so my next technique – and you’re gonna love this 1 by the way – is to eat raw chocolate! Raw chocolate is so good and so good for you and is made with natural sweeteners. It nourishes your heart because it’s high in magnesium, which most Americans are deficient in, and a magnesium deficiency is linked to diabetes, joint problems, PMS, and heart disease which is the #1 cause of death in the US.

Raw chocolate is also great for enhancing your mood! It has an array of neurotransmitters that control appetite, concentration, motivation, hormones, sleep, memory and mood. Plus it’s the highest food-based source of antioxidants on the planet! See? Controlling sugar cravings doesn’t mean life has to be bland or boring.

3. Eat breakfast. Now you’ve heard this one before but it’s an important reminder. You want to make sure you eat always breakfast. Now I want to put a different spin on this to really encourage you. One reason you may tend to not want to eat in the morning is because you’re in adrenal exhaustion. With healthy functioning adrenals your cortisol levels are higher in the morning which contributes to a lack of appetite in the morning, but adrenal exhaustion also suppresses liver function and this will in turn suppress early morning hunger.

Adrenal exhaustion is a condition brought on by stress and up to 80% of Americans have some form of it, but as far as balancing your blood sugar goes, it’s crucial to eat breakfast because it sets the tone for maintaining balance throughout the day and it’s going to replenish your stored blood sugar supply after the previous night’s energy requirements. The goal here is to keep your blood sugar stable – that’s your #1 defense against sugar cravings.

Eating sugar is like waking a sleeping giant. It’s as if you’ve awoken a beast within that seems unstoppable but I’m here to say it’s not impossible to quell your cravings and you don’t have to give up cake either! Employing these simple techniques will make a dramatic difference in the way you look, the way you feel and your overall health.

If you struggle with uncontrollable sugar cravings, CLICK HERE for information on my 4-part teleseminar series Crack the Code on Sugar Cravings: 4 Simple Strategies to Slim Down, Shape Up and Regain Control in Less Than 30 Days!

Your Internal GPS Knows Best

I always teach my clients that no matter what I or anyone else says, they know best. Learning to listen to your own intuition and guidance is paramount to figuring out what your body needs and ultimately being able to live up to your true potential. This past weekend on a trip to Michigan to visit my brother and his family for my nephew, Jackson’s, baptism, I was yet again proven right with my theory.

Having been on the road a lot working catastrophe claims when I was in the insurance biz, I came to rely heavily on my GPS. I never left home without it. It was the first thing I packed before I left for a trip, and the last thing I’d pack on my way home. I only needed it when I was out and about working claims, especially in the smaller Podunk towns that always seemed to be right in the eye of the hurricane and the worst hit. But once my work was done, I no longer needed it so I’d pack it away and fly home.

Now don’t get me wrong – technology is great. I couldn’t get by without my Blackberry, HP, and the internet. I do have to say though, none of it is foolproof and darn if that doesn’t prove true for my GPS too. I don’t know how many times it’s steered me right into a dead end and I end up having to figure out how to get where I’m going anyways! Grr…

I’ve been to my brother’s house enough times to know the area pretty well, but on my way home from visiting with a fellow health coach, Cheryl Heppard, during my visit, I needed a little help figuring it out because I was well across town and unsure of where to go. So I popped his address in and off I went.

The ride was fine for the first 15 minutes or so, but as I got closer to his house, it started to point me in a direction that I knew wasn’t the way to go. I ignored its insistence that I make a U-turn at the next street and thought if I kept moving forward, it would force it to realize I was right and correct itself. Well it didn’t.

I found that so odd! How could it not see the path straight in front of it? I knew without question that I was going the right way. I’d been down those roads many times before although I started to question myself! Confirmation came though when I began seeing landmarks and parks that were familiar and the stoplight where I turn left to get to his street. By this point, I had turned my GPS off, shocked at its lack of ability to perform the very function it’s intended to do.

Too often in life we find ourselves in these situations, and it seems that most people neglect to listen to their own inner knowing, which will in fact never steer them wrong. We tend to think everyone else is right over what we think and know to be true for ourselves, and will succumb to beliefs and practices that don’t really resonate with us yet we follow anyways.

I’m continually perplexed by this phenomenon. People know what to do but don’t do it. As a race, humans are incredibly intelligent, however I’ve noticed that intelligence does not necessarily equate to being sensible, especially when we’re trying to please others instead of ourselves.

Whether it’s your doctor, your spouse, your kids, or your boss, if something doesn’t feel right to you, then it’s not. That little voice inside your head, a.k.a gut instinct, is the only real GPS you have. You can try to let go of the reigns and let someone else take control, but I guarantee you’re setting yourself up for failure. No one knows what you need better than you do.

So the next time you’re trying to find your way, my best advice is not to look very far, because you’ve got everything you need right inside of you.

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