Once you have your home’s Bagua Map placed and stabilized, you’re ready to start gleaning more useful and enlightening information from its story. You may be asking, “What does it all mean?” Although it may be interesting or exciting at first to discover where your Wealth or Relationship area lies, there is much more that can be deciphered from the space within the lines.
The Feng Shui Bagua has been called both a Road Map and a Treasure Map. We will start by utilizing its usefulness as a Road Map that can help to uncover where your home might be contributing to certain challenges in your life. You’ll also navigate to identify the location of your most supporting, beneficial Ch’i energy that helps you achieve your goals.
Bagua Map Questionnaire
First, start by taking a look at my Bagua Map below and, using the names of the various guas, answer these questions:
- What areas of your life are working particularly well for you?
- What areas of your life would you like to see improvement in?
- What is the favorite area in your home and what do you like about it?
- What is the least favorite area in your home and what do you dislike about it?
Looking for Landmarks on your Bagua Map
Next, let’s turn the attention to your home’s Bagua Map and delve more deeply into what is physically present in the various areas, (called guas). I recommend that you first make a copy of your Bagua as you’ll be marking directly on it and won’t want to use your original. If you have a home with multiple floors, it’s best to do this exercise using all levels. Grab a colored pen or marker and you’re ready to start analyzing.
Identifying this list of features or circumstances within your floor plan can reveal a lot. Ready? On your home’s Bagua, highlight the following:
- All drains including sink, tub, shower or floor drains
- All toilets
- All dishwashers or washing machines
- Any fireplaces, wood stoves or other units that use a chimney
- Laundry chutes (some older homes still have these!)
- Elevators
- Cat litter boxes, dog pens or other indoor animal cage that must be cleaned regularly
- Any items that do not work properly and require maintenance including appliances, furnaces, HVAC units, lighting, windows, doors, plumbing
- Areas with clutter. Highlight the entire square footage that holds the clutter.
- Any grungy, smelly, cobwebby, moldy, extra dirty area, even if a corner
- Any areas that are within the Bagua but physically outside, what we call “Outside of Structure”.
The example floor plan below shows each bulleted item with a different color so you can follow along and see how I’ve done this exercise.
The items you have highlighted on your Bagua Map are all areas of potential depleted Ch’i. When there is low, leaking, stagnant or otherwise diminished energy in an area then that gua doesn’t generate the potential supportive Ch’i for you that it could.
Reading Your Home’s Bagua Map
Now, let’s step back and do a bit of analysis.
- Which Bagua area has the most highlights?
- Which Bagua area is the cleanest, with the least amount of highlights?
If you have multiple floors in your home, take into account the accumulated data from a gua on several floors. For example, if there is a bathroom in the Fame gua on the main level as well as the second floor, there is a potential for double the energy drain in that gua. Count the highlighted marks from both levels.
How do these answers correspond to your earlier responses? Do the life areas you are most challenged in link to the Bagua areas that have the most Ch’i depleting items? Conversely, are you doing well in the areas with few highlights?
Evaluating Your Bagua Map Findings
Let’s look at the example floor plan again. I’ve used one color marker to highlight all of the items so we can evaluate more easily.
Which Bagua area has the most highlights?
In this instance the Wealth and Prosperity gua and Creativity and Children are the two most “colorful” guas. This would lead me to question this Client about their finances and children. In addition, the Health and Family gua is the third most depleted gua, so I would inquire whether they were experiencing any health-related issues.
Next, let’s answer the second question: Which Bagua area is the cleanest, with the least amount of highlights?
In the example floor plan at left, Knowledge and Self-Cultivation has no marks at all! This is an excellent scenario in general, but particularly supportive for anyone pursuing a degree or additional training, school age children, or someone on a spiritual quest.
Career, Center and Fame are also relatively free of our list of depleting features. As you can see in the close up of these guas at right, the bathroom is on the line that divides the guas. This means that the bathroom’s influence is shared. In this Client’s case, a bit of clutter clearing and bathroom drain management will make these guas extremely supportive.
Using the Bagua Map to Plan Your Route
The information you’ve uncovered can now be put to work. Plans need to be made to reverse direction and get headed back in the direction you want to go. (OK, so my puns aren’t very original but there are just too many options with this road map scenario!)
Begin today to reverse any of the energy drains you’ve identified:
Toilets and drains: close the lids and drains. The Feng Shui of Toilet Seats gives specifics.
Chimneys, laundry chutes or elevators: apply a round mirror to the outside, mirror facing out, at a height where you can see your face in the mirror.
Cat litter boxes and animal pens: keep all of them as clean as possible. If they’re in a gua that is particularly challenged, you may want to move them to another part of the home.
Clutter: Clutter Clear. Sort through it, clean it up, move it out! Let me say it again – sort through it, clean it up, move it out!!!
Dirty Areas: Scrub, scrape, shovel or repaint. Do whatever it takes to make it shipshape!
I leave my Clients with a Priority List of the top 4 or 5 Feng Shui adjustments to do first that will make the greatest impact on their lives and surroundings. I encourage you to take your Bagua Map findings and create a list for yourself. If you need another set of eyes to formulate your list, I can help.
Traveling with Feng Shui to Your Destination
The last, most important, crucial, impactful, life changing step is to TAKE ACTION. It is up to you, and only you, to make these changes. Some may be easier and take a small amount of time and others may be more involved. Start where it feels best to you. Even if you’re not 100% on board with Feng Shui see it as an experiment.
Some of my clients work down their list in a week and other’s take a month or two to perform the tasks. Everyone has a speed that is right for them. The key is to start.
If you’re feeling uneasy about your Feng Shui path or are ready for some extra assistance, contact me for a Feng Shui consultation. Making intentional changes in your space can reap rewards you can’t always foretell. I’ve seen unexpected, happy surprises come into my Clients’ lives again and again. They have happened for me, again and again.
When you start improving the conditions in your environment, the conditions in your life improve as well. I encourage you to be open to allowing new and wonderful circumstances to enter your life through Feng Shui.
Have fun,
Carol
