Grow Inside Out

Feng Shui your life from the inside out!

[sabrinas-spellsman]

“A wind has blown the rain away and blown the sky away and all the leaves away, and the trees stand. I think, I too, have known autumn too long.” e.e cummings

[holidayhappenings]

🍂Fall-winter holiday blog❄️

[caffeinegardens]

[growinsideout-fengshui]

Oh my gosh, it’s Fridya the 13th!

Is it really an unlucky day?

Numbers hold so much symbolism and meaning! So, on this magical and misunderstood day of Friday the 13th, let’s talk about the symbolism of numerology, and how numbers can have meaning in our lives. 

In traditional Chinese feng shui, some numbers are seriously unfavourable  (such as 4) because they sound like other words ... like death and even rape (yikes). Imagine having to say “My house number is deathity-death.” This is why for some people, it makes sense to avoid buying houses with these numbers on them. It just sounds like bad news!

Luckily, in English, numbers don’t really have negative synonyms. If you think abut it, they’re all just fun: 1 denotes victory; 2 denotes being likewise; 4 denotes giving; and 8 stirs up thoughts of eating good food. So, unless a number sounds like an unfavourable word in your language, there’s no reason to avoid that number. 

The best way to understand the pure energy of numbers is by referring to numerology, which is the ancient study of the energy and mystical significance of numbers. Once you explore several good numerology resources, you will start seeing similarities between them and understand more about the energy or mystique of any specific number, or a combination of numbers. You will also understand that each culture has had slightly different interpretations of the practical and mystical meaning of numbers.

Here is the list of numbers 0-9 and their symbolism. You can also simplify larger numbers with more than one digit (such as 13) by adding the individual numbers together (1 + 3 = 4) to get their base form. For even larger numbers (for example 29, you would scale it down like this: 2 + 9 = 11; 1 + 1 = 2) and get the base symbolic number of 2

0 - void, potential

1 - beginnings, inspiration, independence 

2 - duality, balance and imbalance, choice, co-operation

3 - growth, synergy, chaos, creativity, family, self-expression

4 - stability, reliability, strength, organization, power, rest, grounding

5 - adaptability, competition, change, resourcefulness, adventure 

6 - success, beauty, harmony, calm, patience

7 - heaven, victory, completeness, things well done, a mystical place between two worlds

8 - strength, evolution, control, release, infinity, abundance, success 

9 - mystical, sacred, romantic, re-evaluation, accomplishment, attainment, the end of a cycle

Some people will look at today with unfavourtable eyes because the base number of 13 is 4, and if you are Chinese then 4 means death! But if you just look at the numerology symbolism of 4, then today could have quite a strong and stable energy about it! 

So, it all comes down to what you make of it today, and what eyes you want to look at the day with... 

I’m wishing you a lovely day! Do your best to dodge negative energy and enjoy the weekend! <3

[growinsideout-fengshui]

When you let your drains get clogged up, you let your emotions and your energy get clogged up too. Let this sink in...

Our homes can reveal important information about our lives, our health, and our finances. We may not realize how small things in our environment can be draining our energy, our health, and our wealth. This is especially true regarding the flow of water in our home through faucets and drains. 


Dripping faucets can indicate an overall feeling of wastefulness or a lack of energy. You should fix these immediately! Leaky faucets also adversely affect our wealth, not just with a higher water bill, but with an overall feeling of income “dripping away” each week. 


Drains that are clogged up can indicate that you are feeling overwhelmed in your life -- with tasks, bad news, and just an overall sense of anxiety or misfortune bubbling over. It can also indicate that you are feeling blocked -- especially in regard to health, finances or  opportunities. Is  there some problem facing you that is getting progressively worse, and you can't seem to find a solution? Clear out those drains and see if the chi doesn't improve in your space, paving the way to problem-solving opportunities. On the other hand, a drain plug that doesn't keep the water in when you need it, can have the same affect as a leaky faucet -- money and energy trickling down the drain. Invest in the money to fix this, so you can enjoy the spa-like experience of a warm bath if you want, and you'll also be taking another step toward symbolically creating less waste. 

<3

[letsbuddhastatuesfan]

10 Tips for A Mindful Home you should know 

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[growinsideout-fengshui]

feng shui translates to “the way of wind and water” from Chinese. it’s about how everything is placed within a room so that you can have the best movement of energy; the best climate inside. think of the climate in the mountains, in the desert or by the beach. they each have a specific vibe that comes from the weather, the colours, the elements, the way the natural environment interacts with the wind and water. we can curate a “climate” indoors aswell. a sunny climate, a sultry climate, a relaxing climate, a soothing climate. colour choice, mindful choice of furniture and “stuff,” and its purposeful arrangement all work together to delight the senses of our spirit and put us in a good mood when we are in a space that has good feng shui.

did you know that we can apply feng shui to ourselves too? we can also raise the vibrations within ourselves, within the homes of our bodies. 

your body is a temple, your body is a place. a place for loving, reflecting, thinking, doing, dancing... your body is your home; and maybe someone else’s home too. you are home within yourself and maybe someone feels like they are home when they are with you, too.  you are the home to all your thoughts, feelings, dreams, words, intentions, fears, hopes... 

we, ourselves, are made of wind and water, which makes it extremely easy and extremely important to apply good feng shui to our physical and spiritual body, our vessel, our temple- not only our homes. this is why self-care is good feng shui. 

practicing self-care helps us to find balance in our own energy that we emit to the world. when we love ourselves, take care of our bodies, we can show up more presently and courageously to face the world, and to know more deeply who we are, what our role is in society, and how we fit into the world when we walk out of our front door. self-care fills up our cup and gets us ready to be the best version of ourselves, so we can pour for others from our cup. <3

here are some ways to feng shui your self, with self-love!:

meditate get or give yourself a manicure take a nap massage reiki reflexology get a hair trim ride a bike exercise run a bath read a book write a poem sing  phone a friend dance like no one’s watching  have a night out have a night in listen to your favourite music go for a walk do your makeup practice doing something you’re passionate about try something new cook a meal have a cry, let it out have a laugh, let it out think positive thoughts and be kind to yourself make a plan for the next 6 months, one year, 5 years do something nice for yourself

hope this helps! it might not work for everyone, just sharing what works for me. be mindful of what makes you feel good, and enjoy having a physical body! it won't last forever <3 

[growinsideout-fengshui]

feng shui is a lifelong journey. just like growing or learning or becoming who you want to be. there’s no end to it, you just start where you are with what you have and keep improving on your situation and keep improving yourself. one day, you will feel like you’ve done everything. you will feel like your work is finally complete. your space is finally feng shui! the lamps are right, the throw pillows are perfect, you’ve manifested your dream life... but that won’t be the end though. it will just be another beginning in your beautiful life. another chapter with new exciting, beautiful things headed your way.

these past few days I’ve been very vulnerable with you in showing you, my loves, around my bedroom. this is where I live! this is me! this is where I wake up, put on my makeup, nap, reflect, cuddle, cry, watch netflix, pep talk myself, dance around, make loooove, grow, drink tea in bed, keep all my belongings in this earthly life... this is the space I’ve come up with, that supports me and calms me and has been my little safe haven for the last year... it’s changed a lot from the time I came home to it and began my journey in feng shui, and I’ve changed with it too. each time i move something, remove something, add something, take something away, I learn a bit more about how exactly the space around us affects us. It’s amazing.

I can’t wait to show you what projects are in store...

[growinsideout-fengshui]

bedroom feng shui philosophy #5:

Keep it simple!

We have 9 amazing, energy-potent areas of the bagua, but when we are looking to feng shui a space, it’s important to focus on only 1-3 areas at a time— the most important areas in your life right now, that you wish to improve. Choosing more can mean overdoing it, stressing yourself out, or losing track of what’s most important for you right now. 

When we focus on only a few at a time, we can actually realize our dreams and goals more easily, by working toward them more mindfully.

The 9 areas of the bagua are:

Helpful people/ Compassion/ Travel (activating this area helps you attract and recognize beneficial relationships in your life, go on more trips, and become more connected to your global sense of self)

Career/ Self (boost your career, start a new path, attract success through your work, find more meaning in what you do, recognize your fuller potential in your line of work)

Knowledge/ Wisdom (activate this area if you are learning a new skill or wanting to learn a new skill, studying something or open to gaining and sharing more knowledge, or trying to boost your creativity)

Health/ Wellbeing (improve your overall health by focusing on this area- it falls in the centre of the bagua and it deals with your physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual wellbeing)

Family/ Legacy (boost your family’s harmony and happiness, promote good relationships with your family members, ancestors, lineage, and your global sense of family and belonging. what you heal in yourself, you heal for your entire family line.)

Creativity/ Children (this area helps boost your playfulness and creativity, and can also be activated if you have kids and wish to focus more on them, or if you wish to have kids)

Wealth/ Prosperity/ Self- empowerment (activate this area to boost your wealth in the form of money, good experiences, health- whatever wealth means to you)

Reputation/ Fame (this area is actually recommended to always be activated, because it represents “the light within” and helps you bring more of your light into the world)

Love/ Relationships (focusing on this area can help you boost your loving vibe, help you get ready to be in a healthy relationship, promote intimacy, focus more on self-love, and promote unity and harmonious relationships- both romantic and not!)

In my bedroom, though I do take into account what is happening in every area of the bagua, the 3 areas that I wanted to focus on most in my life were: love, wealth, and that “light within” or, fame and what you’re known for.

In my first bedroom philosophy post, I talked about the love area of my bedroom, and later I touched upon my makeup area and my manifestation board of my fame area, so now I’ll tell you a bit about what is happening in my wealth area!

What I wanted to manifest by dedicating some care to this center was: to attract more money into my life (of course), and also to attract more wealth in the form of inner peace, precious moments, well-being, and meaningful relationships. That’s what wealth means to me!

I’ve decorated this little area of my room with a money tree, a salt lamp, my super special buddha statues, and a sage bundle that helps clear stagnant energies and old ways of thinking. 

Ok so how the heck does keeping these things in this area help me to grow toward my goals?  

The art of feng shui is highly symbolic and highly personal too. Lamps and plants are extremely strong activators because they are life-forces and hold powerful energy. Lamps help “shine a light” on things, and plants “breathe life” into them. Salt lamps help to purify the air by releasing negative ions, which give you higher alertness and more mental energy. Having this in your wealth center symbolizes higher alertness to opportunities that increase your wealth! Similarly, the symbolic reason for having plants in certain areas of your bagua is that when you take care of them and give them water, you are “watering” that area of the bagua as well, and in turn, you are watering/ being mindful of that area of your life! This is why plants can be used in any area of the bagua, depending on what aspect of your life you are aiming to improve. But of course, be mindful of light sources and being able to meet the plants’ need for natural light!

Because feng shui is such a symbolic practice, the more you can connect to the meaning you give to your pieces, the more mindful you can be about them working their magic for you. For the same reason, less is more! Having less stuff, clutter, belongings, etc. means that the items that you DO have are fewer, and therefore hold more meaning and become more special. Clutter is a silent killer of dreams, so the less of it you have in your life, the better.

Remember, feng shui alone won’t change your life. You still have to do the work, be alert to the opportunities and doors that open up for you, and take the actions and the steps necessary to seize the day and reach your goals.

So there you have it! That’s my fifth philosophy/ tip about bringing feng shui into the bedroom. I hope this helped shine some light on what feng shui can do for you and how you can use it in your bedroom to help you reach your life goals! Keep loving, dreaming, and working toward your dream life! Thanks for reading! 

[growinsideout-fengshui]

bedroom feng shui philosophy #4:

Your bedroom should feel like a luxury hotel (except with a bit more of your personality!)

Hear me out! When you stay at a really nice hotel you get to indulge in a beautifully designed, clean space, with no clutter, and that romantic feeling of being in a neutral, luxurious room, with those calming dimmable lights… oh and don’t let me forget about that big, comfy bed with the softest Egyptian cotton sheets you’ve ever laid your body on… staying at a hotel you probably feel really lucky to be away from your own messy house, right?

Well why can’t your own bedroom feel like that? Right? You deserve to give yourself that gift, so, here are 3 easy ways to make your bedroom feel like a luxurious hotel room:

The bed should take centre stage and be fit for a King or Queen. Outfit your bed with a large plush headboard that you can lay your head against, and of course, when it comes to the sheets, go with the highest thread count you can afford for that ultimate soft feeling that’s like sleeping on a cloud.

A luxe suite is never dark or dreary. Instead, it is always well-lit with chandeliers, side lamps, wall sconces, art lights, and mood lighting in every nook. Consider changing out-dated overhead lights with modern, sculptural light fixtures that speak to your decor. It is also best to have a dimmer installed on these overhead lights. Dimmers are the key to mood lighting! People look best when lit from more than one angle, so my suggestion for bedroom lighting is to follow the rule of thirds: have 3 sources of light in the bedroom. Usually, the main overhead light and 2 side table lamps is all you need! Layer the lighting so that you and your partner can look and feel your sexiest before getting into bed. ;)

That clean hotel feel comes from putting in a few minutes a day to keep it tidy! One of the best feelings about staying at a hotel is probably the maid service, but unless you’ve got a maid at home, You gotta do that job. honey! You will love your space and yourself more if you stick to this habit. I like to take 5 minutes to tidy my bedroom before I leave it for the day so that when I come back later, tired and sleepy, it’s made up just as if, yup, there was a maid there. Ohh I love that feeling! Make your bed, dust your furniture and declutter anything that’s accumulated while you were getting ready, fold your clothes away, blah blah blah! Just get on with it! :P  A seed planted in my mind that helped me stick to this habit when it was still new to me was, that you never know when you’re going to have the opportunity to invite someone up to your bedroom, so it’s best to keep it tidy at all times just in case :P

[growinsideout-fengshui]

In my last post, I talked about manifesting your dream life and how creating a manifestation board can help you do this. I keep mine on my makeup table which also happens to be in the “fame center” of the Bagua in my bedroom. The fame center is a powerful area of a room to activate if you are trying to become recognized for something new, reinvent yourself, want to be recognized for your work. Because this area is directly opposite the door, when you walk in to a space, this area will say a lot about how you present yourself to the world, by virtue of your home being able to say a lot about you, and this area being smack dab in the middle! 

The center you choose to put your manifestation board in is important because in feng shui, every area of every room has a different energetic power that helps us in different areas in our life. Activating your love centre with a manifestation board will affect the love area of life. Activating your career center will have effects on your career life, activating the family area will enhance your family life, and so on.

Side note: if you’re not sure where the “fame center” is in your room, it is in the rear center, parallel to the wall where the door is. (If you can imagine overlaying a tic-tac-toe grid on your room, line up the doorway with the bottom - and the middle square in the the top row is your fame centre).

When you activate the fame area, it can help you to reinvent your image, or simply reinforce how you wish to present yourself to the world. How do you want to be perceived by the world? By keeping your manifestation board here, it’s a great way to create a plan for how people will view you in the future. Maybe as an amazing mom or dad, or an awesome teacher, a highly sought photographer, an amazing musician? Whatever it is you want, manifest it baby!

Other ways to activate your fame area are with reds, candles, a fireplace, healthy plants, lamps, and generally anything else that symbolizes what you want to be known for. Maybe a degree, or a piece of your artwork. Your reputation is defined over time, and it takes a lot of intention to transform it. In mine I have: flowers, perfume, my manifestation board, my makeup, a mirror, a candle from my friends’ wedding, a box I made with a lucky elephant on the top of it and lipsticks inside, a flower-and-resin art piece I got from a vendor on the Venice boardwalk, and a Peruvian statuette that I got from my mama that symbolizes the tree levels of life experience: the higher spirit self, the manifest self, and the inner self. What would you say this area in my bedroom says about me? 

Check back tomorrow for my bedroom feng shui philosophy number 4!

[growinsideout-fengshui]

bedroom philosophy #3: 

Use your surroundings to help manifest your dream life

Feng shui has been linked since ancient times with the idea of manifesting your dreams and desires.

People tend to want to manifest things like money, love, peace, a family, a nice car, a peaceful life by the beach… any number of specific things.

Of course, there are no quick fixes or magic cures — but magical shifts do seem to happen when you begin to clear away stagnant energy in the form of obstacles that only weigh you down, and when you begin to bring your life more into alignment with the things that you actually want.

So how can you manifest your best life by using your surroundings?

First, you have to get clear on what you want! Write a list - and be specific! Writing down “I want a job” might land you any old lousy job, but writing down exactly where you want to be and what you want to be doing-- this is giving the universe clear instructions on what you want to happen.

Next, brighten up dark spaces! Brightening up dark rooms with some fresh light coloured paint, some lamps, light or white bedding gives us a good feeling when we’re in a room like that. When a room is bright, it’s so much easier to keep your attention on what makes you happy.

Here are my favourite colours for bedroom walls and the moods they evoke:

Light warm blues - calming, this colour can make you feel centred, relaxed and serene. It is known to help lower blood pressure, clear the mind and help steady one's breathing. Pastel blues can come across as chilly though so stick with light, warmer hues of blue.

Greens- help reduce anxiety and it’s one of the most restful colours for your eyes. Green is known to be restorative, mind-clearing, and encourages composure. Green is also one of those colours that is near neutral, because we’re so used to seeing it in nature. You don’t have to paint the whole room green either, you can experiment with an accent wall (personally I love white rooms with a dark green accent wall).

Light pinks - interestingly enough, there is such a thing called the Pink Effect. This is when exposure to large amounts of pink can have a calming effect on the nerves and helps relieve feelings of anger, aggression and neglect. The longer you are exposed to it, the calmer you will become. Lighter pinks are great for bedrooms and promote feelings of love, playfulness and kindness. My room is pastel pink and I can totally attest to this.

White - helps make rooms feel more spacious and open and the people within them feel more neutral. Not necessarily an energy nor calm inducing colour, white gives a happy medium that leaves you feeling clean. White rooms give an automatic feel of cleanliness and purity. The colour white itself stands for protection, innocence, goodness, sincerity.

How else can we manifest what we want by using our surroundings? Keep things free-flowing! Clutter can be blocking you from getting what you want by obstructing obvious paths from being apparent. Keeping old pictures and letters from your exes under your bed? Holding onto old old worn out clothes that don’t even fit anymore? Hoarding a pair of skiis you know you will never, ever use, but had hoped that you might take up the sport like 8 years ago...? Holding on to this sentimental clutter/ garbage could be keeping you from living your best life. Holding on to old love letters can be keeping you from letting go of your past and finding true love. Holding on to all those frumpy old clothes might be keeping you from looking and dressing your best by hiding your actual great clothes from you. Holding on to hobby items you know you will never use can be keeping you from doing the things you actually love by giving you anxiety about what you think you should be doing instead of inspiring you to do what you want to be doing (”hmmm, I should really use those skiis sometime...”). Just let it go! One of my favourite sayings is “let go of everything and see what stays.” You’ll be surprised to find that you don’t need very much stuff to be happy and follow your dreams, and everything you need is already within you. :)

Fourth, to manifest what you want in life, create more art! Make a manifestation board, draw, make music, let yourself be creative and watch what flows out of you. Listen to your heart and it will show you what your true desires are. Creating is, in a way, like having a conversation with the universe. And making a manifestation board is like asking the universe for those specific things that you want. When you ask the universe to help you, the universe will start conspiring in your favour. Trust that the universe has your back!

Lastly, surround yourself with imagery that speaks to you about the sort of person you want to be, the life you want to live, the things you want to have, etc. I keep my manifestation board on my vanity so I can be reminded about all the things I want, and to help me get my mindset right at the beginning of the day when I’m putting on my makeup, so that I can be in the right mindset to get those things! Traveling, becoming a mom, starting a business, stargazing as much as possible, being a good friend. When I was living in Thailand, I actually brought my manifestation board with me to keep me reminded about why I was there, doing what I was doing. Keep your board in a place that’s visible to you and it will keep your dreams more real and easily attainable, serve as a reminder for the things and feelings you want, and keep you working toward your goals and dreams.

Take note of the other art you have in your room. Do you have old torn up posters, imagery depicting loneliness, sadness, hate, death? Skulls all over your bedroom, maybe? Art with depressing imagery might be keeping you in a stagnant underlying negative mood and manifesting more negativity your way. Depictions of death in the bedroom might be hindering a romantic relationship from blooming... so if you’ve got a bedroom covered in skull posters, maybe it’s time to take em down. Take note of what the art in your space is saying, and replace it accordingly. If you want to manifest more peace and serenity, declutter your room, and maybe hang up a picture of a mountain. Want to manifest a loving relationship? Find some images that speak to the sort of love that you want in your life, and put those up in your bedroom! Don’t forget to use lot of soft pinks too! Want wealth? Images of rushing water, a waterfall, and images depicting abundance will help you manifest that! Want to start a family, travel, start a new career? Sit with yourself, or with some friends, and make an evening of cutting out images from magazines and creating a manifestation board to help realize those goals and ask the universe to help you reach them. 

Your room has an insurmountable ability to affect how you are in the world; how you feel, behave, think, speak, and how you feel about yourself... A supportive bedroom environment that caters specifically to inspire the kind of person you want to be and the goals you want to achieve will only help you to get those things and manifest them. For help and ideas with this, feel free to reach out! xo

[growinsideout-fengshui]

bedroom feng shui philosophy #2:

Start where you are, use what you have, and do what you can. 

Feng shui is a personal journey. Aligning the energy of your surroundings so it can nourish you,give you what you need, and help you thrive to your fullest potential takes time! You can’t expect to have everything done overnight! I’ve been rearranging my life and my home with feng shui for the past year, and I’m STILL making progress and I even sometimes improvise with feng shui cures, temporarily, until I can implement something better (a more suitable lamp or furniture piece, etc).

It’s OK if something isn’t perfect or exactly how you want it to be, right now. You will get there! Keep your goals in mind and enjoy the process. Of course, sometimes it can be expensive to get the pieces of furniture you love, or take a lot of work to build your ideal space, and it may seem like the process of doing feng shui is taking a long time. But keep at it, and enjoy every part of the process, because as each center of your home becomes more aligned with your dreams, personality, style and energy, you will notice changes happening in your life in the related areas as well!

In feng shui bedrooms, it’s important to have a lamp on either side of the bed, and it’s important that the lamps are the same-- especially when we have the hope to manifest love in our lives. Symmetry, pairs and duality (especially around the bed) help us to manifest strong partnership and equality in our relationships, and when we pay homage to the beauty of symmetry and have a  balance of light source on both sides, it’s good feng shui! One lamp should not be bigger, nicer, or brighter than the other, because then it symbolizes an inequality in the relationships as well as a power struggle, and this is surely not something we want to manifest in our love life! Both sides of the bed should be equally beautiful to set the stage for you and your love to come and be together.

In this picture of my bedroom, you can see I don’t exactly have this symmetry... yet! I’ve improvised the symmetry on my bedside tables since I don’t have two of the same lamps to go on either side! But, in order to achieve the most balance possible by just using what I had, I was able to place a lamp on either side of the bed (though they are different, it still does create a good temporary attempt at balance); use similar colours, and do my best to match the heights of the items on both side tables. 

Is this good feng shui? As long as it’s only a temporary solution, improvising is OK! It helps create balance, lets us see how a small change can make us feel better, and sets us up for the next step in our feng shui journey, which is usually to do a bit of shopping to acquire the proper items for your space! For me, that is two lovely lamps! Some balance is better than complete lack of balance! Use what you can, get a feel for the new flow, and decide what pieces you actually need and get them when the time is right. 

[growinsideout-fengshui]

bedroom feng shui philosophy #1:

Pay attention to whats in your love area

Since our bedrooms are here for us to help us rest in and replenish our energy, be a safe space for us to love ourselves in, and love our partners, it’s awesome that we can enhance the love center of the bagua, but also feng shui the whole room to enhance and boost the LOVE energy in your life.

Life is hard enough, at least love isn’t supposed to be. When we use feng shui to pay homage to love, attract more of it, and create a comfy relaxing bedroom, amazing things can manifest in our love lives, in our relationships with others, and even in our relationship with ourselves. Some ways to enhance your love center are: with the right colours (pinks, reds, pastels), with symbols for love (in my room I have a hula hoop hanging on my wall because circles represent love having no beginning and no end, and well, the hoop just represents having a fun time!). Using soft textures like throw blankets and furry things in this center, and throughout the room, will energize that softness and tenderness of the love energy as well. 

It’s really important that you don’t have any clutter or piles of irrelevant things here (or anywhere for that matter). Replace clutter with fresh flowers, healthy plants, crystals such as rose quartz, and pairs of things. The theme of pairs should be carried out in the whole room- a pair of the same lamps, a pair of symmetrical bedside tables, a pair of scented candles, etc. helps to manifest a twin flame significant other for you to pair up with! When you pay homage to the duality of pairs, you attract more of the “2″ love energy that comes from the strength associated with duality and healthy relationships. 

Other things to have in this area would be artwork that represents love to you, or a love manifestation board.

I love my love area because when I sit here I am so so so cozy. I spend a lot of my time in this chair reading, listening to music and napping. The papasan chair is a god send and it is the perfect cozy chair for a bedroom. Pay attention to what’s in your love area cause it is a symbolic representation of your love life and what will possibly manifest in your relationships!

[growinsideout-fengshui]

one night stand

[growinsideout-fengshui]

take off your shoes and come up to my room.

Do you remember the MTV reality/dating show Room Raiders? Where one guy or one girl would get to raid 3 peoples’ bedrooms, go through their drawers, judge their decor, see how they live, and then decide who he or she wanted to go on a date with at the end of the show? I was obsessed! I think you can tell so much about a person by how they style their bedroom.

Last week my friend Aidan came over to take some photos in my room so I can show you guys my personal feng shui. We had strawberry juice on ice, listened to goth bands, and he showed me how he made DIY filters out of ziplocks.

So, raid my room. Boho inspired and minimal. I’ll talk about what this feng shui is manifesting, and where all the “stuff” is in next posts. 

XO

[growinsideout-fengshui]

Here’s a little list of things you can do to make it look like you have your life together. When I found this post, I had to laugh a little because in some regards feng shui is sort of about the same thing; having a grown-up looking space and moving on up in the world. Enjoy! xx

[growinsideout-fengshui]

Why healers love to refurbish things

Many people love to restore cars, flip homes, and refurbish furniture. I am one of these people (surprise, surprise!). Time spent in the garage with my music and whatever project I’m working on is my favourite kind of escape (next to going on an actual vacation, of course)!

I am a refurbish-aholic when it comes to restoring wood furniture! If you like to restore things too, and feel like it heals you (and even if you haven’t yet but love the idea), this post is for you!

When broken people work through their trauma, beautiful things can happen. They become healers and are able to help other people, find creative solutions to help fix problems, fix things, create art, and ultimately, through doing the work, they also continue to heal themselves. The thing with broken people is we have to constantly work through our trauma for it to stay at bay. Talking about it once, meditating once, creating art once, and going to the gym once doesn’t heal us. We have to continue doing our healing activities and rituals in order to feel sane. For many of us, restoring things is one of those things we love to do because it helps us feel like we are restoring ourselves in the process. 

Loads of things can happen to a person that makes us feel like we are broken inside. When I was 13, my dad told me he didn’t love me...! Ouch, right? Since then I felt eternally unloveable, and as I grew older I turned to drugs, alcohol, and getting naked on stage every other night to feel like a worthy person of the male gaze and people’s love and affection in general. Feeling unloved as a young kid is a horrid thing to have to deal with and work through. I developed anger issues and depression. Thankfully, since my dad was a philosopher, I had some clues in my genes on how to help myself cope with it all, and found solace in a bunch of cognitive behavioural therapy books, books on self-love, mood therapy, meditation and yoga. I even spent some time recently at a meditation retreat when I was living in Thailand, where every day we were required to do some sort of “working” meditation along with the other types of meditations. This working meditation involved tasks around the meditation centre grounds like feeding the fish in the pond, or sweeping the pathways, and it allowed the person doing the task to let their mind go blank while also practicing mindfulness in completing the important daily chores. Participating in working meditation like this can be a great happiness. It is an opportunity to engage in the maintenance and care of something while enjoying the practice of mindfulness. I loved it. Letting my mind go blank while doing something, and observing what thoughts popped up was pretty cool!

When I sand the old paint off a dresser, it’s like I’m sanding the old layers off myself. The time it takes to perfect the job allows me to go into a meditative state where  I get to clear my mind, and peel away at my own essence and reveal to myself who I truly am, and who I want to be. Negative thoughts and feelings that enter my mind get to be washed away in the work. They get dissolved by the sound of the sander, by the music in the garage, by the cloth I wipe the dust off with. Completing the hard work of restoring gives me this tangible sense of accomplishment. I love fixing things and then letting them go. Finding the pieces a home and doing the work just for the sake of doing the work. The process heals me a little every time I do it.

Personally, I love working on furniture because I love thinking about how I can paint it to match the person and the room I imagine it’s going to go to. I think the colours we choose for our projects and the style we transform them into are directly related to our auras at the time, and what we’re working through in our own life journey at the moment. The projects we work on become like an extension of ourselves, and completing them helps us explore the stage we’re currently in in life, and turn the page on it, giving us some kind of tangible closure.

Knowing that acquiring this piece of furniture can change someone’s life in some way is what makes me so happy. One good piece of furniture, when brought into your space and into your life, can help transform you by being a catalyst for a whole new style in your home and in your life. Actually, a few years ago, I myself acquired a dresser that a lovely woman restored with a distressed, romantic black finish, and it is my favourite piece of furniture I own to this date-- and actually, looking back, I think that dresser was what sparked me looking within and getting to know my interior design style. It started with that one piece of furniture. After that, I started updating the rest of my space and learning about feng shui. :D

If you yourself love to refurbish things, I think you are a healer. You give new life to broken things, because you know what it’s like to be broken yourself. You’ve felt unloved, hurt, ugly, you’ve struggled. You appreciate when someone spends time on helping you, and now that you’ve coped with your pain and struggles, you can spend time helping others in multitudes of ways, and you get a similar good feeling from fixing broken things too. There’s something magical about doing this kind of restorative work that makes us feel good about ourselves. It’s the healer’s high.

Refurbing heals us and allows us to help others by providing the finished product to someone who needs it. It allows us to put some good intention, good feelings out into the world through a piece of work. It’s therapeutic. It allows us to be creative. It’s meditative and helps us heal ourselves from the inside out, and have a tangible piece of work at the end of the process that we can then discard, sell, give away. It’s not about the final product, really. It’s about the process of transforming something and transforming ourselves in the meantime.