Ready to explore the idea of feng shui in the home? Specifically, in your home. Great idea, because the Chinese art of Placement is a terrific tool. One that not only can help ease the path to your goals, but also can help you create an increasingly harmonious life for yourself and the people you care about.
Better yet, feng shui in the home (or anywhere else) goes beautifully with the small-steps philosophy of kaizen, the core of "turtle-tracks." But there's more. Besides affecting the feel, or tone, of a specific living space, feng shui (FS) can also help you address certain aspects of your broader life as well. Operating beyond the realm of either decoration or functionality alone, it melds certain elements of both.
How does it work?
Feng shui, which has existed in Asia for centuries, applies a wide variety of tools and “remedies” to any area of life included in the bagua.
An energetic map lying at the core of feng shui, the Bagua contains nine zones: family, prosperity, fame, relationships, creativity and children, helpful people and travel, career, skills and knowledge, and health. FS theory and practice provide multiple ways to enhance any of these areas by practicing feng shui in the home.
The Art of Placement
So, what does the term placement mean within the context of feng shui in the home? Karen Rauch Carter, who writes frequently on this topic, describes placement as a process of “purposefully arranging the stuff around you to gain positive results.”
The stuff to which she refers includes all of your worldly possessions, as well as other objects (your desk and computer at work, for example) that contribute to your surroundings at least part of the time. The positive results of which she speaks would take place in certain areas of your life that correspond to any of the nine bagua categories or zones mentioned previously.
If you're working with feng shui yourself, you’ll be focusing on the ch’i (pronounced “chee”), or energy, in your environment. As you shift the energy in a single room or an entire house with certain FS “cures” or “remedies,” you promote corresponding shifts in your broader life—step by step.
Cures
You would choose these cures according to how well various areas of your life are working. For example, if your finances seem a bit tight, you might enhance the prosperity section of your house. If your kids give you a hard time, work with the love and relationships area or creativity and children. Work not going very well? Check the career section of your house. Don’t feel so good? Then add a cure to the health area of your home. And so on.
Please don't knock yourself out with the cures, though. With regard to remedies, a little goes a long way provided you declare your intent as you make them. So each time you place a remedy or cure, be clear in your mind about why you’re doing so. Then articulate it in some manner.
You might, for example, say something like this: “Okay, blue felt, in placing you here, I intend to bring about an expansion of my skills and knowledge. Thank you kindly.” Or words to that effect. The main thing is to keep it simple, and keep it fun. Because that's the way the turtle likes it.
Ready to learn more? Just below are a couple of books that can help you get started with the feng shui basics. And many websites are devoted to this discipline as well. So, have a blast!
Please don't knock yourself out with the cures, though. With regard to remedies, a little goes a long way provided you declare your intent as you make them. So each time you place a remedy or cure, be clear in your mind about why you’re doing so. Then articulate it in some manner. 
