If you thoroughly explore these four answers, you’ll have a much more clear idea of the facts and emotions that surround this decision and can forge ahead with more ease and empowerment.

Of course, as a feng shui consultant, I always like to suggest enhancing the front left-hand part of the home with something earthy, or a good symbol of wisdom too.

The post Feeling Stuck? Answer these questions that support decision-making. appeared first on Karen Rauch Carter.

Answer: Yes, I do! Do NOT just say it. Write it down! Make it real by dreaming about completing it and then WRITE it down on paper. My best advice is to write a story about what it’s going to be like once you have completed it. All this falls back to the book I highly recommend, Excuse Me, Your Life is Waiting by Lynn Grabhorn. If you haven’t read it, I would try to make that your resolution! And if you have and you need additional resources, please feel free to dig into Henriette Anne Klauser’s book Write It Down, Make it Happen.

These two books are exceptional at teaching you techniques on how to get clear on what you want and making it manifest in your life. A fun way to manifest your dreams is to write down the list and share it with a group of friends. Pass out copies of your lists to each other so you can monitor all of the group’s dreams as they come true! (I love getting friends involved in my rituals – it seems to #1: make me do it. #2: hold myself more accountable for it. #3: have more fun doing it.) Try it – what’s the harm?

Now, from a feng shui perspective, I would suggest enhancing the front left-hand part of the home or room called the Skills and Knowledge gua. This gua is related to the mountain trigram, which symbolizes the place to go within to reflect and learn. The element is earth, the color is blue, a great symbol is light…so feel free to take some time to enhance this gua with the intention of you gaining wisdom about your life’s path and what is best to give your energy to this year.

Next, accent the center front and front right-hand areas of the home (called  the Career and Helpful People guas respectively) and you are on your way to placing yourself in the right place at the right time for what you are supposed to be doing in the coming year.  Items that help hold good energies here are things made of metal. You can place that list you just wrote in the front right-hand area in a metal box to tie it all together with your resolutions.

The post Improve Manifesting Odds for New Years Resolutions appeared first on Karen Rauch Carter.

Living with these push-me-pull-you feelings is exhausting. Part of them wants one thing, and for some reason or another, part of them wants the exact opposite.

For this situation, ther are many things I might take into consideration. But ALWAYS on the list are the following two:

1. Integrate the conflicting parts. Lucky for me, I have a great technique for this. It is in the consultation that I call “Feng Shui Your Mindset” on my website. It is about re-aligning your thought patterns so that they are going in one direction. Depending on the situation, this usually takes around 3 to 6 hours via the telephone (yes – that’s all!) I have a laser-focused technique that gets every “part” on the same page using neuro-linguistic repatterning and other subconscious “mind reboot” strategies.

If this sounds hard to believe, well – that just may be an unresourceful thought FOR YOU!

2. Look at the Skills and Knowledge and Family guas of the bagua. That is the front left-hand and left side (respectively) of the home or room from coming in the door. ANY confusion there may trigger these thoughts and feelings. It may be clutter, poor symbols leaking chi (big windows, door to door relationship, etc.) or even an element imbalance problem (skills and knowledge gua is governed by earth element and the family gua’s element is wood.)

Working on the skills and knowledge gua can help with the decision-making part (ie: “a part of me wants to do the feng shui your mindset program and a part doesn’t!”) and working on the family gua can help to snip the tether to the past (ie: “My mom said I wasn’t good enough.”) so you can move powerfully into ONE DIRECTION in your future.

If this seems like a level 2 conversation and you are only level 1 or a beginner, review my book or some of the other blog posts here to familiarize yourself with how to do simple changes to change your life!

The post Feng Shui Tips to WANT TO Want Something Else appeared first on Karen Rauch Carter.

Question:

Answer: Let’s answer one thing at a time here. First of all, everything that you own, or are surrounded by over a vast period of time affects you somehow. So, to start the conversation, I’d first want to address the junk, and then talk about the bagua. “Full of junk” indicated “issues” with in the household, and/or lack of health or opportunity in life. My teacher once said, “Put the issues in the tissues and get on with it.” He noted that getting rid of (or through) the tears or emotions that go along with the removal of junk piles and clutter certainly aids in bettering the chi in the person doing the de-cluttering.

Where your garage is within the bagua of your home or lot makes a difference just like anything else in your home or on your lot. If the garage sticks out in front of the front door, it is not within the yang bagua of the house – but it is within the sphere of influence of the lot (and possibly within the yin bagua – which is the bagua that overlays onto the whole shape of the house. – This is not in my book, by the way.) It may not affect you as strongly, but it is affecting you. I had one gal who unlocked her whole world by eliminating the inherited things in her detached garage, so I don’t take a cluttered distant garage lightly just because it is not in the house’s bagua zone.

Now, because yours is stuck with junk and clogging up your skills and knowledge energy, I would suggest possibly enhancing the skills and knowledge area of all the other main rooms in your house where you spend a lot of time – at least until you clean up your garage. The room guas can help support the weak house gua – but I’m not suggesting enhancing them and forgetting the clutter because the garage clutter is still affecting you on some level and should probably be dealt with.

I have heard from one feng shui practitioner that he does not count the garage, because he only counts “livable space,” but I disagree. I don’t “live” in the attic, the cupboards, or up on the closet shelves if you go by this logic.

I did decide once, that an attached garage with no direct access into the house, where you did not “feel” the presence of the garage from anywhere within the house, was not a part of that home’s bagua – but that was once. I have not seen/felt that particular arrangement before or since. I’m saying this to show you that indeed, for just about every rule in feng shui, there is some example of where you could break that rule.

You may not like this answer, but I’m sure that if you took the time to think about this and write it, you probably have a gut feeling that it is indeed, something that needs to be addressed within your home and your life. Good luck.

The post How do Garages fit into the Bagua? appeared first on Karen Rauch Carter.

Are You Optimistic?

I went to the farmers market on Wednesday, and one of the vendors gave me a little slip of paper that he called “propaganda.”  Since I’ve been going to the farmers market for years, and I knew this guy could be the friendly sort, so thanked him and added the paper to my bag, and went on my way. When I got home, I read the paper and thought it was so good, I decided to post it here today.

The Optimist Creed

Promise yourself:

To be so strong that nothing can disturb your peace of mind.

To talk help, happiness and prosperity to everyone you meet.

To make all your friends feel that there is something in them.

To look at the sunny side of everything and make your optimism come true.

To think only of the best, to work only for the best, and expect only the best.

To be just as enthusiastic about the success of others as you are about your own.

To forget the mistakes of the past and press on to the greater achievements of the future.

To wear a cheerful countenance at all times and give every living creature you meet a smile.

To give so much time to the improvement of yourself that you have no time to criticize others.

To be too large for worry, too noble for anger, too strong for fear, and to happy to permit the presence of trouble.

– Optimist International

Wow! Organic veggies AND words to live by! I double scored at the farmer’s market this time!

The post Live The Optimist Creed – a Great Way to BE in the New Year appeared first on Karen Rauch Carter.

When you are in such a natural place as this, it is easy to feel the relating, still, strong, and majestic energies of mountains. It is also easy to see  the feng shui “form, shape, and flow” that we’re always trying to assign to our man-made environments. There’s nothing at a right angle or synthetic here, and it somehow feels so good. It’s definitely something to think about when you are bringing some new-fangled material or object into your home now. Perhaps for every man-made item we add to our environments we lose a bit of that “aaahh,” relaxing mood, and inner stillness that the still, clean, mountain energy brings.

The mountain is the symbol (one of the 9 traditional cures) for the Skills and Knowledge Gua in feng shui. Its energy about being still, being calm, seeking inner guidance, and overall stability. The opposite of the traditional cure of a “moving object” if that helps you. It also is all about the energy of the earth element.

Are there any other places to have a mountain symbol besides the skills and knowledge gua? The relationship gua might need one, as it is governed by earth element. You might also use its energies for creativity and children and helpful people as earth “gives life to” the metal which governs them. You might also simply add a picture of a mountain behind you at your desk for strength (and stability,) or near your bed – especially if you find yourself not able to sleep well.

Take a look around and see if earth element and mountain symbol is something that you could use a little bit more of. You can use a calendar picture or something printed off the internet if you’ve got nothing else. Then let me know what stables out in your life!

The post Mountain Energy appeared first on Karen Rauch Carter.

The post Skills and Knowledge /Returning to College Q and A appeared first on Karen Rauch Carter.