Transforming Your Home with Good Feng Shui in 9 Easy Steps

Everything you believe to be true about life is expressed in your home. Making small, intentional changes in your place can result in a life transformed, happiness and pride on your surroundings!

Moni is a Feng Shui Consultant, Speaker and Author. She provides clients with a system to turn their homes into dream homes where they can be happy with the people they love.

This step by step system combines Feng Shui, Modern Architecture and Alternative Healing, and it gives people the power to transform their homes while they transform their lives to be happier, healthier, and wealthier.

She will help you create a life you love in a home you are proud to show!

Moni has  been practicing and teaching Feng Shui for over 20 years, and is currently accepting new clients.

In this episode, Moni explains how to improve your spaces easily and effectively for a happier, healthier life! 

Guest Speaker: Monica Castaneda, Owner, founder of Feng Shui for Us™ 
Category: Health and Wellness
Publish date: 2024-02-06
Duration: [00:40:08]

Transcript
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Transcript

From Hidden Enemy to Best Friend - Transforming Your Home with Good Feng Shui

Amy: [00:00:00] Hello. Welcome back to the holistic health show. And as always, thank you so much for joining me again this week. Today on the show, we have Monique Castaneda. She is joining us from the states.

She's in Tennessee. She is a Feng Shui consultant, an author, and a speaker. And today, the topic is how you can use your home as a source of power. Monique, thank you so much for joining us today.

Moni Casteneda: Thank you so much for inviting me. I've been looking forward to this.

Amy: Yeah.

I'm excited to talk about this. I you know, I've heard about feng shui. I know little bits and pieces, and it's always something I've been really interested in, but it's not

[00:01:00] something that I necessarily have applied throughout my entire home. I've tried little bits here and

there, I'm excited to learn more today, and I can't wait to, you know, just hear what you have to share with us. So

if you would, would you mind starting with why or how you got into doing this?

Moni Casteneda: Yeah. So feng shui is an ancient east Asian art of placement, which basically is what to put where in what color, shapes, and materials so that you can be happy, healthy, and successful. And the way I got into it was a kind of, like, destiny. I was born And I grew up in Ecuador, .

And I studied architecture there. And when I came to the United States, I found out at my first job interview that I would not be able to practice architecture

 because there's no agreements between the 2 countries. And so I was telling this to a friend, and she told me, well, why don't we look into feng shui?

 I started looking into it, and I fell [00:02:00] in love with it. And In the beginning, you know, it was just I had such fascination with feng shui. 

And then eventually, , I got my first client.

 I was so interested in feng shui, but I know I don't know how much you have looked into feng shui but there's Different schools of feng shui. There's basically 2 branches of feng shui. So I was looking at the different things and the different schools, and their The advice was so different from 1 author to the next, and it was contradictory. You know, like, 1 book would tell you to do 1 thing and another were to to do the exact opposite thing. And because of my training in architecture, I could see that that some things were just not applicable.

And and I could visualize if you did certain things the way you were being told to do them, they wouldn't look good. And it was being an architect you know to me was really important that it looked good. And I had a group of friends that were all healers. And some of them had tried to apply feng shui by themselves. When I went to their homes, it didn't look good.

And [00:03:00] I was thinking something has been lost in translation because when you look at the beautiful Chinese, Korean, or Japanese buildings that were done applying functional principles, they're absolutely gorgeous. And so I thought, well, something's getting lost in translation, or something's getting lost in transporting it from 1 culture to another. So ended up developing my own system of feng shui, which is called the nine steps to feng shui system, because there was so much confusion, I thought I have to go back to the source. And then I learned that feng shui is actually a branch of ancient Chinese medicine, just like acupuncture or qigong. And so I've mentored under an an acupuncturist that is connected to a very ancient reliable school, and I started looking at all the principles and how they would apply the home in the same way they apply to the body.

And so the way I practice feng shui is as a part of ancient Chinese medicine.

 When I typically hear a feng shui, I hear about making [00:04:00] the house more peaceful or bringing money into your life

Amy: or health. 

I'd love for you to kinda dive into a little little bit of the aspects of feng shui, where they're beneficial, and, what it might look like. And is it

that every corner, every piece of your house has to be meticulously laid out,

or Can you be a bit relaxed with it, I

suppose? So 

there's a lot in there, but I'd love to get the big picture, 

Moni Casteneda: Sure. First let me talk about what I don't do.

There's a school of feng shui that is called Compass School Feng Shui. That is all about the Compass directions.

And if you hire a person of that school, the first thing they're gonna do is they're gonna ask you for your birth date, And then they're gonna check what direction the front door of your home is facing. And all the advice is based on that and that's not what I do because That's what what produces some of the most bizarre results. So for example, consultants of that school will choose and the color of your front door based on the direction it faces, [00:05:00] whether you like it or not. Right? And And, also, you know, as as you know, living in Australia, the south direction in Australia is very different from the south direction in Canada Because, you know, in the case of Canada, the south is the warm side of the house.

. So when you live in Canada or the United States, the sun it rises in the southeast and sets in the southwest.

And when you are in Australia, it's the northeast to the northwest. So your south wall is gonna be the cold wall. 

So that's not what I do. So what I do is I use the same principles of acupuncture. And so the first thing we do is we wanna make sure you have a sense of wholeness. And for that, we analyze the shape of your home and make sure that it's a complete shape that is not irregular. And a lot of homes are irregular.

 After a certain size of a home, you have to have an irregular shape so you get sunshine and natural light. But we have to create the impression from the inside that it's a Complete floor plan that nothing is missing so that you can have an [00:06:00] idea in your life that nothing is missing in your life. That right here, right now, you have given everything that you need in order to be happy, healthy, and successful. Then we look at what is called in Chinese medicine, Excesses or deficiencies. So excess is something that is too much of, and then deficiency is something that there's too little of.

 So for example, If you have a basement or or a half basement, you're gonna have a deficiency of light.

If you have a a living room or a great room with double height ceiling, that's an excess of height. And so we look to balance those things. Then we also look at we have this concept in for sure that is the life force.

 The life force energy is an actual energy that comes into your home. So we make sure that when it comes in, it visits all the areas of your home, That it doesn't rush too fast in any areas, that it doesn't get stagnant, and that it doesn't become turbulent, that it's harmonious. And so that's the first 3 steps, and the system has 9 steps.[00:07:00] 

So not everything in your home has to be perfect. Not every item in your home has huge feng shui significance. There's an ancient Chinese saying that goes like this. All the things in your home are telling you something, are talking to you, make sure they have nice things to say. And while that is true, that everything in your home is giving you a message, not every message is significant.

I joke that there should be a term called feng shui OCD because I I have seen people that just get obsessed

with trying to make everything perfect. And and I have seen people that whenever they have a problem in life, they're like, oh what did I do do wrong in my home? So even with good feng shui, which is is known for creating better luck, Even with great feng shui, you are not going to have perfection in your life. You're always gonna have problems.

Right? And so the idea is that if you have good feng shui in your home, you are able to think [00:08:00] clearly and you're able to tackle problems as they And also that you do have less problems after a while this is actually a really interesting concept in Chinese medicine that luck is not chance. Luck is what is what happens to you and around you based on the condition, strength, and health of Your aura, your energy field. And so when your environment with your home has really good energy, It is easier for you to keep your aura strong. And so the the aim of Feng Shui is to make you luckier, basically.

Amy: There's obviously a lot to it that I was unaware of. , I've always heard about the compass, the directions. You should have

this facing this way, and we have a little I think it's a little cat in the arm waves, 

and it's supposed to bring back, 

um, the lucky cat.

And we were told that the cat, has to face

east always. 

Moni Casteneda: Yeah. And so that's actually not true.

 The lucky [00:09:00] cat should face the door because and it's supposed to be something you do for businesses, and the lucky cat is supposed to tell people come in, come in, and to welcome them. I actually have a page that I devoted to the correct use of the lucky cat on my blog.

Amy: I'm gonna look at that. But there's this idea, you know, when you do Compass School Feng Shui, they ask for your birth date, and then they tell you there's 4 directions that are positive for you and the 4 directions are negative for you, right, according to your birth date. So what I have seen happen with that is that people become terrified of the rooms in the home that are in a direction that's supposed to be negative for them. So I've worked with clients that tried to do Compass School before they hired me. And so there was this woman, she hadn't been in her bedroom for 3 months.

Moni Casteneda: She had been sleeping in the sofa because the consultant told her that the the direction her bedroom was in was death for her.

 And so 

she could not confront her bedroom. So it's like every time she needed clothes, she would go buy clothes [00:10:00] Instead, she was afraid to go in the bedroom to look for clothes.

So that's how how negative people can be impacted with feng shui, you know, and sometimes I have had people who, upon learning that I do feng shui, got really angry at me, and I understand them because if that is the only kind of feng shui somebody has been exposed to, It is superstitious. It is fear based. It disempowers you. And I believe that that even getting into that kind of Feng Shui can bring you bad luck Because when you're constantly afraid,

Energy goes down. You know that, right, as a Reiki practitioner.

And so the I have this student. This is so funny. She would sit only in 1 edge of her sofa. Like, she had a beautiful, large, comfortable sofa, and she will always be crunched up on the 1 side. Because when the consultant that she had hired before she met me, when they did the the life areas on their floor plan, only that corner of the sofa was in a positive direction over her, and the rest of the sofa was in a negative direction for her.

So that's the kinds of thing that [00:11:00] that give people the wrong impression of feng shui. I don't blame people if they have only heard of that kind of feng shui if they say feng shui is garbage or whatever. But the way I I do it, , and my guarantee is that when people work with me, if they apply my system, if they go through the 9 steps, they will end up with a dream home. That is my warranty because it's so important for me, you know, with my background in architecture.

It's so important to me that the space look good. Because the home is your superpower. You know, the the home should be the place that nourishes you, and that is your supportive partner. If you feel like if you think about your home and you think about being drained of energy, You need to make changes. You probably have bad Feng Shui because with with good Feng Shui, your home almost runs on autopilot.

Amy: And it's 1 thing to have everything laid out just so according to Feng Shui, But if you don't if if it doesn't appeal to you, if you walk in and it doesn't make you happy , you're proud of of your space Then

 It's really really counteracting

Moni Casteneda: I mean, you have to love it. [00:12:00] If if you're going to have a good life, a happy life, You have to start with the place where you live. You know?

If the place where you live is not nice, not good, it doesn't please you, how are you gonna be have a happy life?

Is kind of impossible. 

Amy: Home really needs to be our sanctuary, You know, where we

Moni Casteneda: Yes. 

Yeah. There's 2 factors in the home that are positive.

1 is the a factor, and the other 1 is the wow factor. So the f factor is what you need, for example, in the primary bedroom. When you go in the primary bedroom, you need to feel like, oh, man. You know, I I can take a nap now or I can sleep Or I can get romantic with my husband. I can read a book.

And then the wow factor is what you want for the living room or the kitchen, You know, that you wanted to impress your guests, but also to impress yourself.

 But with a lot of people, when they're trying to do feng shui by themselves, People come in and they're they don't go like, wow or ah. They go, You know? What's what is this person trying to do? 

And because to them, they just See the [00:13:00] same kinds of ornaments and decorations they have seen at the Chinese restaurant or at the nail shop and with no context with the actual decorating style of the person.

Amy: I can understand. That can be confusing, you know, because like you said, you read a lot of contradictory stuff online.

So with your 9 step program, can anybody do this, or does it need you going in and kinda doing an assessment? How does that

work?

Moni Casteneda: When I first started doing feng shui, I wrote a book, and then I wrote several more books.

And At the time, I was thinking that people could do it themselves. So I even called my book feng shui your own home with a nice steps to feng shui system. Say, for example, a person who's really athletic, they think it's really easy to play basketball.

Right? Or they they think it's really easy to play tennis.

And I think that's what happened to me because I was always, like, a natural with spaces. So I felt like it should be really easy for people to understand, but over the years, I wish I hadn't called my book that because people really need the [00:14:00] guidance.

 It's a serious thing, you know, because you're messing with your luck. You're messing with your environment. 

But feng shui is not something that you can Google your way through or Pinterest your way through. My husband and I sometimes, you know, just we just love looking at these collections of Nailed It. Where people see, like, something on Pinterest and they try to reproduce it and they're nailed it, but it's actually not good. Right?

And so I think, like, to do that with a cake is fun. To do that with your living room, not fun. Right? But for the people who are curious, right, there's the books, there's the the YouTube channel, there's a blog, But people who really wanna make a difference, they really need to do it with guidance.

Amy: So I wanted to ask then You know, I'm in Australia. You're in the States. If I wanted to start this journey, Can you do a consult, and can you help online? Or, do you need to be in the physical space?

Moni Casteneda: Absolutely. I can do it online because because of [00:15:00] 2 reasons. Know, 1 is that I've been doing this for over 20 years, and I have been in so many homes, that I can know what the energy of the home is gonna be like just by looking at photographs and videos? So that's the 1 reason I can do it online.

The other reason is that with technology, , with cell phones and laptops it actually works better to do it long distance Because if if I was doing you know, if I was coming to your home, I'd be there for 2 hours, and then I would leave you a list of things to do. And then you wouldn't know if you did them right. And so what I do is I do monthly consultations instead of hourly consultations. So the person works with me for the whole month, and that is renewable. And so I create an online group that's just for them and for me, and we just exchange information through the group.

We also do Zoom sessions And we just follow the steps. You know? So first I create the group. They have to share with me the Google Maps link to their home so I can look at the neighborhood. Then they need to share with me a floor plan, and then we just go through the steps.

And I love doing [00:16:00] it this way because there's no overwhelm because I only give my clients 1 task. And they don't move on until they have completed that 1 task and send me photographs that show me that it was done correctly. So there's no overwhelm. 

Amy: It's interesting because, you know, we really need that. We really need things broken down into

just simple, small Steps, and you get you know, because you can wanna do it. I I could see myself being someone who'd be like, no. No.

Tell me all of it. I'll do it all today. 

But, realistically, I would be exhausted and Probably do half of it correctly.

 There's no intention there to do it the wrong way, but, You know, we just need to take everything slowly and and in bite sized steps and get

Moni Casteneda: Especially things that are important and that can cost you money in the long term, you know. Say for example, you need a rug.

You need a rug for your living room, and the rug is a few hundred dollars. Right? You make a mistake with that, And maybe you can return it, but it's still a hassle. And so you have to take your time.

And in the beginning, you know, some [00:17:00] people would tell me, no. Give me give me 3 tasks at a time. Give me 4 tasks per week or something. And when I obliged, it didn't go well because people get confused. They get overwhelmed.

And so 1 task at a time supervised, so you can't make mistakes, and you always confirm that everything was done right before you move on. And so there's There's no wondering. There's no overwhelm. And it's a lot of fun. I just love to do it because, basically, 5 days a week, anybody who's working with me I'm gonna be responding to them.

And so sometimes they'll Text me from the furniture store, and they'll be like, what about this lamp? You know? And it feels to me , that's 1 reason I love doing what I do. It feels to me like I have a friend, in all these different cities where I have clients, I have a friend, And I'm giving them my my feedback on the lamp. I just love shopping.

I love shopping for furniture so much. And once your house is set up, , you're done with that. So so I get to I get to have this satisfaction of [00:18:00] helping people shop, you know, helping people choose appliances and furniture and accessories and decorations. It's so much fun, so much fun for them and for me.

Amy: And I would imagine it's even more exciting because you're building this relationship

, , everyone's

Amy: taste is 

different. And so to have, this insight into helping these people Develop their taste. Develop, , their luck. Develop the way their house flows. To really improve on that, I can imagine that being very satisfying.

Moni Casteneda: Yeah. And I think you just took the words off my mouth because I was gonna say that about style.

 Some people think they have no style. It's just they haven't developed it. And so 1 of the things I love to do is I I love help people discover what they actually like.

. Because in the end, you, you want the result to be their dream home.

 Like, a client was telling me, , I I like my home before, but now every time I look around, I see something I love, and I get this jolt of happiness. And so this is super important. 

Because[00:19:00] if there are sources of irritation in your home, you're gonna be irritable. If you're irritable, you're gonna argue more. But if there are sources of love and beauty in your home, you're gonna be calm. And when you're calm, , you can think more clearly. Your healing Speeds up.

Growth speeds up. So there's like like and I'm sure you know this. The the 2 parts of the nervous system, The fight or flighter, which also includes freeze or fawn, you know, which is the sympathetic part of the nervous system, and the parasympathetic part of the nervous system, which is rational thinking, growth, and healing. And growth is essential to healing because you have to grow new cells.

And so When you are in fire flight freeze phone, the other part of the nervous system shuts down. So it's actually and I don't know if Listeners have had this experience. When you're worrying about something and you're trying to find a solution to it, you just keep going around and around and around, , like a hamster in a wheel. Right? And it's not until you calm down that you can find a solution your problems.

You can never find a solution [00:20:00] to your problems. Why worried? Because it just shuts down the thinking part. it's so important to have a home that nurtures you and that makes you feel peaceful. 1 1 thing that I do with my clients as we start working First is I teach them a technique to process their fears.

So it's not just clearing fears because I've noticed, , over the years when people clear their fears. The fears come back, and they just have to be clearing them constantly. So I have this process for people to, And I have this technique for people to process their fears so they don't come back in the same way. And so what people are reporting to me is that they're just calmer. They can just get out of them stress or anxiety cycles, and they're just calmer.

And then when you're calm, when when you're Centered in your own body, when you're calm, when you're not being played by fears, everything becomes easier.

 Everything

Amy: becomes easier, and it's just you're able to take on, the the bumps that [00:21:00] come

ahead in much easier when you're not, , wound up and tense. And, , you can think like you said, you can think more rationally about Things when they come up in your life, and, , you can just you can deal with things a lot easier.

Moni Casteneda: Yeah. And my objective is now in the beginning, I teach my clients to do this so they know what peace is. Because some of my clients at the beginning, they don't know what it is to live a peaceful life. And as they work on their home, they start noticing when they start feeling like that as soon as they step into the home. They feel that peace as soon as they step into the home.

Amy: And what about anyone in a rental property? Can you apply the same techniques In a home that is

not belonging to you?

Moni Casteneda: Yeah. , and, actually, some of my my case history is my most fabulous testimonials and case histories are from people who are renting.

And the the way 1 of my clients put it, you know, if if I'm renting, even if I don't own it, it's still mine. It's still my place.

Right? And so, of course, you you do have to be careful [00:22:00] that you don't end up paying a lot of money when you move out, so for example, And there's some landlords that are gonna charge you a certain money amount for every little hole they see on the walls. Right?

And things like that.

So we use things like decals. We use those 3 m's trees, things that don't damage walls and things. We're very careful about the things that we do. And so sometimes, you know, a person that is renting I I have a client that's been renting and She doesn't plan to move out because the the it's it's a neighborhood she loves, is it how she loves, , she just plans on continuing to live there.

And there's other cases when you start working on feng shui, and as we're about to complete the 9 steps much better opportunity comes up. And it can be an opportunity to buy a home or to rent a a place that is more convenient. I think, like, me coming from Ecuador, you know, most people in in Ecuador, they're not homeowners.

And so if I didn't do feng shui in a way that can be applied to people who rent, I would be leaving [00:23:00] most people in the world outside of feng shui. 

Amy: . And there's something because it at times, it can be hard to make a rental property feel your own. And I would imagine if you're going in and Approaching it and getting ready to , you get ready to set up and you feel what feels good, where, and sometimes you might move things around a few times in the first few months that you live

there. And I would imagine taking this this feng shui approach would just make it feel all that more your own personal space and not somebody else's that you're just kind of Using for the

short term. 

Moni Casteneda: There has to to be a sense of ownership even when you rent And some ownership pride.

 Because you may not own the apartment, but you still own the furniture. You still own the curtains. You still own the lamps. And so it's still your place.

 And you have to beautify it Then it make sure it has good energy and gives you good feedback.

So what we do, , it's like the the 9 steps that I was telling you about. The first 3 steps, they have to do with the way the home was built. That's [00:24:00] nothing you have done. It's just the layout of the home, the way the floor plan was designed, the kind of construction it is, where the stairs are compared to the door if you have stairs, you know, the locations of the windows or things like that.

Then the next 3 steps, they have to do with interior design. And the interior design basically is a finishes and finishings. So Interior design are the major decisions that you or somebody else has made about the home. For example, whether you have paint or wallpaper on the walls, what colors you have the kind of floor you have, the kind of kitchen counters the material of the kitchen cabinets.

And then the next 3 steps, They have to do with the furnishings, which means furniture, accessories, and decorations. and this is the fascinating thing. Another reason I love what I do is that each of these steps comes with a transformation for the person. 

Your home is an expression of everything you believe to be true about life. And I'm not talking about faith or religious beliefs. I'm talking about what you believe [00:25:00] about money, about wealth, about health, about marriage, about children. And so you are expressing all your beliefs in your home. If you consciously make very Targeted changes in your home.

You're gonna change the way you think. You're gonna change the way you feel. And when you feel and think better you're gonna make better decisions you're gonna take better actions and that is where what leads you to success. So I see a lot of people, like they're into manifesting or manifestation, and they're using affirmations .

But then a lot of people stay with the thought or the emotions. ? This is what I want to see in my life. And they may do a vision board. They may work with affirmations.

But when you put it in the home, when you put it in your three-dimensional space, That's what gets you there faster. So, well, the the other things that you're doing, they're valid, but they're not as fast as feng shui.

Amy: Yeah. I imagine it's a beautiful journey of self discovery as well in many cases.

Moni Casteneda: It is. And sometimes [00:26:00] I wish, like, I think eventually of a client in Canada because I save the pictures they send because we do it all online.

I save the pictures in the beginning, And then I compare them. I put them next to the after photos. So they can see the contrast, so they can the difference? And there was this gal in in Canada.

? She she told me when I put those pictures together for her, she had forgotten how unhappy she was before with her Living room. But I wish I could have shared the before and after pictures of her because she looks so much happier, And it was visible. 

She was happy when we started, but she was so much happier after. 

Amy: You almost need to start taking a photo of someone 1 beforehand and then taking a photo after showing them.

Moni Casteneda: You know, I I 

think I think after this conversation, I'm gonna do that. I'm gonna have people submit a photo submit a selfie of themselves so they can compare it later on.

It's just such a fascinating journey. Would you like to hear where are the 9 transformations. 

People, especially women, need to go through, so the first 1 is to drop excuses for [00:27:00] strategy.

So instead of making excuses for how your life is the way it is, make plans for how you want your life to be. So that's the front. That has to do with the floor plan of your home. Then the second thing is to drop drama for balance. Because I think, many people, , they're just kind of addicted to drama.

They don't feel they're alive unless they're in the middle of some drama. So to understand that you can be completely happy and a lot happier with a balanced life than with a life full of drama. And so that we do with the excesses and deficiencies, the things that are too much or too little, and so for example, if a room is dark, we make it feel lighter, if the room is small, we make it feel larger, 

 Then the third thing is exchange fatigue with vitality. And so I I talked to so many people, and they're like, , the first thing I do when I first wake up, coffee. And at night, right after dinner, wine. Because they need the coffee to wake up, and they need the wine to wind down. And so [00:28:00] That means there's something off with your body.

 There are certain things in your home that are gonna make you feel tired. So there are homes that make you feel exhausted, and there are homes that make you feel vitalized. So we want to make sure you are vitalized. So those are the first 3, 

 Those have to do with the way they're building was built. And then there's this next 3 that have to do with interior design, the finishes and the finishings. 

And so we want them to tune into nature so that they have an an instinctive intuitive sense So they can be always at the right place and at the right time. And that has to do with your windows. And then we want people to argue less and get along better, and that has to do with colors. If your colors are clashing, your relationships are clashing. comes exchanging self sabotage self nurturing, for self support.

Your mirrors, your family photos, and your art can be working against you by the type of things that you have chosen and by where you put them. 

, [00:29:00] for example, Pictures of family in the primary bedroom, not good

Because, like, if If you have pictures of family members, that's too many people to get intimate, you know, you feel like people are watching, but you also argue about family members in those cases. So the same photographs that would be fantastic, say, in the dining room are catastrophic in the primary bedroom. And so it's knowing what kinds of pictures to use and where to use them.

And then mirrors, , some mirrors are bad function. For example, mosaic mirrors that can be so full. They're bad function because they fragment the image. They give you an incorrect feedback of what you look 

like. 

 Those are the the 3 that have to do with interior design. And then come the 3 that have to do with furnishes, which are furniture, accessories and decorations. So the number 7 is decluttering to find your passions. So not decluttering so you can have less things.

You are basically making room for your passions. It's different you tell a person, , you need to get rid of everything that you don't use [00:30:00] and love, and and then you'll have a home with listings. The person is not gonna be as motivated as if they're decluttering a junk room so they can have an art studio. 

 Or so I can make him a room for the piano or so that they can they can have a place to practice guitar. This has to do with time because most people when they say I don't have time for anything, they usually have too much clutter And clutter, I see clutter not as a problem of too many things, but as a problem of lack of beauty.

You add beauty to your home, the more organized it Comes it it comes it kind of happens magically. So number 8, has to do with certain spots in the home.

So in in feng shui, we use the 9 life areas, and it's like a tic tac toe, where if your home is a square, you end up with 9 Squares on the floor plan, if your home is a rectangle, you end up with 9 rectangles on the floor plan, and each of those is assigned a life area. For example, If you're standing at your front door looking towards the inside, the right corner to the back, that's the relationship corner, and [00:31:00] the left corner to the back, that's the wealth corner. , , if you have a bathroom in the wealth corner, you are going to feel like money is going down the toilet, like your wealth is going down the toilet. If you are lacking a relationship corner, , if that's on the outside of your home you're gonna feel like Like, it's hard to find a partner or, like, you and your partner don't connect. so it's it's important to know, you know, what the spots are, and it's important to know what to put there.

So for example, if you had an image like a painting of 3 beautiful apples, and you put that in the health midpoint of your home, that's good. But if you put an image of 3 apples in the relationship corner of your home, That's bad because 3 means love triangle. And so you don't want 3 in a place that should have 2. 

 It's so fascinating. So we want people, especially women, to set goals that are healthy for every 1 of the 9 life areas. ? And so most people, like, if you ask them what their goals are for the next [00:32:00] year, They're gonna tell you that it's it's gonna be related to money or wealth.

It's gonna be related to relationships and health, and that's 3 out of 9. And most people don't say, you know what? I want to really get to know myself next year. They don't say, , I really want to get more more in touch with my spirituality.

Very few people tell you that. Very few people said that as a goal. Most people is like money, love, and wealth. And so we teach our clients to Use their home as a three-dimensional vision board that is full of beauty with the right symbols in the right places.

And then comes number 9. So number 9 is about being empowered. And I know a lot of women, like, they don't react well with the word power. But the opposite of being empowered is being a victim.

Nobody wants to be a victim and or being meek. Right? And that's not occupying your own space, not taking your place in the world. That's not good. Nobody benefits from you not taking your place in the world.

And so some of the ways [00:33:00] people victimize themselves is with the wrong choices of furniture. , for example, I can go in a home and they have a coffee table that is made of glass and metal. It has really sharp corners. And I asked them, has anybody ever hid their knees or their shins on this table? And it's like, everybody.

Everybody has at some time or another heard, and sometimes it's gory stories of somebody how someone broke the skin or something. 

 So if you only have furniture that is functional, that works well, you know, that the drawers open and close smoothly, that is not gonna topple over, that is never gonna hurt you. You start feeling like the world is safer. And when you feel the world is safer, you take more risks. When you feel the world is dangerous, you know, like you have sharp corners you take less risks.

Amy: I mean, everything you're saying to me, as you're saying it, it makes so it makes a lot of sense, but it's not Necessarily something that, you just think about or even, you know, you you say all these things and they make sense [00:34:00] to me, but I have no idea now how to go and apply them, , into my own home. So

I think it's really great that you've created this 9 step program. And not only the the program itself, but How you break it down into easy to follow guided steps. 

 And just knowing that you're creating this space that's going to improve your home and your family, and how you take the stress out of the whole program 

that, , you have fun with it, but Client must also really like you said, they glow after. They they look happier.

Moni Casteneda: And they're they're happy with their choices. When they're done, people start asking them for help. It's like a you have your home is so beautiful.

Can you help me with mine? And I also do train people to become Feng Shui consultants.

 So some people take the course just because it they wanna apply to their home, Other people take the course because They want to become Fonsec consultants. Even if you, , just leave this conversation with the idea that my home is important, [00:35:00] my home matters, That is the first step.

, maybe the next step is you inform yourself a little bit. Go to my website, remember, space arrangement dot com, Takes you to 9 stephong shea dot com. And , if you look at the menu, there's always gonna be Low cost and free resources. So if you click on that there's some freebies that I offer. And I usually have some event going on, 

and then maybe, like, it's a free class or maybe it's in online group. I'm I'm always having something exciting going on that you can join. So if you, come into my circle, you know, and join my list or join 1 of my Facebook groups start following me. My business the name of my business is Feng Shui for us.

And so my handle on Instagram, TikTok LinkedIn, and YouTube is all at feng shui for us. So you can find me. So start a relationship with me, and and don't try to do it yourself. Replace the d I y, do it yourself, [00:36:00] with d I g, dig.

Do it with guidance because it matters,. you It is really complex. And so you have to do it with guidance So that the end results are good at the first try. So a lot of people come to me that tried to use Compass School for or went with other schools, you know. So there there's other schools of feng shui, obviously, that are really good but none of them has the guarantee of their dream home.

And a lot of people come to me and they tell me, you, even people who study to be consultants with other schools, they tell me, I learned a lot and it was really beautiful, but I did not know how to apply

And so I'm all about applying. 

Amy: Yeah.

Absolutely. And I think by, , not doing the DIY in this case, you're probably gonna save yourself a lot of stress and

time and money because it, , it sounds like you just have to have someone like yourself come in and kinda redo it all with you anyway because it's it's

it sounds Very stressful. 

Sometimes it's definitely better to leave it to the professionals.

And I wanna thank you for [00:37:00] joining me today. I found this really And I'm definitely going to look at some of the resources that you've mentioned. And for anyone who is listening there were a lot of resources there, and thank you, Moni, for providing us with such a comprehensive resource list. 

 We will link all of the resources in the show notes of the episode. So go on. Have a look. As she said, Get in touch with Moni, start the relationship, ask some questions, and just really think about how you wanna start this journey. So, again, thank you, Monnie, so much for your time today.

really appreciate it. 

Moni Casteneda: me.

Amy: It's been wonderful having you. Bye for now.