Welcome to the inside of my mind, where I am re-imagining the feng shui bagua map my own way. (*if you have no idea what that is… see HERE the tool that can create lots of new awareness in your life!)

I find the old bagua limiting in the way it presents information, and at the urging of a dear friend and wise adviser, I was tasked with creating my own way.  After 8 years of working with the old way, having that be the normal, I realized I can do something better for me and, I believe,  for all of you to understand space in new ways that are empowering and helpful.

It took a suspension of “reality” and turning a blind eye to what is “normal” to start to reinvent ,my way of working. Because I have never been particularly find of social norms or fitting into molds, it wasn’t that hard to shut off the noise of “what is right.” It was more challenging to break out of a habitual way of thinking that has been the NORMAL.

What is is normal to you?   I have had clients tell me that they are comfortable in mess, they are used to be lonely, they have grown accustomed to a certain type of pain…

There is a social component to what is normal. My friends who work in bars and nightclubs see nightly drinking that would rock the average person’s world- three or four or five cocktails a night or a day for some, not even drunk from this amount of drinking- as being totally normal. 

Normal is a habit that is unconscious and comfortable just because you know it. Wherever things don’t change and the recording seems to repeat endlessly in life, a return of the same issues or feelings or events over and over again, that is somehow your normal.  Even if you hate the status quo and feel put-upon, heartbroken or really stunted by these feelings, somehow they get swallowed, accepted as “just how it is,” and folded into the concept of normal.

While there’s nothing wrong with accepting what you can not control, there is nothing good about feeling saddled by tradition, family stories, a feedback loop of emotions or anything else that is telling you who you are and what you can have in any way that is limiting or damning.

Today’s feng shui’d ideas are all about what is normal. 

In fact, if you can get a good look at what normal is for you at the moment in all its dark and light, you can then start to shape a new normal.  Your normal is 100% up to you! 

As I started to create this new way of the bagua map last night, ideas were flying like lightning.

I have always thought that when I am in a place of high energy, light-bulbs would blow out around me.  Well, last night, as I sat and mixed up visuals and ideas, feeling this calm glow all around me, my whole neighborhood blacked out!

That’s my barometer of the amount of investment it takes to create a new normal!

While I’m sure that I did not blow a major transformer in Los Angeles with my creative juju, it was a perfect event to be in the dark last night.   Everything normal in my home- charging a cell phone, being online, boiling some water, flipping on some lights- all of it was gone.

That’s when innovation occurs!

I have to tell you I really like a day of being a Pioneer.  I had to line up candles,  make tubs of just-starting-to-melt ice for perishable vitamins, and open curtains strategically to have a sun alarm clock.  I had no distraction of phones or Internet.

Things have been calm and lovely.

Normal got short circuited. New things are taking shape.

These are my thoughts of the day on creating a new normal. It seems to be how it always happens with clients and in my own life, too…

Can you really take a look at your average day and how it works?  What is it that you view as normal. Does it feel like you are sleepwalking through your days?

Can you see what you have come to view as normal that really doesn’t suit you? We all have these things we see as normal, even if we somehow know there is something better we could have.

Up until recently, I was pretty sure my normal was better off without a partner in my life. I knew it wasn’t really the truth, but it was normal. A habit. A way to be unconscious in some way.  I totally enjoy being with someone, but I saw it as more normal for me to be wildly and exclusively independent. It’s a big habit of normal here in Los Angeles to be cynical about relationships and accustomed to being single (and other places, I am sure.. as many women and men shake their heads reading this.) And… as I short-circuited that idea (watching THIS talk at Revitalize from Dr. Sue Johnson started it all!) and realized the potential for my life as a part of a couple rather than simply and only on my own most of the time, things really changed in ways I can barely explain in words.

That is not my normal any more.

Your normal is not a helpful normal if it makes your life smaller.

Can you short-circuit this normal way you’ve grown used-to and innovate?  If you are used to coming home exhausted after work and headed for the phone to order take-out and the TV to watch things to zone out, can you walk around your neighborhood for 10 or 15 minutes before you do this one more time?  If your normal is being lonely, can you throw yourself into the middle of a social even or sit at the bar of a busy restaurant and have dinner tonight, surrounded by people?

Can you stay present enough- even when you feel ill-at-ease- to create a new normal for yourself? Super-cool, empowering changes can still feel like you are falling off of a cliff in a a good way! If you can ride out the unfamiliar, the strange, the so-exciting or so-challenging ideas that come along with a phase shift like this, you are on your way.

Some research suggests new habits are made in a month of repetition of the new activity. That may be true to a degree, but you can’t really exercise without passion for a month and then say you have a new exercise habit!   I feel that new habits are made by allowing them, accepting them and deciding they are your new way because they feel fantastic.  You don’t have to count the number of days you allow yourself to have peace, better sleep, a kinder way to talk to yourself or anything else.  You just do it. You let yourself have it.

And then, normal is something much brighter, more open, more intuitive and more infinite… just like you.

xoxo Dana

 

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If you want to learn how to transform the place you live into the home you love in full, grab yourself a copy of Feng Shui 101. Its the unique guide I made for you to create your own personalized feng shui at home, in the office, wherever you may be… in 8 weeks! It’s not filled with strict rules or what you “must” do. Its filled with information, questions, exercises and even videos and classes to help you confidently create amazing spaces with killer feng shui and live with more flow! Learn more about the 8-week feng shui adventure & grab your copy to get started right HERE!!! xoxo Dana