How To Feng Shui Your Life For Love

A few months ago, my boyfriend started complaining about my apartment. His list went something like this: My space was lacking a dining area (apparently, the couch is not an ideal seating option for eating scarfing down turkey burgers); I didn’t own a coffee table (or any side tables for that matter) on which he could place a drink, plate, or object, and the flow of my apartment was all wrong. As it turns out, my small, minimalist apartment in Brooklyn was designed with just one person in mind: me. Where was he supposed to eat? Or sit to work? Or place his belongings? Where was there space for him? The answer is simple. There wasn’t. And so I had to make adjustments. I had to fit him into my apartment, and furthermore, into my life — a life, which I had unknowingly designed for a single person, not for a partner.

I rearranged my furniture. I bought a bistro table and ottomans. I even bought a television (a purchase I would’ve never imagined) because he likes to watch movies on the weekend. I rearranged my space, not just to appease him, but because there’s an important question to ask ourselves when it comes to our personal space: Is it welcoming to other people, or have we set up our homes in such a way that only accommodates a single person (with one nightstand, working space for one, or drawer space for one)? Is there physical space for someone to enter our lives, or is there, quite literally, no room for a partner?

The idea of feng shui, which is a system for arranging our surroundings to account for energy, flow, and the balance of elements, extends beyond how we set up our homes or whether we orient our beds facing the door or not. The idea of accounting for our physical space as a means of improving its energy (and in turn, our energy) and even as a tool for manifesting love or abundance, makes me wonder about other areas or spaces in our lives that we can assess, such as our schedules, our familial and platonic relationships, as well as whether we’ve carved out emotional space by letting go of the past.

As we reflect on if there is room for a partner (regardless of whether we have one at the moment), we can ask if there is space for a partner to enter, and hopefully, to stick around. Often, we desire a partner, but when one shows up, we act as if they are impeding on our freedom or being demanding when they ask for a cup of tea in the morning and we have a cupboard full of dark roast coffee. One of the reasons why we might not have or keep love in our lives is because we don’t value it enough to make space for it. So how can we feng shui, not just our physical surroundings, but our lives, for the purpose of welcoming in love? First, we have to take an assessment of where we need to create room for romance.

Here are the areas :

Our Home:

-Would a partner be comfortable? Is it clean and welcoming? Is there room for his or her belongings?

-Is there a balance of masculine and feminine energies? Or is our living space fuschia-colored with glittered accents and lace curtains?

-Is it uplifting, or is it filled with sad paintings and melancholy images of solitary figures?

We want to surround ourselves with images of things and people we hope to welcome into our lives, as our subconscious minds are constantly picking up on our surroundings.

Our Emotional Space:

-Are we holding on to the past by keeping pictures and other sentimental objects of exes around? Once, I dated someone who kept a framed photograph of himself with his ex-girlfriend and a group of their friends on his mantle. Every time I went to his house, it was a reminder that instead of celebrating our relationship, it was his past that was still present in his surroundings. His physical space wasn’t a reflection of his current romantic life, and further, the photo served as a reminder to me of his longtime relationship that he didn’t want to let go of.

-Does it reflect the life you hope to have and the energy you hope to cultivate? Is it inspiring?

-Does it reflect who we are today or who we were in the past?

Our Schedule:

-Do we have time to date?

-Do we expect a partner to fit into our busy schedule?

-If we don’t have time for a partner, what would we have to let go of or shift in our schedule to make time?

Our Other Relationships:

-How can we make our partner feel welcomed when we spend time with other people?

-Can we go out of our way to ensure that our partner feels comfortable around our friends or coworkers?

For example, does our snooty best friend speak to us in secret code words and share private jokes, or is room for another party to join? Or, if we have children from a previous romantic partner, have we thought about how we can make the adjustment of welcoming someone new into our lives?

-How can our partner fit into the other relationships we have with friends and family?

Our external world is a reflection of our inner world. Our physical space reflects where we are emotionally, and we can look to our physical space, as well as the space we have emotionally and in our schedule, as a tool to survey whether we truly are welcoming in love. We can actively cultivate space in our lives to ensure that we are ready for and welcoming a romantic partner, because he or she can only show up (and stick around) when they feel welcomed – physically, emotionally, and otherwise.