the Feng Shui secret I learned on bed rest
I want to share a little hot tip I use anytime I’m in the middle of a creative project. it’s something I’ve done for years and a power move that truly never fails me.
before I start creating anything new, I deep-clean my office once. and then… I don’t touch it again until the project is complete.
for those of you who’ve been under the impression shui is about tidiness, this might come as a surprise!
this ‘routine’ pulls from a super reliable Feng Shui tip for people struggling with fertility: you clean the bedroom really well – vacuum under the bed, dust, organize, create order – and then you leave it alone until you’ve conceived and bébé comes home.
why?
the idea is pretty simple but profound: you clear space so that energy can settle in, allowing life (or creativity) to gather momentum without interference. when we clean obsessively, there is a ‘sterile’ component being reinforced.
that said, I actually can speak to this one from personal experience – although at the time, I didn’t even know about shui.
so, walk with me a minute…
when I was pregnant, we found out at 17 weeks we were having identical twins. at 18 weeks, our doctors discovered a complication – not with the babies, but the placenta and our outlook wasn’t good. they told us we’d be miraculously lucky to make it to 24 weeks. in fact, the exact sentiment was “this pregnancy won’t make it, but you will be able to go on and have more children.”
since everything about the complication was precarious, I was put on bed rest.
from that day forward, I couldn’t clean anything, including our bedroom.
and then…
week after week, against all odds, we made it further, so by 29 weeks, I started to feel hopeful, confident even. we had strut past that 24-week marker and I thought we were in the clear. so that Saturday, I got out of bed and decided to tidy up. I vacuumed, organized, put things away.
by Monday morning, I was in the hospital – and our girls arrived (via emergency C-section) at 30 weeks.
like I mentioned, I wouldn’t know about shui until 3 years later, so imagine my surprise when first hearing shui’s ‘getting / staying pregnant’ suggestions!
so, how does this relate to starting something new? let’s bring this full circle…
when it is time to *birth* something new, we usually clear space for it. think about procrastinating on a project or assignment until the 11th hour – and what do you do first? many of us, myself included, would probably clean our desk before getting started. in that same spirit, whether it’s a project, a dream, or a new life, this is how we honor that the space needs room to gather so the efforts can nest and accumulate.
and it is why I won’t deep clean my office mid-project ever. instead, I let the chi gather and accumulate. I let ideas incubate so the creative muses and myself can do the work. and when the magic has fully commenced, we do it all again! xo
