Love-life gone off? Career in the doldrums? Always rowing with the kids? If you knew that moving your bed or binning your cactus would help, would you?

Plenty have. Billions, even, if you count all the Chinese people over the centuries who have practised feng shui, frequently described as the art of harmonious placement.

But, says Bournemouth feng shui consultant Deborah Guy: “There’s so much more to it than that.”

She says that feng shui, which was developed 2,000 years ago in China, is: “The process of analysing and influencing people, buildings and environments in order to improve the quality of life.”

It started for practical reasons, so that Chinese people could find auspicious sites for burials and buildings and is still used today.

Deborah has been interested in vibrational therapies for more than two decades and this translated into her job as a feng shui consultant, where she visits clients in their homes or workplaces and helps clear them of negative energies.

Why do people employ her?

“Maybe they are not sleeping well, maybe they’ve had degenerative illnesses and want to make their home as healthy as possible – for example, living in the bounds of phone masts or electricity sub-stations, they will want me to come and check their home to make sure the frequencies aren’t harmful.”

Frequently clients want her to improve the overall harmony of their relationship, or help improve their wealth or career prospects, so how can she change this just by detecting negative energies and moving stuff around?

Deborah explains the complicated process of the ba-gua – a system devised by practitioners which divides areas of a house or office into specific areas connected to family, wealth, career etc. Once she has looked at the areas in question she can begin advising ‘cures’.

“I’ve done consultations where they have had no luck in their relationship and can’t understand why that happens,” she says. Looking at the relationship area of the client’s home she often discovers that it’s “full of clutter and draining elements”.

In this case, as the relationship area is governed by the earth element, she can find that people have ‘clogged it up’ by displaying watery-themed images.

“Water and earth don’t mix, they create mud,” she says.

She helps remove clutter and installs positive symbols, like two mandarin ducks or swans because: “They mate for life.”

Symbolism may sound barmy to our Western ears but it can be more suggestive than we think. Deborah advises that loo seats should be kept down and baths drained only after we’ve hopped out of them and that no one should watch the water going down the plug or loo because: “It’s like watching your wealth and energy being drained away.”

And if you’re tempted to laugh, consider the phrases we use when we’re talking about losing money; flushing it down the pan, money down the plug-hole...

Another of her clients was having difficulties in communicating with their child. “So we looked at the family and elders area of her home.”

Deborah discovered that knives and other metal objects, said to create ‘chopping’ energy, were placed in the zone which reacted badly with the area’s governing ‘wood’ element. After adding some ‘green, upward energy’ in the form of a shooting plant, the client called to say that her estranged child had called her.

“She couldn’t believe that her child had got back in contact after such a long time,” says Deborah.

“Feedback like this is a lovely part of the job, it’s great to think you’ve been able to help someone.”

  • opusfengshui.com