The Power of Here
Think of how you make a load of bread.
How the yeast, comprised of all its environmental influences is the living heartbeat, the character of the final loaf that is created. The environment, and how it interacts with the simple ingredients of water and flour, becomes a cornerstone player in successfully allowing the dough to rise and grow.
Even through the process of making the loaves (as any good cook knows), where we knead and proof also requires the optimal environment. Here we look for somewhere warm and damp. You may place it undisturbed under a tea towel near the radiator so that this mix of flour, water and salt can rise successfully; to bloom and blossom into its full potential.
Imagine the impact of the environment on this simple loaf of bread. How the environment, therefore, is an active participant in creation. The right conditions, the awareness of the right place at the right time, and curating specific tailored landscapes increases the odds of success, flowering, and abundance by an exponential measure.
Now, think of how you succeed in life:
Is it through hard work?
Through strife or grief?
Or through knowing, identifying, and being at the right place at the right time?
Some people say it’s just getting lucky, but luck is just what we attribute to the unseen. The quiet steady effort of ourselves and the environment around us that brings us to the summit.
If we understand the importance of the environment in the simple act of creating a loaf of bread, then how important is knowing, understanding, and working with our environment in creating the most successful, thriving, happy versions of ourselves?
Your Environment as a Co-contributor to your life.
Of course, humanity is far more complex than a spoonful of yeast. Your surroundings won’t make or break your destiny, but they will influence how you get there.
Across time and all of human life, we accept that we must “suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune” ¹, struggling and suffering as a way to optimise our growth: our human experience. But as we grow older, as we see things more clearly in hindsight, we see that there was always a more graceful, enjoyable and abundant path all along.
Having a good, supportive environment, and knowing how to read it is the difference between struggling through the thicket of life’s obstacles, or seeing the paved path ahead and walking forward, every day, with ease.
Both journeys can take you to the life you desire. However, a supportive and nurturing surrounding will make success easier, more attainable. Understanding your environment helps you see both the challenges and the advantages of your current moment, so you can make strategic choices that bring you closer to the life you desire.
¹ The tension between fate, effort, and environment have always been a deeply felt human experience. Shakespeare captured this truth most famously in his play Hamlet, reflecting on how we grapple with suffering, choice, and the forces beyond our control. His conclusions are bleak, but perhaps we can offer a more hopeful possibility: co-creation with the environment.
Where You Live Reflects Who You’re Becoming
Look around you now. Is your environment calm, or chaotic? Clear or cluttered? Soft or hard?
What we create and choose in the world is always a reflection of our internal state. Sometimes the subtleties of these decisions are not seen by us. Whether you’re consciously aware of it or not, your surroundings are shaping your energy, your mindset, and your momentum.
We often think of our state of mind, our personal journey, as an inward pursuit. A spiritual practice, a strong vision, the discipline of the mind. While our thoughts and actions, are integral to the choices we step into, the environment provides the framework for these dreams and aspirations to manifest into reality.
In Feng Shui we see the home as a blueprint to your life. It reflects where you currently are and offers a revealing projection of where you're headed. Through the art of Feng Shui we can see your most successful opportunities, the obstacles in your way, the character of your life.
Our spaces hold many keys to the life we are creating and continuously projecting, always holding clues, a container and reflection of your energy.
When you understand what your home is echoing back to you, you begin to move with the currents of the universe, in resonance with life-force, not against it.
Where to begin…
If you feel stuck in your life, no matter how hard you try you keep facing obstacles and roadblocks.
If you feel lost in life, as though you cannot for the steady road, the abundant path, the journey that brings you peace (the middle way as we call it in Feng Shui) it may be time to look around you. To see the life, the home, the space that you have created that now reflects back at you.
What is it saying?