Feng Shui, which originated as an eastern ‘geomancy’ but transitioned into western exercise, fashion and spirituality, has thousands of applications and disciplines worldwide. One of the most common applications translates Feng Shui’s unique interpretation of energy and chi into therapeutic and fashionable results. Professional Feng Shui consultants help clients transform the chi of their personal life, business practices or even surrounding office and home environments to better conduct the flow of positive energy. Historical examples of Feng Shui find similar use in the practices ability to orient buildings for aesthetically and spiritually pleasing results, frequently hiring practitioners to observe the building, construction and decoration of tombs and other buildings of substantial significance, and this remains the closest parallel to modern day implementations.
Hiring a Feng Shui consultant largely depends on the aspect of Feng Shui the consultant services, and the western popularity of Feng Shui has streamlined this diverse practice into nine distinct interpretations and practices that should be thoroughly vetted before any agreement is signed or money is exchanged. Feng Shui consultants can service businesses, personnel or individuals through the unique channeling of their practice’s spiritualism and sensibility broadly used to both diagnose and solve various mental and spiritual ailments, including those contributing to stress and productivity.
Although some people might be weary of Feng Shui’s association with some less than reputable practices and practitioners, the inner workings of the practice are actually extremely pragmatic, dealing with an understanding of the colors, spaces and atmospheres of rooms, offices and even the makeup of a person’s personality that might make negative contributions, and uses fashion, psychology and only peripheral helpings of spirituality to alleviate those problems. This can be as simple as clearing up a cluttered office space to improve the space, improve upon any cluttering psychological feelings that could be caused by the messiness, or as complicated as redecorating and redesigning an entire building to better communicate a positive, industrious and welcoming atmosphere that will rub off on both employees and customers in order to create a more successful business venture.
Interested people need not concern themselves with any misunderstandings about Feng Shui’s purposes or the mislabeling of Feng Shui as any manner of religious, new age or exclusively spiritual practice that employs techniques certain people might find off-putting. The truth of the matter is that Feng Shui uses fashion and aesthetic sensibilities to achieve their desired results – the philosophy, mysticism and history of the practice remains important and substantial, but need not be the center of focus for people who are interested in hiring a Feng Shui consultant.
The following sections will explore the nine important questions to ask any prospective consultant, each of which are centered on exploring and qualifying the nine distinct sensibilities of modern Feng Shui in the western world.
The Nine Feng Shui Questions
There are nine modern disciplines any Feng Shui practitioner will be focusing on, and the following questions are designed to casually and comfortably bring out an explanation for those areas.
What is your Feng Shui?
The term Feng Shui has been adopted as a popular term used to refer to a person’s aesthetic, stylistic or personal preferences, and in a sense that’s not a wrong way to approach the opening question. Asking about the consultant’s personal sensibilities is exactly the kind of question that people would be all too eager to ask a professional stylist or decorator, but it’s also perfectly reasonable to bring up to any worthwhile Feng Shui consultant. Due to the practice’s reliance on communicating with the most positive aesthetic design of a surrounding area, the practitioner’s sensibilities are essentially their Feng Shui pedigree. This question will help to discern the aesthetic discipline of the practitioner, and also give people time to discover whether or not their views are compatible.
How can your Feng Shui benefit me?
If these questions are beginning to sound like a job interview, that’s good – Feng Shui consultants are being hired for their services, and it’s not inappropriate to inquire as to those services before deciding whether or not the consultant is a good match for the job. Due to the flexible nature of Feng Shui as a practice of design, Feng Shui is able to communicate through every single space that desires any kind of feeling or atmosphere, whether it’s one to promote productivity, relax employees, welcome customers, soothe, excite or even encourage a more profitable future. Young and old, new business or old mainstay – Feng Shui should be able to benefit any situation, and a consultant who isn’t able to clearly explain those benefits is not worth the time or money.
What is your discipline, and how would you employ it?
This is the first question that deals specifically with the consultant’s personal Feng Shui discipline, but it’s meant to serve as an introduction to what the consultant brings to the table and how the consultant plans to change that table based off their own personal outlook. While the first two questions concerned themselves with specificity, inquiring as to the discipline of someone’s Feng Shui stands a gesture for every consultant to make a handy example of. Ask for demonstrations about what the consultant would do to change the chi, flow of energy or aesthetic design of the surrounding environment, and let that demonstration explain their discipline in surer terms that uncertain Feng Shui terminology likely would.
Is your Feng Shui discipline religious in nature?
Not all consultants will come with the spiritual side of their practice, but there are still some practitioners who sell both a service and a belief system. People who are curious about the religious side of Feng Shui, or oppositely people who have no interest in the religious side of Feng Shui, should understand how those expectations meet the consultant. All Feng Shui practices employ artistic sensibilities and scientific assumptions about the ways environments influence a person’s psychology, but some will be more balanced – or imbalanced, depending on your perspective, than others.
How long will Feng Shui take?
Feng Shui is not only a practice, it is a process. How long the transformation of an office space, building or personal room will depend more on the practitioner than anything else, so people should always go out of their way to get a clear schedule for the process before making assumptions about any generalized time frames; in Feng Shui there are none.
How extensive is the process?
This is not the same question repeated twice, but rather a distinction made between the initial Feng Shui transformation and any subsequent changes the practitioners will employ. Feng Shui is not a static process, unlike the erecting of a building. Similar to professional decorating services, Feng Shui may change the appearance of a room, home or space several times in the same month depending on the needs of the people living there.
How will Feng Shui help my relationship?
Depending on why the consultant is being hired, Feng Shui may be employed to help with employer employee relationships, employer and customer relationships, inter office relationships or even personal and intimate relationships when employed in a home setting. Feng Shui is designed in part to effect people through designs and aesthetics and spatial sciences, and part of this effect can be emotional and psychological.
How will Feng Shui help my business?
Similar to the question above, it’s important that people make practitioners get specific about how their practice intends to transform the environment. There are particular styles and designs used to increase the productivity of the people in the room, or alternatively to help develop the relationships thereof, and it’s important to make sure the practitioner not only specifies this difference, but explains it clearly and concisely.
What variations, if any, do you intend to employ?
Feng Shui is a flexible practice, but it’s important to make sure practitioners don’t take too many liberties with this flexibility and lose focus on the goal of the transformation. Asking a practitioner about the variations they intend to use for a particular room, office or building will not only help to reveal an impromptu lesson plan, but also introduce the practitioner’s own unique outlook and manner, both of which will factor heavily into the actual execution of any proposed remodeling.
