Feng Shui is the mystical art of balancing your environment and surroundings so that you can better achieve your potential in any area of your life. It is about aligning yourself with the forces of nature, instead of going against the flow. It's an ancient system for recognizing when and how your surroundings are affecting you, and knowing how much to alter them.

Even though there are numerous schools of feng shui, opinions, and methods for going about these improvements, all feng shui remedies fall under three major categories:

The first category is to simply AVOID THE NEGATIVE.

The second category is to CHANGE WHAT YOU CAN ABOUT AN ENVI-RONMENT, WHICH YOU CAN'T AVOID.

The third category is to ALTER YOUR OWN POSITIONING WITHIN THE NON-IDEAL ENVIRONMENT, BASED ON YOUR OWN PERSONAL ASTROLOGY.

In this Part 1 section, we will discuss the first category, AVOIDING THE NEGATIVE. Following are some examples of what you may want to avoid altogether, and why.

1. In feng shui terminology, a negative force or influence is called "sha." Some masters will openly say, 'Run away from the sha, don't challenge it.' This means that you should, wherever it is possible, remove yourself from a bad environment, especially if trying to change it will be too difficult, costly, or only be partially effective.

As an example, if you live one block away from a noisy freeway, there is little you can do to combat that onslaught of forceful energy. Better to choose to live elsewhere. If you had two bedrooms in your house, and one was distinctly more positive than the other, then it would be more effective to simply sleep in the more positive room, than to try to fix the room with problems.

Obvious negative influences include the following:

Non-obvious negative influences include features which you would not necessarily know are bad for you, unless you were already familiar with some feng shui concepts about environment or how energy ( ch'i) moves through space.

 For more information on feng shui,  visit Kartar Diamond’s website here.
© Melt Magazine 2001