Feng Shui – Fact or Fiction?
Two things you should know. First, I’m fascinated by Feng Shui. Second, I HATE to cook. I always said that my ideal house would be one that had no kitchen.
No, this article is not about how I used Feng Shui to make me cook. I would never deliberately torture myself in that way.
In my teens, I studied Feng Shui and decided to use it to get myself a nice Range Rover. I really, truly, with all my heart wanted this Range Rover. I found out which part of the house needed to be “addressed” for this and set up the appropriate bait. (magazine cut-outs of Range Rovers). Then I sat back and waited.
Nothing happened. No dream car materialised. Ahh… Never mind, no harm done, it was just an experiment anyway.
Then last year, I went abroad over Dec 08 and Jan 09. Returning in February, I was so sad to find my one and only beloved houseplant was nearly dead. I had left it by mistake in a darkened room and it had received no sunlight or water for two months. It had shed it’s leaves and branches dropped off when I touched it. I wanted to rescue this plant so I dragged it to the sunniest room in the house, which happened to be the kitchen. I gave it lots of water and a bit of talk therapy (Thank you Prince Charles).
A bit after that, I noticed I was spending more time in the kitchen and enjoying it!! It’s so bizarre – it’s almost like Reeta the anti-cook went to bed one night and Reeta the super-cook got out of bed the next morning. I say “super-cook” because it turns out that I can actually cook (my Mum will confirm). Most amazingly, I even do something that I never thought I would do in my lifetime – make sauces and freeze them!
Today, I see cooking as a normal activity and I can’t imagine how I hated it for so long.
Now I don’t know if this is just another superstition that I imposed on myself somehow or if I was lucky enough to inadvertantly kick-start some Feng Shui magic. Makes sense if you think about how a kitchen is the heart of a house and my sick plant received nourishment there. Perhaps I added to the plants recovery through adding more nourishment to the air through cooking and it returned the nourishment to me by allowing me enjoy doing something so fundamentally beneficial.
Or perhaps Feng Shui has absolutely nothing to do with it.
A more likely explanation is that I returned from my trip all refreshed and happy, got properly shocked by the state of the poor plant because I do genuinely have a soft spot for it, put it somewhere to give it nourishment and had a lightbulb moment regarding the relationship between nourishment and cooking and health. I don’t know.
What I do know is that changes in behaviour can happen very quickly and very dramatically when the conditions are right.
I don’t think we need to wait for fate to grant us a magic moment. We can create this ourselves through conscious effort by taking ownership of what we want to change.
Once you’ve identified a behaviour you want to change, start by fully understanding the ways you are self-sabotaging your efforts in changing this behaviour. This self-sabotage represents the things you value and to change a behaviour with integrity, you must honour your values.
Setting the right conditions in our minds provides the thoughts and hence the behaviours that make achievement and success possible.
PS: If anyone has a spare Range Rover, I’m providing the conditions by way of a contact form on this site for you to get in touch 
One of the basics of better thinking is to acknowledge where your thoughts could be better.
Forget the British stiff upper lip for a moment. Forget the crassness of blowing your own trumpet. Forget the silly-billyness of positive affirmations. Most of all, forget everything you’ve been told about polite self-restraint.
