As the curtain closes on the school year, summer is at our doors. It longs to enter with dreams of relaxation that have long hibernated in many minds, from sitting on the beach to firing up the barbecue. Although spring cleaning is past, we all seem to get a new burst of energy to meet our summer goals. There are always people who want to clear their bookshelves, have a garage sale, score an internship, or finally start a diet, and summer gives them the time and flexibility to grasp what they’re reaching for.

Ann Bingley Gallops, a Feng Shui Betterist on Betterfly, has some suggestions for re-arranging some things in your life to help you reach your goals. Since Ann’s specialty in Feng Shui has grown from her personal transformations, she is a shining example of how to work relaxation into your summertime improvements. Many people have heard of Feng Shui, but I wanted to talk to Ann about what Feng Shui actually is, so I could add it to my list of summer pursuits and activities. “It’s interesting, because it has an exotic name, but it’s pretty straight forward,” Ann begins.

So, what exactly is Feng Shui? “The way I see it is improving the way your space nourishes and supports you so that you can more easily achieve your goals, your dreams [and] live the life you want to. And the words Feng Shui actually mean wind and water, so it’s kind of based on this idea of how energy flows with your space,” Ann explains. “So if it gets stuck, you’re going to feel stuck, and if it flows smoothly …so that it goes slowly when it needs to go slowly and go quickly when it needs to go quickly, your life is altering the flow for the better.”

Feng Shui relies on a synergy between oneself and one’s environment. “It’s about bringing yourself into the kinds of harmonies that nature naturally has going …”

“Feng Shui,” she continues, “comes from several different roots… which are thousands of years old.” The first one is, as she already mentioned, aligning oneself with the harmonies of nature. “The other is about harnessing the power of your intention…getting in control and understanding what is the most important thing in your life right now to try to improve.”

How does Ann define the common Feng Shui term “chi?”

“Chi is energy,” she begins simply. “It’s the energy that’s found in everything in the universe. It is very much in connection with the Yin and Yang, this constant movement, constant re-balancing. And chi can be harmful if it comes at you the wrong way, or it can be really nourishing. So it’s about comfort, absolutely, and it’s also about safety; it’s about all of those things, but basically it’s about trying to make sure that the chi energy that gets into your space does so in an auspicious, positive way rather than an aggressive, harmful way.”

For example, “If you’re lying in bed and have a chest of drawers near you and the point of the chest of drawers is pointing right at your head . . . you will eventually feel that because instinctively you are trying to avoid it and not get hurt when you get out of bed in the middle of the night. That’s aggressive chi energy that you want to find a way to avoid.”

So what makes relocating mirrors out of the bedroom so helpful to those suffering from lack of sleep, or general restlessness? “Essentially, the bottom line is bedrooms needto to be more Yin and need to be more feminine; they need to be more cozy and dark and soft . . . That’s what will support you the best in your bedroom. But mirrors–they’re very Yang, they’re very masculine, they have a very hard energy and so they are one of the main things to get out of your bedroom if you’re not sleeping that well at night or you’re restless, or your relationship is out of balance–because this hard energy just reflects any kind of action that’s going on in the room and wakes it up instead if making it a soothing, serene environment.”

This certainly makes sense–but does determining a calming “Yin” color depend partially on personal preference? “Absolutely,” Ann says. “It’s very cultural, what’s actually calming, but you don’t want to have big, aggressive energy . . . You want your room to feel cozy, whatever color it is that you decide to bring into it. So, for example, yesterday I saw friends who put their apartment on the market, and they painted their bedroom a shade of red–I would never do that–that would make me crazy, but I think it comes out of their culture. Red is soothing to them, and that’s all good! So it depends a lot on personal preference.”

So what does Ann typically do with her clients? “It kind of depends on what they’re trying to get done,” she answers. “The first thing I do is, if people have their floor plan available, ask if I could use their floor plan before I go and I also send a questionnaire for them to fill out so hopefully I could understand what their goals are [and] what their neighborhood is like, because that has an impact on what’s going on in their lives and in their spaces. Then, I analyze their whole space from every possible Feng Shui angle, and sometimes they want me to come back and help them actually make things happen, and sometimes they’re ready, willing and able to make those things happen

themselves. And then, the other piece of what I do is a space clearing blessing ceremony–so sometimes, people will have me come back and bring an energetic clarity to the space after they’ve created a physical clarity.”

During the summer, I love spending as much time as I can outdoors. Did she have any Feng Shui tips for an outdoor space like a porch or patio, especially for New Yorkers with limited outdoor space? “If you absolutely have no outdoor space at all, I absolutely suggest you have some kind of plant life growing in your space,” she explains. “There are lots of ways to bring in that wood energy, which is the energy of vitality and growth, into your space, because that’s the element of new life and new beginnings. But if you are fortunate enough to have a patio, I suggest that you place something out there that every time you glance out the window, it lifts your spirit. So, that could be a plant with an upward growth pattern; it could be a Buddha, or a wind chime . . . something that makes you feel great every time you look at it, even if you can’t go outside to be with that object.”

So there we have it–a way to clear our spaces and minds so our physical and emotional energies can dictate the flow of one another, helping us achieve our summer goals. If you like Ann’s tips here, you can book her as your Feng Shui Betterist.

If you’re interested in learning more about Feng Shui, or have some Feng Shui secrets of your own, visit our Interior Decorating community page and sign up for Betterfly today!