Hello Shawn,
What a generous offer from you to analyze what might not be working for me here! And I apologize for what a lengthy reply this will probably be -- but you
DID ask what I had done so far!
It took me a while to get through the course. (The only time I had to read was on my lunch hour at work; and I listened to the CD's in my car on the way home every day). I started my activations in mid-August. (I probably should note that both my husband and I are 3's and water dragons).
I first checked the direction of my bed -- not good -- but also not changeable. (Could this be the cause of my lack of success?). The headboard is on a west wall (total loss direction). In another post, I asked if there was anything that could be done with mirrors or anything else to lessen this but never did hear of a solution. There's also a ceiling fan above the foot area of the bed, but it's heavily used and thoroughly enjoyed, as it keeps us from having to use air conditioning (which I hate). There is a full-length mirror opposite the bed, but since we almost always keep the bedroom door open -- especially at night when I'm in bed -- it is usually hidden behind the open door. (Ironically, I love that room and how it's set up and feel very much at peace there). I am a restless sleeper, but always have been, even as a child -- so not sure if there's a connection there or not. Another large mirror above a dresser also faces the wall the bed is on; but it is several feet over, and the bed is not reflected in that mirror. Other than that, there is excellent flow in the room and I have a clear view of all doors, without being in their path. (Unless a french door to the outside 2nd story balcony counts -- which is over to the side of the bed).
When I'm seated at my desk, I face my south success direction -- but that leaves my back to the office door. So I placed a mirror on my desk that allows me a view of the doorway. My chair back is high -- it covers the lower 3rd of my head. My husband's desk faces the east (his growth direction) and cannot be moved; although when he makes phone calls, he does try to face his south success direction.
I followed some of the various suggestions to place a turtle in the north, candles in my home office and my husband's office, flower images in the east, blue items in the north of our major rooms. I placed lilac flowers and gold items in the southeast for fortune and abundance and in early November added some wooden objects and my bank statements. In the NE, for spirituality and knowledge, I placed gemstones and some of my spiritual books. Our fireplace is very close to being in a NW direction (around 290-291 degrees), so I placed a bowl of water next to it. I placed fire elements in the south, such as candles, and I cleaned my south success direction in all our rooms, focusing especially on my office, bedroom and family room. It took awhile (because of his severe time restraints), but my husband made
SOME progress in cleaning his success direction in his office -- although most people would still see it as quite cluttered. (But he is so overworked and stressed out now with all he has to do and lack of time to do it, that I really can't push him to do much more at this time. He really would like to as well, but it's just not an option right now). I hid the wastebaskets from the activated directions and hid what clutter I could not clean at the time behind closet and cabinet doors.
I placed a small table-top fountain in our foyer, which is on the north side of the house. I placed it next to the stairs in the center of the foyer, as that's where it fit best and was out of the traffic flow. I also placed some blue ornaments nearby. Because we have a two-story foyer, (although the staircase is l-shaped, not circular), I began keeping all the upper doors closed to keep the majority of the energy flow on the first floor.
Although here's a question -- I wonder if I should keep at least my bedroom and office doors open to encourage the energy flow to enter there???Because both my office and bedroom have a large expanse of green wall-to-wall carpeting, I reduced that by the use of red bedspreads and other red items. In the manual I had read that since water is my personal Fortune element and since wood (green color) reduces water, I thought I should try to reduce the green in those rooms by adding the red. I also moved my vision boards to the SE corner (general success area?) of my office and placed other lists of dreams in my south directions of a few rooms, including the bedroom. I placed a piece of opal jewelry in the NW to help activate earthly luck energy.
We spent most of our weekends decluttering the basement and garage. And since I still hadn't seen any real increase of wealth coming our way, I took a break from that in early November to do a few more activations -- just a few weeks ago
(which is why your comment about the "when" part may be important) -- although these newer activations were more focused on relationship and health. Financially though, I did place a picture of an extremely successful internet marketer who I greatly admire and want to emulate (who unfortunately died way too young in an automobile accident -- is that a factor -- should it be someone still living?) on my desk in the south direction. This was important to me, as I too am working on getting a similar business going. I placed water scenes, originally purchased -- but never used -- for our guest bedroom, on the north walls of my husband's office and my office instead.
I had read in Marie's manual that it was possible to activate purity "when nothing move forward, even after completing your feng shui activations" by placing a white color or object in the west -- which I did by placing some white candles that I had in both my husband's and my offices and our family room. I've been trying to keep our dining room table (another abundance area) clear as well, but my husband has his laptop and personal financial papers set up there (as he doesn't want them up in his office which is overflowing with work-related papers). I do try to keep his papers off the table and hidden underneath on the chairs -- if that's of any help.
As I mentioned, the rest of my November activations were focused on health and relationships. Although I am mainly concerned that all my many activations back in August seem to have had so little effect.
Now on the negative side, our basement, garage, attic space (which is not over the main part of the house -- just over the garage), and my husband's office are still very cluttered. And this is where we have been spending the majority of our time working on -- since I got this course. In fact, I even put my internet marketing business on hold so I could do this -- since weekends are the only time I could devote to it. (I work full-time in a hospital during the week and my husband has two businesses he manages). And to be quite honest, most would look at our major de-cluttering effort and say it still looks cluttered -- which it does. Nevertheless, the effort -- and the result -- have been tremendous from where we started. And we truly are still working on it. The basement was the worse. We built our home, and it's not quite finished, so there is lots of construction material down there. My husband has a wood shop, and an electronics area. I had an antique and stained glass shop, and sold other items as well. I've closed the shop, but still do shows from time to time -- so all that stuff was scattered around as well. I did throw out and give away a lot and decluttered and re-organized and it looks much better -- but it is far from finished. And in August, even though it was not finished, I decided we needed to focus our efforts -- while the weather was still warm enough -- on working on decluttering our garage -- since that is the entrance we use most -- even though it is not the house's main entrance. Although it, too, shows improvement, we are not yet done. And frankly, I don't know if it will ever be done -- until we are both retired and can devote the time it needs and are able to eliminate a lot of the stuff we currently use. It's a 2-car garage, but one-half serves as an extension of my husband's business -- and there is clutter there from that -- packing boxes and materials, supplies, etc. We've recently purchased and built cabinetry to organize and hide some of it, but, as I've mentioned -- we're still far from finished.
I guess I had hoped, as the universe "saw" our herculean efforts in the basement and garage, that it would at least "count for something" and at least
start the flow of abundance coming our way. (And I don't mean to denigrate in any way our current "prosperity" in that we both have jobs and can afford the necessities of life -- especially in this economy). But what I was looking for was to increase it somewhat while decreasing the huge amount of work we both have to currently do in order to maintain our jobs).
Shawn, you also asked whether our front door faced a favorable direction for us. The garage door (which we use the most) faces to the west. But our home's "real" front door faces north. Ironically, it was a year ago, when I read an article on Feng Shui that was entitled something like "When Should Your Front Door Not be Painted Red?" that I became first interested in Feng Shui. My front door
was painted red at the time; and the article stated that although a red front door normally brings good fortune, a north-facing door should be painted black. I loved my red door but was intrigued enough to paint it black on a weekend in November. That Monday I went to work, and almost immediately received a phone call from our HR department telling me that I had won a flat-screen TV in the United Way drawing! And from that point on, little things "flowed" so smoothly for me -- parking spaces, relationships, etc. -- everything
except finances. So I decided if painting a door black could have such a noticeable effect, maybe there was more I should do -- and that's how I found Marie Diamond. So... my question is ... what am I doing wrong (other than the clutter, which I really really am working on)? Or is it the bed direction -- which I can't do anything about?
Many, many, thanks to you, Shawn, for taking the time to ponder this -- not to mention read this small book I've just written!
Linda
