Welcome to Home Qi

And welcome to my first blog post.

I thought I’d write a little about the conception of Home Qi and my personal feelings towards it. If anything, I want to make it clearer for myself, since there is something confusing about doing something that is fundamentally meant to help people and getting paid for it. I suppose it’s like being a doctor. As far as I understand being a doctor entails a passion for helping people through medicine and medical care, whilst also doing it for the money. At least, I assume that’s how doctors feel within the traditional structures of medical care. My impression is that traditional medical organisations would have trouble staffing themselves if there was no pay incentive. Well, now I suppose that this goes for most jobs. The luckiest of us are employed in a field in which we find some genuine fulfilment. The issue to me is that the line between genuine passion for the activity and the passion for money gets blurred. As I was building my website, and in fact may times throughout the process of building a business, whether I was thinking about networking, marketing or branding, I felt disillusioned by the whole thing. I had to ask myself, what am I doing this for? On a real and practical level, I need financial income. I’m in a fortunate position where, security-wise, I’m stable. There is a roof over my head, food and utilities paid for by my partner. Nevertheless, financial independence is important and necessary, at least, that is what I have been told and I do happen to agree. I knew I wanted to be a feng shui consultant pretty much as soon as I started to really engage with the topic. Now that’s the trouble. I wanted it to be my job. Sure, I wanted it to be my job because I felt a passion for the subject, but I wanted to be compensated for said passion. It makes me wonder, how earnest is my quest?

Feng Shui has never been free. This is not a correct statement. I can say with certainty feng shui guidance has been given without a fee. I have also done this. Yet, I imagine, even back in the day when it was seen as divination, were the diviners not trading their esoteric knowledge for something? And when feng shui was kept amongst the wealthy elite, with only misinformation allowed to trickle down to the commoners, were the masters not benefitting from serving only the most rich and powerful? Feng Shui, for many hundreds of years, was a closely guarded secret. It still is, in a way most people would not realise. For, although there are books, videos, articles, it takes real intrigue and curiosity to dig deep into the knowledge sources and understand feng shui at its most authentic and effective level.

What I am probably trying to say is, there is an element of guilt in charging for genuine aid. And it’s not an accessible price either. It can’t be. Such a consultancy wouldn’t survive. Once again, this is the preservation of a most ancient and deep knowledge. It wasn’t easy or cheap to come by, it wasn’t quick to learn, or simple to practice (it wasn’t simple in the beginning, anyway). But I do want to help, I’ve wanted to help friends and family, and I wouldn’t dream of charging them. Maybe this is how doctors feel too.

The point of Home Qi is two things. One, to really, actually help people bring about change. Two, get paid. Yes, I wouldn’t bother with any of this, a website, a blog, business cards, if there was no financial incentive. I suppose that’s evident. That’s how it goes, in today’s world. We monetise what we can. We dream of living off money that is given to us for doing what we love. Somehow, the inclusion of money makes me love it slightly less. Perhaps it is simply the pressure of making money. Perhaps my relationship to money needs reframing. A new perspective.

On the topic of helping people, let’s explore a little about what Home Qi means, as I’ve definitely gone on a tangent about how stressful I find thinking about money to be. Feng Shui could help me with that, I’ve just been a little busy, you see. Home Qi, the qi of the home. Qi is a force of life, and there are many ways to describe qi. Traditional ways can be elemental; fire qi, metal qi, water qi. Polaric; yang qi, yin qi. Attributional; sheng qi, sha qi. In English, we could say, quick, slow, meandering, rushing, calm, energetic. There are many ways in which qi manifests, and many scenarios in which different types of qi would be more or less appropriate. So, when I say “home qi”, I’m talking about a specific balance of qi that creates a supportive, healthy and prosperous home. It is not “house”, “building” or “property” because a home is unique to the individual. A home is personal, regardless of ownership or permanency. I think of it like the outer shell of the person. Current life circumstances are totally embodied within the home. Therefore, there is no “one size fits all” for the qi of a home. It is impossible, what one home requires in balance, another could have a totally different requirement. It’s personal, individual. So, really, it’s the unique qi imprint of a personal dwelling from which all dreams and desires manifest.

In carrying out a consultation, I hope that the client can realise, if they don’t already, that engaging with the home is no different than engaging with yourself i.e. taking care of the home is taking care of yourself. It seems fairly obvious typing it out, and I’m sure most are aware of this, only, it’s so easy to forget, or to not be so aware of it. Are you respecting yourself? Do you treasure yourself? Look at your home, because it’s telling you exactly what’s going on with you. Right now, I have some structure, I have some peace, overall, there is harmony, yet, I also feel a mess, there’s loose ends to tie up, there’s areas I can’t relax in because I am troubled by the things laying there I ought to sort out. It’s getting better though, I forget how far I’ve come and how things once were. Things may not be up to standard, but my standards are always rising. Ah, I suppose that is another thing I ought to turn to feng shui for. If there’s something wrong with high standards. I’m not sure about that.

To conclude, because I soon intend to eat dim sum, I would prefer a world where money was not the primary incentive for anyone to do anything but this is the world and I may as well enjoy the current state of things where I can. The fact that I have the ability to profit from a hobby is somewhat miraculous. Profit aside though, because it is only a means of comfortable survival after all, this is an enormous opportunity and privilege to make a real difference. Perhaps that itself is valueless. If any of this has point, it’s that the help I was able to offer helped!