Why Some Homes Feel Calm and Others Feel Heavy (The 3,000 Year Old Practice Behind It), with Steph Stewart

Some homes feel like a deep breath. Others feel like holding one. There's a 3,000 year old reason why.

In this episode of Happy Healthy Homes, Etienny Trindade sits down with Steph Stewart from Nine Lemons Feng Shui to unpack how your home's energy, layout, light, and flow shape your nervous system and emotional wellbeing.

In this episode you will learn

→ What Feng Shui actually is (and what it isn't) → Why your front door matters more than any other entry point in your home → How bed placement quietly influences your sleep and nervous system → Why clutter blocks energy at a biological, not just visual, level → How natural light, air flow, and biophilic elements shift the way you feel → Why some homes feel supportive and others feel heavy → Small intentional changes that reset a room without renovation

The 5 Feng Shui Foundations Covered

1. Bed placement and the command position
2. Front door energy and the path of arrival
3. Clutter clearing as energetic clearing
4. Natural light, air flow, and biophilic elements
5. Whole home flow and how rooms speak to each other

This episode answers

→ What is Feng Shui and how does it work? → How does my home affect my nervous system? → Where should I place my bed for better sleep? → Why does clutter feel so heavy? → How do I create a calm home without renovating? → Why do some rooms feel better than others? → Is Feng Shui still relevant for modern homes?

About the host

Etienny Trindade. Environmental designer with 20 years of experience. Author of Creating Healing Spaces for Children. Award winning designer of learning environments for neurodivergent children.

About the guest: Steph Stewart

Steph Stewart is a Feng Shui consultant and the founder of Nine Lemons Feng Shui, where she helps people reset their homes using ancient principles applied to modern lives.

Website: ninelemonsfengshui.com Instagram: @ninelemonsfengshui

Ready to go deeper?

Website: www.happyhealthyhomes.au 

Connect

Instagram: @etienny.trindade  Book: Creating Healing Spaces for Children

Keywords

Feng Shui for beginners, what is Feng Shui, bed placement Feng Shui, front door Feng Shui, clutter clearing energy, biophilic design, home wellness, nervous system regulation, calm home, healing spaces, Nine Lemons Feng Shui, Steph Stewart Feng Shui, non toxic home, ancient practice modern home, why does my home feel heavy, Happy Healthy Homes podcast, Etienny Trindade

Remember. It is not about perfection. It is about one conscious choice at a time.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Hello beautiful and welcome to Happy Healthy Homes. Let me ask you something. Have you ever walked into a room and felt calm instantly? Even before you could explain why. In all the spaces, even beautiful ones, leave you feeling like tank, restless, and unsettled. You sit down, your body doesn't fully relax, your mind keeps scanning the room. Something feels just like a little off. Most of us assume that feeling is stressed, fatigue, or something happening inside of us. But what is part of that is the space itself. The way objects are placed, the flow of room, the light, the openness, the invisible patterns that our brain is constantly reading. Because our nervous system is constantly responding to the environment around us. Quiet, automatic all day long. And before neuroscience began explaining how everything surrounded us affect our body, that was an ancient philosophy studying this relationship for thousands of years. And for those who know me, you know that I love history. What could be more fascinating than ancient knowledge meeting modern science? If you're new here, my name is Etienne. I help women create environments that support calm, focus, health, and emotional well-being through science back design, non-toxic choices, and a deep connection with nature. And today I'm joined by someone who has dedicated her work to understand the energy of spaces and how our homes can support the life we want to live. My guest is Steph, is Steph Stewart, founder of Nine Lemons Feng Shui, and a certified feng shui practitioner who helps women transform the energy and flow into their homes. Steph's journey into Feng Shui began in a very relatable way, with a simple Google search after moving into a new home and sensing that something in this space wasn't quite right. His sleep was judged, the energy felt unsettled, and curiosity led her to explore her ancient principles of Feng Shui. What began as more discoveries soon become a deeper exploration. While working corporate marketing in Singapore, Seth witnessed how Feng Shui was woven into everyday life, influencing not only homes but offices, buildings, and entire developments. She saw first hand how special decisions were made with intention, considering how environments influenced the people who live and work within them. The experience sparked a deeper calling. Steph went on the complete several sanctuary training and eventually became a certified practitioner. Today she helps women create homes that feel larger, calmer, and more supportive of the life they want to live. In today's conversation, we will explore what sanctuary really is, where it comes from, and how the flow of a home can influence how we feel from clutter and layout to entrance, light, and the connection between our inner image and the space we live in. Steph, welcome to Happy Help you Homes. Thank you for being here with us.

SPEAKER_00 4:13

Hello, thank you so much for having me. It is such an honor and privilege to be here. And I was just nodding along that whole introduction because I feel like the way we view space is just so aligned. So it's it's a real pleasure to be here.

SPEAKER_01 4:29

It is, and that's why I'm so excited to talk to you because um I love when sciences start explaining something that's happening for so long. Um, I want to know your story and how did you discover thank you?

SPEAKER_00 4:44

Yeah, so it was we just moved house and I just couldn't sleep. I could not sleep. We'd moved, you know, all of the same bed, the same sheeting, all of that kind of stuff. Nothing else had changed. Um, and just couldn't sleep. So I was up at 2 a.m. in the night googling, like, you know, what's going on with the house and what's going on with our bedroom. And straight away I came across Feng Shui and I'd heard about it before, but didn't really know much. And as I was reading it, it was talking about the bed position in the room. So ideally, you want to have a solid wall behind the bed, you want to have a bedhead, you want to have a really stable base. At the time, our bed was directly under a window. And what was happening is the energy was coming in the bedroom door and then whooshing over the bed out the window. So really, really unsettled. So the next morning I thought, okay, the bed's the culprit. I'm gonna change the position of the bed. And I moved it around. I didn't tell my partner. I was just like, I'm just making this change. And the next night, both of us slept so well. And so I thought, mmm, there's something here. There's something here. So sort of was always had it in the back of my mind. Then when we moved to Singapore, I was working at a professional services firm, so global, a global advisory firm, and we were about to move offices. So that was sort of one of the things that I was tasked with doing. And this is a company with 3,000 staff doing billions of dollars in revenue. And we had all of the different teams involved. So had the architects, had the interior designers, had, you know, the workspace consultants, but there was also a feng shui master. And the feng shui master was advising on the location. So the direction that things were facing, on the floor plan, where was the CEO's office? Where was the leadership team? Where were the staff areas? You know, what was the client's experience, or everyone's experience, the energy's experience, as they entered the space. And so that's when I was just like, oh my goodness. Because in Singapore, it's not woo-woo. It's not like, you know, it's it's something that is taken very seriously and it's taken as business strategy. So people go and have a building inspection if they're buying a house, they'll also have a feng shui consultation to make sure that the energy is flowing. Because I mean, we can spend so much money on a home, but if it doesn't feel right, it doesn't feel right, right? If the energy is not supportive, it's not supportive. And that is what I've learned through all of the study that I've been doing is that some homes are more supportive than others. Others are not supportive at all. So we need to work with the energy that we've got. We need to neutralize some of the negative energies and then really amplify the positive ones.

SPEAKER_01 7:16

Do you know what's so interesting? I love Singapore because it's the capital of biophilia. I've never been there, but every place it's so full of nature and they use it in a way that no other city around the world is exploring it yet. And when you're talking about how they take a Fengish expert into the home to see the energy, I actually met an architect. He was an architect in Brazil uh when I was studying architecture, and he's really famous. He goes around and he's a keynote speaker, and he has a very famous book. And he was the first person who told me about the energy of the space. And he made me two metal um cables that I could hold, uh-huh, and they will open or close on the spaces, like to measure the frequency of the house. Yes. And that's how he would go to spaces with his clients and measure the energy. And he explained me all the physics behind it, and I was fascinated with it. And then when I got home with the little um things he made for me, I was measuring my house completely and making changes, doing all the things, and that was like many, many years ago. I was just a student, you know? Yes. And you you see these things that here in Australia, when you uh work with Chinese um professionals, they also look into everything around Feng Shui.

SPEAKER_00 8:57

Yeah. It's very serious for them. Absolutely, absolutely. It's taken so seriously. And Feng Shui is really about that relationship between your environment, like between the the outside world and the inside space, which I think is also why Singapore has got such, has played such a role in those green spaces and the architecture and what they're doing. And it is, it's an amazing, it's an amazing city, amazing country.

SPEAKER_01 9:21

Yes. And did you uh always believe in energy and how the environment impacted our health? Or was that something it started happening with you when you bought that house?

SPEAKER_00 9:34

Yeah, no, I think I've always believed in energy and I've always sort of understood it at a very basic level. I think the turning point for me would have been so Singapore definitely opened up a lot of things, opened my eyes up to a lot of things. And when I was working in that role, I was leading Asia Pacific. So I was working with a lot of people in China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Vietnam. And again, in all of those countries, energy is taken really, really seriously. So there's this ancient wisdom that is not sort of shunned or ignored, like I really do believe it is in Australia. I think we're getting better, but I think a lot of the time it's sort of like, oh, what's, you know, what are you talking about? So that definitely opened my eyes. But when we moved back to Australia, we had um a really tragic event happen in our life. We lost our son when he was just a baby, and that completely shattered, you know, every single part of my world and my life. And I think that was when energy became like I just was so much more sensitive to everything as as one would be. But it's never gone away since then. So so much more sensitive to the energy of spaces and people. Um, yeah, spaces, places, and people, pretty much. So when I would go into an area, I would just feel everything so much more. So that sort of turned, I think it just turned something like the volume up even more. And we had bought a house and we were living in this house, and it was, you know, our sanctuary when we were grieving and it held us and it supported us. But it was when I was like, okay, we'd had another baby since and I was like, okay, I'm sort of, you know, moving through this and I'm ready to, you know, keep moving forward in my life. And I just felt so stuck in our house, so stuck in our house. And that's when I was like, okay, I need to like I keep on hearing about feng shui. It kept on coming up, it had been coming up for like the last 15 years, and I was like, okay, now I'm really feeling it. So that's when I moved to study it. And for me, the impact that that had when I did completely Feng Shui, our home, it was just so transformative. And I was like, I need to talk to everyone about this because I think so often we talk about mind, body, and soul, and we understand those concepts really well. But then there's this fourth pillar, which is our environment, which you know well and good about. You've got this podcast exploring it, but for a lot of people, it's an afterthought. It's just like, oh yeah, that's where I live, you know, and it's not really thought about how much your environment, which is the space we spend majority of our time, can really impact our well-being. And also it can either, you know, drag us down and hold us at this lower frequency, or we can really use it to, you know, bring us up to that next level and like help help things flow a little bit easier in life.

SPEAKER_01 12:26

I know when you're talking about that, when I talk about my podcast, everyone thinks it's a very weird topic. And then people's like, but what do you talk about? And then I start explaining people, oh, that's interesting. But it's interesting how you can get into that negative cycle. What I believe is that if the environment is not working well, then you get onto that negative mindset, and then you you keep your environment in a horrible state, and then you keep on that bad mindset, and then until you break that cycle, you can't just free yourself out of that. And what tends to happen as well as women, and we work on corporate world and busy men and lots of things happening in life, we just tend to tell ourselves more and more, I'm wrong, I'm not doing enough. Yeah. What's happening? We just keep telling ourselves and blaming, shaming ourselves so much more without trying to just sometimes break a cycle that's not working anymore.

SPEAKER_00 13:28

Yeah, exactly, exactly. And our home can really help us break out of that cycle, or as you said, it can just keep us in that cycle. Because I think, you know, the energy of the home the energy of the home absolutely influences the people inside of it, but the people inside it also influence the energy of the home. So when I look at Feng Shui and the energetics side of things, so I look at if I'm working with a client one-on-one, I'll look at like three different layers. So the first layer is what I call the structure of the home. This is not necessarily the physical walls that we see, but more the invisible architecture. And it's looking at how energy enters the space, how it circulates, like how well the house can hold the energy. Because a lot of houses in Australia actually are not built to hold the energy. They've got glass doors the whole way along the back of the home. So the energy comes in, but then it will leave straight away. So I look at those things first. Like, so what's the structure? Can the house hold the energy from an invisible architecture structure? I will then look at the rituals that allow energy to move around. So this is things like clutter, this is things like cleaning our stove for prosperity, this is things like opening our front door, which I'm sure we'll touch on them later. So they're the rituals that really help the energy move. But then there's the deeper layer, which is the cycles. So we've got every single house has its own birth chart, so to speak. So when the roof went on, that's when the house was born, when the roof went on, because that sealed the energy in, right? So that's like the birth chart of the home. So that home has got its own energetics from when it was built. You know, we've then and also the direction that it's facing. And I'm not talking about north, south, east, west. I'm talking about like 142.5 degrees. So we're very, very, very specific. So there's the birth chart of the home. We've then got the cycle that we're currently in, so the annual cycle. So we've just moved into the year of the fire horse. We were chatting about it. Um, we were just chatting before about the energetics, how it feels quite heavy at the moment. Um, that was on the 17th of February, so we're relatively fresh into that cycle, but that's a whole new yearly cycle which has its own energies and will interact with your home in a slightly different way. And then we're also in a bigger 20-year cycle, uh, which is called cycle nine, and it's the rise of the middle-aged woman. So before the last 20 years was all about the young man, and now it's moving to the middle-aged woman. So super interesting. We've been in that cycle for about two years, and I know a lot of the women I speak to are like, oh my goodness, there's, you know, I feel so much more empowered and I'm ready to get quit my job and move into my passion and what I'm doing. They're sort of some of the bigger things at play, but then also you've got the personal energy that you bring. So the personal energy that you're bringing to your home, and then all of the things that have happened in that space. So all of the echoes of energy that have happened. So when you were living in the house or when the people before you were living in the house. So it's so many different aspects, right? That all sort of come together, and that's how deep we go. I think a lot of the time people go, Oh, Feng Shui's about, you know, yeah, moving your bed, sort of, you know, the example I gave before. And that is absolutely a really, really small slither, but then there's all of this, these deeper layers, and I think as you peel the young in, you decide, oh my goodness, another layer and another layer and another layer.

SPEAKER_01 16:50

Wow, that's incredible. When you're talking about the bed, I actually, that's one of the things I've been as well. Because my my our room is quite small for Matthew Region, to be honest. And our bed faces the wall with the door that gets out of the room. So I know that wasn't good. But we don't have other ways to turn the bed around because this space doesn't allow us to do it. So I went and made a very heavy bedhead. Perfect. To help to ground our bed. Yeah, perfect. And it's it's interesting.

SPEAKER_00 17:27

I feel it made the difference, but it absolutely does. All of those things, and I think the desk is another really big one. So I think so many women I know are working from home, um, whether they're working a few days from home or whether they're running their businesses from home. And the desk position is also a really, really important one. So, and this goes back to like caveman days, a lot of this. So, if you think about you're sitting in a cave, you would never have your back to the cave opening. You would never have your back to the cave opening. You would always be have a solid wall behind you. You want to be able to see, you know, what's in front of you. You want to be able to see what's coming in the door, and that's really how we want to position both our bed and our desk. So, so many women I know are like sort of in the corner, in the corner with their back to the door, because that's, you know, taking up the least amount of space. But actually, we want to make sure that we've got a wall behind us, space in front of us, sort of like the bed situation, because that gives us the strong backing. We've got the wool that has our back, and we're not always on edge to go, you know. We know a saber-toothed tiger is not going to come in the house, right? But subconsciously, you know, that reptilian brain is still on high alert. So some stuff like that.

SPEAKER_01 18:36

It's simple, but it does make such a difference because that's aligned with what's coming up a lot. Um, I talk a lot about well-being and neural system, and that's aligned a lot about with that because that's how our body is being designed, our brain is being designed to keep us safe.

SPEAKER_02 18:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 18:58

So anything that's triggering our safety makes us stress and we cannot relax.

SPEAKER_00 19:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 19:06

And that does align when we explain like that, that does align with our nervous system. Because then you're like unconscious, you always don't feel protected because you're always thinking something is going to come behind.

SPEAKER_00 19:22

Yeah, yeah. So you've got an exposed, yeah, you've got the exposed back. And so if people are saying, Oh, but there's only one place for my desk in my room or whatever it is, then what you can do, a really simple workaround, is just get a little mirror. So, like whether it's a little makeup mirror, and if you put that on your desk, then you can see the door. So it just gives you safety that, okay, I can see, I can see what's coming up. Or if you're working in an open plant office, you can't necessarily choose where your desk is and be like, no, I need to have my back against the wall and all of that kind of stuff. We can't choose that. So you can get yeah, a little mirror and then you can place that so then you can see what's behind you, and then your nervous system can relax a little bit more.

SPEAKER_01 20:05

How does it work in Singapore? Because to be honest with you, the offices now, it's heading to waste time. My new office where I work before I had my baby. Right now I'm just on a turn to leave. Um, you don't even have a desk, you have uh a locker, and then you just take your things out and you sit anywhere. So it's really uncomfortable because you don't even have a proper chair, an ergonomic chair. In the end, I didn't even have anything on my locker because it was taking things in and out every day. So in Singapore, those people have an how the did they use open space offices or not?

SPEAKER_00 20:47

Yeah, so they still do. So the executives and the leadership team will generally always have their own offices. But yeah, absolutely while I was there, I was live I was working in some open plan spaces. And I think for a lot of businesses now that's just a practicality of of what needs to happen to be able to get enough people in there, and so many people are hot desking. So yeah, there definitely were situations where it's not ideal to be seated, but you'd always notice that those are the last seats to be taken every day.

SPEAKER_01 21:19

Interesting, isn't it? Because it does unconscious people do choose the best seats. Yeah, that happened a lot as well in my office because there were few desks that's always very competitive. Everyone wanted them. So you need to get there very early to get. Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_00 21:35

Or even, you know, in your home, you might notice that there's some positions on the couch or on your like lounge area that get taken more often than not, or even around your dining room table. And it's interesting just to look at those ones and go, okay, are they the ones that are like more protected? Because often they are.

SPEAKER_01 21:54

I'm curious because a lot um a lot of our listeners won't know. Much about feng shui, and I want to understand a little bit more about the history. You talked about Singapore and some of the countries that you worked on, but where does Feng Shui come from?

SPEAKER_00 22:13

Yeah, so Feng Shui is an ancient Chinese practice. It's been around for like over 6,000 years, and it literally means wind and water. So the wind carries the energy and then the water, you know, activates it. That's sort of how it is. And it was traditionally used to actually find burial sites. So the most auspicious burial sites. So you would, you know, get all of the riches of the afterlife and have the best afterlife possible. So it was used for burial sites, and it was then quickly also used to choose where cities should be built, villages or more like villages back, you know, in that time. But where houses should be built and looking at really practical things like where they would get the most light and where the energy would flow and making sure that they're protected. So they've got like a mountain behind them and water in front of them. So very practical reasons for developing the practice. And then from there, it has really been looking at the different energy patterns, mapping them out, and it can actually be really quite scientific. There's 140 different schools of Feng Shui, so that just adds an additional layer of complexion. But when I work with things like flying stars, you know, it is actually mathematical equations that I'm doing around okay, exactly where is this and that and how do these interrelate. So some of it is somewhat of it is the feel and looking at the flow and looking at floor plans and chatting to people, but other parts of it are quite sort of yeah, very precise.

SPEAKER_01 23:47

Oh, that's that's really interesting to know that it comes um the science of masks into things.

SPEAKER_02 23:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 23:56

You talk a lot about clutter on your Instagram. Yeah. And I want to understand clutter or certain layouts block energy in a similar way that overstimulation impacts the nervous system.

SPEAKER_00 24:12

Yeah, that's that's such a great question. And I am like a bit of a I'm not a hoarder, but I like to collect things, right? I like to collect things. So when I was first learning Feng Shui, my master said to me, she said, like, Steph, the one of the most important things that we look at before we do anything is actually what the house is carrying and what we're carrying with us. And I was like, oh my goodness, I hate decluttering. Like I get so emotionally attached to items. Like I could keep a paper bag and Edny, I could tell you exactly why the paper bag was amazing and we should keep it. Like I could, I could basically have an argument for every single thing in my house. And it was when I started doing more research and going deeper and deeper and deeper, is when I really realized like clutter is, I know we were talking about frequencies before, but every single item in your home, your home has got a frequency, but also every single item in your house is carrying a frequency. And often when we think about clutter as sort of body contracts, you know, and clutter's different to mess. Mess is, you know, the train set that is on our living room floor because our three-year-old has been playing trains, and mess is, you know, the dishes that I haven't put away in the sink yet. But clutter are these things that these piles and they just have a different energy to them. Um and the way that I like to think about it, so if we imagine energy coming into our home is like a stream, so a beautiful stream of water. And what we want to do is we want this water to flow into every single part of our home and to nourish all of the different areas of our life. But if we've got sticks in the way and rocks in the way and you know, someone's throwing rubbish, the water can't get through. And that's essentially what clutter does to energy flow. So one of the first things we want to do before we can really do any activations is do clutter clearing. And the way that I like to reframe that is not do I need this item? It's like, would my future abundant self have this item in her space? Which reframes what we're talking about, but also allows us to really think about these items, think about the energetics of them. And it's like, do I want this? Like, is this item holding me back? Or is it actually supporting the future and where I want to go? Because I think so often we are just surrounded by all of these past items. I'm not saying delete all your memories, I'm not saying erase your life, but really looking at what we have in our space and saying, is this supporting the person I am now and the person I want to be? Because every single item in our home has been purchased by a past version of us.

SPEAKER_01 26:50

Yeah, I love that question because I am not too attached to anything. My mum, since we were a child, we lived in a very small house. So my mom was really good um explaining us that one thing comes, one thing needs to go. We didn't have much space to have clutter.

SPEAKER_00 27:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 27:08

But when you say that question about my future abundance self or my future identity, I started asking that to myself last week. And I was like, there's so many clothes that I've been keeping. It's like, oh, this item was a bit more expensive. Maybe I'll lose the weight and I'll get into it. But I've been keeping it for probably the most five years now. And I was like, no, this just needs to go. Um, and I started asking that myself. Yeah. And I was like, yes, I I did um take a lot of things off my house, even though it's not a house that has a lot. But when you start the funny thing about Flotter is that when you start looking deeper, you always find something. That's what I always think. You need to keep on top of it. It's not something you're going to do once and it will disappear, isn't it?

SPEAKER_00 28:04

Absolutely. It's something that, yeah, and and we live in a life and a society that's sort of very consumer-driven, and and yeah, it is. It can be hard to escape it. So it is something that like I like to have a dedicated look accordly just to keep on top of things. But what I do find is that the more I do it and the more I think about my future abundant self, the more I can let go of. And it might take a few times to do it. So the first time I do it, I might be like, oh, I'll just get rid of one or two things. But then as you free up the space, so so one of the things we often talk about in Feng Shui is if you want to call something new into your life, there has to be space for it. And if your home is filled with all of these things, well, firstly, the frequency that it's sending out is okay, we've got enough. And like we're living back in 2005 and we're good. Whereas when we've got things that are aligned to our future self, it's like, well, this is what we're aspiring to be, this is what we're leaning towards, and also there's space for new things to come into our life. And that's why when I'm working with men or women who are looking to call love into their life, I mean, one of the first questions I ask them is, Well, is there space in your wardrobe? Like, do you have space for this new person to put some clothes in there? Or is there space on both sides of your bed? You know, a lot of people have the bed pushed up to one, like to the wall or to the corner. And it's like, well, if you're looking to call in love, that's not sending the message that you want to have a partner because that they can't even they have to climb over you to get into the bed, right? So it's even stuff like that around what signals and what messages are we sending, not only to ourselves, but also to um to the world around us. Oh wow, yeah, that's so interesting.

SPEAKER_01 29:58

Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. I really like that. How does Penture view light? And natural light. I talk a lot about how in modern society one of the things I notice a lot is people don't even open their block out for curtains anymore. It makes me really sad when I drive on the streets and I see that they're not letting light into their locks. Yeah. Um, and another thing that with air conditioning, people don't tend to open the windows anymore. And when we study architecture and when we study about our body, our nervous system, we need that. We need that life into the heart. And I always explain how to create cross-ventilation to your heart because you need that breeze to come, and you need to feel that. That's when you feel good, you feel alive, you feel restored. And how do you explain that to your clients?

SPEAKER_00 31:05

Yeah, so Feng Shui very highly values movement and freshness in a space. Because that is actually how the fresh energy comes into your space. So it comes in through windows, so we need the blinds opened, we need the windows clean if we want the good energy to come in, right? We want the quality energy to come in. Um, it also comes in the front door, so the front door is known as the mouth of qi. So qi is another word for energy. So it's so important. Like every morning, I will open my front door and I will welcome the qi in. I will open the windows because what that is doing is that's circulating the energy. Otherwise, if we keep it closed and blocked off, it's just stagnant, stuck, stagnant energy, and your space and your home can't breathe. So absolutely that connection between fresh air, like also fresh energy and light is so strong. And I think also, you know, if you go into a dark room, it does feel a bit stagnant, it does feel a bit heavy. They tend not to be the most welcoming spaces. So yeah, Feng Shui is all about the light, the air, and also the relationship with nature. So being able to see out the windows and see the nature and see the greenery and see the trees and the sky is super important as well, and has a has a noticeable effect on the energy of the space.

SPEAKER_01 32:30

And the person as well, isn't it? I was reading that in the last few years we distance ourselves from nature 60%. Wow. And that's quite scary when you think about it. Because we were built in nature, we're part of nature, and people have this thing of distancing themselves from nature, but we are nature, we are part of it. Yeah, and when you just don't have any connection to it, your life just becomes something else. That's why people are so sick, stressed, depressed, and that's when I think their mental health uh becomes something the next level. And some countries like Japan, I love that how the doctors give you forest baths. Yeah, I mean things like that. Yeah, because we just we just need it.

SPEAKER_00 33:19

We've been we've been built to be in it. Correct, yeah. Yeah, yeah, we're built to have that connection. So, yeah, 100% agree with all of that. And Feng Shui is also very supportive of that relationship.

SPEAKER_01 33:34

You talked about the front door, and um very happy that you touched on that because I want to ask you more about that. I am a big fan of front doors because I painted my front door colorful. I have a pot full of plants. Yes, I have two views viewings of it. I want to enter inside my house, I wanna completely relax. After a stressful day at work, I'll get in. I just wanna drop and feel calm and relaxed at home. And when people come into my house, I want them to feel extremely welcome and happy as well. So, this is another reason why I treat the front door so spatial. And what's your viewing about the front door? Because I see you talk a lot about the energy that comes into the front door.

SPEAKER_00 34:32

Yeah, and I'll give you an A plus for all of the work that you're doing around the front door. I love the front door and pay a lot of attention to the front door. So, firstly, like what you've done with your front door, so having it like painted and cared for and looked after, and also um a pot plant, what you're doing is you're attracting the energy. So the energy could go to any of the houses in the street, you know, it's sort of one, let's pretend it's sort of walking down the street. Or say you're walking down the street and you're looking at the different houses, and if you can't see the front door of your neighbor's house, the energy can't see it either. So, firstly, we want our front door to be really welcoming, not just to our guests, but also to the energy. So that is perfect. We want the door to be in good working order, we want to have a light there, you know, that if we've got a porch light, we want to have that in working order. And ideally, we want to have some like qi attraction points, which would be like the colour of the door or the pot plant, just to sort of, you know, welcome the qi in. So it's so important because it is the mouth of the home. So if you think about the home like a person, it is the mouth and it's where all of that energy enters the space. So when I'm working with clients, I will always do a bit of a front door audit just to make sure that it will be supportive of the energy because the front door is where it comes in, but then also we've got the entranceway, which is you know, we could sort of see that as the neck, you know, and we want to make sure that again the energy can get into the front door, but then it can make its way through the whole body through the whole house.

SPEAKER_01 36:08

Wow, that's amazing. I love that. Okay. And what I want to talk about is especially us women, and we being extremely overstimulated and stressed and living in a society that we don't get much support. So we are mums after COVID, things are getting harder for the couple. And I'd love to know like what would you tell to these women right now that's struggling stress? What could they could do right now to help them to release a little bit of that negativity and feel a bit more relaxed in their homes according to Feng Shui?

SPEAKER_00 36:50

Yeah, so I would I would extend the conversation we were having about the front door because I really believe that that is where all the energy comes in the home. And if it's caught in that part of the home, it can't nourish you, it can't support you. So I would say take a really good hard look at the entrance of your home. So when you walk into the home, what do you see? What's there? Is that where we dump all the bags? Is that where we dump all the shoes? Is that where all of the you know envelopes and letters and junk mail goes? Because I know for like in our house, it was. It was. And then I had to build a few systems so I would have a place where we put all of the letters and I would make sure that all of the shoes went into people's bedrooms. Because if that is the first stimulation that we see when we're coming into the home, like already we're feeling tense and we want to have those shoulders dropping. We just want to feel relaxed, but also we want the energy to come in and not be so distracted with everything else that's going on that it just you know is looping around the entrance area. We want it to be able to go throughout the entire house. And if people are like, oh my goodness, Steph, that's a massive task, that's overwhelming, then I would say just you know, start with small steps, small bite-sized pieces. But if you want to start somewhere that's even a little bit smaller, go to your bedside table. So you are in complete control of your bedside table. I understand that other a lot of other people in the household can can sort of get involved with the front entrance, but the bedside table is yours. So what are you falling asleep next to? What are you waking up next to? What is on there? Is that got clutter? Has that got dust? Like what is your body being greeted with and farewelled with every single night? And I would have a good hard look at the books. You know, so what are the books about? Are they topics that we want to be sleeping next to? You know, are they topics that are still relevant? So many women I speak to have got this like a stack of ten books that they've been meaning to read. But by the time they get to them, like they're not even topics that they're interested in anymore. Or it might have been a self-help book that was from a problem from two years ago or five years ago. So I would, if you want to start even smaller, the entrance, I would definitely say get around to it because it's important. But if there's a space that's just yours, no one can really interrupt it too much. Look at your bedside table and go, okay, what am I curating that's directly impacting my energy before I go to sleep, when I'm sleeping and when I wake up?

SPEAKER_01 39:26

You're talking, and I'm here putting things together because I talk about systems a lot and how that affect your nervous system because our brain is scanning our environment 24-7. You don't have control over that, but you have control if it's going to be a positive or negative outcome. And when you get into a house and you see all those shoes there on the outside, even if it's not my house, I feel extremely anxious because I am a very sensitive person.

SPEAKER_02 40:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 40:00

And I was like, I know I get it, that they don't want to get the dirty germs inside the house. But the simple thing is, like I said, just contain it, create a system, put into a a box, and IKEA has some really good solutions for that nowadays.

SPEAKER_00 40:20

Yeah, and shoes hold so much energy as well. So shoes hold so much energy because it's what we're walking around, you know, the the world in, and they actually absorb a lot of of what's going on around them. So always, especially in people's rooms as well, when they've got shoes out and about, so just put them away. Just if you can't put them in the wardrobe, like just put them in a box or a you know, storage container or whatever it looks like, a shoe storage container, and just have a lid on it and just contain that energy because we really just don't need that circulating.

SPEAKER_01 40:52

And when you talk about bedroom, it's another topic I really uh touch beings with my clients as well, because the bedroom is where we're supposed to relax and unwind. And if there is a lot going on, some people's bedrooms is like you said, there's so many things, so many items. They just things all over the place. Your brain just keeps scanning all of that, even though you don't notice that conscious, yeah, it's still scanning everything, and then that's why in the next day you just wake up so tired. So I really like that advice about the bedside table to just look into that. Thank you for that.

SPEAKER_00 41:33

Yeah, and and another thing in the bedroom that's really interesting to look at is also like TVs, TVs or computer screens. So a lot of women I know do have like a little desk set up in the bedroom because there's nowhere else to put it. And that's just you know, we can't all have perfect spaces for every single thing. Ideally, we don't want to have work gear in the bedroom. We don't want to have workout stuff and we don't want to have like laptops and files and that kind of stuff. But if we need to, then before we go to bed, we want to close off that energy. So you can put just a sheet over it or a blanket or a towel, just something to contain that energy because we don't want that seeping into the rest of the space. And as you said, we might not consciously be thinking about it, but in our subconscious, it's like there's a laptop. What happens when I'm on the laptop? I'm getting all these emails, I'm on high alert, I'm stressed, just cortisol, cortisol. So yeah, it's all it's so related, you know, the the field of work that you're in and this as well, because the nervous system and the conscious and subconscious mind are all all interplay 100% with how we're feeling in our environment and in our space.

SPEAKER_01 42:44

Yeah, um helped lots of people to take the the the desk from the bedroom.

SPEAKER_02 42:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 42:50

And they said was interesting, even also when they're working as well.

SPEAKER_02 42:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 42:57

Not just when they go to sleep, because when you're working, you see the bed constantly, that's constantly affecting you somehow as well. So it's both ways, it just yeah, unfortunately doesn't allow, does it? So it's just like trying to find another space around the house that you could work from. Yeah. Historically, women have shaped the emotional climate of the home. How does Feng Shui view the role of the person who cares for this space?

SPEAKER_00 43:29

This is a really great question, and I really love this because in Feng Shui, we definitely see the home as a living system. So, you know, it's a living space, and the house influences the people inside of it, but also the people inside it influence the energy of the home. So whoever interacts with the space the most naturally becomes the steward of the environment. So historically, that is women, but like in Fishway, it's not like the woman is the ruler of the home, it's more like who, yeah, who. Interacts with the space the most, and then they would be the steward of the home because the person who moves things, who cares for things, who tends to things, who sets intention. So in Feng Shui, intention is so so so important. So the person who does that is shaping the energy of the home far more than you know, potentially the other passive occupants of the space. And no one's truly passive, but some people are more involved than others when it comes to that side of things.

SPEAKER_01 44:27

I talk a lot about women because I feel that we shape the whole family. Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But sometimes, like um when you're extremely overstimulated, stressed, you affect your children and you affect your husband. The husband affects the wives in ways, but most of the the cases, unfortunately, we can affect them a lot. And like you said, the house. Absolutely. Yeah. I love when you talk about intention because something I talk about a lot as well. And I want to understand when you say intention is really important. How can our listeners set up intention into their home?

SPEAKER_00 45:17

Yes, I think the easiest way to do this, and again, it's it's a lot of little rituals that you can build into your home. But again, my obsession with the front door is you can build a little ritual into opening your front door and intentionally opening it up every morning and welcoming in the energy. Because we want to welcome in the energy, we want to welcome in the fresh chi and opportunities and abundance. So it's really looking at like when we're cleaning the house, we're not just, oh goodness, I've got to vacuum the floor. Guilty, you know, it's like, no, I'm tending to my home. I'm getting rid of this stagnant energy that's on the, you know, on the floor and all the dust and the dirt that is blocking the flow. And I'm doing that with love and attention and care. When you're cleaning your stove, it could be, you know, that is historically the wealth engine of the home. Because if we didn't have a stove, we couldn't eat, you know, we couldn't survive because that was where the that would be heating the home as well as cooking the food. So when we're cleaning, you know, the stovetop, it's really infusing intention to that and going, you know, I am welcoming abundance and flow and energy into our space. So it's really viewing the home as a supportive partner who can really help us to get where we want to get to and do what we want to do to, do what we want to do, but looking at it all with that that care and that intention and that sort of love and support.

SPEAKER_01 46:52

I love that because I believe on that as well. It's it's not a chore. You need to set up systems and ways in your home that you make that with joy. Yes. And teach your children as well. Yes. That's part of living. Taking care of your home, absolutely, taking care of your space is part of living. And one thing I love doing is putting music up, start dancing. I'll dance a lot on the kitchen. So good. It's just a lot. I'm cooking, my my baby is on the floor. And I make that something fun. It's like, oh yay, look at this. Look what mom is doing. That's your talent. And then children don't grow up thinking, oh, I need to co I need to do this.

SPEAKER_00 47:35

No, exactly, exactly. It's a it's a beautiful gesture that you can make, and it's an important, important thing to do, yeah. Um, what one other thing, as you were talking about the intention, one other thing that we look at is so we've got nine different areas of the home in Feng Shui. So we've got, you know, the career area, wealth and abundance, helpful people and travel, fame and recognition. So we map the home to these different nine areas, and you can also, you know, infuse specific intentions into the different areas. So if you're looking to supercharge your career or get a promotion in that part of your home, you know, you might talk to your plant and be like, your growth symbolizes my growth in the company and my promotion. So that's also like a little thing that I just wanted to share with the listeners that we can also, you know, use the natural energies in the home and sort of put specific intentions into different areas of the space.

SPEAKER_01 48:32

That's really good. And that gets into a really um interesting question as well. Because in architecture, we talk about biofilm. Like we are connected to nature, we're not separate. It's the love for nature. And we having leading plants and lots of other things that bring the natural environment into your home, not just plants. There's so many ways to bring nature in, like natural wood, texture, um, natural fabrics and things like that. And I noticed that Tenxui have that um lots of houses when they are really designed with Ten Shui in mind, there is a lot of nature infusion into the height. I can even see that you have a picture behind you of nature. Yeah. And that's a way I always explain my clients as well. Because when we start this process of bringing, making a calm home, we start, like you said, about decluttering, but then we create some systems until the end that we bring this beautiful life into your home that will really help you to relax. So, what does Feng Shui um how it treats this sector, nature, into the home? How do you guys work with that?

SPEAKER_00 49:54

I was gonna say I feel like it's sort of everything, right? Because it's that relationship that we have with our external environment and nature. So it's really fundamental at the core of Feng Shui. Um, and two different things that we look at. So we look at the yin and the yang balance. So that's like that black and white square. So the the masculine and the feminine energy of the house, the active and the more, you know, uh silent energies. So we look at look at those things, but also the elements. So we work with metal, fire, water, wood, and earth to balance the energies of the home. So if we've got a home that, you know, has got some really negative energies in one space, we'll look at that and go, okay, how can we use the five elements? How can we use yin and the yang to balance this space? So I would say it's it's everything. It's everything in Feng Shui, that relationship. Yeah, it's fundamental to um how we work with different environments.

SPEAKER_01 50:55

Oh, that's amazing. We talked about the future self, the identity. I want to ask you, do you believe when a woman or a person shifts their home, do they shift their energy as well?

SPEAKER_00 51:10

Yes, I really do believe that. I do believe that. I know for me personally, when I shifted the energy in our space, things just started moving so much faster for me. I know that when I've done big declutters, things have moved so much faster for me. I've really unstuck myself from that, you know, chapter in my life. Um, and so 100% if we align our spaces to what we're doing and where we want to go next, it is so much easier to follow. But also from a subconscious perspective, like we're already, if if we're living in a house that's just not supporting us, like that's the message we're telling our, telling ourselves every single day. Whereas when we change the environment, it's like, okay, like this one thing that is just sending us millions of signals all of the time is supporting the signals that we want to be receiving.

SPEAKER_01 52:07

Yeah, that's right. Yeah, I completely agree. And if people when I talk about energy as well, I talk about the mindset. When we shift our space our environment, we shift our mindsets. Yes. And it's it's it's not just in our house. Like I designed an office for 40 people two years ago for graduates and students. They were all shaked around the university, and they were isolated, never talked to any anyone. They're all doing their own studies. And we'd be invited to do this space to bring them together. And we infused all of those principles in a different way into this office. Lots of nature, natural wood, good acoustics, natural lights. Changed this space completely. That was super, bring out the light, bring all these beautiful things. And then a few months later, I called them and say, How is it going? Do you have any lessons learned? Anything went wrong? We're always expecting a negative to come. And she's like, You won't believe what's happening. I was like, What's happening? This space is completely shifted. I was like, what's happening? She's like, Oh, they all here, they're fighting for desks, they want to be on this space, they all talking to each other, they all exchanging ideas to each other, they all have lunch together. It was like a big community, man. If people don't believe on that, I don't know what else they would believe because it does shift people's mindset completely. And when you change that space, it can even bring people together. I was very happy because when I received that those news, um, I was about to go on maternity leave and I left really with my heart full of like I did something really good for them. Yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 54:03

Yeah. I think yeah, I I completely agree with that 100%. And if people are still skeptical, I would just say, well, compare the feeling that you have when you walk into a bank, if if anyone even goes to the bank these days, versus when you walk into a day spa. So you go into the bank, there's all the fluoros, there's like the dull colours, there's this, you know, the carpet that's probably should have been ripped up 20 years ago. There's a lot of sharp corners, like it's not a place where you go and you feel relaxed and you feel comfortable. You're like, I want to get in there, get my money, and sign whatever documents I need to sign and leave as quickly as possible. Whereas you go into the spa and the lights are a bit lower, and you can smell like the lemongrass scent from the diffuser, and the materials are softer and more welcoming, and there's more nature, and there's more airflow. And so all of these things will lead to you feeling more relaxed and feeling calmer and having a better experience and wanting to stay longer as well. Yes, you don't want to leave, do you? No, no, just I want to sit on that couch and just stay there all day.

SPEAKER_01 55:11

Yeah, I just want to stay here, or even when you want you go to a resort. Yes, yeah, and it's the same.

SPEAKER_00 55:18

Yeah, airports, hotels, shopping centers all use Feng Shui to get people to stay there longer and spend more money and have a more enjoyable experience.

SPEAKER_01 55:29

Yeah, I actually recorded a podcast on that the other day, explaining some spaces who are that are designed to get you in and out, like Audi supermarket. They just want you to get in and out. Yeah. Everything is very overstimulating. Yes. They don't design to the nervous system.

SPEAKER_00 55:50

No, I actually have to ignore the whole middle section of Audi. If I'm going to Audi, I just have to stick to the outer areas because I can't go in because I'm just like, oh my goodness, there's just too much going on.

SPEAKER_01 56:00

Yeah, yeah, it's very over-stimulating. Yeah. And then compare that um to people won't understand as much as us, but the Pajodina food land that's designed for people to stay. So that's how I explain it on that. And that's that's when you this space is designed to overstimulate your nervous system, or the space is designed to calm your nervous system. And then it's like you said, they use all the senses, not just visual senses, but they use everything. Um, the smells, the textures, the fresh air, and then you just completely relax on that space. And I wish every people, everyone had the right to have a house like that. That's all I wanted people to do, you know.

SPEAKER_00 56:49

Yeah, I completely agree with you there.

SPEAKER_01 56:51

I just want to close. Um, and it's been a great conversation. I'm so grateful for this. I'm so excited. But I just wanna ask you because you talked a lot about the firehouse, yes, and how this year it's a last year. So tell us all about it and explain us what's happening and why people need to pay a bit more attention for the today's spaces. Yes, how their spaces will support them this year.

SPEAKER_00 57:21

Yeah, absolutely. So in Feng Shui, we have different cycles, so we have annual cycles that we move through. So last year, up until the 16th of February, so just a few weeks ago, we were in the year of the wood snake. So this was a year that was quite slow. So it was ruled by the wood element, which is all about transformation. It was the snake, so all about shedding. So a lot of people, you know, let go of a lot of stuff, did a lot of shedding, but it was sort of a slow and reflective year. But we've just moved into the year of the fire horse, so uh that was from the 2nd of February. So we've got fire, which is intense and energy, right? And then we've got the horse, which is like momentum, speed. So it is a year where a lot of things are going to be happening, and we've already seen on the global stage things are moving faster, like things are just happening. And it is something that we will continue to see because we do have that intensity and we do have that momentum. So if you know, people listening are like, I want to have a big year, I want to be doing making moves in my business, in my career, in different parts of my life, this is a great year to do it, but you need to make the moves. So the fire horse won't move you. Like, you need to take aligned action and then you can ride the momentum of the energetics of this year. So I would really encourage people to think about, you know, what you want to be doing, where you want to be going. It will move fast though. So the biggest tip for anyone and everyone I've been speaking to is be really present. Be really present because I like to liken it to, you know, we're driving down the freeway at 200 kilometers an hour. So we are going fast. So we want to have both hands on the wheel. We're not talking on the phone, we're not texting, we're not doing anything. You know, we've got two hands on the wheel, we're watching what is happening on the road. So if anything does come out or does change, we can respond to that situation. And that's what will happen this year. We're moving fast, as opportunities will come out of nowhere. So we just need to be really present so we can take that aligned action and we can make the most of the energies. But also, if people are like, oh my goodness, it's too much, I would say more than ever, we want to make sure that your home is supportive. So, you know, clear that kitchen bench top, like make sure that we've got that nice, beautiful space that our eyes can just rest on, or make yourself a cozy corner in your home, just so you do have that sanctuary, or even just, you know, turn the lights down, turn off your overhead lights and get some nice floor lamps. Just so when you're home, you can just relax a bit because things are just going to get more and more hectic this year from an external perspective. So we just want to make sure that we are nourishing ourselves and looking after ourselves.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:06

I love all those tips. I think they all align a lot with what we tell everyone here. Yeah. Um, especially area like Sin Corner. I think it's so important to have one. That space that you I know that it's impossible to keep the whole house tidy and organized all the time. So if you have that own space, one chair, one plant, little place that you can just take a cup of tea. Exactly. That will make a big difference in your life.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:36

Yeah, and it doesn't have to be a big space, just a little, yeah, just your own little pocket.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:40

Yes, that's amazing. And Steph, tell us where can we find you?

SPEAKER_00 1:00:46

Yeah, so you can find me on Instagram at nine lemonsfengsui. So nine spelt out as the number, N-I-N-E. Also, you can find me over at a website www.ninelemonsfengshui.com. But Instagram is where I hang out a lot of the time, and I've got lots of tips and tricks and things that I share. But if you do, if you do want a few freebies, I've got some great like map how to map your home to the nine different areas that are available on my website and can get you started.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:16

Oh, that's amazing. I'm going to put all your links on the show notes. Thank you. So they can find you very easy. I'm so grateful for our conversation.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:26

Welcome. You're so welcome. Thank you so much for having me on your beautiful podcast. I think what you're doing, and you know, the awareness that you're raising of this is so, so important. So it's been a real pleasure to be on your body.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:40

I'm so grateful for you to say that because yes, I we need more people talking about spaces. There are so many areas of life that's important and the environment. We work, we live. It's really, really important. So your job, your passion, because I see it's extremely passionate, and my passion, yeah, it just needs more people doing it and helping people to get their spaces in a space that can support their bodies and their mindset.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:14

Yes, yeah, I agree, agree.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:17

Thank you. Thank you.