Becoming The Feng Shui Lady ~ My Origin Story!

Hello & Welcome back to “Where Feng Shui Meets Fashion”! Podcast Episode 12.  A place for Home & Wardrobe Inspiration. My name is Laura and I’m a certified Feng Shui Practitioner, Curator and Stylist for you and your Space. New Episodes drop every Sunday Morning. Subscribe for weekly tips on mindful dressing and decorating! This hybrid Podcast & Newsletter originates on Substack where you can follow me for all the visuals, text and video. My stories about Feng Shui & Fashion are told in part through pictures and visuals in the body of my newsletters here on Substack. So if you’re listening on Spotify or ITunes, you can subscribe for free on Substack. For all my other content and services check out my Link-tree.

Long before I was a Feng Shui consultant, I had a fascination with the art of placement. I was drawn to Eastern practices from an early age. It started with Astrology, then Numerology and eventually Feng Shui. These were my interests and passions. I was intrigued with Feng Shui and had been reading about and informally studying it for many years prior to my formal training in it. I couldn’t fathom how one could make a career out of it, but I secretly longed to. I fastidiously experimented with my environment by using my home as a Feng Shui lab of sorts.

It wasn’t until I first moved to Los Angeles in 2007 and into the beautiful Spanish 1920’s building in West Hollywood pictured at the top of this story, that I had a life changing experience with Feng Shui. I hired a professional Feng Shui practitioner for the first time. Prior to this, I was just winging it with information I was getting from various books and contradicting sources. I realize now that many of my followers on YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, TikTok and Substack are going about Feng Shui the same way. I liken this to getting your medical information online without seeing an actual doctor. I totally get it and I did the same thing until I had a real Feng Shui emergency! You can certainly get helpful tips from videos, stories and books; but not an accurate examination or prognosis of your actual space. Feng Shui isn’t just the art of placement, it is actually one of the 5 branches of Chinese medicine. A real consultation is the only way to get a proper diagnosis.

I moved to LA for a job. It was a fully paid relocation from San Francisco to Los Angeles and it happened very quickly. I moved into an apartment sight unseen based on an impressive Craigslist post. Big Mistake!!! While the neighborhood was idyllic and the building exceptionally beautiful, the home itself had very challenging Feng Shui. You’re probably wondering how that is possible. Well here’s the thing, aesthetics are only one aspect of good Feng Shui. Your floor-plan is the biggest indicator of your homes narrative and energetic potential. The numerology also has a big influence and in the case of my first LA home, both factors were compromised.

My new home was in this gorgeous 1920’s Spanish building, however it was an L shaped space. The Career gua was completely missing as well as the Travel & Helpful People gua. Bear in mind, guas are individual energetic centers that represent different life themes in what is essentially an energetic map called the Bagua. The Bagua maps out 9 different guas or Life Themes in Feng Shui. All nine are equally important. The idea is to have all of these areas balanced and well appointed. Having a missing Career gua poses obvious problems… Having a missing Travel & Helpful People gua is just as important. It’s the gua of synchronicity and help from both mundane and divine sources. It’s also significant if traveling is your thing… In my first LA home, the Career and Travel & Helpful People guas where literally outside of the home.

BAGUA MAP

For some reason, I have consistently lived in homes where my Prosperity gua is in the bedroom and the Relationship gua in my living-room and work space. Perhaps this is part of my life’s lesson plan, to find harmony between love and career. The Bagua is arranged sort of like a tic-tac-toe board as seen above. Before, I became The Feng Shui Lady, I typically worked in outside sales jobs with a home office. The home office was inevitably in my Relationship gua. I didn’t know what a Feng Shui faux pas this was until I had a professional Feng Shui consultation. That said, the theme of work being my major relationship was certainly true for me and played itself out in all of my homes.

In addition to the 2 missing guas, the numerology of the place was a 4. This number represents death in Feng Shui or Chinese. I had an “uh, oh” moment when I realized all of the challenges my new home posed. Four is a grounding number in numerology, so it wasn’t all bad news. Symbolically, the four in Feng Shui doesn’t have to literally mean “death” but rather the end of a chapter or the completion of a certain way of life. It was still alarming to me. That home was like a Feng Shui worst case scenario. I would describe it as a Feng Shui emergency! Anything can be cured or at least balanced with Feng Shui, but these kinds of challenges where beyond my novice understanding of Feng Shui at the time.

I did a little research online and I found and hired Tess Whitehurst, a professional Essential Feng Shui consultant and author.  I was so excited when Tess came to my home. A real live Feng Shui consultant was in my house! She gave me an eye opening and life changing consultation. Tess made me feel extremely comfortable, almost like I was having therapy or house therapy. She recognized all of the deficits the home posed and offered creative solutions. Feng Shui is all about solutions and cures that balance the energy in your environment. She made all of these great suggestions and taught me a lot about Feng Shui in the process. Tess insisted that I move my desk and home of