Color Confusion in Feng Shui

There's a lot of confusion and contradictions surrounding the use of color in feng shui. There's conflicting information on where and how to use specific colors and even how important colors and color placement really is to having good feng shui.

The scientific, cultural, and visual attributes of colors are sometimes in harmony but often in direct conflict. When using colors in feng shui, do you rely strictly on the yin or yang attributes or do you take into account cultural and psychological energies as well? Do you base your color choices on the type of room, where the room is located in the home, or the area of the bagua the room falls in? That depends on your own interpretation of feng shui or how closely you follow a specific feng shui school.

My purpose here is to help you (and me) understand why there is so much conflicting information out there on the use of colors in feng shui. From there, you'll have to decide for yourself which source you want to use and follow.

Yang and Yin

In traditional Chinese feng shui where all feng shui has its roots, the color spectrum ranges from the yang (active energy) shades of red to yellow to the yin (passive energy) colors from green to violet.

Warm and Cool

Western color groupings of warm (red, pink, yellow, gold, orange shades) and cool (blue, green, turquoise shades) correspond roughly to the yang and yin color groups. Some colors, such as purple, have both warm and cool qualities and while traditionally considered yin it is often found used interchangeably with yang colors of red and orange in some feng shui literature. Warm colors are deemed active and stimulating while cool colors are calming.

Color Wheels and Color Perception

Differences in eyesight (including color blindness) and even the time of day can cause colors to look quite different from one person to the next, from one day to the next. When using adjacent colors on the color wheel, the colors can appear washed out if they are too close in value. Complementary or contrasting colors -- those separated by another color on the color wheel (such as red and green) can appear to visually vibrate when placed side-by-side while colors that are opposite each other on the color wheel provide great contrast and high visibility in most cases.

Cultural Meanings

Wherever you live colors have certain cultural meanings. For example, in many Western cultures white denotes purity and marriage while it's the color of death and mourning in China and some other cultures. Color suggestions in some feng shui literature is strongly biased toward either Chinese or Western color traditions and cultural practices and superstitions.

Color Psychology

And then there is the psychology of color. In many situations pink has proven to be a calming color while red can raise blood pressure. Research has found that green can improve reading ability and orange can stimulate the appetite. Some feng shui resources incorporate color psychology when suggesting why and how to use specific colors.

Color Confusion

In some forms of feng shui crtain colors are often associated with specific elements, directions, and life areas and certain segments of the bagua. In my article Baguas by the Boatload you'll see some of the most common color associations. There is no agreement across all forms of feng shui (no big surprise). Part of the confusion has come from a blending of Chinese, Western, and other cultural color symbolism along with the yin and yang color associations and perhaps a dose of color psychology for good measure.

Feng Shui in the Bedroom -- A Cornucopia of Conflicting Colors

In these two selections, the colors used in the bedroom are dependent on the location of the room. The sources are similar but not identical.

• Bedroom in the North (or S, SE, SW, W, E, NE, NW). At traditional-fengshui.com an article suggests the use of black, all blues, white, silver, and gray in a bedroom in the North. It also says to avoid pinks, all red, orange, and terracotta. However, if the bedroom is in the South, that color scheme is reversed. In the same way, for bedrooms in the other directions the color choices are based roughly on the colors traditionally associated with those directions with some variations.

• Feng Shui Colors for the Bedroom. At fengshui-tips.blogspot.com bedroom colors are based on compass directions with a bedroom in the North benefitting from blues and black or white while suggesting some alternatives to using green in a bedroom that is Southeast or East. In general though the article suggests not overdoing bright colors and tells us that "Florescent colors are out of the question!"

The following articles don't necessarily suggest the same colors, but they do seem to base their color choices on ideas of femininity or the association of the bedroom with love and marriage sometimes with a mix of yin and yang colors.

• Feng Shui Bedroom. At targetwoman.com recommended bedroom colors are violets, lavenders, yellows, blues, whites, and grays. This same article says "Pink is a color that symbolizes love in Feng Shui" and suggests that it is OK to have a little bit of pink and red in the bedroom.

• How to Feng Shui Your Bedroom. At care2.com the only reference to color says "Pastel colors are ideal."

• Feng Shui and Bedroom Decoration. At ezinearticles.com Siang Kwang Foo has posted an article that recommends red and pink for decorating the bedroom because they are colors associated with the relationship area of the bagua. If pink is too feminine, then use "darker maroons and mauves."

These articles mostly downplay the use of specific colors, suggesting mostly neutral color palettes for the bedroom no matter where in your home it is located.

• How to Feng Shui Your Bedroom. Tip #5 from fengshui.about.com says "skin colors" (from pale white to rich chocolate brown) are the best bedroom colors.

• Feng Shui Bedroom Colors. At 168fengshui.com the recommendation is to use soft, neutral colors. Other colors are fine in small, accent doses.

• Feng Shui Bedroom Colors. At absolutelyfengshui.com color is downplayed while describing how some specific feng shui schools address color in the bedroom. The bottomline here is to play it safe with white, cream, or light pastels.

Edited to Add: And for a totally oddball but oddly related item... I'm currently immersed in the Nintendo Wii Game Animal Crossing: City Folk. Even in this odd (but oh so addicting) game where your neighbors are cats, cows, and owls and furniture falls out of trees there is a form of feng shui. I don't know where they got their color ideas but in the game good feng shui is achieved by placing yellow items in the west side of your house, red in the east, and green in the south. I guess anything goes in the north. Cute.

From my Desktop Publishing site: Color Meanings, Symbolism of Color and Colors That Go Together is a series of color profiles that describe some of the cultural symbolism and psychology for over a dozen different colors -- with an emphasis on the use of color in print projects.

So, how do you use color in feng shui?

Believing in Feng Shui

Can using feng shui principles really bring more health, wealth, and happiness into your life? Sure. If you believe it can, it certainly will. That seemingly flippant answer is really quite serious. Believe it or not, feng shui works. Believe it or not, gravity works. (Which is another way of saying, whether you believe in it or not, it's there doing its thing.) However, whether or not you can see it working for you depends a lot on your belief. Bear with me and I'll explain that in more concrete terms.

The Nature of Energy

Energy (chi) is a key part of feng shui. But we're not talking about the same kind of physical energy used to power the computer you're using to read this blog or the kind of physical energy you use to stand up, walk into the kitchen, and pour yourself a cup of coffee or other beverage. The energy in feng shui is more akin to thought energy, emotional energy. It's the feelings that prompt you to read this blog. It's the feelings that make you curious enough about feng shui to want to learn more. To want to try it. To want to believe that it can work.

The energy we learn about in school is more along the lines of heat energy (like the chemical reactions that occur in our Sun), motion energy (forces like gravity), and light energy (visible and invisible light waves). Even though we may not fully understand them, most people generally accept these conventional forms of energy as real. As fact.

Then, there's the energy of thoughts, feelings, and emotions. This type of energy is considered, by some, a little more metaphysical, spiritual, hocus pocus, or woo-woo. But there's a science behind it. Just perhaps not a science that most of us learn about in school. Perhaps one reason that feng shui is scoffed at by some is that it is all about this kind of energy. It is very much like (or the same as) the energy that is referred to in material on the Law of Attraction, Reality Creation, and the like -- another concept pooh-poohed by people who have no trouble believing in invisible things like gravity or microwaves.

Seeing is Believing?

One argument given by those (perhaps you?) who accept the conventional ideas about invisible energy over those invisible energy flows we talk about in feng shui is that you can see the results of that energy. You can see a candle burning. You can see that if you drop something it always falls down, not up. You can see the hole in the wall when you punch your fist through it.

Can you not see that you are unhealthy, poor, or unhappy? Even if you cover it up on the outside, you have plenty of evidence in your life that what you think about, what you feel is quite visible, tangible. Yes, yes. Plenty of unhappy people will say that the reason they feel unhappy is that there are bad "things" in their life. In this short discussion I'm probably not going to be able to convince anyone that they've got it backwards. The bad things you are seeing are a result of your bad thoughts (energy) which are reinforced by the bad things which bring more bad thoughts... that infamous viscious circle. Stick with this blog and your studies of feng shui and perhaps you'll start seeing what's right there in front of you a little more clearly.

Energy Flowing Through You, Around You

The Law of Attraction and similar concepts place a lot of emphasis on how we think and feel (the flow of our thoughts) in order to affect our physical reality. Feng shui places a lot of emphasis on how we physically arrange our environment in order to affect our feelings (the flow of energy). Really just two approaches to using the same kinds of energy.

Encyclocentral: Law of Attraction Quantum Physics Related to Energy - The law of attraction often uses quantum physics to explain how it works. Of course there's a lot of disgreement on how quantum physics works. But essentially this brief article tells us, "thoughts generate energy and this energy attracts like energy from the universe."

Feng Shui Crazy: Chi - Feng shui positive energy - This article begins by telling us, "Chi is an ancient Chinese concept which teaches that there is energy constantly flowing everywhere. This energy symbolizes life, health, prosperity and everything that is positive to us."

So if arranging your furniture in a certain way can attract more health, wealth, and happiness and if thinking and believing and feeling a certain way can attract more health, wealth, and happiness then imagine what doing both could do for you?

Long before I delved into the Law of Attraction (beyond reading the Norman Vincent Peale classic The Power of Positive Thinking back in high school) I always felt that the missing ingredient in many books on feng shui was an absence in explaining the importance and power of belief, positive thought, and good feelings. Too many books and articles just said "put this here" or "add this color there" to attract more good chi without explaining the thoughts, beliefs, and science behind those actions.

My beliefs, my way of doing feng shui combines both approaches to looking at thought energy. Arranging my thoughts and arranging my physical surroundings to maximize the flow of good, positive energy. What do you believe?

• CurryEgg's Spicy Lounge: Feng Shui, Should We Believe It? "As for me... I believe 60%."
• myLot: Do you believe Chinese "Feng shui"? "I can't say that my placing a chair a certain way or putting a lamp in this corner as opposed to that corner is going to enhance my life in any way, or my energy level."
• The Stalwart: Feng Shui and Investment Management Don't Mix "Should you trust someone in investment management who even believes in Feng Shui at all?"
• Weeno: Feng Shui - A mystical belief or a natural science? "Feng Shui is not based on any religion, mysticism, or superstition. Rather it is a mathematical science."

Living In Your Vision

Do you have a vision board or a creative box? These are common tools used by many to help visualize the things they want – their wants and dreams. Typically you put pictures cut from magazines, written affirmations, and drawings on the vision board. You may put objects into your creative box that symbolize health or wealth. Items that go on the vision board could be most anything – a fancy car, a big house, books, people you admire or want to meet.

Many life coaches and Law of Attraction enthusiasts recommend creating a "vision board." "What's a vision board?," you may ask. Vision boards are a type of blueprint for the kind of life you'd like to create for yourself -- a visual representation of what you'd like to include (and exclude) in your future. Creating a vision board helps you hone in on your goals and priorities, stay motivated for positive change, and perhaps even draw positive things into your life. -- Elizabeth Scott, M.S., How to Create a Vision Board for Stress Relief

Even if you don't think you have a vision board, you really do. Look around you. Look at what you surround yourself with in your home. Look at the pictures on the wall. Look at the colors of your furniture. What kind of vases, statues, stuffed animals, and other trinkets are on your shelves?

A vision board holds items that represent or symbolize what we want. Does your vision board – the creative box you live in – do the same thing? Is that lovely but sad woman on that poster above the bed who you want to be? Does that rickety old chair at the dining room table make you feel good, safe?

Feng shui is, in part, about using your home as a vision board. You may have read in some books about using statues of Chinese animals, gold coins, or pictures of a happy couple to energize the room and bring you wealth or romance. What some of these books leave out is that the items or symbols you place in your home should have meaning to you personally.

A golden toad may have great meaning in China, but if its symbolism isn't a part of your culture, your reality, then its another meaningless trinket gathering dust. A shiny, newly minted coin, a tiny bottle of gold dust, or a bookshelf full of books by Donald Trump may be a better symbol of wealth and success for some people.

You can interpret any given energy in numerous ways. For example, the energy of committed, devoted love in traditional Chinese feng shui is often depicted by the mandarin ducks. Do I recommend having mandarin ducks in your home as a feng shui cure for love? Well, if you love the ducks and they speak to you of devoted love, then yes, absolutely! However, if you look at them and think: "What on earth are these ducks doing in my home??", then you have to find a love symbol, or archetype, from the culture you grew up in. Rodika Tchi, Ancient Protection for Modern Home: Who's the Fu Dog?

Just as you don't have to have your vision board out on display all the time for it to work, you can also have hidden items around your home. That picture book on the shelf may contain a crisp $1 bill between its pages – one that you've drawn extra zeros on to symbolize the large amounts of money you envision flowing in your life.

Look at the vision board that is your home and see and feel what it says to you about where you want to be, about your dreams.