Episode 56 How to use Feng Shui for your Counseling Office with Susannah Alle

Which Feng Shui principles can therapists use in arranging their office space for good energy? Do you have overstuffed bookshelves, drawers, or closets in your office? How can you create a healthy energetic flow within your office?

MEET SUSANNAH ALLE

Susannah Alle is a certified feng shui consultant and the owner of Healing Homes Feng Shui. When Susannah first found out about feng shui in the 1990s, she was immediately hooked. She found it enlightening to see how our environments impact our lives and vice versa. Once she began to make feng shui adjustments in her home and saw how it improved her life, there was no going back.

Susannah began her formal feng shui training by studying the traditional methods of classical feng shui. After becoming certified, she began to explore the more spiritual approach of BTB (western) feng shui. She uses tools from both disciplines but takes a more modern, contemporary approach to her consultations.

Visit the Healing Homes Feng Shui website and connect with them on Instagram.

Email them at: [email protected]

IN THIS PODCAST:

• Laying out your therapy office - 05:29
• Bringing nature into your office space - 10:13
• Elements in Feng Shui - 12:32
• Avoid clutter - 18:45

Laying out your therapy office

Desk placement: have your back in front of a solid wall with a clear view of the door in the distance.

The reason for this is if you have your desk facing the wall and your back to the room, it feels uncomfortable … there's no view, there's no vision. (Susannah Alle)

Avoid having your desk facing the wall with nothing to look at in front of you.

Have a clear view of the door to have control of the room, your back to the solid wall behind you, and open space in front of you to feel stabilized and inspired.

If you cannot change your desk, consider:

• getting a desk chair that has a back to it
• putting something shiny or a small mirror on your desk to see the door without having to turn
• putting a picture on the wall behind you that has a depth of field to it, like open fields or the ocean.

Couch placement: make sure that the client can also see the door from where they sit on the couch.

Coffee table: consider a round coffee table for a gentler energy flow, and avoid sharp corners.

Bringing nature into your office space

Always try to have a plant – a real one if you can – in your office space.

In Feng Shui, when we want to add [wood] energy to a room, we use … things that represent that element. (Susannah Alle)

A plant brings an important refreshing, vital, and calming energy to a room, and makes a noticeable difference.

Elements in Feng Shui

• Fire: it is expansive and actionable energy. Use Himalayan salt lamps.
• Earth: transitional and grounding energy, like spring. Use crystals, pottery, ceramics.
• Metal: the energy of autumn. Use metal objects.
• Water: quiet and soothing energy, like winter. Use a small fountain feature.

Avoid clutter

Having clutter around you, on your surfaces, in the bookshelves, on the tables, is both frustrating to look at, can create unnecessary stress, and creates stagnant energy.

You want to make sure you have a nice, even balance. Don't have anything that can also be stressful; you want to find that sweet spot. (Susannah Alle)

Do not chuck all the clutter into a drawer or stuff it into a closet because that energy will still be stuck.

Get the energy flowing and moving throughout your office by using what you need, having some small things around, and either giving away or throwing out old things that no longer bring value or a service to you.

Connect With Me

Download the Free guide: How to build confidence and competence bringing yoga into the therapy room

The Yoga in Therapy Collective —where therapists learn, grow, and get support with yoga-informed practices

Explore the Yoga Basics for Therapists course—designed to help you confidently and ethically integrate yoga into therapy

Yoga Basics: The Therapist's Guide to Integrating Trauma-Informed Yoga into Sessions

Instagram: @chris_mcdonald58

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