Love, Relationships & Marriage: South-West

While writing this blog, Valentine's Days was just around the corner, so I was inspired to write about the Love, Relationship & Marriage area of the home.

In both Western and Classical Feng Shui, the Love and Relationships area of the home is dominated by the Earth element and supported by the Fire element and its cardinal direction is Southwest. Like any structure, whether it be a home, a business, or any form of inner or inter personal relationship, a strong foundation is essential to thrive in life and maintain stability.

Once we have built a solid foundation, the passion, inspiration and motivation of the fire element helps support Earth - as Fire produces soil. This relationship between Earth and Fire is a give- and-take partnership. Earth contains and stabilizes Fire, preventing the element from becoming wild and chaotic, while Fire gives birth to soil, preventing Earth from becoming stagnant and rigid.

The partnership between Earth and Fire, applies to our everyday life. Have you ever noticed in relationships where one person offers steady, practical guidance, while the other brings enthusiasm, inspiration, and a drive to explore new territoriy? For this dynamic to thrive, both energies must be respected and balanced - allowing creation, growth, and forward motion to unfold naturally.

Since our home symbolizes our family history, and lineage. It's the environment we rest, hold celebrations and create memories with loved ones, but it's also the environment we have our conflicts and disagreements. All these energies leave their imprint on the stability of our walls and hearts.

In Feng Shui, the Southwest direction - associated with Love, Relationships & Marriage - governs the matriarch of the household and core quality of partnerships of the home.

When we think of moms, or maternal influences, they shape the way we interact with warmth, openness, feeling love and support. She is the feminine power who provides nurturing, creativity, fertility and abundant energy. Sometimes, those roles become reversed, when mothers tend to operate from a place of aggression, control, an overly critical pessimistic attitude, or an absence of a mother figure creates a sense of an empty, or unstable foundations within ourselves.

We become conditioned and influenced by negativity and later experience fear of abandonment, self-worth, emotional safety - and sometimes difficulty in receiving warmth and closeness.

As we intentionally place items in the Southwest area of the home that reminds us of love, warmth, nurturing, and hope, we unconsciously begin to care for our inner child. Sometimes, this process can be challenging because we may encounter situations that bring up old wounds that we have suppressed or avoided. This stage requires us to be gentle with ourselves, as we begin our healing journey and from this, we gradually reach a stage in life where we can truly believe in love, accept love within ourselves, and feel safe receiving love from others.

Whether we take small, or big steps in curing our maternal wounds - we begin to slowly shift our inner and outer environment. You may wonder - does placing objects in a certain area or corner really change anything? Personally, I believe, the moment we shift and remove old items, and introduce pieces that bring life. It's the beginning of a space that doesn't just hold our things, but unconsciously supports our growth.

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Before: Southwest wall

The following image to the left shows a before capture of a Southwest wall. The space is dominated by the Metal element, with an overuse of white in the love and relationship area creates a cold, clinical and a lone-wolf energy.

The high floating shelf symbolically reflects that love is hard to reach - suggesting high standards, emotional distance, or unattainable connections

Before I learned the teachings and lifestyle of Feng Shui, white and grey tones dominated modern homes for several years. Today, white and grey still remain a popular colour choices in homes - as white provides a clean and organized atmosphere; however, we need to be mindful where and how we use white in our space.

In the before image of the Southwest wall, we see a bare wall, as we implement Feng Shui principles to this area, we begin to shift our mentality. Keep in mind, it takes time to shift from one mentality to another, especially, if we've been conditioned for many years to feel comfortable in a particular way of thinking.

During my "white wall" era, my long term relationship hit a quiet fork in the road. Even though, our relationship was once loving, it slowly turned into an isolated and bare as those "white walls." So the gruelling thought appeared, "Do we continue as we are, or do we decide and go our separate ways?" Staying as we are, only created stagnant energy, or leave and face the inevitable heartbreak. We often stay because we fear the pain of the end, but eventually the heart speaks louder than fear. Choosing what's best for us, is the only way we break the stagnation.

Healing took a long time for me, but in that moment, I slowly started to focus on things I enjoyed and started to build myself. However, for a while, I found myself stuck in a loop, attracting the same situations over and over again, like a merry-go-round, because I haven't let go of the person I use to be. I realized I've become nostalgic and resisted my own personal change. I finally realized, the "good old days" were actual anchors keeping me from the present. So I started small, I began removing items that tied me to that old identity. I had to clear that old physical space before I could hope to emerge as a butterfly and trust in a new version of myself.

During my healing journey, I chose an off- white wall colour: Featherdown by Benjamin Moore, this shade works well for Northwest facing rooms - it's neither too yellow nor too grey, but still bringing that grounded Earth element to the space. Secondly, I added items that symbolize love in pairs, and I painted two canvases in soft pink tones, introducing the Fire element to the space.

After a couple of weeks implementing and experimenting with Feng Shui principles - the shift in the energy has been more grounding for me. My space is still a work in progress, as more purging and decluttering is involved to remove old items. Again, I am not expecting for things to radically change my life; which could result to an intense and overwhelming experience, but slowly planting the seed to watch a beautiful new chapter unfold organically and gracefully.

In conclusion, changing our environment, while being mindful of our spatial composition can inspire us to bring positive changes to our inner and outer relationships in our life. This concept emphasizes the profound impact that our surroundings have on our emotional and psychological well-being.