021: Manifesting happiness through Feng Shui

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Hello everyone. Hello everyone, welcome to another episode of Canny Crystals, the podcast. My name is Mart, and I am super happy to have you here listening to me ramble on yet again. How are you all? What have you all been up to this week? I don't know if you remember me talking last week about the crystal workshop I'm putting on in March in Newcastle. Well, I announced it last week, and by the time the bloody podcast episode went out the next day, all the places had sold out. So I do apologize. How fucking mad is that though? Sorry for swearing so early into the show as well. But don't worry if you didn't manage to get a ticket, it's definitely, definitely, definitely something that I'll be doing more of in the future. And hopefully, fingers crossed, maybe even digitally online in a workshop made available to everyone through my website. This is all super exciting, isn't it? Canny Crystals is going big places. I don't know if you've also seen on my website as well, but my subliminal affirmation downloads are available now, and I'm I'm so buzzing about these as well because I made them all myself. And I know we've spoken about subliminal affirmations in a previous episode, so I won't bang on about them like too much. But for those of you that are new here, you basically listen to subliminals while you're cracking on with like housework, cleaning, sleeping, cooking. You just download it, you pop your headphones in, you're good to go. I put mine on most nights, like lying in bed. And just like helps us get off to sleep because it's like waves crashing or water trickling, things like that. But there's like people talking over the top of it, but you can just say, hear it, it's just enough for your subconscious to like pick it up. So yeah, it's really weird, just, it's just very faint in the background, but it's reading out affirmations that your subconscious picks up on. So there are 9 to choose from on my website, and they're all in areas like, you know, attracting your soulmate amplifying your success, boosting your wealth and abundance, raising your self-esteem. You get the drift. They're only £3 as well, so feel free, go have a gander. Canicrystals.uk, you know where it is by now. Click on the downloadable content section on the main menu and go check them out for yourself. And also, before we get into this episode properly— don't worry, we are getting there— just to let you know that as of this morning My well-being journals are now live on my website. Head to candycrystals.co.uk if you haven't seen them already. Um, click on the journal section. Oh my God, they are so lush. I love them so much. I know I'm quite biased as well because I designed them. Uh, but yeah, they're just so nice. I love the feel of them. I love how they've turned out. And they're specifically designed to assist with your mental health as well. It's basically a 12-week exploration workbook, and it's got daily prompts in it to lift your mood and get you out of that slump that you might be in. And some of the contents include, like, reflective exercises. How did you get on with your day? How did you get on with your week? That kind of thing. And what, what are you worried about most? Like, things to reflect on just to help you see everything and shine a light on everything, both the good and the bad. And then it'll just help you see how you react to each situation. At the end of each week, there's also a different, uh, additional exercise, and that'll help you to build your emotional resilience and physical well-being. And it also includes sections on things that you can do to help, like, I don't know, crystals for self-care, mindfulness, and other well-being techniques. So go check them out, let us know what you think of them. I'm really proud of them, but let me know, drop me a DM, drop me a message, let us know. Um, manifestation journals are on their way next.

Woop woop!

So yeah, all this is so weird as well because I don't know if you remember, back in January I did a full moon workshop, back like, I think it was the second week in January, and we set our goals. And when I wrote down 15 things that I wanted to achieve in 2022, most of them were things like, you know, finish the design of my journals, launch my journals, create a crystal workshop that I can deliver to people, create downloadable content like meditations and subliminal affirmations. And the weird bit is, out of those 15 things that I wanted to achieve in this entire year, like 2022, I've already achieved 9 of them. That's about 60% of my year's goals completed within the first 6 weeks. That's absolutely mental to me. I honestly think that I just, I don't know, I think I ruminate too much, and what's the word when you overthink things and you should just crack on with it? Procrastinate— procrastinate? I can't even say that. Procrastinate. I think it's procrastinate. I think I procrastinate about how long things will take me and how much effort it's going to be, instead of just taking the inspired action that I've taken the last few weeks to just crack on with it. So just last week as well, I received a proposal for social media management of Canny Crystals and maybe a little upgrade of my website. And in this proposal, they pointed out all these bits that I just basically hadn't had time to do. You know, I'm working bloody 2 full-time jobs here at the minute and trying to run a household and trying to lose weight at the gym and trying to walk my dog and trying to spend time with family and friends. Do you know what I mean? Yeah, yeah. Um, but it was just things that I hadn't had time to do, like set up a newsletter. You know, something so simple, set up a newsletter. How long would it take? In my head, probably weeks. Okay, personalize the checkout page on my website. How long in my head did that take? Oh, it's weeks. It's weeks and weeks, that. Just little things that I put off because I just thought I don't have time to fart, let alone do any of that. So anyway, as I went through this proposal and I saw the amount of something ridiculous like £750 a month— yes, not just one-off payment, per month— I thought, okay, Saturday night, I have no plans. I got my iPad out, I went through my list of to-dos for the website, wrote them all down, and no joke, within 2 hours I'd sent out my first newsletter to previous customers. I'd put this off for almost a year because I thought it was going to take us forever, and within 2 hours I taught myself what to do, wrote and designed an email template, wrote the content, and I sent it out. And then what did I do again? I sent it out on Valentine's Day, giving everyone a Valentine's Day 20% off coupon. And what happened next? Sales started coming in through the website from that discount code that I'd sent out. So by me just taking that inspired action and, you know, stop procrastinating over stuff, it actually brought in some income for me. So I'm feeling very pumped and raring to go, as you can probably hear. I'm high as a kite today, and I know that now I just need to stop overthinking everything and crack on with it. You know, just start moving those chess pieces around. And for anyone wanting to sign up to the newsletter, by the way, you can do so at the bottom of the homepage, cannycrystals.co.uk. Scroll right the way to the bottom, there's a little box there and it says join the Crystal Clan. Just whack your email address in, you'll get a newsletter every now and again with discount codes, you'll get an update on new products as well as exclusives, things like that. But anyway, we're 7 and a half minutes and I'm going to stop rambling now because onwards with the show. What have we got to talk about today? So so it's not all just every week rambling about me. I do apologize, soz. I'm just high on life at the minute. So this week anyway, I wanted to talk about feng shui, or feng shui, whichever you want to pronounce it. I know I touched on it briefly last week, and I've talked about it a few episodes ago, but I've been reading this really good book about it for the last few weeks, and I am bloody obsessed. So for those of you that don't know, Feng Shui. Feng Shui. Should I say Feng Shui? Most people call it Feng Shui, but it's Feng Shui. Anyway, it literally translates as wind water. Ironically, two things in life that constantly flow. Yeah, wind flows, water flows, and Feng Shui is all about energy. So we all know that we attract energy, that energy is magnetic, that every single thing in this universe is made up of energy. So what if maybe rejuvenating your life was as simple as, I don't know, moving a few things around in your bedroom? According to Feng Shui, it is, okay? So the whole principle is just based around basically the idea that your living space reflects your life, and Feng Shui strives to achieve a balance in both. So basically, people that actively practice it say that all objects possess an energy, and this energy is called chi. So C-H-I, chi, chi chi, and then you can use this chi basically to bring luck and wealth and opportunities into your home. So I thought it would be a good idea to go through a few feng shui tips that we can all do in our homes and just see if there's any changes in our luck and wealth. Yeah, why not? I don't know about you, but I'm always willing to try new things like this. My partner thinks I'm absolutely crackers. Like, one week it'll be feng shui, the next it'll be crystals, the next I'll be going around saging the house. He just shakes his head and like walks on. Anyway, I know I previously spoke about the Feng Shui Bagua, but that's what I'm going to talk about today. So the Bagua, B-A-G-U-A, is basically a kind of a floor plan of your home, and it's split into 9 quadrants. So if you can imagine a big square, um, split up into 3 by 3, kind of like a Sudoku board but without the numbers. Um, and each quadrant basically is your home. So you look at it from your front door, basically inwards, and that pertains to a different part of your life. So for example, the back left of your home, so the top left square, the back left is your wealth corner. Okay. So the front entrance will be number 8 at the bottom, the middle of the bottom. And that's to do with your career, you know, etc., etc. So just Google the words Feng Shui Bagua. Like I say, Bagua is spelled B-A-G-U-A, and you'll see what I mean. It's basically an energy map of your house. So people that practice feng shui daily say that if your entrance or your hallway is all messy and clogged up with shit everywhere, your career is also going to feel that way. And it's so true as well because I'll go into this in a bit more detail later on, but when we first moved into our house, we're on a new build estate, so it was like a bloody building site outside of our house, as you can imagine. And the roads and the paths just hadn't been tarmacked yet. You know, it was just all dusty everywhere. It was absolutely minging. Because we basically had just moved in, there were boxes in the hallway where we had just dumped stuff ready to be unpacked. We'd bought light fixtures for every single light fitting other than the ones in the hallway. To be honest, the entrance to our new house was just a dumping ground slash shithole. Looking back, this was the exact same time when I was having all that bother with that guy at work that I've spoken about in a few episodes, the Negative Nancy. So when I started looking into Feng Shui and reading about it, things all just started to make sense to me. So one of the very first things I did in Feng Shui, and apologies because I know I've spoke about this in the past episode, is that I spruced up my entrance hallway. I bought myself a console table. I put a jade plant on it for abundance and wealth. I put a few protective crystals around a huge black obsidian tower just to stop all negative energy from entering me house in the first place. And then I put up a mirror to reflect the light and bring joy into the space. I got some really expensive light fittings. I jazzed the fuck out of that entranceway, okay? I put plants outside. I changed the stones leading to our front door so they didn't look the same as all the other houses on the estate. And you'd better believe that I'm outside on a weekly basis washing the door down, cleaning the windows, washing the letterbox, anything I can do to make that entrance to my home immaculate. And guess what? I don't have career problems anymore. Well, other than the fact I probably need to leave the NHS to do this full-time, but that's a nice problem to have, do you know what I mean? So all of my career problems kind of subsided when I cleared the shit out of my entrance. So let's take a look at some of the things that you can do around your home to let that chi flow and bring you some bloody good luck and abundance. So like I said, the first is to, I'd say, open the front door. And I know this might sound weird, or it might even just seem like, well, duh, Mart, I do that every day. But energy flows through the front door. An open and inviting pathway for it to travel in allows that positive energy to flow into your home. Think about it, like, if you had energy just sat in your house, it can stagnate, it can go stale, because basically if the entrance is closed off, that energy is just sat around in your house. Does that kind of make sense? So if you think about, like, if you want opportunities and new experience to come your way, the best thing to do according to Feng Shui is to place a red flowering plant outside of your door or to put some red accent colors on or around your front door. Red attracts energy, it attracts fortune and good luck. And my mom always does this at Christmas as well, but I just thought it was her being a Christmas nut job. She always puts them plants out. What are they called? Them, um, what they call them Christmas plants, the bright red poinsettias or something, the flower red. Anyway, clear your front entrance, your porch, pop a nice mat down, make it welcoming, make that energy want to strut its stuff up your path and into your house. And if you think about like in the summer, for example, I open my kitchen window and then I might open the top floor bedroom, and that allows the, like, I want to say wind, but it's just air, the air to, like, circulate through the house. And that's inviting that positive energy in, because if I didn't do that, the house would be all stuffy and sweaty, and it gets really hot, you know what I mean, like when the weather's warm. So when you open those windows, it's not only cooling the place down, it's also inviting that fresh nice energy back into your house. Okay, so try that.

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Maybe not try it at the minute when we're going through like 100-mile-an-hour winds with Storm Eunice or Edna or whatever it's called. But yeah, try it sometime when it's a bit warmer maybe. And then the next step in Feng Shui is to clear your clutter. In past episodes, I've spoke about watching things like, you know, Marie Kondo, tidying up, or that other show, what was it called, Minimalism. And I've even done an episode on decluttering to make room for the universe to give you more. So it's no surprise that in Feng Shui, they live by this principle too. And a cluttered house equals a cluttered mind. And even worse, clutter literally sucks up the energy in a space. So you might think that you're hiding your clutter by, I don't know, shoving it in your wardrobes or your drawers, but they still have just as much of an effect on energy flow as anything else in your house. If there's clutter somewhere in your home, even if it's tucked away in an attic, then it's also clutter in your head as well as the rest of your body. The next step after this is to seek balance. So you need to make sure basically that you have something representing the 5 elements of wood, earth, metal, fire, and water in every single room. I know you're probably thinking, Mart, are you on acid? I haven't got time for this shit. But the goal here is to stay grounded, to stay centered, and to get balance in your life and in your home environment. For instance, you could place a wooden bowl filled with stones and pebbles alongside a candle and a vase of water with flowers on it. Just something simple like that. You've incorporated all 5 of those elements. Or if you can't do that, you could even just try and incorporate colors that symbolize the 5 elements. So, for example, they use black for water, green for wood, red for fire, yellow or brown for earth, and I think it's white for metal, white or silver. And yeah, just try and incorporate some colors instead. The next step is to bring the outdoors inside, and this was one of the steps that I absolutely loved because I had no problem with this whatsoever. My partner, he thinks I'm a nutjob because I'm always bringing plants in, but I have at least one plant in every room. And my little nephew Cody, he recently stayed over. He's just gone 7, and he was having a nosy around the house, and just before he went to bed he literally looked at me so confused and went, "Why do you have so many plants everywhere? It's like a jungle in here. They're in every single room, even in the bathroom." And I mean, I tried to explain to him, but obviously he doesn't care. He's 7. If it's not Minecraft, Fortnite, or chocolate, he isn't interested. But nature creates a sense of peace. And in fact, I think research shows that viewing nature reduces anger and anxiety and it also enhances those feelings of pleasure. And we know this from things like, you know, mindful walking. When you're feeling anxious or angry, you take yourself out into nature for a walk. It does you the world of good. You go out for a breath of fresh air. Live plants have their own chi, and they draw chi into them. So the next best thing, if you don't like real plants or you can't keep them very well— and I'm included in this category, I tend to have to replace them all the time because They just die when I forget to feed them. Oops. But the next best thing is to showcase maybe some high-quality silk plants and flowers, not the plastic ones, but, you know, synthetic flowers. And I'd say the best places around the house for plants are in the kitchen. So if you put them between hot and cold appliances, it creates a balance. In the dining room, you can put them in there to draw abundance, and in the family room and the living room to promote health. And life and connections. So try and flood your home with natural light as well. Open those windows, open those doors, open those blinds, open those curtains. Let the fresh air inside. Bring the plants indoors. You could even decorate things with bamboo, wood, or wicker, or use like outdoorsy style things, you know, indoors, like stones or rocks, just to add texture to the tops of plant pots. You can even just dress the walls with paintings of nature if you really wanted to, like floral or jungle wallpaper, even anything that brings the outdoors in. Another thing they tell you when you're doing Feng Shui is to utilize mirrors wisely. So like I said, we put a huge one in our hallway because we have an eastern-facing house. So first thing in the morning, the sun belts its way onto the front of our house, and I thought maybe having a mirror placed on the wall where you first come in it would reflect, and it does. It reflects such a lush golden color all the way up the stairs first thing on a morning. And just think about it, mirrors reflect energy, so position them in places where you want to increase that energy flow. Also, make sure that your mirrors reflect something beautiful, because the last thing you want your mirrors to reflect is something low energy or negative, you know, like the kitchen bin or something like that. And then finally, think twice as well before adding mirrors to your bedroom. So we had mirrors in our bedroom, don't get us wrong, but they can supercharge and energize the room, which, though it might be great for like hot sex, lol, it's not so great for getting to sleep in a room with such a high energetic output. Okay, so we had a huge ornate mirror in our bedroom, one of those, you know, that you don't hang on the wall, you just lean it against it. Very tacky, very Hun House, very me. But we had one of those in our bedroom, and it's now at the top of our landing for that exact reason, because we were finding it hard to get to sleep. As soon as I've moved this mirror out of our bedroom, it's true, we've got to sleep really, really easily lately. So they also say in feng shui, to stop your chi from escaping. So you can't benefit from the positive energies or opportunities that flow through your front door if they're basically zipping through your house straight out the back door. If you open the front door and there's a direct line down your hallway straight out the back door or a window, that's basically runaway chi. You want your chi to run in a kind of meandering pattern around your house, like I say. So open up like the top bathroom window. You want it to deposit its good energy throughout your home, okay? So open that front door, open your bathroom window upstairs, then it has to fly around your house to get back out. You can stop runaway chi by also placing furniture or some other decorative object in or near its path. And it's said as well, I don't know how much truth there is in this, but I also read that if you use rugs, it obstructs the energy flow. It must just be a difference in texture on the floor or something. Anyway, but then it says that you're supposed to make your bedroom, your bedroom, your bedroom restful. So there are two things we as humans use the bedroom for: sleeping and mm-hmm, mm-hmm, mm-hmm. And the bedroom is one of the most important rooms in the house according to Feng Shui. So if you think about it, it's where we seek restoration and balance and peace, but it's also the place of our dreams. So in Feng Shui, the items that you place between your mattress have an energetic association with your intentions. So yes, you can make money or find true love in your sleep. Obviously, I think this is normal to say, but use sensual fabrics and fluffy pillows, and that'll help promote relaxation more. And whatever you do, don't store things under your bed. Now, I'm bad for this. Even though it's all neat and tidy, we keep our suitcases under the bed with a few boxes, you know, just like of like technology things like my iPad and stuff like that. And like I say, it's not clutter, It's nicely stored, but in Feng Shui, underneath the bed needs to be kept clear for energy to flow under it. Objects under the bed can be too energizing as well for a restful sleep, basically. Another tip in Feng Shui— how many fucking times have I said Feng Shui in this episode, by the way? Answers on a postcard. Someone go back through and count them and let us know.

Lol.

Anyway, another tip is to place family photos around your house. But not in the bedroom. So family pictures don't belong in the bedroom. It's the most intimate room in the house. It should only be reserved for you and your partner. So any pictures of any children or relatives or friends, it might cause you to think about your obligations in life, and that doesn't allow the mind or the body to rest. So keep only pictures of you and your partner in the bedroom, or if you're like me, pictures of Zac Efron under the bed, and put any other pictures like, you know, in the dining or the living rooms. And one of the last things to mention in terms of Feng Shui as well is to light up your house and light up your life. So bright lights rev up that energy. If you're trying to keep your energy costs down like half the rest of the nation at the UK at the moment because of that bloody price hike, then you can always place like high wattage bulbs in the hallways and then lower wattage bulbs in the rest of the house, okay? Hallways represent the meridians of your body. The brighter the wattage, the more clean and clear your veins and arteries are. If you want to light up internally, place objects around your house that emit those positive emotions and lift your own personal chi. If a particular item makes you feel giddy, put it in a place where it's easy to see. For me, that's crystals all over. You should see my house. They just make me so happy. I love to look at them. I'm obsessed with collecting them. So I have them dotted all over the house, and everywhere I look, I'm filled with joy and happiness. That's all it comes down to. So yeah, let's leave it there. There's a lot more to Feng Shui than just them little bits that I've rambled through, but like I say, if you really want to arrange your house according to Feng Shui, Google the Feng Shui Bagua. Look at which areas of your house coordinate with which areas of your everyday life. I bet you'll be weirdly surprised. So if you're having relationship problems, Check out your relationship corner. Check out what part of the house that is. Is it neat and tidy? Would chi be able to flow, or is there just a load of clutter in that area of the house? Okay, every house has a shit cupboard. Mine is underneath my staircase, which is the middle left of the bagua on the energy map, and that represents health. So that might have something to do with why I'm always suffering with colds and throat infections and earaches. So I know fine well what I'll be doing this weekend. Johnny's away to Northern Ireland, so I'm gonna get me marigolds on and clean that bloody cupboard out. Every time he goes away, he comes back and it's like a totally different house. I've rearranged furniture and all sorts. But yeah, anyway, I hope you enjoyed this episode. I'm full of useless shit, Anna, but it's nice useless shit. You lot are always so vocal about what you like and what you don't on these podcasts as well, and it's always nice to hear that you all love to learn about new things like this. So I'm happy to be of assistance and help you all learn. So yeah, drop me a message with what you want next week's episode to be about. Don't forget as well, you can drop me a review. It takes seconds for you to do. Please, please, please, I beg you. Even just a rating. Yeah, it takes less than 30 seconds to do on Spotify or Apple Podcasts, but it really does help me out. It pushes my podcast up the charts and it lets me be seen by others who are constantly, constantly finding us. And it's all because of you lot, the originals, the ones that have been here from day one. And I am truly, truly thankful and grateful for all that you do. So if you do want to drop me a message, you can contact me on TikTok, on Instagram. Both handles are @canny_crystals. All links are in the show notes below as well. Thank you so, so much for joining me once again. Sorry for banging on and rambling on as per usual. Have a gorgeous week and I'll see you all all again next Friday. Thanks guys, have a lovely week. Bye!

You want to get your backyard summer ready, but you don't want to break the bank? Wayfair gets it. Planning on dining alfresco or relaxing poolside? Wayfair has everything you need to prep your space. Shop now and save up to 70% off during Wayfair's Fourth of July clearance. Score huge deals on outdoor furniture, area rugs, and more. We're talking thousands of products for every style and budget. Plus, surprise flash deals July 6th. Don't wait. Shop Wayfair's Fourth of July clearance now through July 6th at wayfair.com.

Wayfair, every style, every home.

Do you keep hearing podcast ads like this one, for example, but always wonder how you actually get involved with them for your own brand or organization? Well, It's easier than you think. We're Acast, and we give you the platform to do it all yourself. Browse thousands of popular podcasts, choose the shows that match your perfect audience, set your budget, and launch. And if you want a hand, our podcast specialists are there to help you launch with confidence. This is podcast advertising without barriers. Get started at acast.com/advertise.