Easing Your Holidays

It’s the holidays again! Time for getting together with family, enjoying the season, winding down from a busy year and taking time to reflect on one’s blessings. Right?

But the holidays can be an extremely stressful time fraught with big emotions, financial worries, and many other things that make the period between thanksgiving and the New Year uncomfortable or downright sad for many. We are fed a litany of picture-perfect expectations through advertising, social media and social pressure. And to say self-care is important at this time can sound trite when the issues around the holidays demand more than what a facial or a bubble bath can offer.

So here are a few feng shui suggestions to potentially ease the bumps one might experience during the holidays.

Let’s start with family. Where there is tension, disagreements or anything that makes a family gathering uncomfortable, the first place to look is in the family gua. Check for clutter is always my first suggestion. Clutter can confuse, complicate and undermine even the best of intentions. Clearing the clutter offers a metaphorical opening for clearing pathways of communication, openness and clarity with regard to family relations.

Second, I’d suggest putting up some art. If there isn’t a picture of your family all looking happy and engaged, try art. The family gua is represented by the color green and the element of wood. Look for a picture of a lush forest or a piece of art made from wood. It offers the motif of growth, abundance and strength. If green isn’t your thing, try to support the wood element in this gua with art that features the water element where blues, and blacks and wavy styles are present.

Lastly, intention is key. Set an intention for calm and peaceful interaction. Write your intention down on a piece of paper and give it up to the universe or higher powers to help and then place that intention in your helpful people gua. That is one way to manifest easier interactions with one’s family or in-laws.

Good luck and may your holiday season be happy and peaceful!

Charmaine Buskas is a graduate of the Advanced Re-Nature Feng Shui program and started her feng shui studies at the Metropolitan Institute of Design in 2014. She worked previously as an economist for nearly 15 years in both the public and private sector.  She served on the IFSG Board of Directors from 2017 through 2023; as Board Treasurer for the last three years of her term.