Self Directed
Free yourself so you and your family can live a self-directed life that resonates with your beliefs and aspirations.
Cecilie & Jesper Conrad, parents to 4, have been full-time traveling since 2018 & unschooling for +10 years. Every Thursday, they host insightful conversations with their expert guests, exploring topics such as Personal Freedom, Parenting, Unschooling, Traveling, Money, Personal Development, and what it means to live a self-directed life.
Tune in weekly for a refreshing dose of inspiration and practical wisdom. And witness the Conrads' unwavering commitment to living life on their own terms.
Self Directed
#61 Patricia Lohan | Fun with Feng Shui: A Path to Harmony and Empowerment for Self-Directed Living
Do you respect yourself and the places you spend time in? Jesper shares his own journey from skepticism to "Hey, that is cool." When Jesper first heard about feng shui, he thought it was a weird mumbo jumbo since he had learned to love it. It is a great way to use the energy in your house. For this episode, we have invited Feng Shui expert Patricia Lohan, and we will explore the fascinating world of Feng Shui. This ancient practice harmonizes living spaces to promote balance and energy flow.
Patricia shares her wisdom on infusing joy into decluttering and its impact on areas like wealth and well-being. Listen in as we uncover the philosophical roots of Feng Shui in Taoism and how these principles can lead to improved health, wealth, and harmony in modern living. Dive into the practical side of Feng Shui with us as we tackle the unique challenges of small living spaces and unconventional home layouts.
Patricia provides invaluable tips on incorporating the five elements to enhance the prosperity area of a home and manage invisible energies for a harmonious environment. She even addresses the skeptics (like Jesper), acknowledging their doubts while presenting a structured, empirical approach to Feng Shui that has converted many into believers after experiencing positive changes in their own lives.
Discover the power of creating a sacred space, whether you're living in a van or hopping between Airbnb locations, and how this practice can elevate your transient living experience.
If you want to learn more from Patricia, then you can find a wealth of resources, including her mini-course, 'Feng Shui 101,' her book 'A Happy Home,' and her podcast 'Powerhouse Feng Shui,' on her website. See the links below.
Tune in, get inspired, and let's start shaping a more harmonious future together.
Connect with Patricia Lohan
- https://patricialohan.com
- https://www.facebook.com/groups/powerhousefengshui
- https://www.instagram.com/powerhousefengshui/
- https://patricialohan.com/podcast-live-your-dreams-awake/
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00:00 - Jesper Conrad (Host)
Today we're together with Patricia Lohan and first of all, thank you for taking time to meet us. It's wonderful to have you here.
00:08 - Patricia Lohan (Guest)
Thank you so much. It's a pleasure and I'm excited to be here for our conversation.
00:14 - Jesper Conrad (Host)
We are going to talk about Feng Shui and, first off, did I pronounce it correctly. So many people say Feng Shui are different versions of him.
00:25 - Patricia Lohan (Guest)
How would you say how I say this, feng Shui. So I think you actually did a really good job. I've actually not too bothered about how people pronounce it, because I just want people implementing it. If I had my way, I would rename it to Feng Shui, because sometimes it has this notion of being like, oh, big ding in the heart and I'm like no, no, no, it can be fun and really rewarding. So, feng Shui.
00:53 - Jesper Conrad (Host)
Yeah. So the reason I found it could be actually fun to have this talk is I remember when Cecilia came home with a book by someone you probably know called Karen Kingston. She had written this book. What's the English title? Do you remember the English title, Patricia?
01:14 - Cecilie Conrad (Host)
Clear Out your Maze sir.
01:16 - Jesper Conrad (Host)
Clear your.
01:16 - Cecilie Conrad (Host)
Club. You know what?
01:17 - Jesper Conrad (Host)
Clear your Club. What's the?
01:18 - Patricia Lohan (Guest)
book that you bought. Clear your Club. This is my husband and he had that book Hello. So what was the book Karen Kingston. Not like good space.
01:30 - Cecilie Conrad (Host)
So we had it in Danish.
01:31 - Jesper Conrad (Host)
That's why I can't remember, I can't hear them. Yeah, clear your Club With Feng.
01:35 - Patricia Lohan (Guest)
Shui.
01:37 - Jesper Conrad (Host)
They changed your life for something yeah. This is Karen Kingston's book.
01:40 - Patricia Lohan (Guest)
Yeah, he had the same book.
01:43 - Cecilie Conrad (Host)
But you can't remember when I came back with it, because I had it before.
01:47 - Jesper Conrad (Host)
I actually had it before we made it. Yeah, you probably remember. But I found it one day on the shelf and I was like, ah, this is weird. And then I started reading a little in it and still found it a little weird. But I actually over time came to like it in the sense that back then I was more like a straight mind where it's like oh, I don't want to think about all these weird things and all this hippie all this energy thing.
02:14 - Cecilie Conrad (Host)
I'll interrupt you again.
02:15 - Jesper Conrad (Host)
Yeah.
02:16 - Cecilie Conrad (Host)
Because my Karen Kingston book was on the shelf right next to your the Energy of Money book oh yeah, OK so. So what's the question? Maybe you know with the other.
02:29 - Jesper Conrad (Host)
I'm going to ask you a question to tell the story first which is what I found very pleasant about reading through the book was that taking major cleanups or like spring cleaning in your house can be so boring. But if you do it in this framework of oh, now we are, instead of just fixing all the mess of the cables below our computer table, then it's the. I remember it was like the wealth area in our house. It makes it more fun to do it because it's positive, instead of looking at all the cables and being like it looks like a snake yard. I cannot do it, it's terrible. So that's my intro to it, and I would then, of course, bring it over to you and just let you start with try to explain what it is, not try, I'm pretty sure you can explain it, but can you explain it a little? What is Feng Shui?
03:33 - Patricia Lohan (Guest)
So I really like the when you move the Chinese characters into kind of like an English way of understanding. It means good health and good harvest. So Feng Shui means good health and good harvest and it's an ancient practice, so it's like over 5,000 years old and those sages spent eons looking to the stars without any technology and looking to nature to tune into the best place to put their home, that it would support them the most to have good health and good harvest. So your book was beside the energy of money, basically Feng Shui is about that. It's about the health and the wealth and the abundance and prosperity and it leans a lot sometimes to the abundance and prosperity, like the Chinese love using it for that. But actually how I have really come to love it so much is that it is very much connected to that traditional Chinese medicine and to the philosophy of the Tao, and Taoism is all about the flow and allowing life to flow. And when these houses were more modern houses are built now. They're not built in alignment with the Tao, they're just built in. They're built because we have this plot and we're just going to put this house here and this house here because it needs to be in align, because that's where the road is and it's not connected to a bigger sense of connection with nature. So when Feng Shui was kind of disseminated into OK, well, how do we then recreate that energy of nature and how everything works in balance and harmony? You know, you sit in your favorite place in nature, you're in talk about being with all the trees and the flowers, you just feel so good and you see how nature flows perfectly and you don't have to force it, you don't have to push it. It's the same with your house. When we work, and when I work with my clients in my programs, what we're doing is looking at the house from a very kind of and that's a very holistic viewpoint, that every part of your home represents a different part of your life, just like you touched on. But what we're doing is we want to bring in, we're bringing in the element that is going to harmonize that area so that there is balance and you're working that life is flowing through it as opposed to blocking it, because the houses have been built without that consciousness and now we're kind of bringing in that nature consciousness into the home and tapping it in. And what I have seen over the last, you know. So I got my first books about Fung Shui when I was 15 and I had, like you know, and I think we all, we all have like intuit, intuition and can have like intuitive gifts or whatever and I definitely was tapped into.
06:25
The house that my family had just bought and renovated and moved into was off. There was something very off with what was going on and you know, we were living in a small house, excuse me, we were living in a very small house and my parents' business was going really well and we moved into and they bought a new house in the best area and they renovated it. It was like out of a magazine, like renovated, like amazing, and it was a very prosperous house. So there was a lot of abundance, a lot of wealth and that which was great. But on the other side, things that had never happened so much illness, so much kind of drama, like legal issues and health issues that like hadn't been like, hadn't been anything like in our house before. So it's like what has happened? And the only thing that changed was our house and ironically, this house was perfect, aesthetically perfect, but on the inside of what was going on for the life was not. And so that was when I kind of found these books and heard about it. I didn't even know how like it must be in the afternoon TV show or something Like who knows how does a 15 year old in Ireland find out about Feng Shui? But I was just there's something. So I got the books and started doing it and then I actually got my parents to hire a Feng Shui consultant to come and like check the house. And yet, true, as it was not good for people, which then was representing all the things with the health and the money and all and the kind of drama, the legal stuff.
07:57
So when people ask me, how do you know if your house and my house is that Feng Shui, they often relate it to the aesthetic of the house. Like you know, oh, it's the way the decor is. You walk in and it's like magazine and it's beautiful. Like that's not good, that's not necessarily good Feng Shui.
08:16
I've worked a lot of useful interior designed houses that are not great Feng Shui and what it is. And when I, when I hear it, I say, well, tell me what's going on in your life, like how's your relationships, how's your health, how's your career, like how's your finances, you know. And then I'm able to say well, it's a mirror. You know your house, the energy of your house is a mirror to what's going on in your life. And if I listed those things and then I did an analysis of your house, I will like well, the reason for that is because the energy is like this or like this or like that, and then the nice thing is we can rebalance it, and that's what Feng Shui is to do. It's about bringing it back into harmony, because the houses are built not in harmony with nature like they would have been originally.
08:58 - Jesper Conrad (Host)
Ah, what do you say make me consider, when we are talking about energy and the flow and I'm thinking about well, wouldn't it then be best to have a more organic shaped house? Or? But basically, when people live in a house, they cannot really change the shape of the house. So what do you actually do to make the energy flow differently? Because the structure is the structure.
09:26 - Patricia Lohan (Guest)
Yeah, exactly. And actually that's a really great question because you just work with the structure that you have. So it's not about changing the physical structure, you're changing the energy of the house. And so you know, when we work with clients, you know some people you might have heard oh, the stairs in front of the front door is bad Feng Shui, and then you're like doomed, like you're not doomed, it's just one part of like a bigger piece of the jigsaw puzzle. It's not the best.
09:53
If I was designing a brand new house, I perp with the client. I'd be like now, well, let's put a curve to it or let's put it on an angle, but no one's gonna have. We don't have to do that with Feng Shui. And because it's exactly the same as acupuncture for your home, so acupuncture for your body, it's like the acupuncture will take the check you know the pulse and tune in and go okay, that's it. Balance, that's it. Okay. Where do I put? What needles do I put into what part of the body to get the energy moving? And that's exactly what we do for a house, because it's the same, it's energy principles. And we will analyze the house based on the year it was built, the position of the house on the planet. So basically the compass readings for it, and then we'll figure out what's going on energetically based on these calculations. These are amazing.
10:41
Feng Shui, master, is developed eons ago and we can then analyze each area. So you talked about, you know, the cables in the prosperity area, for example, that on an aesthetic basis basis yes, you know you'll you can find the prosperity area and see what's in that area and kind of balance it. But that's the visible and with Feng Shui we're working on the invisible energy. So we will then see that. Look at, say, I'll look at the prosperity area in the home, not physically look at it. I will see the energetics that's happening. So it could be, it could be pretty neutral, so it's okay, it's not great. But then it's like, how do I enhance this when we're looking from a five element perspective? So it could be. Let me see, if I wanted to, to enhance that a certain area, I may add fire element, because we're going to, like, bring that fire element into, neutralize these, these energies. And that could be in the case of like bringing in something red or into the space, like a piece of art that has some red in it, or it could be the plant, it could be a little bit of water feature, it could be a salt lamp, and the thing is, each of those elements and like just the fact that you know I talked about the functional ways about bringing nature in and balancing your home using nature, so we bring the elements of nature, in specific ones, to balance each area. And these elements are powerful, like water, like just think about rivers and oceans and streams. This element is a powerful force, so is fire. It destroys, it creates. So we bring that in it's. We're not just like bringing something red in, we're bringing an element from nature into the space to bring harmony.
12:25
And every house is unique and every, every house has a unique requirement in every area. So that's how we do it. And and you know you talked about organic shaped houses and and you know the the straighter and easier that, like the rectangle is like very easy house. The ones that have more strange shapes can lead to different areas Like so, for example, if a house had a had like a bit out of it that could represent, you know, had a client years ago, madalena. It was her family and community area, but when she moved in she had a big falling out with her family, didn't speak to them. They stopped speaking to her and when we started working on the energetics of like doing a little practice to support that area and we were able to like create that space energetically, but like literally she, she moved in and it all just kind of disappeared that area, but that area wasn't even there energetically. You know, it's a very interesting dynamic. So it's it's like there's a lot of layers to the practice.
13:27 - Jesper Conrad (Host)
basically, Patricia, I'm on the well, cecilia sometimes says I'm a very spiritual person, but at the same time I kind of try to hide it behind the logic and trying to make logic out of it. So part of my mind is saying to me oh, patricia, you are talking mumbo jumbo, matthew, here. So how, why should it work? That's, that's the, the, the analytic, like normal boring side of my brain. And the other side is like hey, man, let's do it, have fun with it. And so can I be so direct to say why, why should it work? Is there any? Have people done research? That's that part of my brain. How do you work with people like me?
14:17 - Cecilie Conrad (Host)
So first of all go ahead Because people have done research for 5000 years. You just don't respect that.
14:26 - Jesper Conrad (Host)
Yeah, that's that part of my brain. I'm sorry.
14:29 - Cecilie Conrad (Host)
Because you want to convince your math teacher.
14:32 - Jesper Conrad (Host)
I don't know what it is. It's a part of me that haven't, that haven't stopped you in that mindset. You know I'm there.
14:40 - Patricia Lohan (Guest)
And I actually love that. And I remember one of my clients he's like an accountant was just like very impressed when I said to her like we run the numbers and she's like you run numbers. And I'm like, yeah, there's like certain calculations that we have to do. It's like that we follow the structure of these calculations and that's we how we create the analysis. So it's like an astrology chart for a house, if that's like certain woo woo, but we also run numbers.
15:04
And what's so interesting with that is also the funny part is like a lot of this is exactly how it works in most of my community. So my community are like 99.9% women and they feel it like it's a very intuitive thing. Like they bought a book about Feng Shui. They've always been kind of interested in them and they're like oh, I just like your vibe, I'm going to give it a go, and they're like up for doing it. And then the logical like partners or husbands are a bit like what's this thing? And ironically like ironically what I've seen time and time again and there isn't a week that goes by without us in our Friday wins post having a member who's like my husband got a pay rise, my husband got a promotion, my husband got stock options, my husband got a new company car. Because they have like no attachment to the results, like absolutely none, and they're just like no, and it's almost I don't know. It's like God's spirit, universe saying like we're going to show you.
16:00
So like I have like so many stories and testimonials of people who's like husbands are like I don't know what you're doing, but just like, just keep doing that Like. And now they're like helping them. Like a few years in. And you know, when I first started this journey, like doing it professionally, eight years ago, we had like our own personal wins and we did the Feng Shui we'd like a six figure win fall like very literally. Weeks later we've got like loads of things happen in our career and our business.
16:30
Like I didn't start Feng Shui doing this to teach it, like I just wanted to do it for our house.
16:35
Like I moved in with Ken, went to do for a house and then people started asking me so like even just the fact that I'm like doing, still doing this this length of time, but what happened was amazing, because each time we would like do do it with a client or then started doing more groups in our group program.
16:53
Like the results are the fuel for me and I don't need to convince people anymore. I'm like if you don't, if you're not interested, that's okay. But like I have like hundreds, hundreds of success stories of women who join our program and see success and I'm like I'm just interested in talking to them and if you want to buy, and then the partners by default like get the results, so it's just a fun one, and the account that we've had engineers who were like, well, why do I do this? I'm like trust the part of you that has like led to this conversation with me. You know, like I always say to them then I'm like trust this, that little part that that like just you know what's, you know, give it a go, it's fun. So that's again the kind of long, long answer.
17:38 - Cecilie Conrad (Host)
I'm thinking about something. Yeah, feng Shui. Hex, when we lived in a house and it usually worked, I usually did a big, big one. Every time my husband got fired he's like, oh, we have to work on the, on the wealth thing again, and it was always fun. I was fun. I'm just. I haven't thought about Feng Shui for quite a while because I don't have a house anymore.
18:08 - Jesper Conrad (Host)
We have full time travel yeah.
18:10 - Cecilie Conrad (Host)
Yeah, now I have a van and I'm just wondering how to function with the mill out of that.
18:22
The hell out of my little van Because you know it's so small? Yeah, let that be a question. We're five people living in a seven meter van. I don't have a lot of options. You know you can always start. You can always start by cleaning up and tearing out that's like level one and open the windows. That happens all the time when you live in a van. So that's pretty simple. We do that every day as we're five people living in a van. So there's nothing to discuss. Repair everything that's broken, done that, but then what? I mean there's not much to discuss when you're living five people. Yeah, seven meter van, there's not much to move around. You can't even put up a ration. There are no walls. Would that be a challenge for someone like you to work with a house.
19:23
I have a location that doesn't have a. You know you can't do the whole angle thing because it moves all the time.
19:30 - Patricia Lohan (Guest)
We can't do it with a van.
19:31 - Cecilie Conrad (Host)
We can't do that, so how would you? I'm I'm not the only one living in a van.
19:38 - Patricia Lohan (Guest)
I have a client that we did some work together with the, with the with. She lives in a van as well. She didn't used to live in a van. We worked on her house and then balanced down they would did her, helped her sell it, and so she has her van.
19:53
I like the thing is what you've just said about the things that you're already doing, like you're already conscious of the environment. You know what I mean. You're even more conscious because you're living in such a tight, tighter space, and that that alone is really important. And I would encourage like a deep, like building a deep connection with the van, like actually like meditating with it, asking the van like is it, does it need anything else? What else does it? What needs to come out?
20:21
Cause, one of the things that unfolded years ago, I had like a client who was like oh, I thought my road is in and this isn't happening. And I was like okay, I was like, well, go and just like meditate and ask your home, like ask your home for, like connect with it and what does it want you to know? And it basically said to her. It said to her like stop being so impatient, like it's happening, like it's the flow you know. So after that, I've just been like, literally it's been integrated into my program to tell people to like build a relationship with your van, with your home, with your environment it's still your home and like regular space clearing, like doing some sage or lighting some incense, and just like loving on it, the fact that you keep, like you have in the background those things that are important, like clearing, keeping it tidy, keep organized like this, fixing everything, all of that. You know that knowledge. So you're already, you're already doing the Feng Shui, you know you're doing with Feng Shui.
21:17
What you have, so I would, mine, will be deepening, deepening the connection with the energetics of the van and then like also asking is to make sure that you park in the optimum directions. You know, like there's nothing, there's no harm in kind of setting that intention of like, okay, the next time we go, we're going to like, we're going to hit it so that when we do park and we're in a place it's going to just feel just right and it's going to be supportive of us for this length of time in this place, because every time it kind of sets. And you, I don't know how often you move, but I know my friend. She kind of goes for a few weeks here and then another time, but no, you're going to be able to move all the time today, yeah but we are pretty intuitive about parking.
21:59 - Cecilie Conrad (Host)
Now it's just curious, because there's so much about the Feng Shui, that is, about the location and northeast and the sun and all these things and how's the moves? It has to be different in some way. Also, a house that is I mean all houses have a structure and you more or less don't work with that, but with a house on wheels where so many people live in so little space. There's not much to talk about. You can't move the sofa. I mean there's nothing moves, it's all where it is and I was just wondering.
22:37 - Patricia Lohan (Guest)
But you have worked with it Well most of the time, like for me, especially, even with the work I do people like even in our house in Ireland, our bed can only go on one wall, the couch only makes sense in one place, so it's like not necessarily the positioning of the furniture and things. So that's like less of the attach, you know, there's less of that. It is more of the energetics that we would work from a Feng Shui perspective but then keeping mindful of, like, what you have with the van, like I think you're doing a great job already, you know.
23:10 - Jesper Conrad (Host)
And right now we have been like four months in Mexico with a backpack in rented places, and then it's actually a interesting challenge you gave us to meditate and love the place you are, because sometimes when you move in into an Airbnb, then you see the falls in that place instead of loving what is for the time you're there, and I think I will bring that forward with us. Right now we are living with friends for a month and that's also wonderful, but again, it's not your own house, so how do you make peace and love with that little space of the house that you borrow? For that time we are co-living, which is a. I wouldn't change the co-living for a house these days because I really love it, but it is. It is not the same as being able to control the environment in the same place.
24:06 - Patricia Lohan (Guest)
Well, you're ultimately living like the most amazing. So I didn't tell you this and I don't know if you have ever come across the Surrender experiment by Michael Singer. It's an amazing book by a spiritual teacher of his journey of like, surrender and moving with the flow of life. But I'm actually in Gainesville in Florida. I typically live in Ireland or Greece and I'm a bit nomadic as well. So I really resonate with the fact that you go to Airbnb. I'm in an Airbnb right now.
24:35
I'm a Feng Shui master and the first thing I did was I was able to obviously run the numbers of the place, but I changed a few things around, you know, and I'm in a place that's not that loved and you know it's the only one that we get because it was the closest to the Temple of the Universe, michael Singer's Meditation Yoga Center. So, but it is about going with the flow and like you're actually living Feng Shui. Do you know what I mean? Like in terms of like you're in the van or going to the air, like the travel, like that's living with the flow of life, like allowing flow to move through you. So, whether it's like you're in the van or whatever it's that like intentional, conscious living and wherever you're in, it's making that space sacred.
25:17
You know, making that space be the sacred space which is like really powerful and in the Airbnb's you're going to, yeah, exactly like love and and, oh my God, we're look at this, we have a home like the one winning point about this place is the carpet is amazing. I just want carpet like this everywhere. But there's so many other part and I just like where can we focus our attention and like the really good things about the spaces that we're in and kind of amplify that appreciation? You know, you co-living, your you get to be and learn with these new people and their environment and and see what's happening in their life. So it's a really it's a. It's an amazing way to be living in that kind of flow, like already.
26:00 - Jesper Conrad (Host)
One of the things you said earlier also inspired me to if we should travel with elements.
26:08 - Cecilie Conrad (Host)
I'm like I think it's. It's just interesting to talk to a Feng Shui master when you don't have a home, because it's so much about that work with it when I had a house. So I'm not calling myself master at all, but I did work with it and I did find it. You know, intuitively I could see there's something going on here and even like academically, someone has been working with this for 5,000 years. Who am I to challenge it? I could just try it out. So it works. When I drive a car, the first the speeder car drives, I don't know why, and it's sort of the same thing with these kinds of things. I don't need the explanation he needs that. I don't need it.
26:49 - Jesper Conrad (Host)
I don't ask the car why they've worked.
26:52 - Cecilie Conrad (Host)
I'm interested in the motor. I really don't care. I don't know. I need to put the fuel thing yeah.
26:58
And I think, now that you know Feng Shui for me was the first layers really are. You know, how about you open your eyes? How about your breath? How does this feel? Get rid of the mess, get rid of the things you don't use, fix what's broken, clean what's dirty, tidy up. That's 85% of it in my opinion. That's basically the most important thing. If you get that into a habit, you can start working with pieces of art and plants, so you don't have to travel with a little bonfire thing, you just have to organize your backpack.
27:39 - Jesper Conrad (Host)
Oh honey, we're not talking about that right now.
27:44 - Patricia Lohan (Guest)
And also the idea of bringing the elements. Like you know, bringing an element into a place without knowing whether it's going to be supportive overnight is actually more dangerous or less, like, more inhibitive than actually not. And what I would be saying, like from and I say this to my own clients who are going traveling or staying in different guest houses is that, like before you pick the place, like you know, obviously we get mindful like, read the reviews, have a look at the photos, what's the, what's the sense of the, the, the vibe, like the art, like even the artwork in places can be really dramatic and you're like, oh, no, like if it's crazy, reds or lots of like, kind of just sometimes they're just like OCD full of stuff. You're like, oh, no, no, no, like you know. So you kind of like, okay, where is the place that has the most zen, the most clear? Like you can, kind of I always set the intention that it's going to be easy for me to function way. So like I just laughed when I got here because there was like all these random things around the space and I was able to literally function way the place myself with what was here, because, but I also knew what needed to be, what elements needed to go in different places.
28:53
But for coming in and not having that knowledge, like I do, I say, like Stu, bring your incense and clear the space, open the windows, organize your own stuff and then also do it, do a space clearing like and that can be just with sound, it can be clapping your hands, you know it can.
29:09
You can do something that's just like shift the energy, the old energy, out, so like open the windows, do, clap your hands like play some mantras or some music that just feels high vibe and just kind of say hello, like literally say hello. Imagine all of these homes, these Airbnb's, these places today that like nobody has even kind of given it a bit of attention, to say, hey, thanks, I'm so glad that I get to come here and stay here, like you know, and and connect with it and just feel like, oh, this is our home, and as a nomad, myself and my husband, like we typically travel like for a couple of months at a time in a place. So this is a short stint, like a month here, but like home is where we are. You know, that's our thing, home is where we are and and then you can kind of like bring that out into into your environment.
29:58 - Cecilie Conrad (Host)
Yeah, right Great.
30:01 - Jesper Conrad (Host)
I have an incense question because I don't know if I've been too much in yoga shawlas around the place or just in shops where there's some incense where I really love the smell. Is there a good starter one where it's not like so overly dramatic?
30:19 - Patricia Lohan (Guest)
I think that like, even, even, even not even like, use if, if you find one that you like, like. So, for example, like Nag Champa is like the traditional one, but it doesn't need to be incense, it could be sage, it could be palo santo. I've even had people like use a sage spray, or rose water like, or Florida water like something that's just going to have a fresh energy. So, and you don't even need to use a smell like you could literally sound as the most powerful vibration of all to clear things. So it's like clapping your hands, a saucepan and a wooden spoon, like banging around the place. Okay, we need to clear the place here for a bit. Clear it out, open it and you know. So even that is fine.
30:58
Like I, I'm like making the ways that I've been, but I bought a candle for myself and I just have it lit. I like it's, it's beautiful and like that's how I was like, okay, that's going to change the energy a little bit. When we got here, I was like, okay, get a nice candle that feels good and that again, it's going to be shifting the energy. So you can, you, you. It's not about, I suppose, like there's some rules in terms of like feng shui, that when I'm working with a client, I'm like gotta put for our element here. You know there's that kind of this is the rules, but then when it comes to like intentional and aesthetics, it's, it's a dance, like with your own intuition and your own energy as well. It's like Trish said to use incenses and I find that when my clients I'm just like, yeah, it's an incense or this or this, like what does your house want? What is what feels good?
31:46 - Jesper Conrad (Host)
What would you say to people like your old 15 years, 16 year old self who want to get started on their own? What, what. How do you start? Is there an easy way to start? Is there a book to read? Or just what could you try out? After having listening to this podcast just alone in your home, like, hey, let me try this.
32:11 - Patricia Lohan (Guest)
Yeah, sure. So I'm a few of the answers. First of all, I have like a mini course called like that's $9 and it basically goes through different things and little videos and things to do and get started. It's called Feng Shui 101. And I also wrote a book called a happy home and that kind of gives like a very starting off.
32:30
And one of the things is and I don't know if you know just to see the book, like to see when, when, when I started with that Feng Shui book that I got when I was 15, I started reading and I was like yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, okay. And then it gets this whole sections of like numbers and complications and trying to figure stuff out and I was like, oh, that's so. So when people started asking me like is there a book you could recommend? And I was like because I, because like that complicated bit basically is what we do for our clients. Now we're like do this, get started, feel some shifts in your energy, get like into the momentum and then and then then, if you need help, and we can help you further with doing the other, like giving you the exact things for your house. And that's how we ended up, like I wrote the happy home just specifically for that. So it covers like all the different aspects of how to get started the history you know, works and things you can do around your house.
33:23
And then the other thing I think for people just getting started is just becoming conscious of your environment. You know, like it's like one of those things that can often be just taken for granted and when you start to become more aware of your space, things kind of change. It's like a mirror. So you want to, if you want to change in your life, like change, change your environment, and you know. You know you go away on your holidays or you go to a different country and you're like or you go to Mexico and you're like, feel different, different vibe. It's the same, but you don't, you don't have to go away to change things. You can just change your, change your environment, and it will, it does make a difference.
34:01 - Cecilie Conrad (Host)
It's actually the reason I find that you know talking about Feng Shui on this podcast, where we usually I mean it's called self-directed the podcast, and it's very often about education or career choices, how to create your own life, how to, you know, sit behind the wheels your own vehicle. But I found in my life that, even whether you believe in it or not, having this framework of the Feng Shui gave me a way to feel that, you know, feel self-directed, feel okay, I need to, something needs to happen with this. And I'm not flying to Florida to do a retreat with a master or you know, I'm here, I have my many little children and my husband just lost his job and it's in the middle of the winter and we're all sick and whatever. But I can work with this. I can work with our space and it's not that it normally looked like something you don't say out loud, but you can always look at it from that fresh perspective and look at how is this a mirror of how we're feeling and what's going on? And what do I? What do I feel when I enter this space? Does it feel all right?
35:21
It can very easily become a very practical thing to have a physical space to live your life in, or even to have a backpack, and you feel that you know, we all. I have a backpack, and sometimes mine is chaotic as well, but you know, sometimes you're like, does it matter? You know, I zip it and no one sees it. But then when I, when I took the Karen Kingston book back down from the shelf and read it again, I would think, oh, it matters, maybe I should just start in one end, and you suddenly feel very powerful and, as you said, the results, they do happen, and they do happen quite quickly. Sometimes not what you imagine, though, but the changes they have prompted you, they're right there. So that's why I found it in the beginning, when, yes, we was talking about it was like, hmm, I'm sure. But then, yeah, it's about, you know, sitting, I don't know. This is a very Danish metaphor. What metaphor do you use in English?
36:17 - Jesper Conrad (Host)
Oh, sitting in good.
36:20 - Cecilie Conrad (Host)
So the whole is value.
36:21 - Jesper Conrad (Host)
Yeah, yeah, taking, taking control, taking the steering wheel.
36:26 - Cecilie Conrad (Host)
Then is we use a boat metaphor about you know steering your own boat. Yeah, but yeah, so I just recommended. I mean I think people should read your book or take your mini course or find Karen Kingston or whatever makes sense, and get started, because it makes you more powerful to make make changes in your own life.
36:46 - Patricia Lohan (Guest)
And, yeah, it makes you look at every area of your life as well, because it's every aspect.
36:52
So, to health, your career, your family, every area. And you know that's where you started. Jasper was about like I read that this area represented this in the course. Fixing that like it gives you more focus. So you're like okay, I can focus on this area and I can change. I can just get more intention more clear.
37:09
And one of the things I love to say to people is like you can make your home like a vision board for your future or it can be like a shrine to your past and like that idea of like, and when I say here, even my clients they're like oh, I want to like that. They actually naturally now go okay, well, my son wants to get a new job. Right, I'm going to go and take some action over there in the career area and set up some things and help with this with that. So they're helping their kids with, like getting a new job, or for themselves, like the intentions for their partners for a new car or whatever. Whatever it is, they're like doing something in their environment to change it up, to set it up.
37:45
So it is. It's so self directed and it is literally the. I love this like it's, like it's within your span of control, you know, in our world we have our mind, our bodies, our own temple. We know to look after our bodies as a vehicle for our soul. But our home is like that. It's like the heart of everything. It all starts here and everybody is together in this space. So it's like important and when you start to understand that and connect with it, it really is. There's just so much potential to support you. It's amazing.
38:18 - Cecilie Conrad (Host)
So yeah, I love that.
38:19 - Patricia Lohan (Guest)
You've experienced it and like it's like and you get it, yeah, yeah.
38:26 - Jesper Conrad (Host)
I, when I look back to the period we went through when we took our funks way period, I also look back at it as a helping hand in a kind of couple therapy about cleaning the house in a way that then it wasn't about me being messy with all my wires or cables everywhere. It was about there was a goal I could see instead of just critifying it, which made it release some tension about talking about why we did stuff in the house where earlier Cecilia have always have a better intuition than I had and sometimes I was like I don't want to do this. This is your project, and now I ended up understanding it better. Have you seen people use it as a tool to to talk about it stuff in their life in their house in a way where it doesn't bring conflicts?
39:28 - Patricia Lohan (Guest)
Oh, 100%. And like that is one of the big things is that, like you know, when I talk to say, couples, I'm like, okay, or like women who were like, okay, let's start in your bedroom, let's get that set off. So then we're like looking at setting up the bedroom, creating a sanctuary for your relationship, and then so it we, and then it changes their relationship because they've consciously created this. Like let's look at our bedroom, let's set it up so it's for us, as opposed to this place. That's like, oh, yeah, our bedroom, we come and go, there's things here that's work stuff, there's pictures of the family. It's like, no, let's create our sanctuary for us.
40:01
And then also, what I've seen is a lot of our clients come together and start looking at their intentions for every area of their life together. So it's like it starts with the woman kind of going okay, this is what I'm looking. And then it's like, oh, what are you up to? Do you want to write intentions? And then they bring the kids on board and I've seen this where the children and the parents are all there sitting down. They're like taking photos, sharing a picture of like we're all doing a space clearing together, like the kids are banging saucepans or the parents are sitting, like, thinking about every area, and that's, like you know, very unique and very special for everyone to be together doing something on, like a kind of like well, what do we do about this area? What would you like? What would you do Like what is our? So it really does bring people together.
40:49 - Jesper Conrad (Host)
It's about loving up your house. I like it.
40:53 - Cecilie Conrad (Host)
It's loving up yourself.
40:55 - Jesper Conrad (Host)
Yeah.
40:56 - Patricia Lohan (Guest)
It's loving up yourself and your life as well.
41:01 - Cecilie Conrad (Host)
But also it's about doing it yourself. Yeah, I think some people, one of them being my husband can have a hard time surrendering to the idea that there is this system to it and there's this level of might even call it magic. You know the things that you can't explain with modern science, which is actually a lot more things than that but then you create within yourself this resistance. But if you can overcome that and we did it by just playing, we call it play. You know, let's say it's pretty chaotic here. We'll be more fun to clean up if we put this grid over it and we call it the Feng Shui Magic and we look at oh, if we clear out this area, it might be our health that could. So I just highly recommend to play with it. She said let's play.
41:52 - Jesper Conrad (Host)
It's called the. Feng Shui yeah, let's play and see what happens.
41:57 - Cecilie Conrad (Host)
Yeah, I like that, are we at?
42:02 - Patricia Lohan (Guest)
the sorry I think we are. We just at the very end, jesper, I won the idea. I did listen to a Feng Shui master who did analysis of brain scans of a house, the energy of a house beforehand, like you know, for the alpha theta brain scans of the energy of a house before a Feng Shui and then the people, the house afterwards, and it actually showed that the people in the houses brains kind of settled and became calmer, like it showed that they were able to move from that high beta into lower, into a more calmer, relaxed space. So there has been some and like maybe it's part of like even more.
42:42 - Jesper Conrad (Host)
Now I can handle it, Thank you.
42:46 - Patricia Lohan (Guest)
So, just for that, I do have. I have had seen that, but I'm like now, I'm like, okay, I need to do something like this, so I could be like here. Here's my proof, and yeah, I just saw that.
42:56 - Jesper Conrad (Host)
Some of us men needs you know the proofs before we can go Self. Yeah, I know, but I also think it's very valuable to represent this part of the area because some of us have this I need facts before I can believe in anything. Mindset and I'm wobbly. I can do both. But, patricia, it has been both fun and lovely and giving to talk with you, and if people would like to get to know you better, then it would be wonderful if you would share your website address. You already mentioned that people could find a small mini course and your book, but please share a little about how people can come in contact with you and work with you.
43:42 - Patricia Lohan (Guest)
Yeah, sure, so my website is patricialohancom and that's where you'll find the information about the mini course and my program, powerhouse, and also my book Book, the Happy Home. I also have a podcast which I've got like loads of different episodes about all different like areas of Feng Shui. You can get dive into as well, and that's all under Powerhouse Feng Shui. So, yeah, come and check us out and come and join and have some fun.
44:08 - Jesper Conrad (Host)
Have some fun. Yeah, thanks a lot for your time.
44:12 - Patricia Lohan (Guest)
Thank you so much.