Living Smart with Patricia Gras: Finding Our Authentic Path *

“I did not know I was on a search for passionate aliveness. I only knew I was lonely and lost and that something was drawing me deeper beneath the surface of my life in search of meaning. There is a hunger in people to go to those deep depths; to know that our lives are sacred; that our hearts are truly capable of love. It is a yearning to be all that we can be. A longer for what is real.” - Anne Hillman


When I was a young adult I had certain expectations about who I would become as an adult and what I would do with my life. Then one day, decades later, I realized none of it had come true. Then I picked up some books on Carl Jung and began to understand myself a lot better. That’s why I invited Dr. James Hollis, PhD, the director of the Jung Center Houston, to Living Smart. I found his books enlightening and reasonable. One of his books, Creating a Life: Finding Your Individual Path, is a guide to individuation. This usually happens in the second half of life when we are forced to reflect on who we really are and what we truly want. We ultimately have a choice to become authentic or, literally, sick.

Hollis, a Jungian analyst sees a lot of patients confronting mid-life issues. “That’s my work, helping individuals arrive at a better place in their life. No one happens to just sort of drop in to have a chat with me. They are usually there because their road map does not apply anymore or the good efforts they’ve had managing things are just not as effective as they are or as they once were and so often there is a sense of disorientation or defeat or confusion and you know… Frankly that’s the beginning of wisdom because that’s what forces us to begin to reexamine our lives from a different perspective.”

Hollis explains there are ways we recognize something is wrong with the way life is going. “When we get off track our psyche protests and we call those protests symptoms. Sometimes they turn up in our relationships, sometimes they show up in our body and sometimes they show up in emotional storms that we have such as depression or anxiety disorders. And sometimes they come to us in troubling dreams and the psyche is always speaking, it’s always expressing its point of view, and our tasks as individuals is to try and say… I do, I read the symptomatic response and perhaps I have neglected certain things in y life and I have to sort of bring that into greater play in my choices.”

I asked Hollis if it was difficult to live an authentic life. He explained to be authentic you must be in contact with a deep source within you. “There is something that is inherently true for us, an instinctual truth or your inborn truth or even your should, if you will, trying to tell you something and how do you separate that from all the messages that are coming to you from the culture, or family of origin, even from your own history. Ask yourself, which messages are more in touch with my own inner life or with my own nature,” says Hollis.


Living Smart is a weekly, half-hour interview and news magazine television program focusing on personal well-being. Living Smart covers spiritual, financial, personal, mental, physical, emotional, and educational aspects of well-being. Living Smart airs on Sundays at 3PM and Thursdays at 1PM. Go to http://www.houstonpbs.org/livingsmart to learn more about the show.

Patricia Gras is an Emmy Award-winning journalist, and the senior producer and host for “Living Smart with Patricia Gras.” Visit http://www.patriciagras.blogspot.com for her insights into smart living.




* This article is written by Patricia Gras and can be found in June 2008 issue of 002Houston Magazine at http://002mag.com

Ancient Design Philosophy with Buzz: Feng Shui *

Recently, a California McDonald’s franchisee turned to Feng shui as a strategy to boost sales. When Disneyland opened in Hong Kong in 2005, company executives consulted with a feng shui master to shift the angle of the theme park's main entrance by 12 degrees to maintain good energy flow and to maximize the prospect of prosperity. What is this esoteric concept of feng shui that is redefining modern living and work areas around the world?

Literally translated, feng Shui (pronounced “Fung Shway”) means “Wind Water” in English. It is the ancient Chinese practice of arranging a harmonious environment to improve well being. Chinese believe that energy is a natural force that pervades all areas of our environment and affects our daily activities. Yang is positive energy that is bright, and active; yin energy is negative, dark and inactive. Abundant yang energy yields good health, prosperity and spirituality. Too much yin energy translates into stagnation and misfortune. By balancing the opposing energies in a physical location, feng shui enhances the inter-relationship between the macrocosm of natural environment and the microcosm of human body. It helps create a place that actively utilizes the natural healing force to nurture its residents, and harmoniously aligns with the residents’ internal energy for wellness maintenance.

While large corporations may seek feng shui advice to secure economic advantages, individuals apply it in home settings to sooth energy and enhance health. Try the following feng shui tips for your home and you will be amazed by the positive changes that follow.

Entrance
The entrance is one of the most important locations to attract good energy to your home. Keeping it clean and open allows positive energy to circulate inside your home and increases the change of receiving golden opportunities in life. If the entrance is blocked by clutter, it creates negative energy and affects the normal energy flow of the entire home. Make sure the path to the entrance is wide and well lit. Place a beautiful painting on the wall opposite the entrance to welcome positive energy into the home. If the entrance faces a dark area or a staircase, make sure to keep the entrance door closed or place a screen between the door and the living area. This can repel negative energy trying to gain entry inside the home.

Living Room
Being the center of family life, living room is one of the first rooms to greet guests and symbolizes a connection to potential career and relationship opportunities. A well designed living room reflects homeowners’ characters and attracts energy synchronized with the homeowners. In general, subtle color coordination creates a peaceful atmosphere in the room. Brighter colors tend to uplift people’s moods more than darker ones. Furniture should be arranged in such a way as to not impede traffic flow in the living area. For example, round coffee table encourages free energy flow. Placing sofas farther away from doors preserves energy since people usually sit upon them for extended periods and energy may be drawn away by the doors when opened.

Bedrooms
The bedroom is the one room in the house that is most aligned with one’s overall health. It serves as a restorative sanctuary for sleeping and energy rejuvenation. To reduce distraction during sleep, remove things with electromagnetic fields such as TV, telephones and computers. Place the bed’s headboard against a solid wall and opposite the door. The wall creates a safe haven for the sleeping mind. If the home residents are able to see activities outside the bedroom door, they are in control of the home. Even though new home construction tends to offer spacious bedrooms, feng shui practice prefers a small bedroom to a big one because the small room consolidates its resident’s energy, while the big room consumes both natural and human energies to maintain a balanced environment.

Kitchen
The proper placement of the kitchen helps produce sufficient positive energy. The ideal location for the kitchen is in the rear of the house, where resources are stored in abundance without easy identification by outsiders. As with other rooms in the house, the kitchen should be uncluttered and kept clean to prevent the accumulation of bad energy. It is very important to keep the stoves working at all times because non-burning stoves imply a distress with home resources.

Historically, feng shui is thought to have had ramifications beyond domestic serenity. To millions of practitioners around the world, an old Chinese saying reveals the essence of feng shui: “If there is harmony in the house, there is order in the nation. If there is order in the nation, there will be peace in the world.” Be patient as it will take time for the harmonious magic of feng shui to materialize. For the moment, put it into action and experience how it transforms your life.



* This article was first published in Yellow Magazine May 2008 issue.