Mind-Body-Bedroom Connection

Simply put, a congested home can lead to a congested body, according to principles of Feng Shui.

I'm no expert at Feng Shui by any means, but I am very sensitive to the energy of my home and intuitively make decisions about what feels best. I have a low tolerance for clutter and like everything to have its place.

If you see it hanging on the wall, positioned on the floor, or just sitting on a table, you can usually tell I've given careful consideration to its placement. I like to make sure that every element complements the bigger picture.

That's not to say that my home is spotless. Though I like things to be tidy and well-arranged, that doesn't mean I don't let dust and grime accumulate here and there. I think I do pretty well for a single guy, but sometimes I just don't see it after awhile.

Fortunately, having my Reiki studio in my home is a major motivator to keep things in order. Just before a class or an appointment is when I put on my "visitor glasses" and see things with fresh eyes. Then I intend to channel my obsessive-compulsive mother and go on a tear of cleaning, usually freaking out my cats in the process.

There is one area I tend to overlook because I can just close the door when visitors arrive. That would be my master bedroom suite with bath. I recently let it get the most out of control it's been in recent memory (borderline sty, by my standards).

It had started making me feel icky just to go in there, but I've been so busy that I wasn't taking time to deal with it. I just took comfort that even though I spend at least a third of my life in there, I'm usually unconscious during those hours.

Nevertheless, I honestly believe that my congested bedroom took a toll on my health. I almost never get colds, but I came down with one on Thursday morning. A day and a half before, I'd had to take MARTA out to Avondale Estates to pick up my car from the mechanic, and the train was jam-packed. I had to share a handrail with a man who was coughing on me.

That kind of exposure doesn't necessarily mean you're going to get sick. What I believe opened me up to head-congesting illness was spending so much time in a cluttered environment. The stagnated energy flow around me negatively affected the life-force energy within me.

I was so tied up on Thanksgiving that I didn't have much time to attack the cold until yesterday, when I woke up feeling pretty awful. After sleeping off and on throughout the day, I decided I really needed to take a detox bath (adding a mixture of dead sea salts and eucalyptus to the water).

I spent nearly 40 minutes in there, meditating and doing chakra work, while the salt pulled toxins from my body and the eucalyptus helped me breathe better. When I finally got out of the tub, I didn't even feel like I had a cold.

And in a flash, I knew exactly what I had to do right away: Clean the master bedroom and bathroom! I'd used the much cleaner guest bath for my detox. Afterward frenziedly cleaning in my revived state, I felt even better and realized the connection between my congested room and congested head.

I feel like the cold is basically gone, but, in addition to Reiki, I'm continuing to use such remedies as green tea, apple cider vinegar shots, garlic tablets, and zinc lozenges, just to be sure.

And with flu season starting, I'm going to make sure I keep my entire house in order. I really believe there's something to this!

The depth of detail that Feng Shui practitioners going into has seemed overwhelming to me in the past, but I bet some deeper research would yield many helpful tips.

Now if they tell me I have to turn my house around, that's not gonna happen. But I can do what I can on a smaller scale.