Your Personal Feng Shui Birth Element Chart

Knowing your personal feng shui birth element helps you create a home that nourishes and supports your energy

Is red colour good for your energy? Should you use blue in your home office? How about the colors in your clothing, are they supporting your personal energy? One way to find out the best colors for you – in both home decor, as well as personal clothing and accessories – is to know your personal feng shui element and understand how to nourish and strengthen it. Read: Your Best Personal Feng Shui Colors

While the main criteria for the best feng shui use of color is based on your house bagua, the very next consideration is your personal feng shui birth element.There are five elements in feng shui — Wood, Fire, Earth, Metal and Water — and each one of us has a predominant energy quality that you can support in a variety of ways in your home. There is also a specific feng shui element, called the personal feng shui birth element, that is determined by the feng shui element of your birth year.

Even though the five elements theory is ancient and complex, you can easily understand its basic dynamic if you just look at how these elements are represented in nature/how they interact on a practical level. For example, we burn wood to create fire (so Fire feng shui element is nourished by the Wood element, but Wood is destroyed by the Fire); we use a knife to cut the wood (so Metal feng shui element destroys Wood element). We also use water to help wood grow (so Water feng shui element nourishes the Wood) and the better the soil, the stronger the wood/tree (so Earth feng shui element is also nourishing for the Wood element). Read: What Are the 5 Feng Shui Elements?

So, if your personal feng shui birth element is Wood, you would be wise to avoid strong Fire and Metal feng shui element colors and decor items in your home. Why? Because in the five feng shui elements destructive cycle Fire and Metal elements damage the Wood element. However, it is very important to understand that we need all five feng shui elements in our environment, just in different proportions.

We also have all five feng shui elements in our energy makeup; no one is only Water element or only Wood element, so be wise and approach this info in an intelligent way. If you look at different disciplines (or even at another branch of feng shui called feng shui astrology or 9 Star Ki), you might discover that you have different elements at different levels – you can have a predominant Metal element energy in your character, while your personal birth element is Fire.

Here’s my example: my feng shui birth element is Earth, and I definitely feel nourished and supported in a space with a predominant Earth feng shui element decor. I am also Earth in feng shui astrology, which mostly defines one’s character or energetic makeup. However, in Western astrology, my main element is Fire, and I certainly relate to the creativity and passion of this element. Looking further, I am Water in Vedic Astrology, and again, I can absolutely relate to this element as I tend to feel things very deeply and have a strong intuition.

So, am I Earth, Fire or Water? Is this confusing to me? No, it is not. I am a combination of all elements, just like you are, but I also know that for pure feng shui purposes, the birth feng shui element info is what helps me create surroundings to nourish my energy. This chart gives you just one facet — but a very important one — that can help you create a nourishing home for yourself and your loved ones; follow it wisely.

Because your personal feng shui birth element is based on your year of birth as per Chinese New Year (which never starts on January 1st), be sure you know your correct year of birth for feng shui purposes. This chart shows the beginning of each year as per the Chinese calendar.

How To Use this Chart:

Find your year of birth in one of the 5 columns representing a specific feng shui element; be sure to check the day, too. Your date and month of birth have to be after, not before the day the Chinese New Year started in that year. Note that the format used in the chart is day/month/year.

For example:

If you were born on February 5, 1950 (05.02.1950), your year of birth, for feng shui purposes, is considered 1949, not 1950. Why? Because according to the Chinese calendar, the year 1950 started on February 17, 1950 (17.02.1950).

So, your personal feng shui birth element is Earth (for 1949) not Metal (for 1950), as you can see in the chart below. The info after the chart links to my about.com articles that explain how to use your personal birth element to decorate a home that best supports your personal energy.