Although we may not realize it, our busy lives are often mirrored in our home environments. This is especially true in the kitchen, where clutter tends to pile up, dishes often build in the sink, and food can be forgotten about in the dark nooks and crannies of the fridge and pantry. As the ease of summer fades away, a wave of anxiety hits, especially for parents of busy kiddos.
And while meditation, journaling, and physical activity are all wonderful ways of managing this stress, intentionally caring for our living spaces is an easy and low-maintenance way of bringing more calm into our daily lives. Feng shui is just one way of going about this.
“Feng shui is the practice of mindfulness in our spaces and invites us to see, experience, and acknowledge our connection with our world,” says Anjie Cho, feng shui expert and co-author of Mindful Living, a new book about how to live mindfully with feng shui for better health, sleep, and more.
“The kitchen is where we cook and store food and is the space where we nourish and heal ourselves and family. It’s also where alchemy happens through making food into sustenance and therefore represents our health, resources, and prosperity. It’s no joke that our health is our wealth,” Cho explains. The literal heat of the stove top and oven also make the kitchen a place of warmth, gathering, and transformation—further illustrating why it’s so important to tend to this space energetically.
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We spoke to Cho and Laura Cerrano, certified feng shui reiki master and CEO and founder of Feng Shui Manhattan to help you better understand this mindfulness practice and incorporate it into your kitchen.
8 feng shui kitchen tips for better organization and calm
1. Clear your countertops
Nothing dampens the mood (or mine at least) quite like coming home to a kitchen with dirty countertops filled with random objects. “It’s so important to notice what you ignore when it comes to feng shui,” says Cho. Through keeping your countertops clean and clear, your kitchen is much more likely to bring you a sense of ease over anxiety or frustration.
If you tend to display several cooking appliances on your counters, say, a blender, air fryer, and crockpot, it’s helpful to take stock of what you use regularly and store the rest in a cabinet.
“For appliances next to each other, if you could allow at least a foot of kitchen counter space or more between them, that is ideal,” Cerrano says.
2. Declutter your panty, fridge, and freezer
Your countertops aren’t the only places that need to be decluttered, according to feng shui principles. Your pantry, fridge, and freezer also require this attention. “Expired containers of food in the pantry that we skillfully ignore several times a day can be a metaphor and energetic block to our healing health journey with food. Letting them go can open up a path to taking better care of our bodies,” Cho explains.
Is eating more vegetables and fruits daily a family goal? Keep fresh, colorful produce within eyeshot in the fridge and stock your freezer with convenience foods and ready-made meals that you can easily grab when you’re too busy to cook.
Having some special treats and convenient snacks (especially for kids after school) around the house is a great way to reduce stress during the height of fall. However, Cho encourages also having plenty of healthy options available to support the positive qi (or energy) in your kitchen, bringing a greater sense of calm to the space. Investing in non-toxic cleaning products and food storage containers are simple ways to yield to this benefit as well.
3. Conceal your knives
One feng shui mistake I personally have been unknowingly making for years is always having my chef’s knife out on my cutting board, even after it’s been washed. “In feng shui, sharp objects like knives represent ‘sha’ or life draining energy, so it’s best to conceal them” Cerrano says.
4. Set morning intentions
Feng shui isn’t always about the physical practice of cleaning, organizing, and decorating, it can also speak to daily rituals. Cho recommends setting a mindful morning intention in your kitchen to start your day on the right foot.
“Every morning when you go to heat up your water for tea or coffee, you can create a mindful moment for yourself by intentionally selecting a burner, choosing which way you want your day to go, and then moving through the rest of your day with this calm intention,” she says. Cho adds that in feng shui, the stove represents the fire element, where we can create transformation, alchemy, and resources to fuel life.
5. Add living plants
Whether they’re culinary herbs, your favorite succulent, or any other plants that you love, bringing living greenery into the kitchen is a great way to practice feng shui. “Living green plants are the wood element and imbue your kitchen with kindness, growth, and flexibility. Culinary herbs also have the added benefit of offering themselves as compliments to your cooking,” says Cho. However, be sure to keep these plants healthy and thriving or they can have the opposite effect energetically.
6. Display fruit
By having an aesthetic display of fruit on your countertop, you’re not only increasing the odds that you’ll reach for a healthy snack, but you’re also allowing the benefits of feng shui to take hold. “Display three, six, eight, or nine oranges or any other fruit in a bowl at a time,” Cerrano says. “In feng shui, the number three equates to living a joyful life, six good fortune, eight abundance, and nine longevity.”
7. Set out crystals
Crystals are not only beautiful to behold, but they can also help employ feng shui in the kitchen. “Clear quartz is a natural gift from mother earth that can be programmed to amplify your intentions. I love adding one to the refrigerator or pantry to enhance the energetic healing quality of the food stored there,” says Cho.
She recommends finding an ethically sourced piece of clear quartz that speaks to you and charging it somewhere with direct sun and moonlight (like a well-lit windowsill) for 24 hours. Then, you can hold the crystal and set an intention for the stone to best support your kitchen and food storage areas.
8. Choose decorations wisely
And finally, how you decorate your kitchen can have a big impact when it comes to the overall qi of the space. “If you display artwork or photos within your kitchen, choose imagery that brings joy to your heart,” Cerrano says. If following a healthier lifestyle or sharing more meals with loved ones are your goals, try choosing art that encourages or reminds you of those. However, be sure to not overcrowd your space with art, as a key principle of feng shui is to not overdo it.
“Additionally, avoid using too many accent colors of red (or any strong warm colors in general) within the kitchen as this room already has a lot of fire elements present with the stove, oven, and active movement in and out of the space—all of which represent heat and fire,” Cerrano adds. She explains that too much heat or fire in feng shui is related to aggression, impatience, impulsiveness, dominance, and feeling burnt out. The color green can help to balance this through representing the wood element.
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