Season 1 Rewind, Part 3: Invisible Forces

0:00Kimberly Gallagher Lettering moves energy and energy moves opportunity. If the Wi-Fi struggles to get around, and I can't see that, but I know that because my phone upstairs is telling me that that isn't getting through the house. Maybe there's something in the energy that also isn't traveling around the house.

0:21Tami Sharp Your home should be your sanctuary. That's your safe space. When you're at home, you should have a physical reaction that when you get home, you can just go, you're safe.

0:35Lyssia Katan Have you ever felt the mood of a room before you noticed a single thing in it? Welcome to Room to Think. We're between seasons right now. So this week I'm taking you back through some of my favorite moments of season one. This one's all about what you can't see, but you always feel the energy, the sound, the materials around you. Let's get into it.

0:55Kimberly Gallagher What I do essentially is it's like astrology for the home, like acupuncture for the home. And I look at what energy you are surrounded by. And it's, you know, it's not as witchy as you know, me coming in and putting my finger in the air and going, oh yes, I feel a wind of whatever it is coming through here. It's a beautiful calculation, it's numerology from a feng shui point of view, and that tells me, as I say, like the astrology for your home. And some homes have amazing personalities, and they're the you know, the life and soul, they support you and they're lovely. And then some homes are just really stubborn and cold and don't help you. And so my job as a feng shui expert is to help neutralize

1:51Kimberly Gallagher this energy, just like when you have acupuncture, it releases the energy blocks, it lets the energy flow again. And you know, my life would be so much easier if we could see energy, because I'm like, oh, you see that purple cloud over there, we need to get rid of that and let more green in. Unfortunately, we can't, but we can feel it. And I think for me, my job is also to help people be aware that their home has energy and to lean back into that feeling of when you first looked around your home, whether you're renting or whether you know you purchased, quite often we do that based upon a feeling and it feels good, or we turn down a home because, like, oh, I don't know what it was, but there

2:40Kimberly Gallagher was just something about it that didn't quite work. That's the energy. But when we move in, quite often we forget that, and the kitchen just turns into the place where you cook, and the living room is where you watch TV, and the bedroom is where you sleep, and we forget this energy, this personality in the home. So, my job is to bring back this the support in your home, and and some homes just aren't that supportive, and it takes a bit more work. And I work with the five elements, just like an acupuncture as well. And you know, don't get me wrong, some of the things are a bit bonkers that I ask you to do. Like we use actual metal, as in the five elements, we put metal in the home, but it I guess

3:24Kimberly Gallagher when you think about it, metal is only as crazy as a crystal because it comes from the core of the earth. But we just see metal as like things that you build with and you know, steel structures in the house. So we're just using these natural elements in the home to balance the energy, to calm, to invigorate, to bring back flow, to absorb. And we use it, and you know, it doesn't make sense. I'm not gonna sit here and go, well, of course, you know, it makes complete sense. It doesn't, it makes no factual sense whatsoever, but it just works. And so for me, when I went through this process of doing it in my home, my drive came from the fact that I was almost angry that I didn't know about it before.

4:10Kimberly Gallagher How had I gone 40 years through my life and nobody told me this?

4:14Lyssia Katan You didn't hear about this for 40 years of your life. Why do you think that is that Feng Shui is not taught to anyone? Is it just, are we just scared of it or is it considered woo-woo? Like, why?

4:27Kimberly Gallagher I think all of the above. Like it's it's not it's not in the Western world, it's just for Asia, it's woo-woo because we can't see it, it's a concept, is it spiritual? Somebody asked me if it was a cult. I was like, no, like, but you know, so all of these because we're scared of it because we can't see it. It's almost like we're tapping into the supernatural world, and we're really not. So when I work in your home, I can tell you, I've just analyzed a home here, I've got it in front of me. And I can tell why this lady in her bedroom is really low. She's really depressed and feels that her life isn't moving. Her son's bedroom, exactly the same. So with just a tiny little tweak of, and I don't

5:17Kimberly Gallagher I try not to get people to move furniture around at all, but in both of these bedrooms, there were two options where they could place their bed. So I've just said, look, just try moving your bed a little bit because the energy in that area is going to support you, but the area in that area doesn't. Now, if you're not ready to hear that information, it sounds crackers. That's a real sort of northern English saying, It sounds crackers, but it does because you think, what? Like, so you're saying that if I put my bed against that wall there, I'm going to feel mentally pressured. Whereas if I put it against this wall here, I'm going to feel better. And I'm like, Yes, but I can't like you can't see

5:57Kimberly Gallagher it, but you're just gonna have to trust me. So it doesn't make sense, you can't see it. It is woo-woo. It was created in Asia, you know, in China, but it was created 4,000 years ago, give or take a few years. If it wasn't, if there wasn't something in it, we wouldn't still be practicing it now. You know, HSBC, which is one of the world's largest banks, they started building one of their banks in Hong Kong. The Feng Shui consultant comes around and says, You've built it in the wrong direction. So the architect had got it wrong. They stopped building, they knocked it down and started it again. That's how serious they take it. Many investment banks, and the ones in the UK, but they don't shout

6:49Kimberly Gallagher about it because they don't want people to think that they're woo-woo or weird. They have their own Feng Shui consultants come in and say, This is where the officers need to be, this is where this happens, this is the direction of your building. So there's something in it, but it's just not often spoken about because I think of people being scared about what people think of you, maybe, and maybe that's why it's sort of kept a bit quieter. I guess, like if you're spiritual, and you're like, Yes, you know, I believe in the law of attraction and things like that. And people go, Oh, you're a bit weird. Like, so sometimes it's just easier to keep these practices to yourself.

7:26Lyssia Katan Was there a space that you experimented on and you were like, okay, now I get it, this works. Before you were able to kind of spread the word and tell people about it.

7:38Kimberly Gallagher Yeah, so you know, my biggest testimonial is my life because the start of my feng shui journey, so I was made redundant as a teacher, and I started a business in February 2020 selling like health products. I was like, this is great because I like meeting people, I like getting out and talking to people. Then a month later, lockdown came. I was like, oh, that was a pretty bad time to start a business. But do you know what? I can, you know, I can make it work. And I was trying and trying and trying, and I was doing all of the trainings, I was turning up, I was doing the online social events, all of that, and I just couldn't, it just would not take off. And I was listening to a podcast, and I remembered

8:25Kimberly Gallagher so clearly, like I was vacuuming my bedroom upstairs, and it was a podcast that isn't too. She had people on just like you, and it was a feng shui consultant, and the host was single, and the feng shui consultant said, Well, there's things that you can do in your house to attract a partner. And I thought, what a load of rubbish! Like everyone's gone mad. Like, what? How is this even possible? And then I just sort of brushed it off, and then as you do, you listen back to the the episodes, and then the host met somebody. Now, it wasn't the right person, so that's a huge lesson in terms of what you put out there, be really specific about the type of person that you want to attract. But it worked,

9:08Kimberly Gallagher and that's when I was like, this can't, this is just a massive fluke. So that's when I found out about the successful people, the hotels, the investment banks. And I was like, right, this is my chance. Like, I feel, you know, when you get that feeling to do something that makes absolutely no sense whatsoever, but you just know deep down this gutteral feeling that this is what I need to do. I was like, I need to feng shui our home. And our home was lovely, like it was this really old cottage, it was built in 1569. You know, the walls were like, I don't know, like half a meter thick. The Wi-Fi never sort of got around the home. And when I started thinking about the energy, I was like, oh, well,

9:48Kimberly Gallagher if the Wi-Fi struggles to get around, and I can't see that, but I know that because my phone upstairs is telling me that that isn't getting through the house, maybe there's something in the energy that also isn't traveling around the house. So I had my home analyzed by this lady, and Feng Shui is like the missing part of the manifestation, like puzzle. So when it's like having a mobile phone in the middle of the woods that's really dense, and you've got all the tools to make the call, but the the woods are so dense that you can't get that message out there. The signal doesn't travel through that density, and it's like that in your home that if the energy is so dense, whatever you put out there

10:41Kimberly Gallagher isn't reaching where it's meant to go. So, what Feng Shui does, that acupuncture, it clears that heaviness.

10:48Lyssia Katan How quickly or how like how much time does it need to start working?

10:54Kimberly Gallagher First of all, it's about

10:57Kimberly Gallagher realizing that your home has energy and that energy wants to move. If it's stuck, that's when it can feel agitated. It's like locking a puppy in a room, locking a toddler in a room. Like they'll just want to break through the doors. So we want to open our spaces, and the front door to the home is where the good energy comes in, and the back door is where it leaves. If you live in an apartment, your front door will be the balcony. So it's almost like the face of your home where all of this lovely energy is entering. That's where the good energy is coming in. So even if you think, okay, back door every day, just open that up and let that bad energy leave, that stale, stagnant stuff. Think of like

11:45Kimberly Gallagher out with the old and in with the new, moving that out and then opening your front door once you've closed the back door and welcoming that fresh energy in. And again, you're doing it with intention, you're refreshing the space.

11:57Lyssia Katan Have you seen this happen with clients where they their life just completely changes based off of incorporating some of these elements?

12:06Danijela Saponjic Yeah, absolutely. But I mean, look how my life changed. And I only clutter cleared. I had not like I didn't know anything about Feng Shui in a big way. I knew I needed to clutter clear and knew this is you know, clutter clearing moves energy, and energy moves opportunity. So, and what do we need in life to grow? We need opportunities. So, and when you know, just simply I know we are always talking about clearing the entrance. The entrance, it's your eyes, it's your mouth. So, in order to see opportunities, you need to have a clean vision. And that's why clearing the entrance is so important. And to get back to your question, um, yes, I I had clients, it was a couple, and they wanted to grow

12:50Danijela Saponjic a family, and she couldn't get pregnant or they couldn't get pregnant. So we uh did it was they were about to buy a house, and it was moving out of the old house, moving into the new one. And what we did, we infused the energy of this new life into the new house. And she was because she's like, oh, this is like a portal for me. And the great thing is, while they were building the house, she got pregnant and she also kept the child because she had four miscarriages and before that. And I mean, this is one of the of the deepest um stories I have ever had in my career of supporting the family to grow and to move into the new home and to um well unfold because this was the biggest wish they had.

13:35Danijela Saponjic So sometimes people would ask me, Well, Daniela, it could not have only been Feng Shui, no, but it was the missing piece.

13:43Lyssia Katan You said you infused the new house with the energy of the life they want to live. What do you mean exactly by that?

13:49Danijela Saponjic So I love to work with the frequency of a house or just with frequency in general. Um, so if you have ever heard about uh future selfing, and future selfing is about going into the energy of the person you want to be after you have accomplished a vision. So why not bring this future self energy into your space? Why not bring the frequency into your space and allow your space to hold the frequency of the life you want to live? This is so I mean, so this is basically what we did. It's not just visualizations, it's not just um having a vision board, but it's about okay, good. So you are going to have three children, right? So let's have three uh three room, like three spaces, three, three children's

14:36Danijela Saponjic room. Let's think about uh how we're going to lay out the house for a bigger family. Let's not plan for a four like a four-party but a five-party, you know. So it's it was just it was not um doing it, wasn't working with vision boards. It's what was not buying baby stuff before she even got pregnant, but it was just opening the space for more.

15:00Lyssia Katan When did you realize it? Like your space can really change the way you feel in it.

15:04Tami Sharp Oh man. Um I didn't realize it back then. I just liked making pretty spaces. When I was 19, so it was the summer after my dad had passed away. I got introduced to Wayne Dyer and was I spent my grieving period reading uh Manifest Your Destiny. And so from there, oh man, I got into that, the secret, all of the basic like law of attraction type books. And so I started studying those. So I think I started kind of understanding briefly, I guess, a little bit of what that was like. Um, but then it was when I was on Maui and I was in my healing journey that I really understood energy and how things impact, and that clutter is a direct correlation to the clutter in your mind and the stress and the anxiety

15:53Tami Sharp and everything else you have going on. And I helped, I think I told you this story. I was part, I was helping with modeling and acting school at one point, and there was a salesperson there, and she was set up in this big conference room area with her desk, and she'd been there all day, but behind her were windows that went out to, I mean, it was Maui, so it's a very beautiful background. And she had been selling and just kicking butt all day, and then the sun went down, and all of a sudden, she couldn't close anything, and she was getting really frustrated. And she was just like, I don't understand what happened, like why all of a sudden these people are not resonating with me. And so I went

16:33Tami Sharp in and I looked at her space and I was like, Well, let's look at this. So, one, underneath her desk, because she'd been there all day, there's garbage and there's food, and there's just stuff, like and papers and files, just it was a disaster underneath the desk. And she also, the desk was positioned so that the windows that were showing a beautiful background were now it was dark, so it was reflective. So the people looking at her were seeing their own reflection. So I'm like, you have a messy, cluttered energy under your desk and stagnant, stuck energy. You have a reflective energy that's showing them, so they're not listening to you. I'm like, let's just play with something, let's clean up

17:12Tami Sharp out from under the desk and reposition it. And so we did, and then she started selling every again. And she was like, holy crap! So um, she ended up taking me to dinner and thanking me. She's like, that was amazing. I was like, that was super simple. But that was one of those moments where it's like, okay, there's something to energy and where you're at.

17:32Lyssia Katan How do people tap into that in their spaces? And and just to be clear, like we have all kinds of listeners on this podcast. We have people who are super woo-woo and people who are very not woo-woo. So, like, kind of like making it relevant to both sides and people are in the middle. But how do you even pick up on that in your space? And how do you cleanse it? Is that the right word?

17:54Tami Sharp First and foremost, the clutter. If you have a lot of clutter, that is that's the psychology part, right? That's a reflection of your energy level, your mind, your mental and emotional space. So a lot of the teachers in the world will tell you if you're stressed out, having anxiety, depressed, go clean a drawer. Pick one spot. Don't try to do the whole house because you're gonna start ripping apart your closet and halfway through being like, I'm done. And then it's gonna be a mess for the next class, right? We get over it. Little tiny bite-sized pieces, cleaning out your junk drawer, organizing your bathroom mirror, something is going to help free up that space, right? Like right now, I completely

18:34Tami Sharp redid my whole office a few months ago because it was I my office was kind of the catch-all for everything, but this is also where I run my business. So the whole house, because I work from home, so my whole house ends up in my office and I was like, I feel like a hoarder. Like I have a path to get to my desk and I'm stuck. I feel stuck creatively, I feel stuck emotionally, I'm burned out, I'm not getting business, I'm not doing anything. Like, this can't keep going. So I took a day where I should have been working on business and I was like, nope, forget it. I'm gonna completely transform my office. And when I did that, I had emails start coming through. I had clients reach out to me from nowhere

19:13Tami Sharp where I had somebody refer me a client that I hadn't talked to them in seven years, and they're like, hey, I have a client for you. And I'm like, I'm gonna keep cleaning because there's something going on here. Um when you have those spaces in your house that do feel darker, you want to move that stuff because you can get stagnant energy. And if you have darker, not great energy that is trying to cause harm or whatnot, it will hide. It's shadows, right? So they like to hang out in the shadows. So you need to clear that space. Your home should be your sanctuary, it is where that's your safe space. When you go out into the world, we're living in crazy times. When you're at home, your body, you

19:57Tami Sharp should have a physical reaction that when you get home, you can just go, you're safe. It feels good. If your home does not feel good, you need that's when you get with the experts, or you have somebody come in and coach you or accountability, you make a plan to clean up the space. And what do you want it to look like? How do you get it organized? And that's that's the first thing is having that awareness. Also, in that regard, with the practical part of protecting your home and your safe space and your internal space. Our phones and social media, you need to protect yourself from that too, because we're being inundated with negative patterns and algorithms and all of that stuff. No matter what

20:41Tami Sharp algorithm you subscribe to, you're still gonna get just peppered with negativity. So you really need to protect your mind. That's the first thing. Um, energetically, in your room, especially your bedroom, a lot of people have TVs, phones, all sorts of electronics in their room. And any feng shui expert will tell you, no, get it out.

21:03Lyssia Katan Do you believe that like some cultures they use the evil eye and some cultures they use the gemstones, and some cultures they use um they burn sage or they have like a Buddha at the front door? Do you think it's all the same thing, just a different, like different fonts, really, for the same concept?

21:19Tami Sharp So I was very fortunate. I got to go to China when I was 12 years old. Um there were 20 of us kids that were student ambassadors that got to go from Beijing all the way down the coast and ended in Hong Kong before we came back. We were there for about three weeks. And that's a very impressionable age. I think that's a huge part of where I learned things as well, because we got to go to do home stays in villages. And when you walk into the temples, the homes, whatever, there's kind of like a curb that you have to step up and they didn't have um doors. They had like beaded curtains, and then you step in and over this curb. And it's like, well, why is the curb there? To knock off the negative energy

21:56Tami Sharp so stuff doesn't follow you in. Um, they also uh They would put zigzag paths across their water. Why? So that negative energy, one, most energies and spirits can't cross water. And then to do the bridge, anything that's following you, it knocks off the negative energy. So these other cultures are very, very rooted in spirituality and things that we can't see in other realms and whatnot.

22:21Lyssia Katan Talking about Ayurveda, I it might just be my lack of knowledge in the topic, but I've always known Ayurveda to be like, you know, the ginger drinks you drink, or like the turmeric lattes and things like that, which obviously I know is is probably not Ayurveda at all, but that's kind of how it's communicated to the masses. Can you tell me a little bit more and how it connects with the individual human and their space rather than their internal?

22:46Fance Brunel Yes. So Ayurveda is traditional Indian medicine. It's a 4,000 year old system of medicine. You can call it DIY. It was designed to empower people to know how to eat and how to live a lifestyle that keeps them in alignment and keeps them healthy from a body, mind, and heart or soul perspective. It doesn't have a direct correlation with interiors. There's another system called Vastu that come from the general Vedic sciences that come from India. That you know, there's yoga, Ayurveda, Vastu, Jyoti, which is astrology. And so Vastu is kind of like the Indian version of Feng Shui. So that's where they talk a lot about energetics and how spaces affect the human body. I, because I'm an Ayurvedic coach,

23:47Fance Brunel I have and a designer, I've merged both sciences together. But basically, what Ayurveda has helped me do, because it's a very personalized system of well-being, it will never say, you know, to everyone that everyone should drink a ginger drink. It will say based on your, it typifies people in one of seven mind and body types. And according to your mind and body type, it will determine the natural tendencies that you will have to get off balance. Um, so you know, you'll have the anxious person, the lethargic person, the um, and I mean, I'm overly simplifying all of this, but it basically gave me a framework for personalization that goes much deeper than style when it comes to interior design.

24:37Fance Brunel The core idea is that everyone has a natural constitution, tendencies towards certain imbalances, uh, overweight, anxiety, constipation, like it goes all to all of the unsexy stuff. Um, and you restore balance by bringing it, by bringing in the opposing quality. And that principle of bringing in the opposing quality has been huge in influencing my design work. So, for example, if you run dry and cold and anxious, they Ayurveda will say you need to eat warm, hydrating, cooked foods to have a lot of natural fats in them. You need to oil your skin to ground your nervous system. And so I, and if you're you know lethargic and you tend to have a lot of phlegm in your body, a lot of um uh allergies

25:24Fance Brunel and you carry extra weight, then you will go towards more drying and heating foods that will start to burn all of that phlegm and start to activate your metabolism and your energy. Um, so that those are two examples of how you counterbalance with the opposing qualities. And so in design, I apply that same logic. I'm not designing a room to look good in a universal sense. I'm designing it to counterbalance the specific person uh tendencies. So if I tend to run anxious, I live on the 32nd floor in New York by the water, there's tons of wind, cold, and drying qualities. I will just do everything to basically increase my anxiety level. My environment will be designed with grounding elements like

26:10Fance Brunel a thick rug, heavy legs that will ground my nervous system, natural materials that are heavy, like travertine and marble and heavy woods. And I won't use dandy uh legged chairs that are beautiful, aesthetically beautiful. It just will not help me ground my nervous system. We are energetic beings, so we're influenced by energy, by subtlety, right? And it's the type of stuff that people are like, yeah, yeah, yeah. But like you we've all stepped into a hotel room and we felt good. We all stepped into a restaurant and we felt it good. And the opposite is true as well.

26:44Lyssia Katan Can you walk us through how different materials and textures change how a space actually feels on our nervous system?

26:52Fance Brunel Different materials can either ground you, energize you, uh, they can make you feel um held or not. I think um the tapping into textures and materials is a very uh easy way after color to um create specific results. So if you run a little heavy and slow, use reflective surfaces that will reflect and bounce the light off of them and add more brightness to the space and energy to the space. Use lighter shapes, uh thinner legs, more airy um components in the room. So you're not gonna have a block for your coffee table. You might have a coffee table that actually has legs so that there's air that circulates under. Um materials aren't just an aesthetic choice, they're a physiological one. Um, if

27:48Fance Brunel you feel like you're needing, if you're anxious, you want grounding, more matte um textures and materials that will absorb more of the light and uh reverberate less energy. Um that's an example, or tactile surfaces instead of cold, hard finishes. So papier machet, uh rugged wood materials, anything that's not perfectly smooth, uh will if it's yeah, will can also add some grounding elements to the space.

28:23Lyssia Katan You have lived in so many different places across the world. And like you said, Paris, Williamsburg, uh Hong Kong. Did you notice how your body reacted to those spaces outside of the home, just the cities themselves?

28:38Fance Brunel Yes, and I actually designed my homes specifically to counterbalance the energy of the city. But um, yeah, I mean in New York, I will feel more invincible. The kind of the that notion of you know, the the traditional American dream, uh, I think is obviously has maybe changed, but it's still there. Um where there's a an energy of of doing, of hustling, of creating, of you feel like you're rising and you're you can you know challenge your limiting beliefs and achieve your dreams, actually chip at them little by little. In France, it's more of a calming, reflective, aesthetically oriented energy, uh, where things are more about exchange, pleasure, um, and beauty um and being rooted in history and

29:39Fance Brunel culture. I think uh this, yeah, there's and it's it's a more communal, less individual. Um, and so all of those energies, and I'm sure I mean we could do that exercise with every city in the US, every city in the world, etc. Um, but because I live between the two, they're most at the foreground for me right now. Um, but every city has very unique energy, and the way you design your home should actually be considering the energy of the city, just because it's um, you know, you don't live in a vacuum. You get into your home after a day outside in the city, and so um your home is gonna have to restore you after the day outside. And so, how does it restore you? It should restore you based on the

30:29Fance Brunel experience that you've had outside.

30:30Lyssia Katan Woo-woo, science, intuition, I don't think it matters what you call it. Your body already knows it's been reading these rooms your whole life. Maybe now you'll notice it too. And that's season one. Thank you so much for spending the time with me on Room to Think. If you enjoyed this episode, feel free to follow the show, subscribe, leave a review, and share it with someone who you think would really appreciate a more thoughtful approach to their space. You can find more Design Meets Psychology insights on social, in our community, and definitely in upcoming episodes so you can build a better life by design. I'm so excited to share season two with you very, very soon. Thanks again for listening.

31:11Lyssia Katan I'll see you next time.