Create Harmony In Your Environment With Meena Jagpal-Paré

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Transcript - if you prefer reading over listening

FYI: this text is not polished, It is auto-generated and  I edited it a bit, but I try to keep it as close as possible to how the guest expressed herself/himself . 

Conny Graf 
Welcome Meena I wanted to have a guest speaking about Feng Shui on my podcast since the beginning. I'm so honored that you're my guest today.

Meena Jagpal-Paré 
Thank you Conny, thank you for having me.

Conny Graf 
How are you today.

Meena Jagpal-Paré 
Good. I'm excited about talking about Feng Shui, especially with decluttering expert here I think we really give each other so it's time that we have a good conversation about it.

Conny Graf 
Exactly. I think so too. Like I said, since I met you I felt like you really needed to be on my podcast So tell me a little bit, or our listeners a little bit, who is Meena, and why did you find Feng Shui or, or how did Feng Shui find you.

Meena Jagpal-Paré 
Great question. I get asked that often and I ask people, you know in your field or many other fields that same question because we're all connected to stories, our life stories and I'm passionate about finding how everybody else connects to their passion as well. I have been using Feng Shui, I got connected with it 23 years ago when my son was born and I was on maternity leave.

Back then we didn't have the internet, or readily available like it is now. And so I went out and got a coffee table book just stumbled across it, it caught my interest and I started to practice baby steps in my own life. And here we are today. In my life I did hire consultants, three different stages every five to seven years, life changed and just my passion grew, my passion grew more and more. And to a point where four years ago I decided to train and make this my life's purpose.

Conny Graf 
Yeah, that's beautiful when you come to it like that. It's similar for me with decluttering so I read a book back in my early 20s and then you do other things in life and then all of a sudden it comes full circle and you're starting to do it more or more intense or more professional. So can you quickly explain to my listeners what Feng Shui exactly is I don't even know 100% whether I pronounce it correctly because a lot of people say Feng Shui and I think that is completely wrong.

Meena Jagpal-Paré 
Well, there's no wrong or right it's, you know, different accents, different pronunciation. It's spelled Feng Shui but you know I hear most often people in the industry calling it Feng Shui so either way what it is, its placement of our personal belongings or layouts, so that the chi flows smoothly. That is the entire purpose of Feng Shui is mostly so that we create positive harmony in our environment by having no obstacles in the movement of chi.

Conny Graf 
Yeah, and with chi you mean the life energy right, the energy that enters the home,

Meena Jagpal-Paré 
Hmmm, it's the positive flow, if we can visualize it. In classical Feng Shui where my training is, we believe that chi enters from the front door. And so imagine a force of positive energy that enters through your front door, and is circulating around your environment, whether it's your residence or your home or your business, your office your retail establishment, wherever you spend most of the time. Imagine the positive chi circulating flowing and trying to bring in harmony into your life that's what we call chi in Feng Shui. 

Conny Graf 
Yeah, that's beautiful. So now that brings me to a quick question. So here in North America it's very common that you have a front door and a back door or a side door possibly and that's not like that in Switzerland where I grew up. We usually don't have a back door. But here in North America I noticed a lot of people they only enter their house from the back door. So one of my huge questions I always had was okay so if in Feng Shui, if the Chi comes in the front door but I only or almost only open the back door what does that mean then for the Chi? 

Meena Jagpal-Paré 
So I'm going to start by saying that you are absolutely correct. In North America most of us enter through our garage, which is usually at the back or side of the house, and not through our front door. Having said that, I did say briefly that my training is in classical Feng Shui, there is classical Feng Shui and then there's Western Feng Shui and many other modalities so those are the two main ones. Western Feng Shui was brought into North America in the 80s, and I am trained in classical. And when you say that when we enter through the front door and I say chi comes through the front door, that is mostly the belief in Western Fung Shui.

For us in classical Fung Shui the front door has its importance, however, classical Feng Shui changes every year, so it's annual, changes beginning of February, for the next 12 months. So sometimes there's rare cases that the front door is not your auspicious direction for the next 12 months. So therefore it's okay not to disturb the energy or exit too much in the front door. Having said that, in general, yes, that chi does enter through the front door, therefore it's very very important that if you don't use your front door to open the door, go out for a few minutes, walk around your front entrance, come back in, bring some joy, and energy of abundance and happiness into your home as you're entering in. A lot of the stuff as you're probably aware is intentional based. A lot of energy is what we feel, so when you're entering your home to your front door with the intention of inviting positive chi in with you, it's served its purpose and you can use the backdoor the rest of the time. Bt make it a point to go out a few times if you can. 

Conny Graf 
Oh, that's a good tip yeah okay good that puts me at ease because in the house I'm living here the front door is actually not used for various reasons other than I actually use it when the sun is shining I use it to open the door and let the sunshine and the air come into the living room, which I really love. 

Meena Jagpal-Paré 
Great Idea

Conny Graf 
Yeah, and you know like so when I went into deeper training for helping people with clutter which actually a lot has to do with awareness and intention like you're talking about. My mentor always said that clearing the clutter is actually the stage before you can actually think of doing any Feng Shui in your house. And I think you're agreeing with that because the chi can't really flow when you have too much stuff standing around and all this clutter standing around and I always say too that negative energy often gets stuck on all this clutter. And when our surroundings are cluttered and the negative energy is stuck then it has an effect on us on the inside. Would you agree with that?

Meena Jagpal-Paré 
Totally, 100% as much as my main focus in my business is Feng Shui and not decluttering Having said that, decluttering I tell all my clients when I go into their environment is, if there is clutter, we first need to get in touch with somebody like yourself who is trained in the psychology of clutter, and we have to remove the clutter. We have to make space for me to bring in the Fung Shui energy. My remedies are proven to work, I have faith in them I have seen many many many results when I do the Feng Shui consultation, but I am upfront with my clients. We cannot achieve results, until the clutter is gone and taken care of, mentally, physically and psychologically.

Conny Graf 
Yeah, but sees. so in today's world my experiences is, people want to have quick results so I would imagine that they're hoping that you're cures how they're also called as far as I know I don't know whether that's in Classical Feng Shui you call them cures as well but that's what I hear or read when I read books about Feng Shui so they want to just put a cure up somewhere and not go deep. It's a little bit similar like with when I come and help people declutter they don't want to go deep they just want to have a quick fix. so do you come across that a lot.

Meena Jagpal-Paré 
Yes, yes, you're right, they're called cures or remedies, we call them remedies. Everything has a remedy. There's a remedy for the house, it doesn't matter how it's built we can place remedies and achieve results. Having said that, I'm very upfront, like I mentioned earlier with my clients. This is not, you know, some sort of woodoo or some sort of ritual where you could place this here and you'll magically see results, it's intention based, you do have to do some other work. Having said that, I have seen amazing results with my clients because when I speak with them, it gets the momentum going. It gets the energy going in them, they get excited, they get passionate, they get hopeful. When they get hopeful, they start to take baby steps.

When they take baby steps and I call it hand holding, I follow up with them, I want them to see results. And when I do, I keep them encouraged to declutter. What did you do today decluttering does not have to be like you've said in many of your podcasts, it does not have to be overwhelming. Start with five minutes a day, but it's to keep that momentum going. And this is what I love about where I'm at in life where I have the time, space, energy, and the passion to do the hand holding because at the end of the day, somebody paid me for a service, where they felt it was necessary. They felt the need, the universe connected us. Now it's up to me to make sure that they achieve their results. And if I have to keep connected with them, or connect them to a professional like yourself to step in. I will do so, but we do see results, the clients do end up doing the work. The work is, yes you're right, it's absolutely necessary.

Conny Graf 
Yeah, so I think it's like with anything we can't just expect to have everything served on a silver platter. So if we're doing our part, then we're making progress in the right direction and the help will come, whether it is in form of Feng Shui remedies or whether it's in the form of help from myself or from you, like, for motivation and keep the momentum going.

It's the same what I'm saying too with decluttering, so, when you start with decluttering it will change something inside of you and then because inside of you something clears up or gets clearer, you become clear how your outside could look or you want your outside to look. And then it's kind of like a back and forth flow and. and that's where you want to keep going, let's say like that. I love it that you say you're doing hand holding because that's what I sometimes feel I do too. And it's important that people understand it's not just a one time thing that you're just doing it once and then it's solved. It's an ongoing thing and our life like a spiral and we want to move up the spiral but we may always come across a certain place again but we're in a different position now and that's what I see with decluttering.

So I always say like decluttering is like peeling an onion, there's always something else that you can work on and clear and it sounds like with the Classical Feng Shui it's similar when you say it starts every year fresh, there's every year a new area you can put your focus on then, so it's also an ongoing process which I find is beautiful.

Meena Jagpal-Paré 
Yes, you're right it also helps you to stay encouraged, you didn't just do it once five years ago and still sitting in expecting results you're doing your part. You're renewing the energy you're resetting the intention every year. You know they have the option of, well, we can either do it to renew it to over the phone or in person and 99.9% of my clients I think last year there was just one, and even that was because they were going through renovation. All almost all of them want me to come back into their space because they want to connect with me.

I love having these conversations with my clients where we, you know, we will sit down and have tea, and we will talk about their Feng Shui report from last year to this year and I love to hear how their year went, and what they would like to focus on this year. Is it health, is it prosperity, is it relationship, is it issues with the children, there's many, many especially when it comes to career and business prosperity. You know to sit down and chat with them once a year I'm blessed to have that opportunity where I can encourage them almost all over again. And I've seen results from that so come February, that's when I don't take any new appointments, I give the time and space to my previous clients and keep them motivated.

Conny Graf 
Yeah, I love that and it keeps the awareness present when you are doing this on a regular basis. It's like you're staying aware to your inner world what changed and then you can make a change to the outer world possibly or like you said what you want to focus on. It keeps the Chi in our life flowing, not just in our house. That's kind of what comes to my mind. I want to switch gears a little bit, so I'm following you on Instagram and you put out these beautiful posts sometimes where you talk about it or where you also make us aware of certain simple things that we can do not to use them as quick fix, but just to use them to be more aware and in one of your posts you mentioned something about lucky direction.

And I was just wondering whether you could tell us a little bit what is a lucky direction, I really curious, that's all for me but I'm thinking maybe my listeners are interested, too.

Meena Jagpal-Paré 
I think you're referring to the personal Triagram, where we have the lucky, a your your best color option and your best placement, where to sit at your desk is that what you're referring to? 

Conny Graf 
Um, yeah, probably, it just was some... um, you were saying that we should make sure we're paying attention to our lucky directions something like that. 

Meena Jagpal-Paré 
right yes it's what we call in Classical Feng Shui it's our personal Triagram. So we all have our personal Triagram, if one of your listeners would like to receive their that's all complimentary it's my way of giving back. They can send me an email, and all I need is their date of birth, and I can send them their personal Triagram. Elaborating on it a little bit basically it's a full page and it all depends on when you were born.

The three key areas that I like to use for the client's benefit. The first one is your best, your power colour, what we call your power color. So if you're going for that job interview, if you're going on your first date, if you're going to apply for a mortgage or anything where you feel that you just need that extra blessing from the universe. Wearing your power color helps, and it enhances your being, it enhances the positive chi around you and you do notice that prosperity in your interaction during that scenario.

So, and the second one and that is your best position for your desk position whether you have a home office or a desk that you said that and work after hours at home, especially in your office or place of business. Which way your back would be facing depending on when you were born.

And the third one is the placement of your bed. So where your headboard is where your head would be placed when you're sleeping What is your best direction. As you know, we have North, West, South, East but then we also have Northwest, Southeast and so on so it elaborates in detail and it's a great reference point. 

It's my way of giving, like I said, and the beauty of it is it's yours, it's personalized to you when you were born and it never changes, it's permanent. You can get in touch with me and I gladly do the calculations and email to your listeners. 

Conny Graf 
Yeah, that's really generous offer and I took you up on it and it's really interesting. It was actually my favorite color that is my power color which came pretty good, pretty handy 

Meena Jagpal-Paré 
Like I had mentioned when we were chatting before was intuitively, we're already connected to those. It just depends where we are in building our intuition and also taking the time to really listen to our intuition. Usually we do gravitate towards what's good for us. And, but this just confirms that in writing. 

Conny Graf 
Yeah, exactly, and I talk a lot about listening to ourselves and our intuition on this podcast because I feel like in our society, it's still... like when you say oh my gut says no, but my head says yes, then most people would still say well then you should do what your head says. And then my experience is whenever I'm not listening to my gut something goes definitely wrong and I can look back and think oh I should have listened to my intuition.

So that's another thing that I actually love about Feng Shui that when we're actually really listening to us, it all makes so much sense what what we're reading, or how how the things should be placed, or that we should live with less clutter. I don't know whether this is too simplified now, but I do feel like a lot of common sense is in it too, meaning we would know it if we would actually really ask ourselves and not be so influenced by the society or the outside world, that is more focused on the left side of the brain and the rational things.

Meena Jagpal-Paré 
Yes. You know you refered to listening to your intuition, and then, you know, basically Feng Shui simplified. Just to give you an idea, if we could actually see the Chi entering and we knew that it was bringing us prosperity and good health and just contentment in our life. And it was physically entering through let's say our front door, we would remove all the obstacles. It's just the right now intuitively we're not, you know, emphasizing on the importance of it, therefore we're not paying attention to the clutter. So one of the basic things in Fung Shui is, I'll just share a few things.

Let's just say that we could visualize it coming, and then we have rose bushes with thorns in the front entrance. Well can you imagine that it would be piercing that Chi coming in, and then it enters and we have clutter everywhere. We have three stone on the front entrance, then the Chi goes further into the house we have a powder room we have our bathrooms and the toilet lid is up and the Chi is flushing right down. So keep the toilet lid closed, keep the clutter to a minimum so that the Chi is flowing freely. Keep the knives off the counters in the kitchen, that's another one of the basic Feng Shui tips that we Feng Shui consultants give out.

There is basic Fung Shui, and it's all on my Instagram I'd love to share free tips because these are like you said earlier it's common sense. But, you know, reinforced by by Feng Shui right now. And just imagine that there is actually positive Chi trying to enhance your life, so try to remove all the obstacles, and especially clutter Yes.

Conny Graf 
Yeah, I so agree with you. So where can people find you, tell us about your business. What's the name of your business, the name of your website.

Meena Jagpal-Paré 
Thank you. Thank you for asking. The name that I named it it's Momentum, Momentum Feng Shui, I'm based in White Rock Vancouver area of Canada. However, I do virtual Feng Shuis around the world, and I just did a couple in England, and one in Dubai and, quite a few in in North America in the States, and some in Toronto recently.

So, virtual Feng Shui is just as effective as if I was to go in person locally so I do both. And my Instagram is @momentumfengshui, you can search me My name is Meena, and I post regularly. I post memes, graphics, anything to do with Feng Shui, like I said, is my way of giving back. There's very very simple tips that do make a difference, they do make a difference you will know that the listeners will discover it for themselves once they implement them. I keep it simple, simple yet effective. I am trained in classical Feng Shui.

The reason being is, again, going back to keeping it simple this is where it originated over 5000 years ago. Many many businesses use it and have been using it for years and years. Off the top of my head. IBM uses Feng Shui Universal Studios, Coca Cola. British Airways, many, many other ones it's all on my website. My website again is https://www.momentumfengshui.com. Anytime anybody has a question they can send me an email, I will love to reply. If I can post tips on my Instagram and Facebook page, I can definitely reply to your listeners as well, I will be glad to hear from them.

Conny Graf 
Yeah, that's beautiful and I want to mention too that I think you speak five different languages, did you want to quickly say which languages that are because that may put people at ease a little bit if they're not so comfortable speaking English, maybe.

Meena Jagpal-Paré 
Thank you. Yeah, I do, I am fluent in four, and the fifth one I have pretty good command of it. I'm an East Indian background so I can read and write in the in Punjabi, I'm fluent in English. I came here in my team and I am also fluent in Urdu, which is the language of poetry, poetics, so I learned that in my early years. And I grew up in Philippines, so I do have a good command of Tagalog, and, you know, I am also fluent in the universal language of love and smiling 🙂 

Conny Graf 
that's beautiful

Meena Jagpal-Paré 
that's where it all starts, it's universal.

Conny Graf 
Yeah, beautiful. So before we wrap up. Do you have any last words of wisdom or tips that you would want to share like anything that I maybe didn't ask that you feel like needs to be said before we part ways?

Meena Jagpal-Paré 
That's great. I'm glad you asked that because when, as soon as you ask for one thing that came to my mind was intention. I was searching for a name for my business, that was more than just the name to advertise it. It had to be a name that resonated with me. And after months and months one day in my meditation I got the name momentum. And as you know it's m o m, and has OM in it. And it just came to me I still get goosebumps when I think about that moment. It's brilliant and my tagline is bringing OM into Feng Shui, I feel that spirituality, intention setting, and giving back, it enhances everything. It enhances your purpose, it enhances what you get back from the universe in return. So bringing on spirituality into our daily life, start your day with meditation.

Like you say you can declutter for five minutes, and you will notice the difference. It's the same thing, sitting down with ourselves and just giving ourselves, five minutes every day, just connecting with the higher power in any shape and form that you can. Connecting with that spiritual energy sets the tone for the day. I believe in that, I have seen results when my clients have connected to the path of just appreciating, gratitude, and grounding ourselves. I will continue to preach that in my Feng Shui practice.

Conny Graf 
Beautiful. Thank you very much Meena for being a guest on my show, so awesome. Thank you Bye Bye. 

Meena Jagpal-Paré 
Bye. 

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