I received a complementary copy of this book from Hay House for review purposes. The opinions are completely my own based on my experience.
When I first had the opportunity to review Cheryl Grace’s “Feng Shui Simply: Changing Your Life From The Inside Out” I wasn’t interested. “Why would I want to review a book about interior decorating?” I thought. But with the many books I read and review, I do like to mix it up and read different material now and then. “Why not?” I said to myself. “Besides, Cheryl Grace once worked for ESPN. Maybe she’ll have some sports stories in there.”
I soon discovered Feng Shui Simply is far more than a book about decorating – it’s about a person’s internal emotional state and how that is reflected in the environments we surround ourselves with. It is one of the best books I have read this year.
Grace was a high profile executive at ESPN. “My accomplishments at the network had elevated me to a level of considerable success: high visibility, worldwide travel, a powerful leadership position, and an executive salary with perks,” she writes. “I should have been at the happiest point in my life. Yet I had to admit that I wasn’t.” She first took feng shui classes while keeping her day job, then she left the corporate world to become a full time consultant in this Chinese art of managing energy. “As I absorbed every detail and applied it to my home, every aspect of my life began to change for the better,” she remembers.
The author explains the concepts in easy to understand terms, even for a guy like me more interested in football than home decor. I liked how Grace differentiates her approach from other feng shui strategies. “The focus of conventional feng shui books is the external environment,” she writes. “The purpose of the cures we see is to alter the energy of the space in a way that connects directly with what’s going on inside us. However, the one-size-fits-all manner that’s common today doesn’t delve more deeply into the inner life of the person using it, and this can be unproductive—even counterproductive.” Her emphasis on inner transformation in coordination with outer change is effective – it’s not just a book about rearranging furniture.
Throughout Feng Shui Simply Grace treats us to entertaining stories of clients she has worked with. Grace recommends to a successful career woman that she move a large picture of Janis Joplin out of the bedroom. “Don’t you like Janis Joplin?” the client asks. “It’s a great picture,” Grace replies. “But she was a drug addict and an alcoholic, she was single, and she’s dead. We need to move her to a different space. Instead, let’s find a piece of artwork that better reflects Love and Marriage to hang on this wall that will serve as a greeter when you enter the room.” After this and other home alterations are made, the client soon finds the love of her life. When working on the invitation list for the wedding her fiance remarks,”We have to have the feng shui lady there.” Stories like this make Feng Shui Simply fun to read – it’s not all theory.
“Our own vital energy is either supported or depleted by everything in the environment,” Grace writes. “The goal of feng shui is to improve and elevate the energy around us, which ultimately boosts our own energy to a more awakened state.” After reading Feng Shui Simply I see many changes I want to make to my home office as I write this review. I think it will cause you to reassess your everyday surroundings, too.
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Comments
Thank you Tim, for the amazing review of my book, Feng Shui Simply! I was just overwhelmed and I’m glad you enjoyed it! Yes, even a sports girl can find her inner Zen!
Thank you,
Cheryl Grace