Good feng shui often requires making wise decisions based on your specific circumstances, rather than blinding following an ideal rule. The feng shui rule for storing things under your bed is "don't do it." But for those who live in small homes every inch of possible storage space is precious. If you are faced with cluttering up some other area of your home with stuff that otherwise might be put under
bed, how do you decide what to do? My preference as a feng shui professional is to keep more visible, frequently used areas of home uncluttered. If that means storing some things under bed, so be it, as long as it is done thoughtfully and appropriately.
There are two reasons why your bed is so important in feng shui. The first is principle of proximity, which states that closer something is to you stronger its effect will be. The second is principle of duration, which means that longer you are exposed to a particular influence stronger its effect will be.
If we were getting our eight full hours of sleep every night, we'd be spending a third of our lives in bed. Even with long days and not enough sleep, average person probably spends 25% or more of his or her time in bed. Keeping factors of proximity and duration in mind, this means that anything that is close to you while you sleep will have a strong effect on you, either physically or symbolically.
Since you are probably well protected from below by a nice thick mattress, whatever you've got stashed beneath your bed isn't likely to be directly harmful. However, in feng shui symbolic energy of an object or image is just as important as whatever literal impact it may have. If you are using your underbed area for storage, take a moment to think about implications of whatever is down there, especially if you haven't been sleeping well lately. If you don't remember what you've stashed under your bed, it's time to take another look.
Here are some things that you ought to find another place for:
- Shoes under bed can keep you "running around" all night even when you are sound asleep. No matter how many hours of sleep you get, you may never feel well rested.
- Exercise gear, workout clothes, and sports equipment are also less than relaxing. Unless you want to feel like you're "going nowhere fast" in life, don't store your treadmill, rowing machine, aerobic step under bed. Tennis rackets (or other gear for competitive sports) can bring a competitive, adversarial energy to your romantic relationships. It's best not to have any kind of exercise or sports equipment in bedroom at all if you can find another place for it.
- Books and work or school papers can have an intellectually stimulating effect; if you have trouble turning your mind-chatter off so you can fall asleep at night, make sure you are not sleeping on top of a lot of information. Plus, chances are good that if you're keeping that stuff under bed it probably isn't at all current, so all that old information is also energetically holding you in past.
