Want a happy and harmonious life? A feng shui master shares her tips on setting up your home

If there was ever a city that needed to be feng shui-ed, it has to be New York. Is there anything New Yorkers need more than this 5,000-year-old Chinese art of balancing energy in spaces to bring harmony and success? While it might be an undertaking to feng shui all five boroughs, a good place to start is your home.

Master Pun-Yin is one of New York’s most in demand feng shui practitioners, with a high-powered client list that has included Donald Trump (at the Trump International Hotel and Tower), the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center and Calvin Klein. She apprenticed with her father, the feng shui master Tin Sun, for 15 years before opening her own practice, and today her work is evenly divided between private clients' homes and corporate clients in New York, the tri-state area and Asia. 

Here, she explains how to ready your apartment for fall, why plants are your friend, and when mirrors spell trouble.

Is it possible to feng shui a studio apartment, where everything happens in one space?

You identify the primary and secondary energy zones so that a higher energy area would be reserved for the seating and work area. The secondary zone would be used to sleep and organize things neatly.

Many people use mirrors in small apartments to open up the space. But feng shui has strict rules about mirrors.

Mirrors should not reflect the bed (it causes restless sleep), your work area, (lessens concentration and calm), the range/stove (can increase family stress) or entrances (it pushes energy out the door).

New York City is a high-stress place. Best way to bring life force energy, or chi, into your home?

Create an area to tune in to the divine connection, our higher self, that lets us feel calm and clear. Minimize things on the night table [clutter is stagnant energy and drains your ability to recharge] and remove your computer and things that remind us of work in the bedroom.

How do you prepare your apartment for fall and winter?

It is good to acknowledge cycles and nature so that the different moods can enrich our lives. Bring in harvest and colorful autumn leaves to warm up your home before it cools in the winter. During the winter months, have branches with red berries at the heart meridians [a pathway for energy that's in a high-traffic area]—​and candles or red apples on the coffee table. The color red represents the fire element of Yang Chi to warm the winter months.

Feng shui places a premium on bringing plants and greenery into your home. Why?

Nature heals, especially when it’s alive. A live plant radiates chi, and when placing the right kind and color of plants at certain meridian points, it elevates the energy of the space.   Generally, rounded leaves are best [like jade plants, which symbolize prosperity]. Avoid sharp palm or cactus [which bring spiky energy that may undermine a calm environment].