If you’ve been learning about how to feng shui your home for a while, you’ll know that one of the great side effects of using feng shui is that you become a lot luckier in your life.
Feng shui is all about setting up your home for success so that you attract good luck, good fortune, and great energy, so that it circulates throughout your home and makes your life better!
That being said, you can add all of the good luck crystals or feng shui lucky items to your home but still have some bad luck happening.
In fact, sometimes adding feng shui items to your home can actually AMPLIFY bad luck.
Why is that? Because if you don’t address the underlying energetics in your home, you’re essentially adding to the chaos, making the Chi speed up.
But if you have chaotic energy in your home already, speeding up that energy means that the bad luck starts circulating faster too!
Let’s discuss what can cause bad luck in feng shui (and what to do about it!)
What Causes Bad Luck In Feng Shui?
There are a few common things in your home that can actually drag down the energy and cause bad luck in feng shui.
These things can cause energetic blocks, stagnant energy, or just decrease good energy overall.
If good Chi has to move around these things, it drags down the energy and “dirties it up.”
This can increase bad luck and cause good luck to slow to a trickle.
Here are the most common household items that cause bad luck in feng shui:
Clutter
All forms of clutter cause stuck energy. That includes “hidden” clutter because NOTHING is hidden in feng shui!
If your home feels cluttered to you, then it IS. And only you can determine what’s clutter and what isn’t.
But if you feel overwhelmed when you enter your home (or enter certain rooms in your home) then that is definitely a sign that you have some clutter that could be cleared.
Broken Items
Broken items cause a “broken” life!
If you have a lot of bad luck, especially in a certain area of your life, check that area of the bagua map to see if that bad luck correlates to broken items in that area of your home.
Fix broken things right away, or throw them out.
Dirt and Grime and Bad Smells
Dirt, grime, dust, and bad smells contribute to how your home feels energetically.
Think about how much better your home feels after you clean it.
When you clean your home, you are stirring up the Chi and getting it moving!
That’s why cleaning is always a good place to start when you are freshening up the feng shui in your home.
It gets the energy moving and cleans it up!
Broken Mirrors or Broken Glass
Again, broken items cause broken energy (and can actually make you “broke” if they’re in the wealth area of your home.)
This is especially true of broken glass and broken mirrors.
Glass and mirrors are water element items, and the water element represents wealth in feng shui.
That means the wealth energy in your home will be fractured and scattered.
Mirrors and windows also represent how you see the world (and yourself) so it’s especially important to replace them ASAP.
Negative Books or Media
If you are consuming a lot of negative media in your home that will also drag down the Chi!
Not to mention it will directly affect your mood and energy, which will expand throughout the rest of your life.
Be very mindful of how much negative tv, books, movies, and magazines you and your family consume and display or store in your home.
And make sure you declutter your books and media every few months so that it reflects the kind of energy you want to have in your home!
Negative Artwork
Artwork tends to reflect the energy we have in our lives at the time we purchase or hang it.
Look at the artwork or pictures you are displaying in your home and make sure it’s positive and uplifting!
What you look at every day affects how you feel (just like we discussed above!)
Keep your artwork current and make sure you love it!
Neglected Home Maintenance
Like clutter and broken items, neglected home maintenance can cause stuck energy.
It also affects your energy subconsciously, even if you feel like you don’t even see it anymore!
Keep your home in good shape and the Chi will circulate more freely and increase good fortune!
Home maintenance to the outside of your home affects the inside energy as well, so make sure you maintain your home’s exterior too!
Unfinished Projects
Unfinished projects in your home just remind you of all of the things on your to-do list.
They keep the energy in your home stuck in the same place, unable to move forward.
Rooms That Are Never Used
If you have rooms that are never used, be sure to go through them at least once a month.
Clean them, air them out, open the windows and curtains, and stir up the good Chi!
For even better feng shui, repurpose or use the rooms you’re neglecting!
It’s better to use your space and keep the energy flowing.
Items with Negative Emotions Attached to Them
If you have a lot of items in your home that make you feel bad when you see them, that energy will build up over time and can cause bad luck.
Don’t keep things in your home that you don’t love!
If you have a lot of things people have given you, or family heirlooms that you don’t actually want, you don’t have to keep them.
Give them a new home where someone will appreciate them!
When your home is full of things you love, it will be full of uplifted and positive energy!
Poison Arrows
Poison arrows in feng shui are objects that “point” at you with sharp corners.
Poison arrows are usually things like corners of furniture, walls, or even artwork that juts off of the wall.
These points cause sharp energy that “cuts” into the room and can cut into your energy if you’re sitting or laying near it.
Poison arrows can also be created by anything with dangerous energy, like knives or even cactus plants.
You can soften sharp edges redirecting the energy with plants or covering sharp furniture edges.
Or you can even hang a small feng shui crystal from the ceiling in front of sharp corners to disperse the arrow energy.
Dead, Dying, or Unlucky Plants
Dead or dying plants represent dying Chi energy, which can trap stagnant energy.
Don’t keep plant hospitals or dead plants all over your home – compost them and replace them as soon as you can.
Along the lines of poison arrows, sharp or dangerous plants can also carry bad luck energy.
Cactus plants that are too close to furniture or on your desk can keep your nervous system on high alert, which causes frantic energy.
If you love cactus plants, place them in areas that aren’t too close to seating areas, walkways, or your bed.
There are also other unlucky feng shui plants, you can see more information about those here: Bad Luck Plants in Feng Shui [List of Unlucky Plants!]
Unused or Neglected Front Door
Your front door is how fresh energy enters your home.
When it comes to bad luck, feng shui, and your front door, it should:
- Be in good condition – all parts should work properly.
- Be kept clean.
- Open freely.
- Be used often. If you never use your front door, at least open it and walk through it a couple of times a week.
- Ideally, it shouldn’t be blocked by trees or hedges, and the walkway up to the door should be open.
Anything that blocks energy from freely moving to and through your front door can create bad luck in feng shui.
Take a look at this post for more information about how to feng shui your front door.
Cluttered Walkways
Feng shui is all about how energy moves throughout your home.
Any place where energy can’t move freely will lower the energy and cause stagnation and frustration.
If YOU can’t move freely throughout your home, then energy can’t either!
Keep walkways and areas around doors free of clutter and heavy furniture.
Take a stroll around your home and check all of the walkways and doorways for anything that inhibits flow.
Doors that Don’t Open Easily
In the same vein as walkways and your front door, all interior doorways are also important.
Make sure all doors open freely and aren’t blocked.
That includes closet doors!
If you open a closet door or pantry door and things fall on your head, that creates stuck energy because you are bracing your energy every time you open that door.
That energy you feel translates to how the Chi energy moves through the doorways too.
Neglected or Overgrown Yard
Everything surrounding the outside of your home can also affect the inside.
Of course, you can’t control everything outside of your home, but make sure you maintain the things you can control.
Keep your yard neat and clean so that the Chi can circulate and enter your home!
Lots of Outside Energy Coming into Your Home
If you live on a busy or loud street, that can cause the energy around your home to move very quickly.
And if you have large windows facing that street, the energy can move very quickly into your home, which can make you feel very uncomfortable.
To slow the energy down you can use curtains on large windows, plants around your home to soften the energy flow, or even crystals in your windows to disperse energy.
Leaks (Water & Energetic)
Leaks inside of your home cause draining Chi, which means Chi leaves your home instead of circulating the way you want it to.
Leaks can be actual leaks, like water dripping from pipes or faucets.
But they can also be energetic leaks, like large windows or doors directly across from your front door, so that energy flows into your home but then goes straight out the back.
If you have water leaks, fix those asap.
If you have large windows or doors directly across from each other, you can use plants, curtains, and furniture to soften the energy so it stays in your home instead of going straight out of the back.
Not Loving Your Home
How you feel about your home overall can affect how you feel in every area of your life outside of your home.
If you hate your home, it can be a reflection of your home itself but it can also be a reflection of what’s going on with your own energy.
You can’t really separate one from the other because your home’s feng shui is so personally tied to your own energy and well-being.
If you really hate your home, try to find at least one area of your home that you love and concentrate on it!
You’ll find that energy flows where your attention goes – and loving even one small area of your home will expand that love and auspicious energy throughout the rest of your life.
How to Change Your Luck with Feng Shui
If you read through the list of bad luck feng shui items and one or two things really stuck out to you, chances are really good that those are the feng shui causes of your bad luck.
But what if you don’t really know where to start or if there are too many things going on to figure out how to change it?
First, check the feng shui bagua map. The bagua map shows you which areas of your home correlate with the different areas of your life.
Second, figure out which area of your life has the worst luck. The bagua map is broken into 9 areas:
- Career
- Travel and Helpful People
- Children and Creativity
- Love and Relationships
- Fame and Reputation
- Wealth
- Family and Legacy
- Knowledge and Reputation
- Health
Does your bad luck correlate with any of those areas?
If so, check those areas of your home for any of the feng shui problems that could be causing bad luck.
You’ll often see something that really sticks out to you, and fixing that will put you well on the way to creating better luck!
Once you’ve fixed items in that area, you can then go through other areas and see what else you can optimize or fix.
If you don’t have anything that’s glaringly causing your bad luck, be sure to double-check your front door.
Your front door is always where good energy will enter your home, so you can always optimize it to increase good luck and good fortune!
Third, don’t get overwhelmed and give up.
Feng shui is about making things incrementally better.
You don’t want to make too many changes all at once because it can cause chaotic energy.
Choose one or two things to fix or optimize and after a few weeks, choose another one or two items.
You’ll be surprised at how one or two little tweaks can make a HUGE difference in your luck and energy!
Once you’ve gone through your home and cleaned, fixed, and repaired everything, THEN you can start adding feng shui cures for good luck.
But chances are really great that by the time you get to that point your luck will be AMAZING and you won’t even need to add anything else!
Now that you know what causes bad luck in feng shui, you might also want to know:
Lucky and Unlucky Feng Shui House Numbers
The Luckiest Feng Shui Front Door Colors [+ Their Meanings!]
your feng shui lucky color & how to use it to attract good luck & good fortune!