Mindful Design Q&A 3: Friendship
Q&A: What can I do to attract more friends and make stronger friendships?
A lot of people often are afraid to admit that they would like to have more friends, or that they don’t have close friendships. It’s definitely something that you can work on in a practical way, of course, by doing mundane things like going out and meeting more people. There are also some ways we can use feng shui to shift and modify things in your home to attract more friendships. One way to do this is to look at the dining room table.
The dining table is an important area of your home that represents a gathering place. It’s a place to enjoy company and break bread (or gluten free bread!), and so much warmth is felt here. The first thing to ask is: do you have a real dining room table? A kitchen island or a coffee table in front of the TV does not count. A lot of people forgo it nowadays, because they don’t think they need it. This can be very similar to how we think about friendships, unfortunately. People might not consider friendships as important, especially in this time of social media which has replaced much of our face-to-face interactions.
The next thing to do is to use your dining table, so that you begin activate it and bring more energy to it. One aspect of this is to welcome people and invite friends over for dinner, but you can also start to use it even when you are not entertaining. It’s important to use it for something like eating, rather than working or piling up your mail, because those things often work against developing deep friendships.
Another thing you can look at in terms of the dining room table is how close it is to your front door. One of our teachers says that if your dining table is very close to the front door, your friends can dine and dash. They just pop in and out of your life, and you don’t develop deep friendships. If this is the case for you, simply moving your dining table further into your home can be helpful. If that’s not possible, you can set up a mirror nearby that reflects the image of the table. The mirror should be facing towards the center of your home, so that the reflection of your dining table is brought deeper into your home.
Some people may have space limitations or other reasons they cannot have a dining room table. If that’s the case, do the best you can. For those of you who do have dining tables, this is a great place to start. It’s easy to be intentional with where you put the table and how you treat it.
When you want to make a change in your life, it’s also important to consider practical everyday actions. Do you need to do some personal development work and think about how you make friendships? Can you get out of the house more? Try spending less time in front of a screen and more time talking with people in-person.