Father’s Day Special: Feng Shui, the Father Wound & Men’s Vitality in Chinese Medicine

Hey guys, welcome to the learn Feng Shui podcast where you'll learn Feng Shui from a classical point of view taking out the myth and superstition. So if you're interested in learning Feng Shui, Chinese astrology, all things Chinese and metaphysics, as well as the superstitions and myths that connect it all, you'll enjoy learning fune with me. Hey guys, welcome to the learn Feng Shui podcast. Rank and traditions meets modern living. I'm Candice Berlanga, certified Feng Shui practitioner and red ribbon professional with the international funu guild.

In today's father's day episode, we're going to explore the important role of fathers both in Chinese metaphysics Feng Shui and our lives. We'll look at how the northwest area or sector represents the father, the head of household or just the person in charge, not necessarily dad. that you can activate this space to bring a positive masculine or leadership energy. We'll also touch on the absence of a father figure or the lack of the father energy and how it can impact us and how to heal from that absence in our own lives. We're going to do a folklore Friday segment looking at Chinese medicine and men's health.

We're going to explore the ancient beliefs and practices related to vitality and longevity and the connection between Chinese medicine and men's health. We're also going to look at the traditional beliefs around how much he should ejaculate. Yes, you heard that correctly. There is theories on that according to Chinese medicine. Kind of interesting, I think.

All right, let's get into it. All right, guys. When we talk about father energy, especially in Feng Shui, we're looking at the northwest sector or area of your home. I'm just going to talk like you're unfamiliar with Feng Shui. Uh in Feng Shui, we use something called the bwa.

It is a map that makes up eight different areas. Each is linked to a different type of energy in your life. And uh each area is represented by something called a triagram. So this triagram is just a series of three stacked lines. They're either solid or broken with a break in the center.

And it just comes from the ancient Chinese text called the Iching. So each triagram tells a story about nature, energy, or even just how we show up. For example, that northwest area or sector of your home is represented by the Chen triagram. So has three solid lines that are all stacked together. And it is a pure yang or masculine energy.

It's strong, clear, and active. It represents the father figure or the father energy of your life. It's about leadership protection guidance in the kind of steady presence that offers direction and support or guidance. If you practice BTB Feng Shui, it is the area called helpful people and travel. And again, it represents that wisdom, leadership, and protection.

Even if your father isn't physically present or doesn't embody these qualities, the energy still exists. And in this sector of your home, when it's in balance, it can help bring support and embody that energy in your own life. That chen or that heaven triagram represents a father or patriarchal energy. It's not an actual father, but the energy of someone who leads with purpose, shows up consistently, and provides a sense of direction and structure. It's also associated with the element of metal, which adds qualities like discipline, protection, and even clarity or action.

Again, this is the area of your home you really want to support. So, how do you know if this area of your home is supported? Well, the Northwest sector or your helpful people sector should be in your home to first of all. So, the Northwest should not have a missing corner or it could impact that energy of your home. Not only that, it could impact the either the eldest male or the father figure living in the home.

It could represent that they don't want to be home a lot. they don't have a lot of good luck or that quality like I talked about just isn't there. That leadership role within your home isn't there. A lot of people believe that the toilet shouldn't be in this sector or it the same type of energy. It'll affect the luck of the man of the the head of the house.

It doesn't have necessarily have to be a man. So, if you're a strong independent woman and you provide for yourself, you know what? You can also activate this energy to help support you in your career. So, it's good for that. Especially if you're the head of a company and this can be used in your office, too.

M another thing you should do is keep the northwest sector of your home clean. It could also represent the health of the male like the mental health. So you want to just make sure that area is clean, clear, and it's just flowing correctly. You can put decorations also related to like status or power in the sector and that could help generate good chi or energy. The metal element, white colors, gray, silver, shimmery colors could represent this energy too.

I mentioned previously that I was on the podcast called Deep Dive with Donnie Flamingo and the host there mentioned that he actually has a gym in this area of his house and I told him it's perfect. So something like that if you know metal weights working out in this area could be quite good. A lot of people sort of use their home intuitively. So um sometimes you'll go through and you'll be like oh I understand why I'm using this area the way I'm using it. And so it's a good uh purpose for that.

And a lot of people think that the kitchen should not be placed in northwest sector. And that goes with the elements. Remember that the northwest is the metal uh element and when you bring fire into it, there could be a fire and metal clash. However, there's definitely places even within the Northwest that you can place a stove and that just that kind of goes through you have to go through a formula process and see if you can place the stove in a specific area within that northwest sector. and the energy could be negated.

So, not necessarily always a deal breaker. If your toilet's there, just keep it clean and use a little bit of sea salt to absorb the negative energy. Remember, this energy is important to have in your space, whether you have like a father figure or a male in the household or not, because again, it can help you to feel empowered, balanced, and add that leadership role to your home whether you're a male or not. So remember, when we're looking at Chinese metaphysics, even though we speak in masculine and feminine, we don't necessarily mean male and female. It is just the energy that that brings.

So just keep that in mind. An example of how this can be brought into real life, I did a client and their house was L-shaped. So basically the northwest sector was missing from their home. And you know, it's interesting because I feel like it really didn't affect the male of the household all too much because uh he did very well. He had a good career um you know, relationship.

The wife was a little doineering. So I will say if you feel like you have a doineering partner, maybe it's because their energy is kind of the one that's ruling the house, if that makes sense. And so although you know she's a bit bossy, it didn't seem to affect the husband very much and they seem to have a pretty good relationship. Been married quite a long time. They're an older couple.

Even though this energy can impact you, one thing you can also look at too is the gua number of the male of the household. So this person had a gu number four. So basically the southeast sector of the home was pretty important to him. So you can enhance that sector instead. And uh one thing I noticed is that uh he did have an office that was kind of in that eastsoutheast area for him in this case.

I think it was a pretty good setup. It really does depend on what you you have to kind of take into account all the energies and see whether or not they're impacting you because there's different things you can use within the house. So even if the northwest sector is missing, it doesn't necessarily mean anything bad. you know, it's it's not necessarily bad, but again, maybe the females of the household could be a little bit bossy. Another thing you can do is enhance the southwest sector of your home.

This is energy that represents the female head of household. So you if you have a female earner or a a house full of ladies, you can also enhance this area also to aid in that energy. Right. Talking about missing fathers or absent fathers from a space. How do you heal from having absent father or missing father energy?

In this next segment, we're going to look at father wounds and how that shows up and how you can begin to start healing from it. But now that we've been talking about this strength and support that a father energy can bring, it's important to recognize when the energy is missing. Not everybody grew up with a present or supportive father figure. And sometimes the absence can definitely leave an imprint, especially on days like Father's Day. So it might be emotional distance or abandonment or a father who just doesn't know how to show up.

These wounds, they can follow us into adulthood in subtle and powerful ways and really impact our life. So this next part of the episode, I want to take a moment to talk about what's often called the father wound. What it looks like and how it shows up, as well as how to start healing. And I'll include the link in the from this website here. It can show up at like low self-esteem, struggling with feelings of inadequacy and constantly s seeking external validation.

Just to be transparent, I grew up with a very supportive loving father, but I think that sometimes that was a little bit superficial, if that makes sense. So, I've never truly feel like I got to know some parts of my dad, if that makes sense. And I wasn't given a lot of external validation, although I knew he supported me. I needed that that validation, right? I have this rooster in my zodiac and the rooster definitely needs validation.

So if you have a loved one with a rooster in their zodiac praise them you know they want to be seen also and I definitely had feelings of seeking external validation through relationships whether it be friendships or romantic relationships. I I can definitely see that. So even if your father was there sometimes you still have these father wounds. Isn't it interesting? You could have difficulty with authority.

you distrust authority figures or have trouble in your own leadership roles like having trouble taking charge. Emotional unavailability. You can have trouble expressing your emotions or fear of intimacy due to emotional neglect or distance from a father. And I definitely think that this is this is part of me too. Like it's crazy cuz my dad was there, but I also grew with grew up with baby boomers and they were still very old-fashioned and also not very emotionally intelligent or having you deal with your own emotions.

So you're almost kind of scared of them. So again, it's another example of your father being there, but you still having these wounds because nobody's perfect, right? We just have to kind of work on this in our on our own. I think I had a really good dad, but this is just stuff I've had to work on on my own. Perfectionism or overachievement, overcompensating for perceived inadequacies by striving for perfection or constantly achieving without feeling satisfied.

and just taking from my own father here. Um, I remember him telling me that of course he grew up with his father who was in the silent generation, never getting praise or anything like that and him really feeling like he cuz he, I mean, my father is very accomplished. He, you know, has his master's degree in computer science. He retired from the Air Force. But doing all of that, he almost thinks that it was for recognition and never fully feeling like he was achieving like there's more and more and more and you want to make somebody happy, you know, unresolved anger or resentment, bitterness or anger towards father male figures sometimes leading to negative relationship patterns.

A fear of abandonment, a deep-seated fear for being abandoned, often showing up in romantic or personal relationships. Again, being transparent, I definitely struggled with that when I was younger. You know, a Feng Shui, you can restore and heal that absent father energy. Remember, focusing on that northwest sector corner of your home, you can definitely kind of work uh at least in your environment to balance the space and to start putting energy around this absence and finding in a northwest. If that father figure is missing or distant, the sector area of your home can be really important for restoring some sort of balance.

So the energy here is about that creative force, the leadership and authority. And even if there's no father figure present, like I just mentioned, the area can be activated to bring in more of those protective and guiding type energies. And again, that would be BTB, the corner that is helpful people in travel. Some ways you can kind of do this with your again just with your Feng Shui. You have to do the inner work, too.

And we'll talk about that in a second because it's remember it's the action you also have to put behind it. So just placing the items up will not help. Um in this sector you can place photos of positive male role models, mentors or even people just who embody these qualities of leadership and protection that you wish to also see in your own life. Um a symbolic guardian dragon statue. Some people do because this represents the heaven energy.

Some people like to put uh the Buddha or a certain deity in that sector and that's perfectly fine too. If you're looking and you if you're one that likes crystals or symbols, you can use some kind of tiger's eye. It's supposed to be for strength and protection or amethyst which is supposed to be for healing to represent that healing of your body um to represent that healing in your life. And you can even place items that represent empowerment for you. And if you have suffered from these father wounds, if this sounds familiar to you, placing something personal in your area that symbolizes your own personal strength, resilience, or even protective nature, maybe an item of self-love or a meaningful token, you can help reframe that relationship to a father energy both personally and within your family.

And again since this represents in some schools of thought the helpful people and even travel sector of your home remember that you can use this area to bring in that helpful energy. So it doesn't just have to be you know that northwest you can definitely use it if you are BTB um or western style of Feng Shui and remember that just beyond these external remedies this true healing does require introspection inner work. Maybe you need to go to a counselor. You know, healing from an absent or distant father can also involve reclaiming the positive father energy within yourself. Maybe cultivating qualities that you wish you would have had and, you know, teaching your children that.

Don't just work on trying to put something out to fix this energy because it really is going to be an internal healing. father, father figures. It may have been absent or even distant, but each person has a capacity to become that energy that they need in that guide in their own life. As we start to unpack and heal the deeper layers of that father wound, something interesting happens. We begin to reclaim our own inner authority and strength.

And in Chinese medicine, the strength is tied to something called the vital essence or jing. It's our kind of our core energy, the stuff we're born with. And it's usually associated with a father's contribution at conception, if you get what I'm saying. But it's more than that. It's this life force.

I mean, as you know, when a child is conceived, there's two, you know, forces that meet and come together. And so, we're shifting into this focal Friday segment. Probably the toughest shift I've had to do is go from something rather serious like a father wound. But we're going to shift gears here and explore how this traditional Chinese medicine views men's health, vitality, and aging, including some really interesting beliefs on how a man's energy should be preserved over time. And you guessed it, that is through the act of ejaculation, interestingly enough.

So, a nice segue there, right? The concept for this podcast I've been wanting to cover for a while, but I attribute it to a couple different sources. I remember hearing this a long time ago on Mysterious Universe, the podcast I always reference that I love, but also there's another funray practitioner who referenced this for a Father's Day Facebook post, Miss Gail Smith, who's no longer with us. And so I thought it'd be uh kind of um interesting to cover this concept of Jing. is the life force or vital essence and it is important both in Chinese medicine and in fatherhood.

Semen retention a traditional Chinese medicine recommends that men do not ejaculate too often and that is the concept of jing. So the jing is the life essence and it plays an important role in both Chinese medicine and fatherhood. What is jing? Jing is actually a Chinese word for essence specifically linked to your kidneys. This is from Wikipedia here.

I'll link in the show notes along with chi and shin which is considered one of the three treasures of traditional Chinese medicine. According to traditional Chinese medicine theory, jing or essence can be summarized in two parts. The yin being congenital or prenatal before you're born and the yang being postnatal or it is acquired. So prenatal jings acquired at birth from your parents. And this is what the father's sperm and the mother's om give to a child.

So you're giving to a child. Postnatal Jing is acquired after birth through food and oxygen and breathing, environmental conditions, and everything we talk about within Chinese metaphysics. The yin and yang transform to create and replenish each other. The yang jin recirculates through um it says here eight extraordinary vessels and transforms to replenish yin, which turns into marrow, blood, body fluid, and semen. It says here that one is said to be bored with a fixed amount of jing which is prenatal.

Although you can also acquire it. Theoretically jing is consumed continuously throughout your life just by everyday things like stress illness if you overindulge in alcohol or drugs and having a lot of sex. You want to make sure you avoid these things to avoid losing your jing. This jing is supposed to be passed down from father to child. And that's why it's important for fathers to conserve their energy as they age.

So it's theorized that the traditional belief is that a man's age relates to how many times he should actually ejaculate to conserve his jing. So this is to maintain his vitality and overall health. It kind of connects these traditional beliefs with modern wellness for men. mentioning that fathers can support their health through diet, herbs, and lifestyle choices to keep their genes strong and that includes the semen retention. So, traditional Chinese medicine recommends that men do not ejaculate too often as semen is considered to be that purest form of essence and that a man can produce too frequent emissions that can cause a body to overexert itself to make more semen.

It kind of fits with these laboratory experiments on fruit flies that shows if the flies are prevented from mating. When they first mature, the flies will maintain their youth to an older age, which is kind of interesting. Someone who ejaculates too often can expect to eventually suffer both yin and yang deficiency symptoms, which means they just get sick easier. Maybe they lose their hair earlier. If you see a bunch of bald people, maybe it's not just genetic, but maybe they're using too much of their jing.

It can even lead to erection difficulty particularly if a man watches too many I'll just say stimulating um videos you know emissions and sexual intercourse are healthy activities for everybody to engage in but traditional Chinese medicine re recommends that men learn to retain their semen and transform it till their mental power through meditative techniques so it's pretty interesting let's talk uh frequency guys moderation is the key the Prop the proper frequency for emission for a man in his late 20s is no to more than three to four times per week. Per week, guys. Okay? Per per week. The 30s is two times a week.

And 40s is once a week. So, you should only be doing that once a week. 50s is once every two weeks. And 60s you should only emit one time per month. This doesn't include sex, it says here.

So, it's fully possible to have an orgasm without ejaculation. And ejaculation is a spinal reflex and orgasm as a cerebral reflex. With practice, the two can be separated and a man can have as many orgasms as he pleases without ejaculation. Apparently, you can do the kele exercises and breathing techniques and those are crucial for achievement. It's hard to explain, but I have heard that you can reach that climax without actually emitting.

I've I've heard that to be true. So, you're supposed to retain your semen. It can have profound effects on the health of the body and reduce strength and vigor of a person. So, too, there are some herbal formulas that can help restore someone who's become too deplated. And I those are Chinese formulas.

I can't uh I don't really have a translation for that. Um but I will link this article up on the show notes. I did get this from a online article. Semen retention is a cornerstone of certain kinds of dowist yoga which makes the assertion that after enough proper practice aging can be controlled and even reversed. And one of the theories I've heard of this too just to kind of explain a little bit further is that when a man and woman get together or a man and a partner get together that one is giving and one is receiving.

The male is giving while the female is receiving. And that kind of just goes with the sword in the cup or the fallus in the cup one gives. So it's actually more revitalizing to a female that is receiving than a man who is giving. So it kind of goes with that yin and yang. So just something to think about for this Father's Day.

All right, guys. Well, I hope you enjoyed today's episode covering father wounds, men's health in Chinese medicine and the masculine or father figure sector of your home. If you need a little insight or maybe you're missing the northwest sector of your home, maybe you want to address this energy, message me. I am offering some introductory consultations for just this topic. All right, guys.

Well, I'll catch you guys next week. We'll have a talk with Christian Kuryaku, Feng Shui master, author, musician, and architect. So, that should be a really insightful conversation talking about interdimensional gateways in our worlds. It's an episode you will not want to miss. All right, catch you guys next week.

For a free energy mapping of your floor plan, please check the link in the show notes. To support today's podcast, go to learnf Feng Shui.com. Sign up for emails, leave a review, and share with your family and friends.