Feng Shui savant helps people achieve harmony
By Tom Victoria
Joshua Cunningham creates harmony in people’s lives. The Feng Shui practitioner balances the physical and intangible in offices and homes.
Using the brand Shui Savant, Joshua works with businesses and private residences to enhance their environments through such steps as rearranging space, adding color or imagery, and adjusting lighting.
Joshua, 32, of Boston provided his definition of Feng Shui.
“It's basically aligning our space and its attributes with our intentions for prosperity and wellness,” he said. “You're accepting that everything is made up of energy. There's energy around us that we can't see. The sixth sense that dogs and cats have, that people will swear by. Feng Shui literally translated means wind, water. That's it. Water being the energy that we can see, the tangible things, and wind being the energy that we can't see, but we can see its effects. When we talk about energy flows through the space think of it like wind.”
Joshua said it’s energy that can be perceived even when not seen by human eyes.
“Just because we can't see those things doesn't mean that a dog doesn’t notice that,” he said. “Different animals see colors that humans don't even see. A simple definition that people love in the modern day is you're creating an interactive vision board to live and work in. That’s a good one for the young people. The other, funny one that I like to say is that it brings the phrase if walls could talk to a whole other level.”
Joshua said Feng Shui entails assessing the flow of energy, identifying blockages and challenges, space-clearing rituals and intentional rearranging of space.
His business clients seek better mental disposition from their employees, resulting in more productivity.
“A lot of business owners don't even know enough about what it is they're asking,” he said. “Essentially, they're trying to find a way to, first of all, get people back into the office post-Covid. That's a huge topic just in general. They're trying to figure out all these different routes and ways to do that. One of them now is this. An example of what that could look like is something as simple as the way that workstations or your traditional cubicles are set up.”
Joshua said the deciding factors include work station positioning and illumination.
“Sometimes people, they'll just have their back to the whole open office like I do right now,” he said. “Or in a private office, the desk may be facing the right direction, but they themselves will be turned to the side on their screen facing away from the door.”
Joshua said attaining the balance is the goal.
“Some of the different big approaches that I will take to a space is actually balancing out the elements in the space and balancing out the yin and yang energies of the space,” he said. “Yin is usually very feminized, curvy. Yang is the opposite. And then the same thing with the elements. Tall furniture is considered a wood energy. So things like that. You're finding the balance of that, too.”
Joshua said selecting a particular color isn’t necessarily the right way to look at a room’s design as different hues mean different things to people.
“Is it actually orange or is it fire energy that you're trying to do? Because if it's a fire energy and to you that means orange, that might mean something different to them,” he said. “They can still paint their house blue and we'll put a bunch of candles up or something. There's so many different ways to do it. In some scenarios, there are colors that are better for things. But if you were working with me, I would never tell you to do something just because of that. if you don't love something, it's not doing anything for you anyway. If you don't even like blue, we're not even going to do blue. Do you like the lake? Let's put a picture of you fishing at the lake. That's the same thing to me.”
Joshua said office lighting isn’t necessarily as clear-cut as bright for office and subdued for home.
“There are new studies beginning to emerge about people's sensitivities to light, especially in neurodivergent individuals,” he said. “As someone who has always preferred indirect light in spaces, I am biased to this discussion. As an architect, light levels are absolutely standardized in offices versus homes versus laboratories and hospitals, etc. and are addressed on a task by task scenario. Cutting food in a kitchen versus navigating a hallway are very different light level needs.”
Joshua stressed balance is the goal.
“In Feng Shui, it is important to find the balance that works for the client, while keeping in mind that this should fluctuate depending on their tasks and the sunlight throughout the year,” he said. “Winding down at the end of a long day is one thing, but when spaces stay on the darker side, it is difficult for people to be productive, alert and in a positive mood. This is a contributor to winter blues. Many Feng Shui followers will swap out their bulb wattage throughout the year to mitigate that issue.”
Joshua must answer certain questions to derive a corrective plan.
“How do you give them more support? What does that look like? The wellness throughout, whether it's their actual being or just through the space,” he said. “It's a whole thing.”
Joshua said effective design depends on intent.
“At the end of the day, the majority of this all comes back to this,” he said. “You can do all the pretty floofy, silly Architecture Digest things you want. It's not going to matter if there's no energy that you're putting into it. There's no intention behind it. Otherwise, it's just something that we would refer to as performative chi. It's a facade, basically. A showroom is actually an example of that, too, because there's no one living in it. It actually is missing a lot of soul.”
Some people are not as receptive as others to making changes to the office environment, but Joshua tries to make inroads no matter how small.
“They're like what the heck is that? And I can't blame them,” he said. “If you told me about this 10 years ago, I'd be like, what? But what I can do in the worst-case scenario, where nothing's moving, there are even just the smallest, simple remedies that you can do just to give people that are in those cubicle situations that added support. Something as simple as putting a picture of a mountain on the back of their chair. It sounds so silly, but what they're doing is helping them set that intention for support.”
Joshua said there are different ways to approach a person’s negative reaction to a method.
“I bump into that kind of stuff all the time with clients,” he said. “There are some things that I will be like, no, I insist, humor me. But on other things, I'm like, no problem. I got 10 other ways we can approach this. Because all we needed was for you to be behind it. But in a book, you're not going to get that. You're going to do this thing, light this candle, do this oil, make the whole room bright orange. And the next thing you know, people got these Easter egg painted houses. They're not feeling the love and the juju.”
Joshua said people have to at least emotionally invest in their surroundings.
“If you don't have something that's good quality, then you don't value yourself enough to call in prosperity in the first place,” he said. “The people that tell me we don't have fresh flowers in the house all the time because it's expensive. I'm like, well, you're trying to call in wealth, and you already are coming from a place where you're not worthy of wealth or having nice things. Do you see what the conflict is there? You don't even think you're worth it. There are very cheap flowers out there. You can get baby's breath for $2, and a bouquet of just that can look chic.”
Joshua’s office is strategically situated.
“My next phase of initiatives for myself this year is to start trying to integrate my services in the beginning stages of architecture projects,” he said. “I've actually very strategically placed myself inside of an office furniture showroom for this exact reason, because that's where these conversations are literally starting. I'm putting the little bird in the ear, which has been great so far.”
Joshua explained how Feng Shui originated.
“Historically, it all came out of ancient China or just ancient Asia in general, because the country lines were not where they are today,” he said. “It was all a search for where to bury their ancestors. The whole thing came down to finding the most prosperous, honorable seeming location. What they did is they hired a bunch of philosophers of the time to study what determines that.”
Joshua said the philosophers used nature to ascertain the answers.
“A seed that fell from the sky or got blown through the window, and it landed in such and such a location as opposed to over there, and this one flourished and that one didn't,” he said. “What about that made that work? In that scenario, what was making it work was the fact that it had high mountains behind it to deflect the north winds that were coming down. It had this very sunny, lush and green valley around it. And in front of it, rolling hills on either side for added support and a river irrigating the land.”
Joshua said the topography dictated where structures were erected.
“It had evolved later into villages, where to set up neighborhoods and communities that was added protection for armies that were invading,” he said. “You already had the big mountains behind you because that would stop people from sneaking up on you. And the rolling hills for a little bit of extra slowdown. You had this river in front of the valley that was ushering in all of this prosperity. Basically, it was ushering in resources and clean water. It was helping irrigate the land. So that's how the whole thing started.”
Joshua said individual offices are set up with the Chinese landscape in mind.
“Picture a CEO office,” he said. “The desk is set up so that there's a solid wall behind them. Usually in America, it’s big glossy windows instead. This is why they're not as successful as some of the tycoons over the ocean. You should be seated at your desk in command of the room, which means you’re facing the door and always know who’s coming and going without having to turn your head. So, you have a solid wall behind you for support and to prevent people from sneaking up on you or spying on your screen through a window. Instead, the window is at your side as added visibility for you and, finally, open space in front of your desk for opportunities to flow towards you and cultivate.”
Joshua said a residential case can be more complicated than an office.
“It all depends on what the space calls for and how deep the client is willing to take things,” he said. “Often a business is less focused on individual occupants as much as it is the well-being of the business, so that can simplify a case in comparison to a home that let’s pretend was in the exact same geographical location.”
Joshua said homes are often harder to pin down.
“It is all over the map,” he said. “At the end of the day, there are very few things that are templated. That whole office layout I just described, that's a template. But for most other people, it's so idiosyncratic. I have this big intake form. People will fill that out to describe their financial situation, their romantic situation. Are they single and they're not getting any mingling? Where in life are things funky? That's where we can start now while they're doing this, because usually they'll kind of half answer, and then I have to make them do it again. So when that's happening, I'll go in and do a generalized assessment of how that wind, the chi, is flowing through the house, because this is one of the easiest things you can fix right off the bat. I need these little easy wins to keep them motivated right before we get more in depth, because it gets a little bit more emotional after that.”
Joshua takes into account where the house is located as well.
“We'll assess that not only in the house or in the office or the business, but also the neighborhood,” he said. “Is there a graveyard down the street? Is there a hospital downtown? These things do actually matter. That could be affecting you, and that's not even your fault. You didn't even know it was there. There's remedies that we could do to send that energy back toward them so that your place has a fighting chance. I never will in any way, shape or form be like, oh, well, this place sucks. You're going to have to move because of that graveyard next door. Are you joking? That’s not realistic.”
Joshua said a home’s interior doesn’t need to be overhauled.
“Now that they've got this life questionnaire figured out, then we can start in those areas first and build upon that,” he said. “Because ripping up the whole place is traumatic and not worth it half the time. Some people don't even need it. They just need the one thing.”
Joshua used the example of a person worried about not being able to find a domestic partner.
“Do you have one nightstand? How about you get two nightstands? Let's call in the fact that you want an equal partner,” he said. “That's a really easy one. It's really, really wild. It only gets more wild how much I find that our spaces are actually reflecting of what's going on in our lives.”
Joshua said wall coloring and lighting can be matched to a room’s use.
“Skeptics will just call it environmental psychology,” he said. “Much of it is the same thing, sitting in a dark space or sitting in a well-lit space or a space that has ample lighting for the task that you're doing. Whatever it is, whether you're prepping food or writing a paper or reading a book, those are all different levels of things. You don't want dim lighting when you're chopping really fast in the kitchen. It definitely affects us not only on a Shui level, but just on an energetic and emotional level throughout the day.”
Joshua said people’s clothing is tied to Feng Shui.
“This is something that not many practitioners do,” he said. “I didn't even think it was a thing until I realized it was a thing. Then, I've been doing it like crazy, and people love it. What I would do is link up and associate an individual with one of the five elements, then combine it with the element of their intention or occasion. For example, I have more fire energy in terms of how I dress, which is more attention-seeking. You can picture those people. They got the leopard print and the red shoes. However, my intention is that I want people to see that I have more intellectual and more emotional depth to offer. That's more water energy. So, I'll combine those elements to the occasion. What I'm wearing is something worth doing a second glance at. But at the same time, it's not just me running down the street wearing rainbow. That would be all fire.”
Joshua said some people need to combine elements to be less uncomfortable in some situations.
“For example, a lot of men or tomboys who are women, they're like fashion's not my thing,” he said. “You need this because what you're doing is you're actually more connected usually to either a wood or an earth energy. Wood energies are usually the sportier people. They want the clothes that are just going to get them from A to B. The baseball hat oftentimes. It's more about function and operating and on the go. When you try to put someone like that in a formal environment, they're coming out of their skin. They're like, I hate this. I want to put my jeans back on. But if you were to approach that environment or that occasion by combining those elements, bingo. And then, they’re confident.”
Joshua works with performers on their style of dress.
“I do the exact same thing with musicians as well, branded personal stylist stuff,” he said. “We're talking about the same person, where the stage clothes are this almost idealized version of what they want to put out as this persona versus their day-to-day. But it's funny, even after working with them for a while now, suddenly, they're actually feeling more comfortable in their skin to even want to unveil and explore other levels of themselves offstage. Now we're finding another blend of that, too, which makes me so happy because we're growing, we're evolving. That's the whole point of all this to me.”
Joshua considers a person’s jewelry as well.
“Some people make it easy,” he said. “The metal type make it very easy because they only want to wear Tiffany or something. Other people, you have to think a little bit harder about trying to find this sweet spot for them. Fire and metal and actually water are the most noticeable ones. And then wood and earth, just as you would think the analogy would be, are a little bit more earthbound and subdued and modest in a lot of ways. They're a little bit trickier in finding the jewelry that kind of sings to them. Obviously, fire is flashy, bold, unique. Water is oftentimes a gemstone or something that they really resonated with. They're like the deep, brooding intellectual philosopher or coming from a place of trauma.”
Joshua also is a life coach. Sometimes, people he’s helping need to remove toxic individuals and situations from their lives.
“Many people believe that we attract these things on purpose,” Joshua said. “I do believe that, but saying that to someone who doesn't already feel that way or understand that seems like you're trying to put a bunch of shame and blame on them and that's silly. If anything, it's empowering. It's coming to us in order to give us that chance to grow. You're not going to fix them. You shouldn't have to anyway. That's not your responsibility. And there's much bigger things going on there.”
Joshua explained various factors could be affecting how people, such as neighbors, treat others, creating animosity that manifests in such ways as defamation of character.
“We could talk all day about the psychology of people like this,” he said. “In regards to Feng Shui specifically, there are a myriad of reasons that could have these situations flowing towards you from the way the home is positioned on its street to the ‘poison arrows,’ a.k.a. corners, facing you. For example, your neighbors’ roofline could be pointed toward your home emphasizing these tensions between you both. Sharp corners in general are considered yang energy as in yin-yang and in places where these are overly used, such as cities, tensions run higher than people in rural organic areas.”
Joshua recommended facing a mirror in the direction of a nuisance neighbor.
“Bear in mind that these things happen outside of Feng Shui as well, but in either case, the mirror remedy will work if implemented properly and without the intent to cause harm/vengeance back,” he said. “I say this tongue-in-cheek, but use your super powers for good, not evil.”
Joshua said a person’s experiences when not coming from a place of peace often result in adverse impacts to their lives down the road.
“They can often plant a seed or a trigger and evolve into something else,” he said. “The reaction creates the story, creates the behavior. I will work through that to figure out where the root of that is to help you step up and out of it, and to be aware of it.”
Joshua cited a hypothetical example.
“My grandmother told me that I had to color inside the lines when I was 6 years old,” he said. “I didn't even realize that for a long time. I had a hard time breaking rules or being creative because everything had to be a certain way. Whoa, big epiphany there, so we work with that. That's an inner child's thing.”
Joshua was the child of first responders, which had an impact on his eventual perspective.
“My upbringing was dinner table conversations of them experiencing everyone's worst day every day,” he said. “My brother and sister also both became first responders, but we are all also very creative. I was able to use that route, so that's what put me into the architecture and interior design world. I got licensed and did as many things as I could. But I think because of that upbringing being what it was and that whole life is short thing, I always wanted everything to be deeper. I never did anything just because it was pretty.”
Joshua later had a new outlook.
“Basically, I had a spiritual awakening right at the beginning of 2020,” he said. “It sounds silly to call it that, but I just didn't know how else to call it. I felt like I came back online. It was almost like I was on autopilot to a degree and then I came back online and was like, whoa, there's way more going on than I thought. My problem at that point was what the heck do I do with this degree. Everything was fine except that it was extremely toxic as an industry. It still is, unfortunately, at least in New England, so I already wasn't happy anyway. I was already trying to figure out an alternative route and remain open to the possibilities from that point forward. It hit me or rather I felt like it almost shook me by the shoulders and was like, do this. It logically made sense, too. I was like, that's how you can combine spirituality and architecture. I thought, okay, let's figure this out.”
Joshua’s spiritual awakening and eventual career was tied to events he experienced.
“When I was almost 21, I was attacked by a ghost or something,” he said. “I don't know what it was. It was invisible. It was the most psychotic, traumatic thing at that point in time to date that had happened to me. It was insane. Of course, no one believed me. I barely believed me. I'll just bury this in my subconscious. But the thing is that it always bothered me that this happened because I was like, this was real. I'm not crazy. I was not 6 years old. I was 20 and sober and not in a haunted house, which was even weirder.”
Joshua sought answers about the paranormal occurrence.
“People started introducing me to psychic mediums,” he said. “I was like this is a thing that happened. Were you picking up on that at all? And they were like, oh my god, yes. One medium even flipped a card when I had mentioned it, and it was the devil card. This was part of my journey into diving into and exploring stuff like this, cause I was determined to figure out what the heck happened. I had to be my own self-advocate at that point.”
Joshua later became enlightened about the way of wind and water.
“The second time a medium mentioned this same thing to me, they said yes, that happened,” he said. “By the way, it looks like there's some other gunk in your current house. It's not an entity. It's just energy. What do you mean it's just energy? What the heck is that? Now, my brain has pivoted and opened up. That is what eventually led me to, a couple months later, discovering Feng Shui. She even mentioned this is left over from the people that were there before you. She not only tells me exactly where in this house it is, which was already crazy, she literally starts astral zooming around my house from her office an hour south, describing it to a T, and then exactly where this thing supposedly nested itself, which was in my roommate's room. She's like, it's somewhere you don't go. I don't know why you wouldn't go in there in your own house.”
Joshua then worked on eradicating the energy.
“We go home, and we're doing all the things that we can think of: we're saging and we're chanting,” he said. “It actually took a couple of times because I guess it was a little bit bigger than I thought. But regardless, it moved on. We had just moved in there a couple of weeks before that had happened, and we were having the worst fights I have ever had. There was a point where I almost felt out of body. There was a point where I was like, I can't believe these words are even coming out of my mouth.”
Joshua later uncovered the source of the bad mojo.
“I had gotten to know the maintenance man around the complex shortly thereafter,” he said. “After we got talking for a while, he's like, you know, your place used to be the fighting house. It had nothing to do with me, but we had moved in. We had inherited the place. In Feng Shui, that is called predecessor chi. Another thing I am doing to help people in their situation is because that's nothing to do with them. People who love antiques, similar things can happen in the same vein. A weird stepping-stone journey, but eventually, that's how I landed here.”
Joshua explained the purpose of burning sage.
“It's not the aroma,” he said. “It's the properties behind what's being burned. And at the same time, because it's something that you can see and you can smell while you're doing it, it helps the body connect to the present moment of doing such a thing to keep your focus. In other words, to really reinforce those intentions behind that.”
Joshua said other measures with more common household items may be taken.
“That's one of the strongest things to help,” he said. “But there are other ways, and that's how I always look at it. There are other things you could burn. You could just leave out bowls of salt. That's one of the easiest things to do. You gotta remember to dispose of it after 24 hours. That's actually something that I usually have everyone do when it comes up in conversation is leave a bowl of salt out overnight. You're not getting rid of ghosts, but what you're doing is you're taking some of the static out of the air almost. It's like taking the edge off. It's like having a sip of wine, but not the whole bottle. For some people, that's just enough. There are some people that are very short-fused when they're in a conversation. I found that that actually helps them come back really quickly.”
Joshua explained salt’s effect on a room.
“Salt absorbs negative energies, which in essence is purifying/filtering the rest of the energy around it,” he said. “That said, it’s important to dispose of it since it is still holding onto that energy.”
Joshua said table salt is not going to be of much use,
“It’s been filtered down too much,” he said. “The less ingredients the better. My go-to is Himilayan. You may need to break it up before dumping it into a toilet.”
Joshua cited another potent remedy.
“There are lots of different instances you can use essential oils,” he said. “Essential oils represent and assist with many different things. Not only are they a form of aromatherapy, they have an energetic resonance that can heighten different energies in the same way that crystals do. They are a key tool in Feng Shui for intention setting, energy balancing and remedies.”
Joshua listed potential scenarios in which to use salt, sage and oils.
“It all depends on what you’re using these tools for,” he said. “They can each be used for smaller and larger scale remedies, but I will say this: I use oils daily, but there are many remedies involving oils which don’t need to be implemented as often. Salt I use whenever I’m looking to wipe off a layer of negative/sticky energy in a space as it accumulates naturally with all that humans deal with day-to-day. Life is colorful that way. So, I always have it handy in case emotions are running higher than normal and/or after someone has a nightmare. A saltburn is a much stronger tool than simply leaving out a bowl of it or scattering it into the corners of your hotel room. Incense, palo santo, sage, in that order of strength, are used when I need extra help. You can feel the weight of the need hanging in the air, but It’s recommended to do this periodically regardless, especially when moving into a new home or antique shopping to clear away the energy that isn’t yours.”
Joshua recommended adding plants to a room.
“However, that at a deeper level, there are more ideal spaces than others,” he said. “I don’t just mean bathroom versus living room, I mean the ‘relationship’ corner of your home versus the ‘wealth’ corner. At the deepest level, everyone is born with more favorable elemental traits. We call this a 9 Star Ki chart. Think of it as similar to astrology and this can be visited for added support or balance adjustments in a space where certain family members could use extra support in life. Bonus tip, avoid a large plant/tree in the bedroom. Because of their size, this will suggest a third figure in your marriage and very often correlates with infidelity, so please find a different spot in the house for them and stick to small plants in the bedroom.”
Joshua uses cards with some clients, but not the more well-known variety.
“I haven’t learned Tarot reading yet, though I have many people in my inner circle who do,” he said. “I instead use Oracle cards. Both allow you to connect as a conduit and channel messages through, but because the symbolism in Oracle decks is broader, it can be easier for people who’ve never had any card reading before to ease into it.”
Joshua said people see signs and messages all around them all day long.
He stressed the importance of motivation.
“Whenever you get any spark of motivation at all, just use that to go deep and put in the work to heal and grow yourself,” Joshua said. “Each time you do that, you're going to be able to use that as ammunition when you're falling back. Life goes up and down. Some of the greatest inspirational people of all time have freaking bad days left and right, just like we do. It all comes back to just asking yourself, are you worth it or not? Spoiler alert, you are. You wouldn't be here otherwise. You have to be your own advocate, befriend yourself, parent your inner self. Every little time that you do is another tool to your belt because you start learning more and more about yourself. It's easier to catch yourself when you see these things creeping in to help steer away from it and back onto the track that you want to be on just because you're now exercising that awareness.”
Joshua dispensed advice for aspiring practitioners of Feng Shui.
“When I had discovered that this was even a thing, it was because I was watching this random Instagram live from someone,” he said. “I don't even remember following this person, so the fact that this even pops up on my phone is a little fated. The person that I was following was interviewing this woman who was talking about Feng Shui. This is the first time that I'm even hearing about it, which is pretty surprising since I was in architecture. It just grabbed me by the shoulders. The way she was talking about it was similar to me, where it's very grounded. I just resonated with that so hard that I took a leap and I figured out her contact information. I emailed her and was like, would you consider teaching someone?”
The answer turned out to be yes.
“She's literally my teacher right now,” Joshua said. “If you ever feel a calling to do anything, whether it's Feng Shui or to start that modeling agency or to write the book or whatever, if you're feeling that calling or that leap, please do it. Coming from someone who grew up at the paramedics’ dining table, life is way too short. Whatever you can do to just try to figure out how to make that thing happen or to explore that route, whether you have to quit architecture and start working in a showroom to support it while you're starting out, do it and take the initiative. Send the email to the person with 20,000 followers on Instagram and see if they see it, because in my case, they have.”
He also advised those experiencing similar spiritual awakenings to learn more.
“You're going to probably seem crazy if you're not around a bunch of people that are also going through the same thing, but you're not alone,” Joshua said. “It is worth it to explore that stuff in a safe way and to seek out like-minded people who are talking about these same topics and these same things.”
He stressed the need to filter all information.
“I always try to zoom out,” Joshua said. “There are agendas that, sometimes, are not the best or there's information that's not the whole story. If you're not zooming out and critically thinking and trying to draw your own conclusions and parallels and connections to stuff, you're missing out on an awful lot, and you might run into roadblocks and conflicting information all the time. With Feng Shui specifically, one of the reasons why people get turned off to it pretty quickly after exploring it is because there are so many different schools and it is so easy to bump into something that seems conflicting or something that doesn't quite feel like it makes sense to you.”
He encouraged people to reach out to him.
“Please feel free to reach out to me,” Joshua said. “I'm going to start doing my own classes. I'd be so happy to even just help point them in directions of sources that I trust and books that I trust.”
He described another way to view Feng Shui.
“How about in a silly way, treating your space like an extended member of your family,” Joshua said. “Start there. First of all, give it the respect it deserves, considering you're in it all the time. That's a great first chapter. And then from there, what you're doing is you are intentionally placing and being aligned with your own ambitions and wants and desires throughout this space to align it with that prosperity and that wellness. Prosperity might not be rich for you to be happy. Everyone thinks they want the million dollars. It might just be you always needed friends, and you never had a decent friend. You are creating the balance.”
Joshua’s Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/shui_savant/
Joshua’s website: https://shui-savant.com/