Nancilee Wydra

Pyramid feng shui is a rational scientifically based way of understanding how place impacts on human behaviors.

I love to smile today and bet I did as a child.  I have been told that I would belt out songs in an alleyway between brownstones in my grandma’s neighborhood.  Whether I smiled I can’t tell you, but seeing a three year old singing tunes from Oklahoma probably made others smile.

What I do remember is, as a young person, walking down a street and smiling at everyone who would make direct eye contact with me.  By the time I reached my twenties, I worried smiling was contributing to wrinkles around my eyes and tried desperately not to smile.  But, in just about all situations, I couldn’t stop myself.  Ultimately, the fact that others responded positively to a smile outweighed the wrinkle factor and I gave up trying to quit.

Did you know that women smile more often than men, children more than adults, moderate income for than the rich?  Biology and culture are contributing factors to what makes us smile.  But the benefits of smiling are equal, biologically and culturally.    

When you smile, the muscles of your face, in two-area, mouth-and-eyes, the lateral muscles at the side of each eye are triggered. This is a real smile, one that allows 10% more oxygen and glucose to enter you bloodstream.  When you smile your nostrils are distended and more oxygen is able to penetrate.   In fact, smiling energizes you and fosters a potential improvement for learning and memory.  Testing has shown that smiling improves grades and test scores up to 26%.  If smiling does that can you imagine what laughter does?   

In the 1950’s Pan-Am airlines invented a smile for their flight attendants.  Why, I can’t tell you, but they advised them to  just lift the corners of the mouth in a smile without engaging the eyes.  Perhaps, this tampered down the appearance of a flight attendant flirting.  Today the phrase Pan- Am smile means phony smile.

Try this experiment, think of something distressful and then smile.  It’s hard to continue to feel distressed with a smile.  So the point of this blog is to make sure you wake up with a smile and keep smiling throughout the day…it will make you healthier, happier and smarter too not to mention make all around you potentially feel happier. 

For more information about pyramid feng shui go to www.windwater.com/education.htm

Pyramid feng shui is a rational scientifically based way of understanding how place impacts on human behaviors. ‘

I am availing myself of the services of a Structural Energetic Therapist.  While I suffer none of the aches and pains that many of my-age peers do, I have noticed that over time, I wanted to move less and less.  Since I am considered an energizer bunny with zest like a jack-in-the-box, it wasn’t from malaise or lack of motivation.  No, I just felt like walking my dogs less distance, cutting out on my Zumba class before the hour finished and wishing that a golf course was only fifteen holes.  

What was happening?  My therapist said I had a profound core imbalance so that my body’s natural defense was to not exacerbate the problem by surrounding me with a generalize malaise, one that minimized the use of my body.  In a way my body was shutting down physically so that the imbalance wasn’t reinforced.  The end of my personal story is that she worked on me so that my balance was restored as was my interest in movement.

It got me to thinking that this is exactly what a person does in their environment.  When patterns antithetical to success, health or a loving relationship have invaded the pattern of home, then it is like a core imbalance and supportive behaviors can’t overcome the pattern.  What can be done is restructuring patterns and like energetic therapy, these can be painful.  Changing a pattern like a muscle requires us to breath through an experience is painful, albeit in this case, not in a physical way.

What are the core imbalances in your home?   One common core imbalance is a big TV in a room that serves as the primary communication room for a family.  A giant TV distracts us from interacting in a meaningful way.  It trumps finding other ways to be entertained, like games or reading.  It dulls thinking and reduces the amount of physical movement.  Thus in my mind it is a core imbalance and should be extracted from the pattern of gathering with one’s family at home.

For more information on pyramid feng shui go to: www.windwater.com/education.htm

Gotta tell you that my third grandson was born last night, June 26th at 7:30 PM.  Hope the world is gentle for Lawton Andrew Wydra.  I can’t wait to meet him!

  Be Schmoo-like with adversity

Pyramid feng shui is a rational scientifically based way of understanding how place impacts on human behaviors.

“I’m Just a Girl Who Can’t Say No!” sang the cute, pudgy, four-year-old in a low nasal voice as she toddle down the alleyway separating her two-family house from the neighbors.  These narrow passageways were not trash strewn outposts evoking fear, but merely rivers of cement separating two family homes filled with the generation who parents came to the Ellis Island at the beginning of the 20^th century.   Heads popped out of second story windows exclaiming her virtuosity, reaping Nancy, named after Frank Sinatra’s daughter, the attention she loved.   With minutes, her mother came scurrying out to scoop her up, Nancy had escaped outside again.  

Nancy’s mother, a world-class hypochondriac was diligent in scouring her children for potential physical defect.  Nancy always had a stuffy nose and thus a visit to a specialist, her mother surmised, was called for . Nancy was taken to a doctor who used the latest techniques for unstuffing sinuses – radiation.  The harmful affects of radiation were yet to be uncovered.

Upon examining this child, the doctor proclaimed, “Fairly routine, I’ll take care of this with radiation treatments. It will take several, but should do the trick and clear her sinuses.

Her mother nodded and the doctor turned to open the top of a stainless steel box and lifted out a long Q-Tip-like rod with a glowing yellow/green tip.  He inserted it into her left nostril and when he turned to get another one for her right nostril and walked over to Nancy.  In that moment, Nancy saved her life by kicking him in his private parts and bolting from the room.  Her mother, running after her, paid and left, and never returned for more treatments because she was so mortified.

Compelled by much more than discomfort, but a sense of doom so pervasive that it would be impossible for me to ever explain, I realized later that in the few minutes the radioactive material was inserted into her left nostril, I (yes I am that Nancy), became a statistic waiting to happen.  Eighteen years later, at twenty two I was diagnosed with the first tumor of four tumors all in the treated area. The rate of dying from cancers forming in areas treated by these types of radiation is high for these unwitting victims of this kind of radiation treatments.   

Three operations after the first, a fourth tumor, appeared, the size of a walnut jutting out of my cheek. A few years before this fourth tumor, I underwent surgery to remove a tumor hanging from the roof of my mouth causing the doctors to removal of much of the inside of my mouth.  

By that time I had had it!  The grueling experience of head and neck surgery at Sloane Kettering Hospital had forged a resistance that was not to be undone by this next tumor. 

Yet something had to be done and discovering what to do, set in motion phone calls to doctors, friends and my cousin Jeanie, a professor of psychology at the Salk Institute, La Jolla, CA. 

 “There’s this very interesting doctor, Lawrence Le Shan that has influenced an oncologist, Carl Simonton and his wife Stephanie to work with visualization with his cancer patients.  He’s experienced remissions and eliminations of cancer cells by using this technique.  He has a book out, “Getting Well Again”.  Why don’t you read it and see if you might want to try it” Jeanie suggested.  

Lawrence Le Shan in his book “Alternative Realities” put forth the intriguing argument that one’s state of mind can influence healing.  The Simonton’s took it a step further and conceived of a visualization technique that they taught their patients.  Simply their patients were told to make up a scenario, create a move, if you will, of something that would rid their body of cancer cells. After teaching them put themselves into a relaxed state, they would picture their scenario and do this several times per day until the desired result was achieved.   Many of their patients enjoy successes, their cancers receded and finally disappeared, or in medical terms they went into remission.

Sounds perfect for me, I thought, I have quite an imagination! Twice a day I, would go to my bedroom, lie down on the floor, clear all thoughts from my mind and pictured Al Capp’s “shmoo-type” figures punching away at the tumor. 

 “Bam, bam, bam,” thoughts delivered virtual blow after blow coaxing the tumor to disappear and pass through the opening of the parotid gland.  I remained faithful to this routine for two and a half months even though nothing changed.

Then one afternoon, I pictured it detaching itself and moving out through of the parotid gland and carried away in by my blood stream.  I was petrified to touch my face. My hand moved as slowly as molasses being poured out of a cold jar until it landed on the afflicted cheek.  I was dumbfounded!  In that moment, it had disappeared! I considered what happened as nothing short of a miracle.  It is now twenty five years later and no other growth, swelling or tumor has ever developed.  On that crisp clear, cold winter day when, I pictured the tumor finally succumbing to the visually constructed blows and slipping out into my body to dissolve, I began to seek answers that could explain how this worked.   The belief, that the mind has far greater sway over the body than given credit for, that reality can be altered by thoughts, attitude, faith or conviction is a far greater asset in life than we can imagined.  For me that victory over the tumor gave me the confidence to try the impossible.  Forming resolve into a pattern that one iterates daily is the tool that appears to set in motion healing or achieving goals.

For more information or education on pyramid feng shui go to windwater.com

Pyramid feng shui is a rational scientifically based way of understanding how place impacts on human behaviors.

There are many extraordinary practices in Tibetan Buddhism.  In the 1980’s I was first introduced to a few of these occult practices when traveling throughout Nepal.  In Katmandu, I happed upon a book “My Journey to Lshaso”, by Alexandra David Neel, a French actress turned adventurer.   In 1924 at the age of fifty-five, after she had been traveling for over 16 years through the grueling Himalayas, she finally reached her destination, the inaccessible Tibetan capitol city, Lhaso.  On her trek, she met and became fascinated with esoteric practices.  Subsequently she incorporated these discoveries into her writing, the book “Magic and Mystery in Tibet”.  This book introduced me to tummo, the art of creating inner fire which could be demonstrated by melting snow whilst sitting upon it. 

While I have not created enough heat to melt snow, later in the 1980’s I did experience directing heat to various body parts in order to bring healing to it.  I am really sorry I can’t remember the doctor’s name who practiced medicine in the 1980’s in Sussex County, New Jersey who explained and believed in this practice for minor complaints.  As a working jeweler, my studio was warmed by a wood stove that I lit each morning.  A piece of northern New Jersey has the same weather pattern as Buffalo and to say that the first hour in my studio was frigid, is not to exaggerate the point.  Although I wore gloves, handling my torch and materials required me to cut off the finger tips.  The ends of my fingers became freezing causing a decided interruption of work until the studio became warm.  He advised me to focus on bringing blood to my finger tips.  I remember him telling me,

“Just stand up with your hands relaxed at your sides and imagine more blood circulating to your finger tips.” 

This practice he believed to be the first step in learning to conduct your body’s heat to a site and his theory was that by doing so you would add healing power to that site.  Although different from my visualization that obliterated my tumor, it was, I felt, similar practice.  Focus on the problematic area and conceptualize its restoration to stasis.    I practiced during the many years I worked in my northern New Jersey studio and, for me, it worked, my fingers remained warm enough to be useful during that first hour before the wood stove’ s warmth overtook the frigid temperature.

The question that is suggested by this is, what part of the body is controlling this?  Who is speaking to whom or what is speaking to what?

Fortunately for those who think about these questions, there is a scientist who is seeking answers.  Gerald Edelman, M.D., PhD, director of the Neurosciences Institute and president of the Neurosciences Research Foundation and Nobel Prize winner in Physiology or Medicine is uncovering answers.  In his book “Wider Than the Sky” he explores the phenomenal gift of consciousness.  And it is our consciousness that is ubiquitous and truly astounding.  With a belief in the force of our mental and conscious apparatus, you the reader can go forward with me on this fascinating trip of how place might be an ombudsman to healing.  But first, indulge me, for my next blog will be about my own healing of a tumor that even the doctors at Sloane Kettering Hospital in NYC could not explain.

For more information or education on pyramid feng shui go to windwater.com

Pyramid feng shui is a rational scientifically based way of understanding how place impacts on human behaviors.

Why is it that some people survive an illness and some do not?  Certainly, genetic proclivities will influence the innate health of one person over another, but I am sure you have asked yourself, as I have, what are the ingredients that cause one person to be on the optimistic end of statistics?   One of the answers might lie in science’s knowledge about the behavior of an electron.

In the famous Heisenberg double split experiment, it was uncovered that certain pairs of physical properties, like position and momentum, cannot simultaneously be known to arbitrary precision. In other words you cannot adequately predict both the velocity and the position of an electron.  In this experiment an electron was shot through a screen and its target was measured on a wall placed behind that screen.  Sometimes the electron went through one slot, but then what appeared to be miraculously, sometimes it went through both slots as measured by the location of its trajectory on the wall behind.  How could that be?  How could one time the electron act like a single entity (particle) and shoot through one slot and sometimes act as a long line (wave) that when propelled go through both slots?  The answer is that an electron can be both.  It can actually be one or the other depending on what?  How it feels?  How it is observed?  While we can’t determine the answer to how it feels, we can affirm that it is different based on how it is observed. 

This experiment opened the door to an understanding heretofore relegated to the realm of magic and mystery.  An entity act different ways than one thing.  An entity can transmute.  Pretty amazing uh?  Well if that is the case, how far is it to believe that what is, can be what isn’t?  And since we know that the observer measures the change, how far is it from believing that the person can be the observer of their own bodies and mutate a form into another form.  As in my case, a tumor into nothing.

For more information or education on pyramid feng shui go to windwater.com

Pyramid feng shui is a rational scientifically based way of understanding how place impacts on human behaviors.

After writing eight books on feng shui covering how to use feng shui in homes, offices, children spaces, gardens and to find a compatible life partner, I felt that I had embraced most of the physical spaces we inhabit.  However, gnawing inside me was the knowledge that the Chinese thought of feng shui as a healing art, essential to use to shape a fulfilling life.  The challenge for me was to bridge understanding of Chinese feng shui with contemporary research, seeking to reveal how feng shui might in fact work as a healing art.

 Over the years, my work with clients, has illuminated that people seek feng shui to foster change in their lives.  Contented persons typically do not call upon a feng shui professional, while those who experience some lack do.  It became clear that my work in feng shui is really about helping people change enough so that what they desire can come to pass.  Physicians facilitate the body to heal by bringing about a change that restores health.  Architects and designers work with articulating a desired life style into a physical space.   Change is the single factor that remains constant and, , all we do includes this basic component. 

 We desire change because we hope it will improve things.  Be it a new article of clothing, repainting a bedroom, changing a hair style, or trying a new recipe, human seek novelty not always because of dissatisfactions but also because novelty strokes creativity and creativity nurtures the enormous capacity humans have.  Even when conditions tie us like assembly-line workers to the most repetitive life experiences, we find ways to divert monotony.  Despite our knowing better, who hasn’t grabbed a cell phone to lessen the monotony of a long drive? 

 Whatever motivates us to lead a fulfilling life is fodder for consideration. Thus, I decided to write a feng shui book that addresses this collective human condition with an eye toward using the desire for change as a productive tool.  From changing personal behaviors, to altering interpersonal relationships to assisting our physical being to heal, this book will attempt to explain how where you live can be an ombudsman to your desires.

In the next months, I will share on this blog a belief I have been working on for several years now, …that a physical place and what it is filled with, can alter thoughts, needs and beliefs.  Yes, it makes a difference if you select a blue or yellow sofa.  Yes, where you sit at the dining room table affects how you interact.  I hope to add another dimension to long standing beliefs about design and propel you into territory that may upend what you choose to create in your homes.  Using findings of many diverse scientific communities in a non-technical way, I hope to give you, the reader additional tools for your journey into healing.  

 For more pyramid feng shui education opportunities visit   www.windwater.com/education.htm

Pyramid feng shui is a rational scientifically based way of understanding how place impacts on human behaviors. 

The connections between the cerebella cortex and the frontal cortex suggest a novel hypothesis. A trio of neuroscientists–Henrietta and Alan Leiner, and Robert Dow–challenges the assumption that motor functions such as walking or raising your hand are under exclusive control of the motor part of the cerebral cortex. They believe the neural pathways from cerebella to frontal cortex also enable the “skilled manipulation of ideas.”

Our brain doesn’t simply “manage” or “execute” what particular activity our body is engaged in at the moment; it appears that we literally “think” with our body. What we desire, believe, and feel is expressed entirely through our body’s actions and movements–that is, we express thoughts and feelings kinetically. We can choose to wave to a friend or not. The skeletal muscles that carry out this task are under voluntary control. And if voluntary muscles are directed by our will or our thoughts, then they function as an organ of the mind.

Thus, in shaping a space in feng shui, consider how you encourage movement through a room.  It may be that they way we move shape our behaviors.  Is the couch potato being encouraged to continue by having such a comfortable resting place that encourages inaction?  Maybe.

For more information on pyramid feng shui go to: www.windwater.com/education.htm

Pyramid feng shui is a rational scientifically based way of understanding how place impacts on human behaviors.

“Every change in human physiological state is accompanied by an appropriate change in their mental, emotional state – conscious or unconscious and visa versa”.   Elmer and Alyce Green, founders Psychophysiology Laboratory Research Department at the Menninger Clinic, Topeka, KS

Seeing is a two way communication.  The physical world is conversing with you and you are responding. For example, who hasn’t experienced walking into the kitchen between meals, seeing the refrigerator and responding to it with mentally saying, I’m not going to eat anything. What you are doing is reacting to your interpretation of this symbol.  Thus, what you see communicates with you and recognizing what is being conveyed is paramount to shaping a world that communicates effectively.

 Who then is that me capable of listening to visual symbols?  The only way to find out is to understand a bit about the mind.

For years it was thought that the brain alone communicated to the body Digital code is like a telegraph, where signals are tapped out from one source and where potentially without the switch being made, the receiver cannot answer.  In other words, the mind told the body.  What is so fascinating now is new research revealing that thinking is really a two way street, that the body communicates back to the brain.   Published in the prestigious science journal, “Nature” in April 2006,  (senior author, David Mc Cormick) a  Neurobiologist from Yale overturned in his research a longstanding belief that each of the brain’s 100 billion neurons communicates strictly by a digital code.  Analog systems are different.  They represent continuous signals, not unlike a telephone where the lines of communication are always open to both ends.   So every thing in your body is communicating back and forth most of the time

To demonstrate this, try this. Check in our how you feel right now and then smile.  Experience the difference?  Indeed, Robert Zajonc, Ph.D., head of the Institute for Social Research at the University of Michigan, has evidence that simply by making the facial expression you abet development of the feeling. Forcing a smile actually puts you in a better mood.  Thus, if you smile you actually feel happier.

One simple feng shui trick is to position things that bring a smile to your face in places where you might not always feel joyful.  Every time I look at a photo of a painting that graced my room as a child  (today my grandson has it hanging in his room) I feel delight.  I hung it in my office the day I started this Blog.  

Tomorrow we explore the mind more in depth.

For more info on scientific feng shui email info@windwater.com, website:  www.windwater.com 

Pyramid feng shui is a rational scientifically based way of understanding how place impacts on human behaviors.

I remember the first time I traveled to Europe.  Everything I used needed to be assiduously considered and packed, because little could be replaced in 1958.  Today, as I pack for my summer jaunt to Chautauqua, I toss things in boxes with the comfort of knowing that there is nothing that I forgot that cannot be replaced by local merchants or the titanic world of internet shopping.  The proliferation and mostly lack of economical sting of replacing things, makes the fear of forgetting obsolete. 

Could there be a downside?  I think so, because as when something is easily replaced, how could the labor that affords it be of value?  Does filling one’s life with items that are easily replaceable somehow frame a culture where no thing is so valued that its replacement won’t be easily accepted?  Is the soaring divorce-rate an outcropping of this trend?  And if the efforts we expend to create money are used mostly to purchase things of no lasting value, then how can the work we do to afford them be of consequence?

I know I am asking a great deal of questions without offering answers, but I think the answer is emerging as crystal clear.   Yet I truly believe that surrounding ourselves with loyalty of consumable brands, searching until  just the right water glass for our night table is found, or saving to own a classic, not one that will become a victim of fashion fickleness are ultimately more satisfying then purchasing the most convenient, buying an item to serve our needs immediately, or capitulating to the mass market.  Our collective and individual psyches long to be elevated to the plane of valued.