If you follow Your Digital Essence on Instagram, you know that I love passive entertainment so much that I thought it would be fun to start critiquing old movie and TV sets from a feng shui perspective. Because, really, what is more interesting than taking the often abstract, very personal, and understandingly subjective concepts of feng shui and applying them to well-known backdrops in fictional stories? I honestly can’t think of anything. So without further ado, let’s dive into our inaugural critique: Kathleen Kelly’s (Meg Ryan) bedroom in the classic romantic comedy You’ve Got Mail!
In this first picture, we see that Kathleen’s bed is placed at an angle in front of one of the corners of her bedroom, which is pretty terrible placement from a feng shui perspective for a couple reasons. First, energy can get trapped or stuck in the corner behind the bed and become stagnant, which isn’t healthy for us. (Maybe that’s why Kathleen is sick with a cold in this scene?) And, second, it’s never a good idea to place a bed at an angle, mainly because we don’t want to feel off-balance when we wake up in the morning. Feng shui practitioners will almost always recommend that beds be placed against a solid wall or solid wall substitute, as this creates strong, protective energy around the bed, helps us feel supported and safe while we sleep, and gives our beds a greater ability to create and hold good energy.
Due to some CSI detective skills, I noticed that earlier in the movie (as seen in this second picture), when Kathleen was dating Frank (Greg Kinnear), Kathleen’s bed was placed against a solid wall, a much more supportive position. From this picture, we can also see that the bed is placed furthest from the (assumed) entrance, which puts it in the power position, named as such because it gives the occupant the most amount of time to react to anything coming through the door. This helps us feel safer in bed and allows us to relax and focus on sleep.
Why did the set designers change the layout of the bedroom midway through the movie? Why would they put her bed in such a terrible, awkward position? Is it some sort of metaphor for how her life turned upside down when she left her stable relationship with Frank and started hanging out with Joe (Tom Hanks)? Unfortunately, we may never find out the answers to these burning questions, but let us learn from Kathleen Kelly’s mistakes and use the above feng shui recommendations when laying out our sleeping spaces! And for more tips on the best feng shui practices for your bedroom, check out this post.