Sharon Stasney walked into Myles Preble's dental office in Holladay and termed it "One of the worst feng shui places I've ever seen."
Stasney, who is a consultant in the ancient Chinese practice of feng shui, said the office's many sharp edges and corners sliced through the employees' energy fields, while the gray decor was mentally stimulating but physically draining.Stasney said most places can be adjusted fairly easily and inexpensively, but this wasn't one of them.
Preble plans to move into a new office this summer. The one he's investigating now has the potential for positive energy and a soothing atmosphere.
Stasney describes feng shui (pronounced "fung schway") as the study of how environments affect the physical, emotional and psychological states of the people who live, work or visit there.
The idea is that the placement and harmony can work with a person's "chi," or energy force, and the environment, bringing both into a harmonious relationship. Good feng shui is reputed to increase abundance, health and general well-being.
Skeptics scoff and consider it New Age hocus-pocus. But Stasney has a client base of 450 people and has worked as a feng shui consultant in Utah since 1994. She has advised homeowners, hospitals and businesses, which increasingly are turning to feng shui consults to create "positive energy" in their workplaces.
Preble, for one, is sold on the idea. A veteran dentist, he knows that many people associate the dentist's offices with pain. "If you can create an experience that makes it as pleasant as possible, people don't even have to know why it's so comfortable. If the energy is positive, if the aura is positive, it lends a more positive experience," he said.
After Stasney's visit to his office, Preble read and learned more about feng shui. "I decided it was the way I wanted to go with the new space and one of the reasons I wanted to get a new space," he said.
Stasney has recommended that Preble use warm colors and more rounded edges, avoid straight-backed chairs, get more texture on walls and in carpeting and add a waterfall or fountain to produce a soothing and nurturing atmosphere.
Stasney recently did a consultation for Primary Children's Medical Center for its new front lobby. "It's pretty hard to get a board to pass a feng shui consultant to do something that big, so they had an interior design firm do it," she said.
The plans then came her way, and she prepared a report that included suggestions for altering a few things. "They had a whole bunch of single, solitary benches with no back support. A hospital setting is typically a traumatic place to be, so you want to have as many built-ins as possible, as much padding in any seating as possible," she said.
Instead of benches, she recommended chairs that encircle the body with padded arms and padded backs.
"The horseshoe shaped chair is the best for a hospital setting. It completely encompasses the person. They're carrying two to three times the stress charge in their body (than they ordinarily do). If you can sit in a chair that is cloth rather than leather or vinyl, you can release more of that charge," she said.
On Friday, Stasney opened her own store, The Feng Shui Shop at 2030 S. 900 East in Sugarhouse. Stasney, who is director of the Utah chapter of the International Feng Shui Guild, will use the store to train other consultants in putting on workshops and give presentations. It also will offer feng shui services and feng shui specific items for sale to the public, including such things as incense, soaps, a money bench and dowsing rods.
You can reach Linda Thomson by e-mail at lindat@desnews.com