How The Energy Edit Began

Hi, I’m Melissa.

I should probably introduce myself, and maybe explain how I became the person people find when they’re trying to make sense of their space again.

I moved into a rented flat halfway across the world and the bedroom was red. Not a nice earthy red either, but the kind of red that makes your nervous system feel vaguely threatened. The lounge was yellow, which meant the entire apartment had the atmosphere of a fast-food chain designed by someone interested in psychological warfare.

At the time, I told myself this was part of the experience. I had moved countries. I wanted adventure and adventure, presumably, was not meant to feel emotionally ergonomic.

Still, something about living there felt hard to explain. Even after I’d moved furniture around countless times and filled the space with things that brought me joy, it never fully settled. 

When the landlord finally agreed to repaint, I remember standing in the freshly neutral bedroom and feeling my whole body loosen slightly. I took a breath I hadn't known I was owed. This sounds dramatic when written down, but I think most people know exactly what I mean. There are spaces where you immediately settle, and spaces where part of you remains standing at the door. 

That pattern showed up again and again, especially at times where I felt disconnected from myself.

Realising How Spaces Affect Your Nervous System

A few years later, in a new home, I found myself at a personal crossroads. My career no longer felt aligned, my confidence had dulled, and I was exhausted in that hollow way where you are technically functioning but no longer fully participating in your own life. Everything had started feeling repetitive and strangely airless.

Then I quit my job with absolutely no plan, which remains one of the least in-character decisions I’ve ever made. But I also knew, with unusual clarity, that if nothing changed then nothing was going to change.

I became mildly obsessive about my environment again. Rearranging rooms and getting rid of things. I was repainting walls and moving furniture repeatedly for reasons I couldn’t fully articulate. Thinking constantly about how spaces felt to move through. Not from a design perspective exactly, and definitely not because I cared about having a perfect home,  I just noticed that when my environment felt better, I felt better.

Discovering a Grounded Approach to Compass School Feng Shui

Somewhere inside all of that, Feng Shui entered the picture. What interested me immediately was how strangely familiar it felt. I would read about flow or positioning or elemental balance and realise I had already been instinctively doing versions of these things for years, as though my body had arrived at certain conclusions before my brain had caught up.

That curiosity eventually led me toward Classical Feng Shui, particularly Compass School Feng Shui, which focuses on direction, orientation, light, and the relationship between people and their environments. The more I studied it, the less mystical it actually became to me. If anything, it felt observational. Ancient people paying close attention to the ways environments affect human behaviour and wellbeing.

I know Feng Shui can feel abstract or overly mystical from the outside, especially if you are naturally skeptical, like I am. I probably would have dismissed it once for exactly that reason. But I also couldn’t ignore what I had already experienced.

I wanted to share this practice in a way that felt grounded and relatable. Don’t get me wrong, I still think there’s room for mystery in life, but there’s also something very real and practical about having spaces that actually support you.

Why Your Home Should Hold You Steady

Because a home shouldn’t only look good, though it often starts there, it should also do something slightly less visible but arguably more important, which is hold you steady, restore you in ways you don’t always register at the time, and, if it’s doing its job, begin to reflect who you’re in the middle of becoming rather than who you already were.

At some point I realised that was what I cared about: helping people make homes that actually feel good to live in, and that’s really where The Energy Edit comes from.

Follow me down the rabbit hole @energyeditwithme