We recently connected with Mark Ainley and have shared our conversation below.

Mark, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today. We’d love to hear about the things you feel your parents did right and how those things have impacted your career and life.

My parents really prioritized travel and making an effort to have meaningful experiences. Even when things were financially tight, they found ways for us to take trips and explore new places. Because they were both teachers, we had summer holidays together. Every year we went camping in multiple places in Canada and the US for weeks at a time, and there were a few occasions when we had trips to visit relatives in Europe – all of these were life-changing experiences with important lessons.

The camping trips put me in close contact with nature – seeing the night sky undimmed by city lights made a huge impression on me, as did several occasions seeing the Northern Lights. Learning how to pack and organize provisions, to make do with what we had, to sleep so close to the earth and elements were great lessons in how to manage resources, adapt to different circumstances, and be in contact with nature.

The trips to Europe woke me up to how many different ways there are to live, and I’ve continued to incorporate various lifestyle elements from my trips into how I live. It’s no wonder that I would end up becoming quite a world traveler and explorer of cultures. These international voyages strengthened my awareness that everyone can think that their way is THE way and that we’ve all learned to live in certain ways both from our cultures and our families, and we can learn and appreciate other ways.

The other thing my parents did was making sure we had nice dinners every weekend, in the dining room with crystal and pewter dishware: there was no saving things for rare ‘special’ occasions because we had those at least once a week. My mother refused to allow any commercial packaging on the table: even when we had our more basic meals in the kitchen nook, there were no plastic, jars, or bottles visible – nothing with a label, everything decanted. They would also let us kids have a TV dinner once a week so they had their ‘date night’ (that term didn’t exist back then) – everyone was happy with that arrangement, and it let them continue to have their relationship simultaneously with their role as parents.

I’ve had so many clients who save nice things for special occasions that don’t happen frequently and who lose the spark in their relationship once they’ve had kids, so these occasions really made me aware that you can always use your best belongings and sustain your relationships with aligned choices. Also, not having packaged goods on the table helped me to tune more into what we see on a daily basis and to constantly be aware of what’s attractive and what’s not, what contributes to atmosphere and what doesn’t. And this particular standard influenced others: I have a school friend who was so impressed by this that over 30 years later he will not let his family put any packaging on their dining table!

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your background and context?

I work as a Contemporary Feng Shui Consultant, helping my clients apply Feng Shui principles in a way that aligns with modern architecture and design as opposed to requiring culturally specific decor (although that can be used if desired, of course). I work with individuals, families, and companies on home and work spaces, exploring how the structure, layout, and items in the space (and their arrangement) communicate certain messages and lead to specific behaviours – and I help them find ways to reverse-engineer that space for more desirable experiences.

I first came across Feng Shui after having lived in Japan for a few years in the 1990s. I moved to London to do some work in the music industry (I’m still actively involved in both classical and electronic music arenas) and as I was speaking about Asian philosophies and lifestyles with my roommate, he asked if I’d heard of Feng Shui. I had no idea what he was talking about, so he went upstairs and came down with a book on the topic, and the moment I flipped through the pages, it was love at first sight: it was like I’d been handed a manual that explained some of the programming of how reality operates.

I immediately started applying what the book suggested to the best of my capabilities – I had some really tangible results, although my knowledge was limited so results were still mixed. I moved back to Japan in 98 and then back to Canada in 99, continuing to get more books and to practice for myself – again, with noticeable results that were still inconsistent, so I knew I needed to learn properly.

In my new home town of Vancouver, I came across an ad for a practitioner of ‘Western Feng Shui’ and was curious about what this meant; I assumed it might be a kind of degradation of the principles one can find in the West, but in our phone call, Rhea Peake spoke about appropriately updating the applications to align with modern homes and lifestyles. I hired her for a consultation and was so blown away by the way she prioritized concepts and creatively brought my home to life that I knew that I wanted to train with her. In 2001 I was part of the first of two training programs she ever offered, became her protégé, and began working with clients.

I’ve since been working internationally: a lot in Japan, where friends and clients helped me get started teaching and consulting, eventually leading to two to three visits annually for over 15 years (pre-Covid). In Japan, I’ve appeared in magazines, produced DVDs, taught in full halls, graduated two dozen consultants, and worked with hundreds of clients.

I realized before going to Japan that I couldn’t say I was doing ‘Western Feng Shui’ when I would be consulting in the East – that just didn’t sit right with me – so I came up with the term ‘Contemporary Feng Shui’, which is in fact more accurate; the practice is not about geography but about a present-time relationship with these teachings about how our physical environments influence us.

I learned a lot from being in the field – there’s only so much you can pick up from reading, lessons, and training. Seeing things in 3D with real people makes it so real: it’s the difference between the map and the territory. I learned the flexibility and creativity that’s required to holistically apply Feng Shui given what’s available in the moment and what the client is comfortable with.

I’ve often worked with people going through great difficulty – losing a partner or other challenging life changes – and I have become increasingly humbled by the trust that they have placed in me and the process: being invited into their homes and their lives really is a sacred thing. We can be a bit cavalier when we refer to someone being single or partnered, or having kids or not, but for many people these can be a really big deal with lots of emotional stress that may be invisible to outsiders. It’s beyond fulfilling to be able to help some clients explore their life stories via the symbolism present in their homes and to consider how some alternatives could better nurture a more desired mindset and life experience – and to see them get these results.

Among my memorable consultations was helping a young Japanese widow coping with her grief and then a year later working with her on a new home with her new partner while she still navigated her loss; consulting with a couple unable to conceive for years to bring more life into their home (literally) – they soon after were pregnant with twins; supporting single individuals longing to have a family adjust their space and soon after find their life partner and have kids; having creative artists overcome self-doubt and move onto successful careers in the limelight.

Practicing more and more, I have come to realize that Feng Shui is not so much doing things in the ‘outside world’ by moving things and placing objects, but rather how our environment reveals inner thoughts, feelings, and states of being because of the relationships we have with what we possess and see, as well as how we move through our personal spaces. Just like TV advertising can communicate ideas and concepts in a matter of seconds, the things we look at daily for weeks, months, and years influence our subconscious and therefore our behaviours and expectations.

Nearly 30 years after my introduction to this incredible modality, I am still amazed at how deeply and quickly things can change for people. I am also increasingly aware that ongoing practice is required to sustain an aligned and evolving life trajectory, just like we need to eat, exercise, clean, and sleep on a daily basis: as much as one-time changes can bring powerful results, ongoing practice and fine-tuning of how we live brings deeper balance, flow, and fulfillment.

How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?

When Covid and lockdowns hit in early 2020, I had to move into doing more online consultations – which was fine as I’d already been doing these for a long time (my first was 2004) – but I also had embrace online teaching, something I’d resisted. That was a major transition, as I’d had lots of experience teaching in person, with a real facility for reading the room and being spontaneous – and these are things that can be much harder online! The first seminar was pretty stressful for me but I soon developed an affinity for online teaching and now I love it.

With the normalization of online learning that emerged in this new era, I’ve been able to expand my reach and I have started crafting a variety of shorter seminars and longer courses. I use interactive software that allows participants to answer questions anonymously with their input showing up on the screen, so that I can be spontaneous and offer targeted insights – two really important things for me both when teaching and consulting.

I am now far more focused on teaching and developing courses than ever before, and I’m thrilled to be helping more people around the world this way – it’s amazing having people in the same Zoom room who are in Canada, the US, New Zealand, and several European countries, all learning together and sharing their own insights. Over 500 people either attended live or watched the replay of my last seminar in Japan, more than would be possible in person. Technology is definitely allowing for people to participate who might otherwise not be able to.

As a result of common challenges faced by clients throughout this period, I’ve created a new course (The Story of Your Stuff) with a new process for working with the connection of different items with our thoughts, feelings, and behaviours, and it’s brought a really amazing shift to my approach to consulting as well. So this ‘forced’ move into online teaching has been a blessing that’s enabled me to evolve not just how I teach but also my approach to consulting.

What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?

I was both very upfront and very shy growing up – I think we all have some contradictory qualities that can be challenging to navigate – and it has been important for me to learn to adopt the characteristic that Feng Shui uses to refer to water that flows harmoniously: gentle persistence.

I had some teachers – including my parents – who could be pretty pointed in their feedback and emotional in their reactivity, and this sometimes led to me shutting down and just being ‘nice’ to avoid conflict. I have often been either gentle to the point of sidestepping what I wanted (as well as what was needed) or persistent to the point of being aggressive; I think these two extremes are quite common in our culture, and historically they certainly have been with me.

I have had to step into my authority as a consultant working in people’s homes to find how address their blockages and issues – ones they articulated and also those I observed through my training – in a way that is both gentle but allows conversations to take place and that opens up the potential of change at the right pace. When people are paying me to help them through issues, I have a responsibility to do so – but it is also important to be responsive to what they are truly ready to do in the moment, rather than barging through towards an envisioned ‘goal’. Water that is focused on the goal only flows aggressively like a torrent, but more gentle meandering rivers navigate through the environment by meeting what’s there and finding the path of least resistance.

Feng Shui teachings and philosophy have helped me to more sustainably embody this quality of ‘gentle persistence’ in a way that has supported my clients and myself, both personally and professionally.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.senseofspace.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sense_of_space/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ContemporaryFengShuiWithMarkAinley
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/markainley/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@SenseOfSpace23

Image Credits
Tallulah Photography (Vancouver)
Ben Cuevas Art (LA)
Temple Beautiful (Japan)