Clearing Space and Personal Energy with Cleansing Rituals

A few years ago, I got conked on the head. Hard. I spent a good part of the remainder of the month in the fog of a concussion with frequent headaches and plenty of confusion. That, combined with a few other minor inconveniences life throws one’s way from time to time left me feeling a little flat, slightly down in the dumps, and not quite my normal sunny, optimistic self. The energy in and around my house and my person stagnated, and when I finally emerged from the fog of my bonk on the noggin, I realized my thoughts and energy from that period left my energetic environment  muddled.
 
So, like any normal, rational person who never does anything that seems strange to other people, I decided it was time to clean up my energetic environment and recharge it so my home, personal energy, and surroundings were filled with my more customary positive energy. I engaged in several cleansing rituals that returned my home to its pre-head bonk energetic state.
 
Negative Energy Spirals
While I’m sure we’d all prefer life was constantly sunshine, rainbows, and unicorn farts (which I am told look like rainbow-colored glitter), that isn’t always the way things work out. Sometimes life gets you down because stuff happens. You suffer financial setbacks. You have an altercation with someone. A toxic person comes to visit and befouls your positive vibe. Someone you’ve known for years suddenly starts acting like a middle school mean girl. Someone you love is ill or dies. You experience a health issue. There can be all sorts of things that can change your personal energy and the energy of your environment.
 
In the midst of all of these normal day-to-day setbacks, it can be difficult to be a sunshiny, happy, positive thinker all the time. 
 
I believe thoughts become things. We are creative individuals, and the way we think and speak creates and shapes our reality. But when things start to go poorly, it’s easy to get stuck in a pattern of negative thinking that energetically contributes to more things going badly. Without intervention, it can become a downward spiral. Negative thinking begets negative outcomes, which causes more negative thinking, which leads to more negative outcomes….and on and on it goes. It can be difficult to recognize a downward spiral as it happens, and breaking the pattern may be even harder.
 
Beyond Environment
Negative energy spirals hurt more than the environments in which we live. They also harm us. Negativity permeates our subtle anatomy (our energy systems). When it does, it weakens our auras, making it easier for harmful energy to move through it and into us. Once past our aura, the negativity can set into our other subtle anatomy, our chakras and meridians, creating imbalance and blockage that can lead to physical, spiritual, mental, and emotional dis-ease (lack of ease that often results in illnesses of the body, mind, and spirit).
 
Enter the Cleansing Ritual
I believe there’s magic in the cleansing ritual, but maybe not for the same reasons other people do. While I know the methods that follow can help shift energy and vibration, the other reason they work is perhaps even more important: intention. Engaging in a cleansing ritual sets your intention to convert a pattern of negative energy to a positive one. It symbolically shows you (and the universe) that you recognize the negative spiral you’ve been in, and you’re ready to begin consciously creating positive energy once again. It is a starting point for you to once again engage in conscious creative positive thought, word, and action.
 
What Cleansing Rituals Are Not
You’ve probably heard that if you want to get rid of ghosts or evil spirits, you can burn sage. This is an example of a cleansing ritual. And by the way – I burn sage. I burn the heck out of that stuff. But burning sage doesn’t necessarily mean you are going to get rid of ghosts or negative spirits. Rather, it is a way of clearing out negative energy patterns and creating a space where you can then fill it with positive energy.
 
What Cleansing Rituals Are
Cleansing rituals aren’t about other souls and spirits. They are about you and the energy of your environment, and they are about your own focus and intention. They are a starting point for creating a new pattern of energy within your mind, your space, and your environment.
 
Types of Cleansing Rituals
Cleansing rituals are largely symbolic, and intention plays a huge role in them. Therefore, while there are some very common cleansing rituals – like the aforementioned sage burning – I recommend people rely on instinct and engage in rituals that create an energetic shift for them. In other words, if it feels right, do it.
 
Burning Herbs & Incense
Many people are familiar with the ritual of burning herbs or incense. Sage is a commonly burned herb, believed to clear away negative energy, leaving room for positive energy to enter. When I burn sage, I always follow it with burning something that invites positive energy, such as palo santo (my absolute favorite), lavender, or sweetgrass. You can also burn incense that invites positivity, such as Nag Champa (my other favorite).
 
To burn incense or herbs, either place the burning herbs in the middle of a space to fill it, or walk with a burning bundle around the space. When I want to cleanse my whole space, I walk around the perimeter of every room in my house with a burning sage bundle. I wave the smoke into every corner, closet, and cupboard, taking time to go around each door and window. Then, I follow doing the same thing with a smoldering stick of palo santo or a burning braid of sweetgrass. I also use the smoldering palo santo stick to draw Reiki symbols by all entrances to my home: doors, windows, vents, and drains to invite Reiki energy to fill my home.
 
How you go about this ritual or whether you use burning herbs is up to you. What’s important is you do so with the intention of creating positive energy within your environment.
 
Crystals to Cleanse and Energize Spaces
Another way of cleansing is sprinkling or deliberately placing crystals around your environment. I buy crystal chip beads and toss them about and also use a few strategically placed larger crystals. Typically, if I’m strewing crystals about, I’m doing it outdoors in my yard where it won’t get sucked up by the vacuum. Larger crystals I place in various locations in my yard and home.
 
There are many types of crystals you can use depending on how you wish to shift the energy of your environment. While going into every crystal is beyond the scope of this blog post, I will share a few of my favorites.

• Black tourmaline (and other black stones) absorbs negative energy, keeping it from entering your environment. I currently have black tourmaline chips sprinkled around the perimeter of my property to block negativity from entering.
• Citrine invites prosperity. Placing citrine in your wallet, cashbox, and in the southeast sector of your home or a room can invite prosperity.
• Smoky quartz invites positive energy and shifts negativity to positivity. I have smoky quartz chips sprinkled all around the perimeter of my yard to transmute any energy that comes onto my property into positive energy.
• Rose quartz invites unconditional love into your home. I have strategically placed pieces in my home and yard.

 
I placed all my crystals after I’d done a sage and palo santo burning ritual. In other words, I put the crystals in place after the energy in my home had shifted from negative to positive. The outdoors crystals are naturally cleansed by sunlight and moonlight. My indoors crystals I cleanse once or twice a week with smoke from palo santo or incense.
 
Salt for Personal Cleansing
Another cleansing ritual involves sea salt, Himalayan pink salt, or Epsom salts. Whenever I feel myself slipping into a pattern of negative thinking, I bathe in Himalayan pink salt with a few drops of sandalwood essential oil added to the water. In this ritual bath, I close my eyes and focus on bringing positive energy into my space and person while the negativity drains from my body into the bathwater. Then, I drain the tub completely before I step out to dry myself.
 
You can also sprinkle sea salt, Epsom salts, or Himalayan pink salt around the outsider perimeter of your home after you’ve cleansed it with burning herbs. This seals in the positive energy and keeps negative energy at bay. You'll need to replace it every time it rains.
 
Inviting Positive Energy
You can also use other forms of positive energy and visualization to cleanse your environment. For example, you can close your eyes and envision white light pouring into your home, surrounding you and your home and washing away negativity. You can engage in positive affirmations. Or, if you do any form of energy healing, you can send the energy from you into every corner of your home. This is how I prepare my classroom spaces before I teach, and it’s how I prepare my energy healing space before I give someone a Reiki session. Other methods you can use to create positive cleansing energy include the following.

• Use sound rituals, such as solfeggio, singing bowls, drumming, mantras, chanting, tingshas, or tuning forks throughout a space.
• Play beautiful music that uplifts you and allow the music to fill the space.
• Spray essential oils diluted in water throughout a space or anoint spaces with herbal concoctions.
• Use prayer or affirmation to fill a space with positive energy or unconditional love.

 
Essential Oils Clear Energy Too
Like other energy healing tools, essential oils have a high vibration that can entrain with the energy of spaces or living beings to help raise the vibe and bring about cleansing. There are many ways you can use essential oils. Here are a few of my favorites.

• Put an essential oil diffuser in rooms where you spend a lot of time, or where you want to transform the energy.
• Make sprays and either spray it in a space or spritz it in the air over your head and allow it to shower down on you.
• Make homemade cleaning products and add essential oils (I put mine in a household steamer that I use to steam clean countertops, sinks, and more).
• Add them to unscented laundry detergents and dryer sheets.
• Add them to unscented shampoos, conditioners, lotions, and liquid soaps.

 
Good Juju Essential Oil Cleansing Spray
I use this spray – or a variation of it based on the needs of a healing partner – when homeowners or businesses are stuck in negative patterns and really need positive changes to occur. To use it, shake it well and then spray it around the inside perimeter of the house, building, or room.

• 4 ounces water
• 1 tablespoon Himalayan pink salt (or sea salt)
• 2 drops cedarwood (releases past hurts, purification)
• 5 drops lavender (promotes peace, love, and purification)
• 4 drops lemon (breaks inertia)
• 3 drops ginger (protection and success)
• 2 drops eucalyptus (banishes negative energies)

 
Spirit Crossing Spray
Sometimes, spirits request assistance in transitioning to the spirit realm. I use this spray, which contains sacred funeral herbs, to assist with the transition. Spray in the area as you continue with any other spirit crossing rituals in which you engage. NOTE: This does not force spirits to cross. It only aids them if they wish to go.
 
Mix the following ingredients in an 8-ounce spray bottle:

• 6 ounces water
• 1 tablespoon Himalayan pink salt
• 6 drops sweet marjoram (assisting in transition)
• 8 drops rosemary (traditional funeral herb)
• 4 drops myrrh (rites of passage)

Meditation Blend
This blend promotes deep meditation. Put it in diffuser with the recommended amount of water and keep in your meditation area.

• 2 drops sandalwood
• 1 drop frankincense
• 2 drops lavender

 
Psychic Awakening Oil
Dab a little of this on your third eye, either during meditation or whenever you’d like to awaken your psychic abilities. You can also put it in a roller bottle that has amethyst chips in it or has a gemstone amethyst roller to enhance its properties. Note: Always dilute essential oils in a carrier oil or water if you will bee using them on your skin or you may have a reaction.

• 1 ounce sweet almond oil (or another carrier oil)
• 2 drops peppermint
• 1 drop bay
• 1 drop juniper
• 2 drops lemongrass

 
Prosperity Diffuser Blend
To promote prosperity, mix the following into the recommended amount of water for your diffuser.

• 2 drops sandalwood
• 2 drops pine
• 2 drops cumin

 
Good Dreams
For peaceful sleep and happy dreams, mix the following into the recommended amount of water for your diffuser.

• 2 drops aniseed
• 2 drops Roman chamomile
• 2 drops lavender

 
Good Juju
No matter how you choose to cleanse your space, the most important aspect of cleansing rituals is intention. It starts with recognizing the energy in your space has shifted in a way that no longer serves you. Then, by creating a ritual that re-sets your intention to bring more positive energetic patterns into your life, you can push the re-set button and get started on a different path.

Image by Dim Hou from Pixabay ​