Spiritual Cleansing

Do you remember that icky feeling after being around a toxic person or environment? Or a sudden wave of anxiety that you can’t find a reason for? Maybe you’ve just been feeling a lot of fatigue, even though you slept well the night before?

Sometimes, the reasons for feeling drained or overwhelmed are not easily resolved with rest alone. 

It could be that you are in need of spiritual cleansing.

What is Spiritual Cleansing?

The act of doing a spiritual cleansing is a practice of ridding the energetic space of negative energies.

Negativity is something that has the ability to stick to you and your spaces, such as your home and your body.

Your body is surrounded by an energetic field (translation: your aura) that protects you and your energetic body.

But when we come into consistent contact with low energies of negative emotion, our aura can become clogged.

As a result, it loses its ability to shield us from future negativity. 

Why You Need a Spiritual Cleansing

Everything is interconnected. Your mind, body, and spirit are all part of one mechanism working together. If one part of you starts to malfunction, you will feel a resonance in the rest of your being.

That’s why a spiritual cleansing practice is so important, especially in relation to building creative intelligence.

Just like you clean your house and your physical body after walking around in the dirt and dust of the outdoors, you need to cleanse your aura too.

The cause for your struggles, pains, and hardships is not always purely physical or emotional. Your spiritual well-being needs maintenance just as much as your mental and physical health.

So you can think of spiritual cleansing as a kind of systematic shower for your aura.

When to Perform a Spiritual Cleansing Ritual

Negative energies have the power to cloud our judgment, mess with our deep inner guidance systems, and stray us from our paths.

Creating a daily spiritual cleansing practice would be the most effective for your energetic maintenance.

Especially, if you’re an empath or a highly sensitive person, performing a spiritual cleansing ritual will be even more important for you.

But there are also some tell-tale signs for when you need to perform a spiritual cleansing ritual:

• After an illness, injury, death of a loved one, or even when you have a feeling of bad luck following you around
• After toxic relationships, romantic, professional, or social. Difficult breakups, divorces, or emotionally draining interactions with the outside world. Such as arguments, friends/family directing their anger at you, being at emotionally charged events like funerals, protests.
• During persistent financial difficulties
• As soon as you move into a new home, start a new job, or enter a new season → Anything you would consider a new beginning in your life
• Before big interviews, meeting new people, moving to a new country
• Most importantly, just tune in to how you feel: are you tired, drained, angry, low energy. Any negative emotion, if especially persistent, needs your attention

So how do you do a spiritual cleansing?

Spiritual Cleansing Guide -- 5 Types of Cleansing Rituals

The first step of successful spiritual cleansing is to always acknowledge the negativity.

There are many examples of cleansing rituals like meditation, bathing in sunlight, prayer, going to a reiki practitioner, and sound healing. 

You can tailor the practice to your spiritual, emotional, and physical needs. But what you need to remember is that awareness plays a big part in the cleansing rituals.

So make sure to partner doing the motions with knowing why you are doing them.

Specifically, you can name what weighs you down. Having the right vocabulary to label, whether it’s an emotion or negative energy, helps us to see the invisible.

Here are some words you can use to label negative energies and emotions: 

• Anxiety
• Fear
• Fatigue
• Uneasiness
• Dread
• Apathetic
• Depressed
• Tightness
• Angry
• Bitter
• Disappointed
• Can’t breathe
  

When you label something you have the power to control it.

Don’t be afraid to explore the feelings. If you don’t know exactly what you’re feeling, anger or anxiety, you can just describe whatever you can: tightness in the chest, a bad feeling about tomorrow, unease with ‘x, y, z...’. 

Once you have named what’s bothering you, set the intention to clear the negative energy, you need a ritual to manifest the cleansing process. This is important in creating your own reality free of these negative distractions.

You have many spiritual cleansing rituals to choose from. Cleansing yourself from negative energies doesn’t have to be a difficult process.

So here are 5 spiritually cleansing rituals you can do at home, and some, even, on the go.

1. Spiritual Cleansing Bath

Water has been used in cleansing rituals, both spiritual and religious, since ancient times because of its healing properties.

Water purifies.

If you’ve ever sat in the shower after a difficult day, an unpleasant interaction, or an exhausting fight, you’ll know the feeling of relief.

Water doesn’t just clean your physical body. It absorbs and carries away the negative energies stuck in your spiritual body.

There are many ways to do a spiritual cleansing with water. One of the easiest ways is to do a spiritual cleansing bath at home.

What you will need for a spiritual cleansing bath:

• Salt: Around 2 handfuls of Sea Salt, Epsom Salts, or pink Himalayan Salts are top options, but you can use whatever pure unrefined salts you have on hand
• (optional) Essential Oils: 2-3 drops of the essential oil that calls out to you that day. If you haven’t used essential oils before, you will find some suggestions *below. 
• (optional) Flowers or Teas: a handful of rose, camomile, sunflower petals can all contribute to raising the vibration of your saltwater. Add dry herbs or loose-leaf tea for an additional impact
• (optional) Crystals: You can also add a crystal/s, like rose quartz, amethyst, or selenite, into the water or around your bath

If you don’t have a bath, a shower works just as well. To your shower, you can always add essential oils, soothing music, and set an intention.

And don’t forget the incredible options we have in nature. Whether you choose to bathe in oceans, rivers, streams, natural hot springs, waterfalls, or simply sit under a shower, let the water take care of your worries.

*Best essential oils for a spiritual cleanse: 

• Frankincense for protection and elevating the spiritual self 
• Lavender for emotional balance 
• Rosewater for self-love and compassion 
• Rosemary for protection and healing

2. Smudging

Think of smudging as taking a cleansing smoke bath. 

All you need for a smudging ritual is a bundle, or a braid, of dried herbs.

Light the bundle at one end, and gently glide it in a wave-like motion around you. Allow the smoke to purify the energetic space around yourself and/or the home spaces you want to cleanse.

Spiritual cleansing with sage is common and easy to buy. But there are other types of herbs you can burn for a spiritual cleansing:

• Garden or White Sage is used for purification → Take care using white sage as it is endangered, garden sage works just as well
• Cedar has the ability to attract positive energy into your space
• Sweetgrass is especially good for cleansing, healers say it burns negativity
• Palo santo supports clarity and grounding

If you don’t have access to a herb bundle, candles can also be substituted for your cleansing ritual.

3. Spiritual Cleansing with Crystals

Crystals have a powerful ability to deflect, attract, and absorb energies. 

Meditate with your crystals, or place them around your house where you feel negative energies or you wish to cultivate positive energies. You can even take crystals with you in your bag, or pocket.

The right cleansing crystals can have a calming and neutralizing effect. But not all crystals will be suitable for spiritual cleansing.

So, what crystals should you use?

During troubling times or high-stress situations in life, rose quartz is a good companion.  Whereas, amethyst can support your nervous system and alleviate tension and headaches. Selenite can clear confusion, cultivate peace, and attract positivity. 

Make sure to find out more about the different properties of crystals so that you can lean into all of their benefits.

And remember to cleanse your crystals too. Since they have the power to store energy. 

You can cleanse crystals by leaving them out in direct sunlight or moonlight, washing them in salt water, or smudging them.

4. Create Your Own Infused Auric Sprays

A spiritual cleansing bath can clear your aura and cleanse your energy. Whereas, an infused spray can be multipurpose: clear your aura and the energy in your home.

Plus, it is easy to make a DIY cleansing spray by concocting your own mix of water and essentials oils. 

Here is what you need for your auric cleansing spray. You can always play around with the ingredients:

1. A spray bottle: it can be glass or plastic, and whatever size works for you. Tip: amber or cobalt blue bottles protect essential oils
2. Around 60% Distilled water
3. Around 40% Unscented witch hazel or pure alcohol to help combine the water and oils
4. Essential oils of your choice: can include a mix of different oils or just one such as lavender, cedar, lemon, or eucalyptus. For a small bottle (2oz) add 20-24 drops, for medium (4oz) 44-48 drops, for large bottles (8oz) 92-96 drops → you can use less

You can also create a simple moon-water spray:

Fill a spray bottle of your choice with distilled water and leave it out under the direct light of a full moon overnight, to infuse it with full moon energies.

5. 5-minute Visualization Cleanse

Sometimes, you just need a quick relief and to center yourself. This is where a 5-minute visualization technique can help you out:

1. Take 3-5 slow, deep breaths to center yourself. 
2. Imagine a bright white light coming down from above and entering your body through the crown of your head.
3. Envision the light slowly traveling down each part of your body, pushing out the negative energies from every corner of your being.
4. As the light reaches the soles of your feet it exits your body and carries all the negative energies away.  
5. Take a few more relaxing breaths to come back into your physical reality, and get on with your day.

The color white symbolizes new beginnings and fresh starts. Not to mention, in the physical world, the color white represents cleanliness.

On the energies level, the color white carries within it purity, light, and goodness.

Visualizing a white light clearing out the negative energies in you is highly effective. Your subconscious mind, as well as, your subtle body recognize those positive properties and, as a result, act accordingly. 

The beauty of this kind of spiritual cleansing is that you can do a visualization practice anytime and anywhere.

Final Thoughts

A spiritual cleansing ritual can bring you mental clarity, soothe feelings of stress and anxiety in an unpredictable world, and be your long-term energy management tool. 

Choose a ritual that works for you. 

With periodic practice, spiritual cleansing will lead to you feeling lighter physically, emotionally, and energetically. 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Adventurous by nature, Valery has been a world wanderer for many years. 

Her journey started in Russia, transitioned to the UK, and now she discovers a sense of home in nations all around the world.

She moves beyond borders - learning, participating, finding inspiration and familiarity in diverse cultures she’s had the joy of living in.

When not chasing adventures and out-of-the-comfort zone experiences, she explores the wonders of language and its impact on the self, the world, and interpersonal communication.

She never ceases to seek opportunities for self-development and to contribute to a brighter future for the world around her.

You can discover some of her experiences on https://medium.com/@valeryvoyager