Spiritual Cleansing for a More Vibrant Aura

When life becomes chaotic; I’m feeling overwhelmed, exhausted, or emotionally volatile; or things seem off or more challenging than normal, I turn to spiritual cleansing. In our fast-paced world where people often spew negativity and we can get lost in the daily grind, forgetting to support our spiritual and energetic well-being, spiritual cleansing is a requirement. Spiritual cleansing helps us to re-center, calm, and feel more alive.

What is Spiritual Cleansing

Spiritual cleansing, also known as energy hygiene, describes various practices for clearing our auras and energetic bodies of unwanted energies.  Through the removal of these negative energies, spiritual cleansing helps us to feel more like ourselves, increases our vitality, and strengthens our aura so that we are more protected from both intentional and unintentional harm.

In “Energetic Hygiene: How to Cleanse Your Energy,” I explain the importance of spiritual cleansing or energy hygiene including how we gather these unwanted energies and their potential impacts.

How to Do a Spiritual Cleansing

There are so many ways to perform a spiritual cleansing. The basis of each method is to remove and neutralize (or transmute) the negative energies, enhance your vitality or Soul force energy, and strengthen your aura. Throughout these processes we engage with helping Guides including Plant Spirits, Angels, Devas, or others.

Common forms of spiritual cleansing including smudging, chakra clearings, plant limpias, bathing in Light, singing or humming, forest bathing and the list goes on. My Energy Hygiene e-book and article on energy hygiene discuss various methods for spiritual cleansing. I recommend trying a few methods to discover the ones that you resonate with the most as well as those that fit easiest in your life, as it is important that spiritual cleansing be included in your regular routine for self-care.

I find that it is also helpful to occasionally have someone else do a deeper form of spiritual cleansing for us. Egg Limpias are a wonderful form of a deep spiritual cleanse. How often you need this deeper form of clearing depends partly on the work that you do, your interaction with others, how sensitive you are to energy, your general well-being, and more. For instance, with my work, I interact with a lot of people and am frequently clearing malevolent energies, plus I am quite sensitive to energy; therefore, for my well-being (and the well-being of my relationships), it is important that I get regular egg limpias, usually weekly.

While other cultures recognize the importance of protection and clearing your energy, our culture tends to overlook the value of spiritual cleansing or energy hygiene. This is shifting as more and more notice the impacts of these practices. If smudging or energy hygiene feels new or scary to you, I invite you to experiment, play with some of the spiritual cleansing techniques and see how you feel afterwards, see if anyone notices a difference. Do these practices impact your experience in the world? After all my years of engaging in and teaching about energy hygiene, I still am amazed at the immediate impact. While smudging, my shoulders drop and my breathing deepens, I can feel a letting go. My body feels so much lighter after an egg limpia, often I wasn’t even aware of all that I was carrying until I notice the difference after the Limpia.

Spiritual Cleansing Bath

One of my favorite forms of energy hygiene is a spiritual cleansing bath. Sacred bathing is an important tradition in both ancient and modern cultures around the world. Rosita Arvigo and Nadine Epstein wrote a beautiful book called Spiritual Bathing which showcases many of these traditions. Often sacred bathing is done as a preparation before a ceremony, ritual, or life transition.

The basis for a spiritual cleansing bath is water and prayer or intentions. You can also add Plants, Gems, or Flower Essences. What makes a spiritual cleansing bath different from a regular bath is the prayer or intentions which focus on clearing and transforming unwanted energies we may have picked up along the way, including ill intentions or malevolent magic.

My favorite way to experience a spiritual cleansing bath is to gather a group of friends. We fill up a large pot or vessel of water (I like to use my grandmothers’ crystal punch bowls) and place them in the sun to warm up. We each gather Plants for our bath offering a prayer as we harvest each one (see below). I suggest avoiding Plants that cause contact dermatitis (like Poison Oak or Poison Ivy) as well as any that are very spiky. We then add these Plants to the water vessel. 

We sing songs and offer prayers as we tear the Plants into smaller pieces, removing anything that could cause pain (such as Echinacea seed heads or thorns). This is my practice, however, Stinging Nettles were a big part of a spiritual cleansing bath that I received while in Ecuador. Once we feel that the Plants are small enough, the painful bits have been removed, and the Water is charged with our intentions and prayers, the real fun begins.

Usually when I offer a spiritual cleansing bath in my classes, we circle around and I sprinkle this sacred mixture around my students’ auras and chakras as I bless them with more prayers. You could also pair up and each sprinkle the other with the Water while blessing them. Or the bath could be created for one particular person (maybe as preparation for marriage or birth or as a healing after divorce or serious illness) in which case, each person would have a turn to offer prayers and blessings while sprinkling the recipient with the Water and Plants.

Not only is this process wonderful for clearing away the unwanted energies, this form of a spiritual cleansing bath also is also a beautiful and potent method for recovering from abuse. The prayers and intentions help a person to remember who they truly are and to reclaim their power and sovereignty while feeling loved and honored. It is a simple ceremony with profound impacts.

Spiritual Cleansing Prayer

Our intentions and the prayers that we say are an important part of any spiritual cleansing. My prayers tend to change depending on the recipient of and the reason for the spiritual cleansing. In general, I am asking that my client’s energy body, aura, chakras, meridians, organs, etc. be clear of any ill intentions or energetic debris that is not in service of their highest good. I will also ask that they be surrounded and filled with Love, healing energy, peace, joy, etc. helping to support their vitality. Usually I ask that their aura be strengthened, any holes be repaired, and they be surrounded by protection making them invisible to anyone who wishes them harm. I may call on particular Plant Spirits, Guides, or other helpers to support them. And of course, if there are specific issues that we are working on, I would say prayers to address these. For instance, if someone is recovering from an abusive relationship, I may say prayers to help them remember and claim their sovereignty, their Beauty, their gifts, reminding them of their Truth. 

We can stress about the words we speak, but really the actual language matters less than the intention, the feeling behind the words. Spirit reads energy, vibration. What matters most is that we surround our friends, our clients, our loved ones, ourselves with the energy of Love. The beauty of this is that if we are aligned with the energy of Love, we too benefit from the spiritual cleansing even if we are not the intended recipient.

I say the following prayer (mentioned above) as I harvest each sprig or flower for a spiritual cleansing bath. This prayer is based on the herb collector’s prayer by the renown Mayan healer, Don Elijio Panti as shared by Rosita Arvigo in Spiritual Bathing.¹ The healing begins with this prayer. I find that I am transformed even when I am creating the bath for a client or friend.

In the presence of ___________ (I say “All that is.” You can fill the blank as you like, for example: the Divine, Love, God . . .) 

I give my thanks to you, ____________ (insert the name of the Plant or, if you do not know, give the Plant a name such as Beautiful One) 

And I trust with all my Heart 

That you will bring healing to __________ (insert the name of the person you are collecting the Plants for) 

How to Do a Spiritual Cleansing on Yourself

While the above sacred bathing ritual is incredibly powerful and wonderful to do with a group of people (plus it can often be quite fun), sometimes we need a spiritual cleansing now and are not able to gather a group of people for it. You, of course, can perform this sacred bathing ritual for yourself, gathering the Plants with prayer, singing to the Water, and sprinkling the blessed Water around your aura and body as you say more blessings and prayers for yourself. A solo spiritual cleansing bath is a beautiful way to honor yourself while also clearing your energy. We rarely direct the prayers and blessings we generously lavish on others towards ourselves, though we definitely deserve to be loved and honored. Bathing ourselves with Love, self-Love, is incredibly healing and helps to shift our current paradigm, where we are so often told that we are not enough.

Any Water that remains from your (or your group’s) sacred bath can be preserved with 50% vodka. I like to fill a spray bottle with this mixture and spray my aura as I get ready in the morning. I will often add prayers for my day while doing this.

Adding spiritual cleansing practices into your life has many benefits, from reducing anxiety, increasing clarity, reducing overwhelm, improving sleep, to increasing your vitality. Additionally spiritual cleansing can be enjoyable and help you to align more with your Truth while connecting with the many Beings who support you. These practices have greatly enhanced my life, adding a depth of beauty while helping me to navigate a sometimes challenging world. I hope that you too find benefit from them.

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1. Arvigo, Rosita and Nadine Epstein. Spiritual Bathing: Healing Rituals and Traditions from Around the World. Toronto: Celestial Arts, 2003. p.101. ↩︎

Since 2003, Earth advocate, Jen Frey, has supported courageous, conscious groups and individuals return to a deep connection with Nature. She founded Brigid’s Way in 2010 offering personal healing consultations, workshops in Plant and Nature communication, and apprenticeships for those who are ready to transform their lives. Jen continues to support other practitioners and seekers while also traveling the world providing land consultations and making Plant Spirit essences for our awakening to wholeness.