Cleanse Your Home, Cleanse Your Mind

Keeping your home free of stagnant energy will help you live with lightness of being.

August is the fall of the summer, and autumn right around the corner. With luck, this summer you have spent countless hours bathing in sunlight, or adventuring in new territories. Now is the time to spend some time inside your home, take a look around, and begin to cleanse all the corners and surfaces to ready yourself for the last third of the year. Having a clean and pure living environment is clinically proven to increase brain activity, calm your nerves, and improve overall productivity.

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Clearing Clutter

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The first step to minimizing clutter, and maximizing peaceful, clean energy in your environment, is to discard any of the following items from your surfaces and drawers.

Old Magazines + Newspapers – If you have stacks of old magazines and newspapers lying around your coffee tables or bookshelves, toss them into the recycling, and clear space for new projects and books!
Receipts + Bills + Documents – Have you already logged or filed necessary information from any receipts, bills, or documents you’ve been saving on your desk or in your kitchen drawers? Throw them all into the recycling bin! Anything that you truly need to save for your personal files or taxes should be neatly organized and placed in a file folder or cabinet.
Clothing – Take a long, hard look inside your closet, boudoir, or dresser, and remove anything you haven’t been wearing regularly (seasonal clothes aside).
Books – Do you have stacks of books that you have already read? Pick your top three, and donate the rest. Trade collections with your best friend, create a neighborhood “Take One, Leave One” bin, or find a coffeeshop with a bookshelf and leave them for someone else!
Medicine + Vitamins – Check the expiration date on all of your bottled medicines an supplements, and discard anything old, or anything that you are no longer in need of.
Makeup + Perfume – Cosmetics and toiletries expire also, and usually aren’t of the same quality after spending too much time laying around in a drawer. Go through everything an toss out those mostly empty compacts of powder or dried up mascaras!
Jewelry – If you aren’t going to invest in basic jewelry pliers or a small repair kit, it’s time to discard all the broken jewelry that you have cluttering up your drawers.
Old or Unused Electronics – Do you have a drawer for old cables, phone chargers, cell phones, or any other obsolete electronics? Get rid of all of that! Donate to your local Goodwill.

Setting Intentions

Photograph Courtesy of Free People

Photograph Courtesy of Free People

It is of utmost important to the balance of your mind and your home to dedicate an area of your space to setting intentions. Find a coffee table, bookshelf, or atop your mantle to place powerful items of significance, peace, abundance, and prosperity. Here are some things you can get started with:

An Altar Cloth sets the foundation for the space you are creating, reflecting all that is within you.
Salt is an important ingredient to place in a bowl on your altar, as it is protective, purifying, and represents the Earth’s energy.
A Chalice represents the Mother Goddess, or divine feminine energy, and is used to hold ceremonial drink, or salt water.
A Wand can be made from any organic material, and is used to direct and channel energies in and around you.
Candles are used to invoke and hold the power of each cardinal point, and are used to balance the masculine and feminine energies.
Bells or Singing Bowls call upon healing energies on your altar, clearing any stagnant energy, and can signify the beginning and ending of your personal practices or rituals
Powerful Stones like crystals and minerals each vibrate at their own frequency, and hold unique significance than can represent different feelings, intentions, and affirmations you would like to focus on.

Homes that Feel Cleansed

Photograph Courtesy of Wartaku

Photograph Courtesy of Wartaku

Photograph Courtesy of Wartaku

Photograph Courtesy of Wartaku

Learn about Feng Shui and how to set intentions in your modern home!

Color Therapy Create A Sanctuary

Chromotherapy: Crowned in Violet

Violet is the highest color in the visible spectrum, and represents the spiritual union with your higher self and higher consciousness. It inspires us towards originality, ingenuity, and visionary thinking, invoking a higher vibration and reverence for all life.

Leonardo da Vinci proclaimed that you can increase the power of meditation ten-fold by meditating under the gentle rays of Violet. It is a freeing and purifying agent to your bloodstream and nervous system, and controls the pineal and pituitary glands that give way to our higher intuitive functions. Governing both physical and spiritual perception, purple paves the way towards personal evolution and our ability to feel connectedness with all things. It will inspire us towards contemplation and mysticism, giving us a longing to ascend and dissolve polarities.

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The T h i r d E y e + C r o w n Chakras

A J N A

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The sixth chakra, Ajna, translated from Sanskrit as both “command” and “perceiving, is located at the “third eye,” in between and just above eye level. The third eye chakra does not just reside over sight and visual perception, it governs our capability for higher intuitive and communicative powers.

A third eye out of balance with result in physical as well as psychological symptoms such as headaches, migraines, dizziness, confusion, indecisiveness, and apathy. As the third eye opens, you will proceed without the projection of the ego, will full capacity to feel and perceive even the subtlest realities.

Artwork courtesy of Angelina Samadhi

Third Eye Diet

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For optimal health of the sixth chakra, integrate more purple foods like figs, grapes, raisins, blackberries, prunes, eggplant, purple cabbage, purple kale, purple potatoes, purple carrots, and purple asparagus.

Experiment with the use of essential oils like geranium, basil, jasmine, lavender, and rosemary to achieve openness of mind and sight.

S A H A S R A R A

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Sahasrara, the seventh and most divinely oriented energy center located at the crown of the head, is translated as “the thousand petaled lotus.” According to tantric traditions, Sahasrara connects us directly to the source of energy and consciousness in the Universe.

With the realization that everything is connected at a fundamental level, this energy center allows us to experience immense gratitude and mystical oneness with everyone and everything in nature.

Sahasrara transcends all blocks of the ego. It is not intellectual knowing that we experience through seventh chakra, but a profound sense of serenity, joy, and wealth of peace.

The Crown chakra is directly associated with the brain, nervous system, pituitary and pineal glands, and the hypothalamus. The hypothalamus and pituitary gland work in unison to regulate the endocrine system.

Through this energy center, we can begin to open the gateway to the cosmic or the divine self, to universal consciousness, the infinite, and the universal. We are enabled to absorb and perceive profound wisdom, and experience bliss for Being.

The health of this chakra is not nourished with food, but with detoxification through fluids and mindfulness practices. The use of sandalwood, jasmine, lotus, and saffron essential oils can aid the opening of this energy center.

Artwork courtesy of Angelina Samadhi

Y O G A

Yogic postures that will benefit the sixth and seventh chakras are Balasana (child’s pose, as shown above), Vajrasana (thunderbolt pose), Parva Balasana (threading the needle pose), Ardho Mukha Svanasana (downward facing dog pose), Sirsasana (headstand, only recommended for a more advanced practice!), Durga Pranam (breath movement of the Goddess Dirga), and Trikonasana (extended triangle pose).

The physical practice of yoga postures are intended to prepare our minds for optimal transition into Sadhana (daily spiritual practices) and Dhyana (meditation), which are the keys to activating these chakras, and experiencing a more blissful existence. Take ten minutes out of your day to sit quietly with intention, let your thoughts and worries melt away, and focus your energy on your breath and the gratitude you feel for your Being.

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Violet L i f e s t y l e

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Midnight Modern Pillow — Midnight Pine Modern Pillow

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Integrating color therapy into your modern home is essential to an abundance of blissful vibes. Check out our other articles and read about how each color creates a particular mood!

What colors do you use in your home, and what have you noticed about their impact on your well-being?

Check out our articles on the effects of Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, and Blue !