How to cleanse your energy and your space

You know the feeling. You walk into a room after an argument and the air feels thick. You come home after a long day around people who were stressed, angry or grieving, and you carry it in with you. Or nothing in particular has happened, but for a week or two you just haven't felt like yourself.

That heaviness is real, and you don't have to live with it. Clearing your space and your own energy is one of the oldest practices there is, and one of the simplest. Open the windows, light something sacred, set an intention, and walk the whole space with sound.

This guide covers when to cleanse, what to use, how to do it properly, and why sound is the part I would never leave out.

Why cleanse

Your space holds what you bring into it

Most traditions on earth have some way of clearing a space: smoke in temples and churches, bells and bowls in monasteries, salt and water, drums, chanting, sweeping out the old year. The language changes, but the idea is the same. The places we live in soak up the mood of what happens there, and every so often they need resetting.

In energetic terms, heavy or stagnant energy builds up wherever stress, conflict, illness or grief have been. It sits in corners, behind doors, in the bedroom where you lie awake, and in the body too. You feel it as flatness, restlessness, poor sleep, or a sense of being stuck that you can't explain.

The honest part

No one has measured “heavy energy” in a lab, and I won't pretend they have. What has been studied is the effect of ritual itself. When people go through a deliberate ritual before something stressful, their anxiety drops and their heart rate settles, even when they know the ritual is just a ritual. Frankincense contains a compound, incensole acetate, that eased anxiety and lifted mood in laboratory studies with mice. And a clean, aired, quiet room is simply easier for your nervous system to rest in than a cluttered, stuffy one.

So whether you think of it as clearing energy or as giving your nervous system a clear signal that something has ended and something new can begin, the practice works on you either way.

You are not just clearing the room. You are telling your body that it is safe to start again.

When to cleanse

The times your space needs it most

A light cleanse once a week keeps things fresh. These are the times to do a deeper one:

• When you're going through a difficult time. A breakup, a loss, a hard diagnosis, a stretch of worry. Clearing the space won't take the difficulty away, but it stops the room from holding on to it with you.
• When you're struggling to sleep. Cleanse the bedroom especially: under the bed, the corners, the wardrobe. Then keep the evening quiet and let the room be for rest only.
• After you've been around heavy energy. A hospital visit, a funeral, a draining client, a tense family gathering, a crowded city day. Clear yourself before you walk back into your home.
• When you just don't feel like yourself. Flat, irritable, foggy, disconnected, for no reason you can name. This is often the first sign.
• After illness or an argument in the house. Open everything up and clear the room it happened in.
• When you move in, or start something new. A new home, a new job, a new year, the new moon. Clear what came before so you begin with a clean slate.

For regular cleansing

Palo santo, the everyday cleanse

Palo santo means holy wood. It comes from a tree, Bursera graveolens, that grows in the dry forests of Ecuador and Peru, and it has been used in ceremony there for centuries. The smoke is sweet, woody and gentle, and it's the one to reach for most days.

It suits regular cleansing because it's light. A stick takes seconds to light, burns for under a minute and needs nothing else. It's perfect for the start of the day, before you meditate, after a visitor leaves, or when the room just needs refreshing.

How to use palo santo

1. Hold the stick at a 45 degree angle and light the tip with a match or lighter.
2. Let it burn for 30 to 60 seconds, then gently blow it out so it smoulders.
3. Walk the smoke around the room, or around yourself, with your intention in mind.
4. Rest it in a heatproof dish, a shell or your cauldron and let it go out on its own. You can relight the same stick many times.

For a deeper cleanse

Resin and charcoal, the powerful cleanse

When a space needs more than a refresh, I use resin burned on charcoal. Resins are the dried sap of sacred trees, and they have been burned in temples for thousands of years. They give a fuller, longer smoke than palo santo, and you can choose a resin for what you need. These are my three favourites.

How to burn resin on charcoal

1. Prepare your cauldron. Put a layer of sand, salt or soil in the bottom of a cast iron cauldron or heatproof bowl. Charcoal gets very hot, and this protects the surface underneath.
2. Light the charcoal disc. Hold it by the edge with metal tongs and put a flame to it. It will start to spark and crackle across the surface. Lay it flat on the sand.
3. Wait for it to turn grey. Give it a few minutes, until it stops sparking and a thin layer of grey ash forms over the top. Adding resin too early just makes a lot of smoke and a burnt smell.
4. Add a small pinch of resin. Use a spoon, not your fingers. A few pieces, about the size of a pea in total, is plenty. Add more as it melts away.
5. Carry it through the space. Hold the cauldron by its handle and walk the room, using your hand or a feather to guide the smoke into corners.
6. Let it finish safely. Leave the cauldron somewhere heatproof until the charcoal has burned out completely. It stays hot for a long time.

Step by step

How to cleanse your space properly

The tools matter much less than how you use them. Waving smoke around while you scroll your phone does very little. A few quiet, deliberate minutes with a clear intention changes the feel of a whole home.

1. Clean and clear first. Tidy up, take the rubbish out, wash the dishes. Energy work on top of clutter doesn't last.
2. Open the windows and doors. The old energy needs somewhere to go, and the smoke needs somewhere to leave.
3. Set your intention. Stand still, take three slow breaths and say it out loud or in your head. Something simple: “I clear this space of everything that isn't mine and isn't needed. Only love, peace and rest remain here.” Make it yours.
4. Start at the front door. Light your palo santo or resin and move clockwise through each room. Pay most attention to corners, doorways, behind doors, under the bed, inside wardrobes and anywhere that feels heavy or that you avoid.
5. Clear yourself. Bring the smoke around your body, from your feet up to the top of your head, then down your back. Breathe out slowly as you do it.
6. Finish with sound. Ring a bell, strike a bowl, use your koshi chimes, or clap in each corner. Sound moves through the room in a way smoke can't, and it marks the end of the cleanse clearly.
7. Seal it. Close the windows, stand in the middle of the room and say thank you. Set the intention for what you want the space to hold now.

Cleansing with sound

Why sound clears a space

Smoke drifts and settles. Sound fills a room completely, every corner, under the furniture and through the walls, in a fraction of a second. That is why bells are rung in temples, why Tibetan monasteries use bowls and cymbals, and why so many cultures clap, drum or chant to clear a space.

Stuck energy, in this way of thinking, is energy that has stopped moving. Sound is vibration, so it gets things moving again. A struck bowl or a clear bell is a single, steady frequency, and for a few moments it gives the whole room, and everyone in it, one thing to settle into. You can usually hear the difference: in a cluttered, heavy room, the sound falls flat. After a cleanse, it rings for longer.

Ways to cleanse with sound

• A singing bowl or bell. Strike it in the centre of each room and in each corner, and let it ring out completely before you move on.
• Koshi chimes. Turn them slowly as you walk. Their soft, random notes are lovely for a gentle, everyday clear.
• Clapping. No tools needed. Clap firmly into each corner, moving up from the floor to the ceiling, until the sound comes back sharp and clear.
• A drum or rattle. A steady beat as you walk the space is grounding, and good after an argument or a shock.
• Your own voice. Hum, tone or chant. Your voice is the one instrument you always have with you, and it clears your body as well as the room.

Frequencies

Frequencies to cleanse with

Some frequencies have a long tradition of being used for clearing. Most come from the solfeggio scale, a set of tones used in sound healing. These are the ones to work with when you cleanse a space, and the energy in your own body.

• 396Hz · releaseLetting go of fear and guilt. Good when a space holds the residue of something frightening or shameful.
• 417Hz · changeTraditionally used to clear what has gone before and make way for change. A good first choice for moving out stuck, stagnant energy.
• 528Hz · renewalRestoring and repairing. Use it after the clear, to fill the space back up with something warm.
• 741Hz · cleansingKnown as the cleansing tone. Used for clarity, and to clear heaviness from a room and from the mind.
• 852Hz · clarityBright and high. Good to finish with, to lift a room once it has been cleared.

A simple way to use them: play 417 Hz or 741 Hz while you walk the space with your palo santo or resin, then finish with 528 Hz while you set your intention for the room. The tradition is old and the meanings are traditions, not proven science, so trust how a tone feels to you over anything written about it. You can read more in our guide to the solfeggio tones.

Your own energy

How sound healing cleanses your energy

A room is easy to clear. You open the windows and it's done. Your own energy takes a little more, because you are the one carrying it from place to place.

In a sound bath, you lie down and let sustained, low, rhythmic sound wash over and through you. Your breathing slows to match it, your nervous system shifts out of fight or flight and into rest and repair, and what you have been holding in your body starts to move. People often feel heat, tingling, emotion, a heaviness lifting, or simply the first real stillness in weeks. That is the cleanse happening from the inside. The science behind it is in what happens in your body during a sound bath.

Why it's important to keep going

A cleanse isn't a one-off. You wouldn't shower once and expect to stay clean for a year, and your energy is the same. Every day you pick up a little from the people around you, from the news, from your own worries, and it builds up again.

One sound bath can feel like a huge release. What actually changes things is coming back to it: a light palo santo clear through the week, a deeper resin and sound cleanse when you need it, and regular sound healing to clear your own system before it gets heavy again. Over time your body learns to come down more easily on its own, and you notice the heaviness sooner. That is when it really starts to work.

Clear the space. Clear yourself. Then come back and do it again, gently, for as long as it helps.

What you need

Everything for your cleansing ritual

These are the pieces I recommend from Temple of the Divine. They're good quality, ethically chosen and everything you need for both an everyday and a deeper cleanse.

Everyday cleansePalo Santo Smudge SticksLight, sweet and quick. For regular clearing of your home and yourself.A$15 · Shop now →Deep cleanseCharcoal DiscsThe steady heat your resin melts on. Light with tongs and wait until grey.A$5 · Shop now →Deep cleanseCast Iron CauldronHeatproof, with a handle to carry the smoke from room to room.A$42 · Shop now →Deep cleanseMetal Tong & Spoon SetTongs to hold hot charcoal safely, a spoon to add your resin.A$10 · Shop now →Resin · calmBenzoinSweet and soft. For comfort after grief, worry or poor sleep.A$13 · Shop now →Resin · clearingFrankincenseBright and purifying. For a thorough clear, and before meditation.A$13 · Shop now →Resin · groundingMyrrhEarthy and protective. For grounding scattered, anxious energy.A$13 · Shop now →

Prices as listed on templeofthedivine.com.au at the time of writing.

Questions

Common questions

Sources

Where this comes from

The traditions and energetic meanings above are offered as traditions. The research mentioned comes from these studies.

• Brooks and colleagues (2016). Don't stop believing: rituals improve performance by decreasing anxiety. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes.
• Moussaieff and colleagues (2008). Incensole acetate, an incense component, elicits psychoactivity by activating TRPV3 channels in the brain. The FASEB Journal.
• Goldsby and colleagues (2017). Effects of singing bowl sound meditation on mood, tension and well-being. Journal of Evidence-Based Complementary and Alternative Medicine.
• Lin and colleagues (2008). Incense smoke: clinical, structural and molecular effects on airway disease. Clinical and Molecular Allergy.