Rituals To Clear Your Mental Space

We’ve all heard of feng shui (pronounced ‘fung shway’). At its heart, feng shui is the Chinese art of creating energetic harmony. Perhaps you’ve been introduced to it as a way of arranging your furniture to foster a feeling of security. For example, you can improve your sleep by positioning your bed in such a way that your head isn’t too close to the window as this will stop chi from escaping. Others suggest that chi can also move more freely if you use an air mattress rather than the more popular foam mattresses.

Indigenous cultures were keenly aware of the energetic fields of the planet and all life forms, including trees, stone, water, animals, plants, and objects. They are also aware of the polarization of energies that result in both positively- and negatively-charged energy fields, as well as different vibratory rates, and the subtle effects these energies can have on us.

You may hear New Agers talking quite a bit about “vibration.” This isn’t some far-out imaginary way of describing experience - it’s scientific. Physics recognizes the principles of magnetism and the existence of energetic fields. Living beings are made up of cells that literally vibrate. Life forms generate energy fields that can be measured. When our understanding of reality expands to include energetic fields, we become more sensitive to our own energy and the energies around us. Heightened sensitivity to energy fields is demonstrated by senior practitioners of energetic healing arts, such as qi gong, tai chai, reiki and shamanic doctors. These metaphysicians literally ‘tune in’ to energetic fields (qi) and manipulate them - clearing out collected pockets of lower vibratory energy so that the energies in a particular region are harmonious and able to move freely.

Indigenous world-views include an understanding of the invisible realm of energy fields and the ability to harmonize the energies present in a particular location. Many healers choose to work in this realm to target disharmonious energies (sometimes referred to as ‘stagnant qi’) because they believe that disharmony within the energy field can result in illness and disease. Disharmonious energy can result from a variety of influences, including:

Painful emotions (anger, depression, fear and sadness);
Material decomposition (garbage bins, dead plants / trees, graveyards); and,
Destructive, habitual thought patterns (self-hate, negative messages).

Realizing that energies can become polarized, and polarization creates conflict, a peaceful home and mind are best achieved by dispelling the polarization and harmonizing the energies. Many practitioners also report success with the use of chi machines and inversion tables to help redress these imbalances.

There are a number of techniques you can use in your own home to clear and harmonize your personal energy field. One of more obvious techniques is the use of sound. Sound has resonant vibration and by making harmonious sounds (ringing bells, gongs, singing bowls, practicing mantras, singing and playing concordant music) you create a resonance within your space which vibrates outward and alters the vibration of the space to match its own. Try purchasing for yourself a singing bowl or meditation bell that you particularly like the tone of. Ring it every evening at dusk, and once a week, carry it through your whole house, allowing its sound to penetrate the entire space. You can actually alter the quality of a home’s atmosphere for the better with this technique. Be mindful: the sounding of discordant music, or the repetitive playing of depressing or angry music will do the opposite. Pay very close attention to your emotions in response to sound: does certain music make you feel happy or heavy? Use sound to attune yourself to the emotional states you want to experience regularly.