17 ways I make magic happen: cleaning edition

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My room, in the process of cleaning.

I spent the last week doing a thor­ough inten­sive clean. It was stren­u­ous, sticky, & at times even hor­ren­dously smelly. But it was 100% worth it in the end.

Most of my life I hated to do any kind of house­work (& was often grounded & goaded by par­ents as a result) but now I under­stand a fun­da­men­tal truth that prac­ti­tion­ers of feng shui & min­i­mal­ism have been pro­claim­ing: a clean space is equated to a clean mind. Artists & cre­atives are also inher­ent mess mak­ers, so the clean space rep­re­sents the pos­si­bil­ity of cre­ative mess. Keep it clean between work for max­i­mum men­tal clar­ity & pos­i­tive men­tal energy, & then go crazy in cre­ative chaos, genius!>

So here are 17 tips for infus­ing magic into some­thing most con­sider rather mundane.

1. Set a inten­tion for your clean­ing ses­sion. “I intend to clean out stag­nate energy.” “I intend to use this clean­ing as a chance for active med­i­ta­tion.” “I intend to not stop till I’ve orga­nized this cab­i­net.” etc.

2. Choose days that are astro­log­i­cally sound for clean­ing, detox & renewal. Even if you don’t believe that plan­e­tary vibes effect you, you can trick your brain into believ­ing it, so you lit­er­ally start to feel like you’re clean­ing into the flow.

3. Try some feng shui.

4. Really thor­oughly go through every­thing, spend a day (or how­ever long it might take) to elim­i­nate any­thing that doesn’t vibe mag­i­cal in your life. Donate old clothes, burn old love notes, dust under the bed, try & elim­i­nate junk drawers.

5. I learned this tip from The Hap­pi­ness Project. Have one shelf in your room/house that’s com­pletely empty, always. The empti­ness rep­re­sents pos­si­bil­ity, open­ness, neg­a­tive space (& the point of neg­a­tive space is that it can hold the positive).

6. Use as many nat­ural clean­ers as pos­si­ble (recipes!)

7. Reor­ga­nize, cre­ate new sys­tems if nec­es­sary, add beauty.

The box of beer where I store my most sacred art supplies.

8. Treat your sacred tools as sacred. Clean your paint­brushes & choose a magic home (a silk bag? a gor­geous jar? an awe­some beer box?), throw away crappy pens (invest in really life chang­ing pens!), what­ever is sacred to you, treat it as if you’re a priest/ess & this is your tem­ple, so treat them with respect!

9. Think about renewal & fresh starts while you clean. Really pour pos­i­tive vibes out as you dust out old neg­a­tive, stale energy.

10. If you start to feel tired or slug­gish or sore, take a break, drink some water, put some music on, & dance as you clean. It’ll loosen up tense mus­cles, help pre­vent back pain, & put you in rhythm while cleaning.

11. Make or buy essen­tial oil room spray. As you spray it, think of puri­fy­ing the room of all neg­a­tiv­ity. I use a laven­der lemon one that smells like a refresh­ing blast of cit­rus heaven. It’s my secret magic clean­ing potion. (Burn­ing sage or other herbs around the house really amplify this!)

12. Sprin­kle sea salt around the doors & win­dows (& walls if pos­si­ble, but unless you’re just mov­ing in, sans fur­ni­ture, this prob­a­bly isn’t all that doable). This acts as a pro­tec­tive bar­rier around your house (& helps keep anx­ious minds at ease).

13. I love to hang up Tibetan prayer flags, man­dalas, dream catch­ers, inspi­ra­tion boards, etc all around my room, to remind me to stay positive/ vibe happy (plus they’re all really col­or­ful & beautiful!).

14. Set up a space for a per­sonal altar. Or if you already have one, clean, pol­ish, & purify it.

15. Wash & shine your shoes!!

16. Get some crys­tals, clean & charge them & put them around your liv­ing space. You can read up on crys­tal sym­bol­ism, or go by your gut!

17. Bless your space, feel grate­ful for hav­ing a place to live (even if it’s not per­fect, you have a home, which makes you very very lucky).

Do you have any good juju clean­ing tips to share?

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