How and When to Clear Your Crystals

Photo by Content Pixie on Unsplash

It's no secret that we're fans of crystals and their incredible healing power. In fact, many basic feng shui adjustments include adding specific crystals in certain areas of the bagua to welcome love, abundance and more. Looking for love? Try rose quartz! Or add citrine to your desk to welcome wealth and abundance. You can even add quartz and black tourmaline to your space to ward off negative energy and ground you! There are so many great uses for various crystals, but one important aspect of using these tools is to ensure that they are properly cleared on a regular basis. 

Crystals operate based on their vibrations, which are obtained during their creation deep in the earth. Because they generally have higher frequencies, they work to overwhelm lower vibrations of negative feelings and experiences and can thus provide positive changes in our lives. However, this only works if your crystals are on their highest frequency, and picking up these external vibrations can lower that! Enter crystal clearing. 

When To Clear Your Crystals

The first time you'll need to clear your healing stones is when you get them. It may seem that a new stone is already clear and ready to work, but all things carry predecessor energy - even "new" healing stones. So as soon as you bring a new crystal into your space, take the time to clear it and imbue it with your intentions and qi.

Following that, there are a few ways to know when it's time to do a clearing. It goes without saying that your healing stones should be cleared before and after any intense work with them to ensure that they operate at and are returned to their highest frequency. For stones used regularly, for instance, as jewelry, clearing once per week is generally enough to keep them effective. If you've placed crystals in your holistic space, perhaps as feng shui adjustments, be sure to clear them at least once per year. Keep in mind that each stone is different, so some crystals, like black tourmaline, may need to be cleared much more often and others, including citrine and Super Seven stones, rarely require refreshing. As with many aspects of feng shui, it's a good idea to listen to your intuition when deciding whether it's time to clear your crystals. 

How to Clear Your Crystals

Once you've decided it's time for a clearing, there are a many choices as to how to go about the process. In fact, again, listen to your intuition and choose the method(s) that resonate with you. We'll list a few of our favorites here, but if you know of or prefer other ways of crystal clearing, please feel free to share!

  • Sunlight / Moonlight - One of the easiest ways, and our favorite, to clear crystals, is to expose them to sunlight or moonlight. Simply place your stones outside or in a window for anywhere from a day / night to a week, and you're good to go! Do note that some crystals may fade in sunlight - if that's the case with yours, opt for moonlight!

  • Burial - Crystals came from the earth, so another great way to return them to their vibrations is to put them back! You can bury your crystals for a few days to a week for a full cleanse. Just be sure to remember where they're buried!

  • Sea Salt - Sea salt can be an incredible tool for crystal clearing, but it's important to take care. Placing crystals in sea salt for 24 hours can clear them of existing energy, and you can even store crystals here. For some crystals, a salt water bath is effective as well. The catch here is that salt water can damage porous crystals, so if you're using salt with these, be sure to use salt only (not water) and keep in a place with low humidity.

  • Smudging - Another of our favorites, smudging is an easy way to clear healing crystals. Just get your sage or palo santo smoke going and pass your crystals through the smoke. Another option is misting them with our space clearing blend from the Holistic Spaces apothecary!

There are numerous other ways to clear crystals including with fresh water, through use of other clearing stones and more. What's your favorite way to clear your crystals, and how often do you find you feel the need to?

by Anjie Cho


If you’d like to learn more about feng shui, check out Mindful Design Feng Shui School at: www.mindfuldesignschool.com

What Does Your Home Want to Tell You?

Living room with grey cough, black reclining chair, circular table, windows, and large abstract art.

Photo and design by Anjie Cho Architect PLLC

Something that we teach our feng shui students at the Mindful Design School is the importance of deep listening. How often during a conversation do you find yourself thinking ahead to what you want to share, instead of really listening to what the other person is saying? 

I also invite you to think about listening when it comes to your home. It’s possible that you haven’t ever taken the time to listen to your home before. Your home is a place that has been there for you — it may have changed locations, outfits, or colors many times throughout your life, but your home has always been there to support you in some way. You’ve been in a relationship with this entity, your home, for many years. Maybe your home has been something you’ve relied on, or even something you’ve resented, but have you ever stopped to listen to it?

If you haven’t taken the time to listen to your home, I invite you to give it a try and see what your home has to say. If you keep doing the same thing over and over again, there may be a lot of messages that you are missing. When you instead stop and pay attention to the world around you, you can start to receive messages that you never would have known otherwise. 

In case this has encouraged you to start listening to your home, I want to share a few practical ways you can do this. First, I would recommend taking some time to sit in your favorite part of your home. You could set a timer for nine minutes, and just sit there in silence and listen. See what arises, and allow a voice that may have been forgotten for a long time to come forward. 

You could also do the same thing with the part of your home that feels the most difficult or challenging. Go to that place in your home, spend nine minutes there in silence, and receive whatever messages your home would like to share with you. 

Listening to your home and acknowledging it can be a practice. In this way, you can start to be grateful to your home not only by relying on it, but also by stopping and allowing yourself to receive something from your home. Your home has always been there for you, so how can you now be there for your home? What wisdom can you receive from it? 

by Anjie Cho


If you’d like to learn more about feng shui, check out Mindful Design Feng Shui School at: www.mindfuldesignschool.com

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Are Fake Flowers Good Feng Shui?

Photo by Mary Skrynnikov on Unsplash

Have you ever wondered whether it’s okay to use fake flowers for a feng shui adjustment? I get this question a lot, so I wanted to share my perspective. 

In feng shui, we say that fresh, living flowers can unstick things that are stuck. They also help to lift the qi and the mood in your space. Flowers are a really important part of my life — I’m actually an Ikebana flower arrangement practitioner. Ikebana is quite a deep practice that’s about mindfulness, and it’s really a kind of meditation in action in the Zen tradition. 

My teachers have taught me that fake flowers don’t impart the same qi as real flowers because they are not alive. If you want to have fake flowers in your home, that’s okay, but you wouldn’t use them for feng shui. 

I also want to challenge you to think about why you would want to substitute something artificial for something real, especially in this day and age. Right now, a lot of our shared in-person experiences are being reduced, and when we do meet, we’re using online platforms instead. When this is the case, why would you also want to substitute something as beautiful and impermanent as flowers with something artificial? Usually it’s because people want their flowers to last longer, they don’t want to have to worry about taking care of their flower arrangement, or they feel that fresh flowers are too expensive. 

But the impermanence of flowers is really what creates their beauty, and there are so many teachings we can receive from flowers. How can we look at life and really appreciate things that are fragile and precious, and show age? Not wanting to look at these things is like not wanting to age or show wrinkles, but this is part of the human experience, and it makes our lives so precious and rich. 

I encourage you to treat yourself to some real, fresh flowers! You deserve it. 

by Anjie Cho


If you’d like to learn more about feng shui, check out Mindful Design Feng Shui School at: www.mindfuldesignschool.com

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