“The higher your energy level, the more efficient your body. The more efficient your body, the better you feel and the more you will use your talents to produce outstanding results.” – Tony Robbins
Take a few minutes to scan the people and things around you right now. Do you know what you have in common with everything and everyone?
Energy!
Nothing is solid; Everything is made up of energy. Me. You. Your family. The chair you’re sitting on. Your bed. The ground you walk on.
That’s why energy work is so important. It allows us to understand the world around us, both in practical everyday matters and in the mystical and sacred stuff!
In this beginners guide to energy work, we’re going to cover the three basic principles to how you can manipulate energy: grounding, centering and shielding. Each has its own specific purpose, and the combination of all three results in some seriously cosmic power.
These three basic disciplines enhance intuitive skills. By practicing them you will find you sleep better, remember your dreams more clearly, enter a meditative state more easily, and handle stress more effectively.
There are many ways you can go about grounding, centering and shielding. I’ll discuss my personal methods. Keep in mind that these methods may not be the best for you. I suggest practicing in the way presented here until you get the hang of it. Feel free to experiment with other energy work methods to find your best fit.
Ready to begin? Let’s go!
1.) What is Grounding?
Grounding is a way to connect you to the earth and to your purpose. It gives you the opportunity to take a strong stand in your intention.
Before we begin, let’s talk about why you would want to ground yourself. There are three primary reasons to practice grounding during any practice which involves energy (tarot and divination, witchcraft, lucid dreaming, astral projecting, etc.). The first is that it helps you to get rid of excess or negative energy. If you don’t ground yourself after practicing energy manipulation, you may find yourself bubbling and buzzing like you had too much caffeine.
Another reason is that it can also help you gather energy from the Earth or other elements and connect with the natural world.
The final reason to practice grounding is to reduce stress and anxiety. From a mental perspective, grounding can make you feel, well, grounded. It’s a great way to get yourself in a good mood and to rid yourself of negativity from the day.
It is very beneficial to practice grounding right when you wake up. If your schedule doesn’t allow that, try to practice it when you can during the day.
Method:
Find a place outside where you can touch the ground (grass, soil, sand, etc.) with your bare feet. If you can’t be outside, use visualization to imagine you are in a great big field. Feel/imagine the wind on your face, and take in the sounds, sights, and smells of your surrounding. Direct your attention to the feeling of the ground supporting you.
Stand tall (if you prefer to sit or lie down that’s okay too). Breathe deeply, listen to the sound of every inhale and every exhale. Close your eyes if this feels comfortable to you.
Imagine you are a tree. Send your roots down into the ground. Feel them branching and spreading, forming a sturdy connection to the earth.
Now, feel the transfer of energy between your body and the Earth through the roots. With every inhale, imagine you are pulling beneficial energy from the earth, and with every exhale, imagine your unhelpful or excess energy leaving your body.
Continue this for as long as feels comfortable. When you are ready, allow the roots you created to slowly slide out of the ground. You don’t have to destroy them unless you would like to.
Notice how you feel after grounding. How is it different from before?
Alternatives:
This method of grounding may feel very heavy or suffocating to some people. If this is true for you, try these alternative methods of grounding using the other elements instead of the earth:
Water: You are on the beach (sitting, standing or lying), when it starts to rain. As the rain falls over you, it washes away negative and excess energy, which soaks up into the sand beneath you. If you want to take in the energy of the water, imagine the raindrops sinking directly into you, filling you with its energy until you overflow and the unhelpful energy is pushed away from you.
Air: Instead of roots growing down into the Earth, stretch your arms over your head. Reach your branches up and allow them to grow into the sky. They may even lift you off the ground. Release any excess and negative energy into the clouds. Take in the cool, fresh air.
Fire: You are in the middle of the woods, sitting at a campfire. Imagine all the unhelpful or negative energy is pulled into the fire and getting burnt up. In exchange, you absorb the heat from the fire and it fills you with warm, fiery energy.
2.) What is Centering?
Centering gives you perspective on your own energy by allowing you to differentiate between what is yours and what is in the environment around you.
Think of centering like cleaning up your house after several weeks of not putting things away where they live. There are half-finished projects, maybe a couple dishes, you haven’t unpacked a shopping bag. All of those material possessions belong somewhere.
It’s the same with your energy. Whenever you experience extreme emotions, little bits of your energy can become detached. This can make you feel sort of, spread too thin. Centering helps you to call back and reattach all your bits of energy and helps you feel whole again.
If you don’t have any energy fragments scattered around, centering can simply gather and focus your energy so that it’s ready to work toward your next intention.
Method:
Lay down or sit comfortably. Enter a meditative state by focusing on your breathing.
Find your center. This is the place where all of your energy radiates from. For me, this is the center of my abdomen where the solar plexus chakra is. Some people find their energy center is the middle of their forehead at the third eye chakra. Yours may be somewhere else entirely. Wherever it is, feel the energy circulating from it.
Now visualize that you—and your energy center—are the nexus of a galaxy. Orbiting all around you are stars and planets and comets and meteors. These are your energy fragments.
Notice that some of the orbits are large while others are nice and close to the center. Feel the gravity of your center grow and pull the furthest fragments of energy closer to you.
As the gravity of your center continues to grow stronger, the bits of your energy galaxy circulate right near your center. Everything is back in it’s home, and your energetic universe is harmonious.
At this point, you are centered and can ease yourself out of the meditation. Sometimes it’s nice to hang out in your energy galaxy, though. It’s a good opportunity to close up any energy leaks and to get to know your energy a little better.
Take note of how you feel in contrast to how you felt before you centered.
Alternative:
Generally, it’s best to practice centering after grounding so that you’re not pulling a bunch of new energy to you when you may be clogged with unhelpful or negative energy. Many people actually don’t treat them as two separate practices.
Here’s an alternative so that you can easily practice grounding and centering in one go.
Visualize yourself as a tree sending roots down into the ground and branches reaching up to the sun. See the fire from the center of the earth and the fire from the sun meeting at your center as a glowing ball of light that can fuel you or calm your spirit. Sit with this sensation for a minute or two. Experience the clarity and wisdom from the universe.
3.) What is Shielding?
The last energy work type I’ll discuss here is called shielding. In my opinion, this is the most important energy work practice that you can learn as an energy manipulator. If you can commit to starting a daily shielding practice and keeping it up, you are committing to keeping your energy safe and secure.
Shielding is a way of keeping your energy safe. You set up a barrier to separate the feelings, emotions, and thoughts of others from your own space. It can prevent energetic vampires from draining your energy, and it protects your energy from spirit attacks and other unfriendly things. It’s a great way to help protect empaths from absorbing all of the negative emotions of other people as well.
Shielding can be especially useful before going to areas with lots of people like a concert, convention or fair. These types of events have a lot of free-floating energy that can be overwhelming.
You can build a shield around anything you want to protect: your loved ones, children, and pets, your home, your car.
Method:
Ideally, you would ground and center before you build a shield.
Sit down or lie down. You could stand up to do this, but it helps to close your eyes, which—while standing—could potentially make you get wobbly.
Visualize your body surrounded by a sphere of glowing light. Make sure it completely surrounds you with no cracks or weak areas.
Imagine the light forming to your body like a second skin. Let it lock into place around you.
Now visualize that the outside of this shield is shining and reflective like a mirror. Imagine negative energy coming toward you and bouncing off the mirror back to its sender.
This is a basic, yet effective method of shielding yourself from negativity. Do you feel safe and protected after shielding?
Alternatives:
If this shield doesn’t feel strong enough to you, or it just doesn’t feel right, try something else. Here are some other ideas for shields you can test that may feel more comfortable or satisfying. Construct them in the same way, by visualizing them surrounding you.
- A whirlpool or hurricane of water swirling around a calm eye of the storm where you are
- Big gusts of wind or a tornado blowing around you and sending away negative energy
- A sphere of burning flames to incinerate any negative energy that tries to get close
- Mountains of solid, impenetrable rock
- A tangle of thorns sticking out away from you, with beautiful flowers on the inside
- Clouds of smoke and mist that obscure you from enemies
- Anything else you can imagine! Whatever feels right to you.
Ready to give it a try? If you need a little help, I’ve created a workbook to guide you through each of these energy work practices. It will help you tailor your working to what suits you and track how each practice changes you!
Xo,
Maggie
About Maggie Haseman: Maggie is a craft-hopping, tea-drinking cat mama, a professional witch and a spiritual practitioner. She is the owner and creator of the blog, shop, and academy, Mumbles & Things, which is dedicated to using astrology, crystals, energy, meditation and magic to empower. Join her community, for step-by-step worksheets, weekly updates and actionable tools for witchcraft and personal growth.
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Great advice! Thank you for sharing! ❤️