The House Is Yours
You already know how to clear it
A friend texted me: “I’ve been told there’s a dark, male energy in my house. Do you know anyone who does this kind of house cleaning?”
“Do you feel this energy?” I asked.
“I have a couple of times,” she replied.
It took me a moment to realize that what she needed wasn’t a referral.
I thought of the big bedroom in my house just after we moved in. I didn’t like going in there. It left me sad and tired. When I slept in that room, I had bad dreams or lay awake for hours, imagining all kinds of horrors. Stacey didn’t feel it, but I’ve always been more sensitive to energy. I told myself it was the room’s proportions, or the lack of light, or something else I couldn’t name, and I started sleeping in another room.
What I didn’t do, for longer than I should have, was claim the room as mine.
Eventually, I did. I walked in with sage burning, my voice loud, my intention clear, and I told the energy in that room, firmly, like I was speaking to someone who had overstayed their welcome, that it was time to leave. That this was my house. That I was not responsible for its suffering and would not host it any longer.
The room changed. I can’t explain it in a way that would satisfy a skeptic, and I’m not trying to. I know what I felt before, and I know what I felt after. It’s not my favorite room in the house. But it no longer makes me feel drained just to walk through the door.
Why this matters more than it might seem
When my friend’s first instinct was to find someone who does this, when her instinct was to outsource her own house to an expert, I recognized something in that impulse I’ve felt myself. I’d had the same initial reaction to the heavy energy in my bedroom.
Perhaps this is because we are so often taught to doubt what we know, especially when that knowing is intuitive, embodied, or difficult to explain. We sense something, but before trusting ourselves, we look for someone else to confirm it. Someone with credentials, with authority. Someone who can tell us that what we feel is real and that we’re allowed to respond to it. Someone who can deal with the problem that seems too big for us.
This is the witch wound.
For centuries, women who knew how to tend to the unseen, who worked with plants and prayer and intuition and ritual, were feared, punished, and silenced. That knowledge didn’t disappear, but much of it was driven underground.
So of course we reach for an expert. Of course we doubt that we’re the ones who can tend to the energetic imbalances in our homes.
What I sensed behind my friend’s text was not really, find me someone. It was, help me remember that I can do this myself.
Energy that isn’t yours
It’s more common than you might think to feel energy in a space that doesn’t belong to you. You walk into a room after an argument and something in the air still feels off, even after everyone has left. You stay in a house where someone was ill for a long time and feel a stagnation you can’t quite explain. You’ve probably also felt the opposite: a place that makes you feel lighter, a room that feels clean in a way that has nothing to do with tidiness.
We register this. Our bodies notice more than we are often taught to trust.
If there is unwanted energy in your space, it may have persisted because some part of you has not yet insisted that it leave. Not because you are passive or resigned, but because you may not have known that you could. What’s needed is not expertise so much as authority—your authority.
This is your house. Your room.
How to clear energy
Energy clearing is ancient — common practice in traditional societies all over the world, done with sound, smoke, prayer, objects, and intention. If you’re new to this and didn’t grow up in a tradition that held this knowledge, approach it with respect and acknowledgment. Don’t use the practices of a specific culture as a costume. Find what is authentic to you.
That’s actually the most important instruction: whatever you do, make it feel true to you. It might feel awkward at first — walking around your house speaking aloud, or shaking a rattle. Stay with it.
The tools are less important than the person wielding them — but here are some that work:
You can burn herbs. Cedar, mugwort, lavender, and rosemary are good options. White sage and palo santo are overharvested; if you use them, source them ethically and acknowledge their Indigenous origins. Slowly walk the perimeter of your home--inside and outside, go into the corners, and speak aloud: This room is cleared of energies that are not mine. All energies that have occupied this space are commanded to leave.
You can make sound. Beat a drum, shake rattles, ring bells or chimes, play music you love at full volume. Sound shifts stagnant energy and changes the feeling of a room.
You can use your voice. Sing, hum, chant, pray. Speak clearly and with force. Open the doors and windows and tell the energy to go. Tell it that it is unwelcome. Tell it that this is your house. Loudly declare: This is my house. This is my space. Only my energy is allowed here. Feel the authority in your body as you say it.
You can clean physically. Wash the walls, windows, and doors. Move furniture. Spray water infused with essential oils. The act of cleaning is also an energetic act.
You can bring in objects that feel protective or beautiful or deeply yours: a stone from a river, a bowl of water, a candle, a plant, an ancestral object, something that connects you to the elements and to yourself.
The through line is simple: bring more of your own presence into the space.
Amplify your energy.
Fill the house with what is unmistakably yours.
You may need to do this more than once. But you can clear your house.
My friend will likely read this post. But what I most want her to know, and what I want you to know, is this: the fact that you can feel the energy is already evidence of your capacity to move it.
Your sensitivity is not a liability.
It is a form of knowing. A kind of power.
What's your relationship to this kind of knowing? Did you grow up with it, or are you finding your way to it now? I’d love to hear from you in the comments!
Share this with the friend who needs to remember they can do this themself.