Wake Up with Susan

Smudge Your Home!

• Susan Sutherland

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Ever feel like your life is stagnant, not creative or not harmonious?  Maybe it is not your energy that is keeping you stuck, maybe it is the energy of your home (or office).  There are easy ways to transform your home into a sanctuary of positive energy which is so important especially during the bustling holiday season.

Join me, Susan Sutherland, as I share my tips for cleansing and revitalizing your living space to be your high vibe haven!

And I would love to help you rewrite your holiday playbook so that you can truly be HAPPY for the HOLIDAYS.  This interactive workshop will focus on expectations / intentions, traditions, and setting boundaries. There will also be time for guidance on big issues that may be on your heart including grief, coparenting, financial issues, and relationship struggles that the holidays seem to exacerbate. 
Workshop will be in Charlotte on November 23rd from 2-5pm.  Reserve Your Spot!

Speaker 1:

Rise and shine everybody. It's time to wake up with Susan. Spiritual awakening can be a beautiful, messy and sometimes lonely journey, so let's do it together. I'm your host, susan Sutherland. I'm an intuitive healer and spiritual mentor. We are all called to rise up above our conditioning and limiting beliefs and shine our light on ourselves and others. So let's get to it. Hello everybody, thanks for joining me today.

Speaker 1:

Today, we are going to talk about the importance of clearing the energy of your home, of really taking care of the energy in the space that you're in, how to do that and when to do that. But before we get to that, I want to tell you something I'm really excited about. I've decided, first of all, it's the end of September and we blinked. We are already approaching the holidays and I've decided to do a workshop on a Saturday right before the holidays to set the intention, learn the practices and really embrace being happy for the holidays. I know a lot of times the default mode for the holidays is stressed and overscheduled and too busy, and there's relationship conflicts or abundance issues, and so it is really important to get ahead of that and set an intention for a different kind of holiday season this year, and I want to help you with that, and so it's going to be on November 23rd, from 2 to 5 in Charlotte. I'm considering doing one remote as well, but right now what I'm focused on is in-person, november 23rd, from 2 to 5. And this is really getting ahead of. You know what are your holiday programs as far as how you anticipate stress or chaos or conflict, and we're going to work through dealing with that, setting new intentions, setting new practices, what are some really good ways to stress manage during the holidays, but also working with spirit to go through specific issues that you may have or are anticipating that you typically have in the holidays. It's an interactive workshop. I'm not just going to speak for three hours and so if that's something you would like to participate in, I've got a link in the show notes. It's limited availability, but please go ahead and register. I would love to have you.

Speaker 1:

Well, I didn't book them. We just booked tickets for my in-laws to come here for the holidays. They do it often, but didn't do it last year and so I'm going to have house guests, for I don't know if it's four or five weeks out of the year. I love them dearly, but anticipating house guests, I can start getting knots in my stomach and you know, like how am I going to feed seven people every night and getting stressed about essentially having to provide Thanksgiving every night and the planning of that. And I am going to be taking these next few weeks to reset my intentions and really get ahead of those kind of pattern thinking so I can shift and really create a space that is loving. I'm super excited to have them here and so I'm gonna put into practice practice what I preach and really get ahead of those thought patterns that I have and set intentions correctly but also take really conscious action to making sure we have a wonderful holiday season. So I'd like to help you doing that. If you'd like to join me it's November 23rd, okay.

Speaker 1:

So on to today and I will tell you that I have had a lot of like location clearing stuff come up in the last couple of weeks, but really it started in January and I'll tell you that story in a bit. But this is why cleansing your house is so important is because everything is energy. Your house is an energetic being. Also, your fights have energy, your illnesses have energy and a lot of that can get stuck in your house and it might all sound crazy and that's okay, but if you have been feeling like things are stagnant, like things need a boost, one of the easiest and most beautiful ways to do that is by cleansing the energy of your home. So this is kind of how I think about it. Well, first of all, everybody has walked into a room where you can feel conflict. You didn't hear the fight, you don't see the fight, but you can feel the energy of disharmony.

Speaker 1:

And I had somebody that I know, a friend of mine, who is listing a house in Charlotte and Charlotte's a super hot market for homes because it's a lovely place to live and with a lovely climate, and we have a lot of people moving in here and so the houses move very quickly. And he has a house that has not gone under contract and it turns out that the couple that is selling it they are selling it to go their separate ways. The house itself is holding the energy of their conflict, of some resentment, of some disagreements, of fighting, and so there is us, there is this energy that is heavy and uninviting in their home, and so when buyers are coming they're having plenty of showings. There is a subconscious energy that is repelling to new buyers. New buyers are looking for a place that feels warm and happy, and this home doesn't have that energy right now it's not that it didn't before and so the important practice they are being guided to do is to cleanse the home of the energy and also restore it into the energy that you would want to have Now. That all sounds very woo, and that's okay, but if you're listening to this, you're probably you okay with it anyway, so it is really important.

Speaker 1:

This is kind of how I think about it is if you go and sit at a campfire, you're not sitting in the campfire, but when you go inside, you're carrying the campfire with you, right? The residue of the campfire lingers on your skin, especially on your clothes, and so when we are engaging in our home, when we have illness, ongoing illness or abundance issues, where we're experiencing lack and scarcity, when we have conflict in our relationships if you've got a teenager and you're screaming at them or you're struggling with your spouse, that remains. It's like the scent of the campfire that you're not, you're not at the campfire anymore, you weren't sitting in the campfire, but the the energy, the smell of the campfire is still there, and that's why you wash your clothes, you didn't burn them, but you know that that smell is still there, it's still lingering, and so if you think of your home, as you know, just being something that has to be freshened up and one of the ways to freshen up is by purging, and I had this beautiful opportunity two weeks ago to purge. There was a sign up at the entrance of our neighborhood that we were having a community yard sale, and I have never been here when they've done that before, or perhaps I've never been willing, I don't know. I don't pay attention to the neighborhood message boards because I want to like my neighbors and those are a hot mess, but I saw the sign at the front and it's like there's a community community or so.

Speaker 1:

On Saturday, and I decided to go ahead and partake in that opportunity to get stuff out of my house, since Halloween's coming up, I was like, oh, I'm going in the storage room. I really like Halloween, I really like costumes and dressing up. However, there is no reason that I still have the costume that I wore when my 11-year-old was a baby. Sometimes it was fun when the kids have spirit week and they need, you know, a cowboy hat, and I have this giant rubber woody hat that they have something to to pick through. But I have endless amounts of wigs and costumes and all of this stuff up in my storage room. Why why? Why I like Halloween so much. I'm gonna get a new costume.

Speaker 1:

So, anyway, I went back to the back of the storage room and started pulling stuff out, and garage sales take a load of work, like it is a hassle, but I just started pulling stuff out and took a garbage bag up there and if I didn't think it was worthy of being sold or taken to Goodwill, then it had to be chucked away and I got rid of so much stuff. So on Saturday morning, when the yard sale happened, mark had said he would get up and just help me carry stuff out. Now I had given my kids the opportunity to go through their stuff and if they sold anything they got to keep the money. But they did not put forth that effort. So I was taking all the stuff out and Mark went to help me carry some things out and and got a bug himself and just started bringing clothes out.

Speaker 1:

Now he is somebody who really does love to shop and he also really does take meticulous care of his things, which is a problem, because that means he never gets rid of something because it's worn or old looking. He just it's just like an infinite amount of stuff. Whereas I trash my stuff, to be quite honest, I spend considerably less on it because I'm just gonna wear the hell out of it and then it's done. Um, but that's not him anyway. He made, you know, many trips to get jackets he doesn't wear anymore, to get um skirts, coats, this kind of thing, and pulled his stuff out there, and so the the yard sale was supposed to be from eight to one or something and of course, people start showing up at seven 20 when I haven't showered. Um, and my hair looks like I haven't showered, but that's okay. Um, it was.

Speaker 1:

It was really good fun to have people find purpose for the stuff that needed to get out of my house, and the beautiful thing about it was, at the end of the yard sale, mark backed up the truck and anything that didn't sell was then loaded on the truck and taken to goodwill. It was not moved back into the house. We had decided this stuff needed to go and it went, and it's really interesting because I have done a lot of purging, like going through my drawers taking out clothes, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah but I hadn't been back in the back of a storage closet and just clearing this stuff out has made really a positive shift in my creative energy. This past week I have felt substantially more creative and I know it's just a shifting of that energy, of creating space, of getting rid of old stuff, stagnant stuff, stuff that is just taking up space where new energy needs to come in. So that is one great way to shift the energy.

Speaker 1:

In your home is a good old purge. Probably don't need it, get rid of it. And you know what I like thinking about with purging too is me hanging on to something just in case I need it, and I have some more. As I'm saying this, I have a walking boot that's up in my coat closet that I'm hanging onto from when I tore my calf muscle, and hanging onto it one implies I think I'm going to get injured again and two implies that I'm not going to have the resources to replace that if I did get injured. So I just decided that that's going to go today, because that's not the vibe I want. I don't want to predict my next injury and I know that I will be abundant enough that, should I get injured, I will be able to take care of myself and that does not need to sit in my closet for another year. And so it is embracing your abundance by saying, if the occasion, occasion arises, I will be able to replace that, and not the scarcity mindset of a predicting your injury and hanging on to things like what, if? What if I need this, uh, bundt cake pan, even though I don't bake? What if I need this in four years? Then I know I'm abundant enough that I can buy a bunt cake. I wonder if I have a bunt cake, because I'm not sure where that came from, but I'm pretty sure I need to get rid of that pan if I do, um, anyway. So don't hang on to things thinking that maybe one day you will need to use them. Trust in the abundance of the universe that you can give it to someone who needs it now and should you need it in the future, you will be able to provide that for yourself. So that is one great way to shift energy.

Speaker 1:

Another thing that happened, and this happened really early in the year. Another thing that happened, and this happened really early in the year I was traveling to California and I had taken these little bottles of Palo Santo and sage. So I have big bottles of spray room spray to cleanse energy and I found I bought these little travel sized bottles where I could put less than three ounces of liquids into these little bottles and carry it with me, and so it's something good to have. If you are often in airbnbs or hotels or airplanes or taxis or car share rides, it's such an easy thing to have to cleanse the energy. Those are wonderful natural ways where you can. If you're home, you can burn energy sage or burn palo santo, but you can also order sprays that are just really easy to travel with you, to to have with you for quick cleansing. And so when I was in california I wonder if y'all can hear my dog barking perhaps? Um, if so, that's mellow. She's a good girl, but goodness gracious she is a. That's mellow, she's a good girl, but goodness gracious she is a bad.

Speaker 1:

So when I was in California, I was in the shower and spirit came through and was like hey, you need to tell Betty to cleanse her space. So Betty is not her real name, but everybody wants a friend named Betty, so I'm gonna say Betty. So spirit came through and Betty was going through a really challenging portion in her relationship in that they were separating. They were going through a separation process and sharing a home and sharing an apartment while co-parenting, and Spirit just wanted to remind her that you've got a lot you're managing in your own emotional body, but you don't need to also have to manage the heavy energy in a home or his energy that he's leaving behind. And so it's really important, as they're transitioning between who's staying where, to cleanse the space. And so I let her know and a couple weeks later she was like you wouldn't have, you wouldn't believe how effective that is to just shift the energy in the home. She's very sensitive, she. She feels energy in a powerful way, and having the heaviness that she's walking into be part of that transition was not working, and so just setting the intention and cleansing the space when she gets there to the highest frequency available for that space and for her to only manage what's hers while she's there really made an impact.

Speaker 1:

There are also great other times to just be intentional, cleansing your home, one of which is the change of seasons, and that's now. So it's a good time. If you haven't done it recently. It's a good time to cleanse your home, to reset the energy of your home, energy of your home. Now I will tell you this is how I do it. I use sage and a shell. You can get abalone shell, anything that you can drip ash into and it be safe in your hand and protected. And you can use a feather or your hand and just waft the smoke. So you light the sage and I start on the upper floors and I open a window on each floor or the sliding glass door to my patio, and I go through each room, concentrating in the corners, and I say a prayer, or I'm really just talking to my home, I'm talking to the energy of my home and I am asking that anything that is not of the highest value, the highest intention, the highest frequency for my home, for our highest good, that it please leave with love, and so only love is welcome here.

Speaker 1:

I say that. You know. Thank you for all the people who have visited. I send their energy back with love. So I might say one thing several times, I might just kind of change as we go, but it is giving gratitude to my home while also releasing any energy that is not ours or for our highest good and just asking it that that it leaves. And so I go room to room, concentrating in the corners, getting any stagnant energy, any negative or discreative energy out of the hope and asking that the highest frequency of love and acceptance and joy and family, that it remain and be elevated for us. So for my friend who was selling a home and it was not selling that was the advice spirit gave to them is to do an energy cleansing. Now, if somebody just wants to cleanse all the negative energy, anything that is not of the highest vibration, you can just say that as you're cleansing the home. But what I do when I'm cleansing mine is to reinforce what I do want, that I want love and compassion and acceptance and joy to live in my home. And spirit guided them to restore that into their home in a different way, by writing a letter to the home to say thank you, to say thank you for the loving times that they had.

Speaker 1:

It hadn't always been disagreements or disharmony or resentment. There was a lot of love there. There was a lot of love there. There was a lot of laughter there. There were a lot of good memories there. And by reflecting on those. You call that energy back. You're calling the energy that somebody who's buying a house would want to find in the home, that energy of happiness and family and joy. And so to write a letter to the home, just calling back those memories and saying thank you, thank you for keeping us safe, thank you for all that you provided in the years that we have lived here, and then they can just kind of hide it somewhere in the home. And isn't that kind of fun that maybe, you know, 50 or 100 years from now, the new owners of the home would be able to read and feel the love that somebody once shared in their home.

Speaker 1:

So if you are selling a house, that is a great opportunity for you to cleanse the home of anything any illness that was there, any conflict that was there, cleanse it and then restore the beautiful energy by writing a thank you note to your home. It's a good idea If you want to name your home, like I have named my car, dolly and just every once in a while give her a thank you. Maybe your house is a dude, that's fine. Give your house a thank you and just be like thank you so much for keeping us safe. Thank you so much for you know the memories that we have. Thank you for this dining table and dining area where we get to sit as a family and share this food.

Speaker 1:

As you say those thank yous, as I'm saying it here on the podcast, I feel my vibration raising Gratitude is a beautiful practice to elevate your vibration personally, but also the vibration of your home, and so when you are bringing more of that into your home, know you are raising the vibration and that will attract what you want more opportunities to be joyful, more opportunities to be happy in your home. And absolutely, if you are buying a new home, make sure one of the first things you do before you move your things in is to cleanse the space, ask any energy that belongs to the previous owners, the previous families, to be returned to them with love and set the intention for anything negative or lower vibration to be released, and then you can set the intention of what you want to call into your home. I like the vibration of love. I want love to live here, and so, as I am cleansing my space, I invite the vibration of love to live here. That's what I want to hold for me and for my family and it's important for us to go around. I'm doing it this week. It's my fall call to cleanse my space. It's really important. After the holidays I'll do it again after we've had a lot of people in our house, but I'll also do it in the space that I have. I have my healing room where I have people that come for energy work. Well, we're doing heavy stuff A lot of times. We're shifting energy. I'm working on them, and so I always cleanse that space after each client, and so there's a lot of opportunities that you can use energy cleansing for your personal self and for your small spaces, your car if you have been, you know, in a particularly hard conversation, maybe you do a quick spray and just cleanse your space that way. But to do a full home cleanse, at least seasonally, is a great idea to shift your energy, the energy of your home, and it's amazing how things just start shifting in your world when you take that conscious action to uplift the energy around you.

Speaker 1:

I know for me when I was starting out on my awakening journey and really in that hermit phase where you understand that there's something more and you understand that most people don't understand that, it had me very much in that hermit phase and not wanting to be out with a lot of other people, I felt really sensitive and I didn't know how to protect it. And so going to Costco on a Saturday, I mean, why would do that? But you find yourself there and then it was like, oh okay, that guy has a headache, you know, and I leave Costco with way more stuff than is mine. Until I learned how to protect my energy and cleanse my energy, I felt like going into a crowd, going into a movie theater or a basketball game or a Costco, was like inviting the bonfire smell onto me, like I'm going to take everybody's stuff home. And now it is so quick and so easy to a set intentions. Before I go in there, put myself in an energetic bubble and ask that my energy be protected from anything that is lower vibration or not mine, but also to do a quick cleanse. When I get home, I will swirl a light Palo Santo and swirl around in it like I'm a rhythmic gymnast and do a little swirly, swirl and cleanse my energy that way. And now I feel significantly less impacted by crowds, less impacted by, you know, going to school and sitting in the auditorium and feeling everybody's stuff. I know that, a I feel less of it because I'm protected and, b I'll just clean that mess up when I get home.

Speaker 1:

You know you want to participate in the bonfire. We're here for the campfire experience. You can't I'm reminded, you can't go sit in a cave and meditate all the time and call that a worldly experience. We came to play this game. We came to sit at the bonfire. You just have to be conscious about how you manage the smoke. So I invite all of you to the campfire. Come, let's participate, let's be active, inviting people into our homes, going to their homes, going into crowds, being with people, being social, knowing that we can cleanse our energy. We can cleanse our home. So I think that's.

Speaker 1:

I think that's all I wanted to talk about today. Get yourself a purge, go ahead and take those boxes I'm going to get a walking boot and some crutches and they are leaving my house because I'm not planning for that accident, oh my goodness, because I'm not planning for that accident. Oh my goodness, it'll be something else if I report back that I have an injury next week, but anyway, we're not planning for that. Purge your stuff, cleanse your house, use gratitude to amplify the energy in your space. Remember that we are all energy. We have to be really mindful of our own vibration, of our own stagnant energy that is keeping us from being creative, from being healthy, from being in flow. Being really mindful of your own energy and understanding when you have blocks is really important, but it's also really important to manage the energy of your home, of your car, of your spaces. So I hope you enjoyed this. I hope that you will all have some really witchy moments and be, you know, sage in your house over the next week. Don't don't see it as witchy, see it as ceremonial. This is from our indigenous people who had great connection with the earth and knew how to take care of their spaces.

Speaker 1:

All right, everybody, if you are in charlotte or a drivable distance, please plan on joining me november 23rd so we can be happy for the holidays. I love you. Have a great week. Thank you so much for joining me this week. Be sure to not miss any upcoming episodes by subscribing to the podcast. That way, it's available automatically in your RSS feed. This is a crazy journey. Let's do it together.

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Susan Sutherland

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