The Mindful Way to Clear Negative Energy

(gentle music) Headspace Studio. (gentle ambient music) Hi there. This is Radio Headspace. I'm Dora, and I'm so glad you're here. So last week I walked into my local coffee shop and immediately I felt heavy like someone had draped an invisible blanket of anxiety over my shoulders. Nothing had changed about me in the 30 seconds between my car and the front door, but the barista looked stressed. There was a tense conversation happening at a corner table, and I could feel this cloud of overwhelm hanging in the air. I ordered my usual latte, but by the time I had left, I was carrying this weird emotional residue that had absolutely nothing to do with my actual day. And that's when it hit me. If I shower every morning to clean my physical body, what am I doing to clean my energetic body? (birds chirping) (serene ambient music) Okay, I know this might sound a little woo woo, but stay with me for a minute. You know how you walk into a room after people have been arguing and you can feel the tension even if no one says a word. Or how some spaces just feel peaceful and others feel chaotic. Or how being around certain people leaves you feeling drained while others leave you feeling energized. That is energy. And just like we pick up dust and dirt on our clothes throughout the day, we pick up emotional and energetic residue as we move through the world. The thing is, most of us are really good at physical hygiene. We brush our teeth, we wash our hands, we shower regularly, but we've never been taught that our spirits need cleaning too. We can observe other people's stress, anxiety, anger, and overwhelm. We carried around like invisible backpacks, wondering why we feel so tired or anxious for no apparent reason. But just like we can clean our bodies, we can learn to clean and clear our energetic selves too by practicing what I like to call energetic hygiene. (gentle serene music) I learned this lesson the hard way. During my third year of psychiatric nursing school, I was working with patients all day listening to heavy stories, holding space for pain and trauma, and I thought being empathetic meant absorbing it all, feeling everything they felt. By the end of each day, I was emotionally exhausted. I'd go home and feel anxious about problems that weren't mine, worried about situations I couldn't control, carrying anger that didn't belong to me. My supervisor at the time noticed I was overwhelmed and asked me, "Dora, what are you doing to care for yourself between sessions? How do you take care of energy?" Care for myself? Take care of my energy? I was confused. She explained it like this. When a surgeon finishes an operation, they don't just walk into the next surgery wearing the same protective gear. They scrub down, they change their clothes, they clean their instruments. Your work...