Spiritual baths have been used in many cultures and have been known since ancient times. These special bath rituals were designed to purify the aura, cleanse the soul, clear the mind, and heal the spirit. The main goal of such baths is to help clear any blockage that can lead to more serious illnesses and restore one’s energy levels.

So, if you feel emotionally exhausted, overwhelmed, or stressed, you definitely need to take a spiritual bath! Spiritual baths can also be used as a powerful manifestation tool to bring the desired benefits of life, such as love, abundance, success, creativity, etc.

In this article, we will introduce you to spiritual bath rituals and give you helpful tips on how to get the best experience out of them. Read on!

What Is a Spiritual Bath?

Before we start dwelling on the instructions and practical tips on how to take a spiritual bath, let us give a quick explanation of what a spiritual bath actually is.

A spiritual bath is a bath ritual that is designed to cleanse your mind and spirit by using powerful ingredients that charge the bathwater with healing vibrations that help you to remove blockages, toxic energies, and stressful situations that are no longer serving you in any constructive way. The spiritual regeneration occurs from soaking in warm water infused by the powerful essential oils, healing herbs, and crystals; as well as from setting a clear intention announced in a form of affirmation or mantra.

How to Take a Spiritual Bath?

Step 1: Preparation

Before you start taking a spiritual bath and setting the intentions, you have to make sure that your bathroom is ready for the spiritual ritual. You need to transform your bathroom into a sacred space that resonates with spiritual intentions. Clean and declutter your bathroom and tub.

It would be great if you also paid attention to the Feng Shui of your bathroom and reorganize everything according to its principles. Check out our article 7 Feng Shui Bathroom Tips, Taboos, And Cures to learn more about it.

Clean your tub, straighten your countertops, and make room for the things you want to be surrounded by during your spiritual bath practice. Anything you bring into this practice such as oils, crystals, or candles should be intentionally picked to invoke a sense of your intended energy cleanse.

Step 2: Take a Shower

Take a quick shower and clean yourself.

Step 3: Set Your Intention

Decide on the intention of your spiritual bath. The energy you give to this bath is what you will get back. 

Step 4: Fill the Bathtub and Gather the Ingredients

Fill the bathtub with water at a temperature that feels most comfortable. As the tub is filling up, gather all the ingredients you need. You will need the ingredients that will be mixed directly into your bathwater, such as herbs, essential oils, and salts, as well as things that will complement the bath and the atmosphere, such as candles, incense, and crystals. You may want to light incense, palo santo stick, sage, or a few candles. Maybe you will want to play some meditative music that will relax your mind into a calm, meditative state.

Step 5: Say a Prayer or a Mantra

Before you get into the bathtub or as you are stirring in your ingredients, you may want to say a prayer, mantra, or intention aloud. It can be anything you want, as long as it aligns with your general intention for the spiritual bath.

Step 6: Bath for 30-40 Minutes 

Step into the bath and soak for about 20-30 minutes. Try and keep as much of your body submerged as possible. Cup your hands and gently pour the water over your head. As you relax in the water, clear your mind of all negative thoughts and focus on your intention to let go of all stress and negativity. While soaking, you can repeat your intention, mantra, or positive affirmations to charge yourself with positive healing energy.

Step 7: Let Your Body Breathe

After you get out of the bath, let your body air dry naturally rather than with a towel. This will help your body continue to take in the positive energy. When you are mostly dry, get comfortable and rest for at least 20-30 minutes. You may want to lay down, focus on your breathing, meditate and just relax. 

Bath Ingredients

There are many different ways you can prepare spiritual baths with different ingredients. You can use just one or two ingredients or opt for even more. It is entirely up to you! Here are some options to choose from:

#1: Salts

Using natural salts for your spiritual bath will help you to release any kind of toxic energies, negative thoughts, and feelings. Pink Himalayan salt, natural sea salt, and Epsom salt are great for this purpose. Use 2-3 good handfuls or less.

However, make sure you are not using regular table salts for your baths because they contain anti-caking agents and have gone through a refining process that has removed many of the beneficial minerals.

#2: Baking Soda

Using baking soda for spiritual baths helps to purify your aura from any negative energies. In addition, soaking in such a bath leaves your skin feeling soft and smooth. Use ¼ cup-2 cups.

#3: Rose Water

Boil fresh rose petals until all of the color is out of the petals. Let them cool and add to a warm bath. Feel free to add in some extra petals, fresh or dried, to your bath for extra aroma.

Rose water makes an excellent spiritual bath to uplift moods and make you feel more self-love if you’ve not been taking good care of yourself lately. Throw in some rose petals for good measure and let the fragrance of the bath fill your spirits with loving energy and appreciation of who you are.

#4: Lavender

For your spiritual bath, you may want to use whole buds boiled in water or pure essential oil. Lavender promotes relaxation by its calming effect on your mental and emotional state. Such a bath is a great stress reliever. Use enough lavender to produce an aroma.

#5: Carnations

Boil fresh pink and red carnations in a pot of water with honey and coconut milk. Then strain the mixture to keep the liquid as an ingredient for the bath. Taking a bath with such a mixture helps to heal a broken heart and infuse your aura with love vibrations.

Here is a list of some more ideas for what you can use in a spiritual bath:

Essential Oils: Sandalwood, Palo Santo, Eucalyptus, Patchouli, Lemon, Frankincense, May Chang, Clary Sage.

Herbs, flowers, plants: sage, eucalyptus leaf, juniper berries, peppermint leaf, angelica root, bay.

Crystals: moonstone, amethyst, labradorite, smoky quartz, selenite, obsidian, clear quartz, citrine.

The Bottom Line

A spiritual bath is a wonderful self-care ritual that each of us needs. Anytime you find yourself feeling overwhelmed, it is important to take time for yourself so a break like this can be helpful. This can be something you want to include into your weekly routine or during your day of self-care. Taking time for a spiritual bath will definitely help you to regain balance in life and feel more energized, calm, and peaceful.

Crystal Quiz

What Are Shadow Emotions?

All emotions are neutral. Yet, there are some emotions that we subconsciously categorize as bad. Consequently, we try to disassociate with them. These are the shadow emotions.

Shadow emotions are emotions that remain hidden in our shadow, behind what we portray as our self-image. Then, they manifest unexpectedly, causing havoc to what we consider as our stable lifestyles.

Understanding Emotions

Emotions are a vital part of human life. They give us essential information that reassures us when we are on the right track. Likewise, emotions help us to relate to others. They form the basis of how we handle the expectations and demands of life. Indeed, our emotions form the basis of our rapid and automatic response to most situations.  It is our way of communicating our feelings.

Why Do We Fear Emotions?

We develop emotional reactions through our past events. But what if your feelings are out of your past negative experiences? Like when you feel shameful at the thought of taking part in the school debate because the last time you did so, the crowd booed at you.

These negative encounters can turn into an enormous scary feeling, resembling a shadow of someone who hurt you in the past. It is more like the shadow emotions you want to avoid. For this reason, many people fear and avoid shadow emotions viewing them as painful.

The Effect of Shadow Emotions

If you were scared a lot while you were a child, you might grow up having a core feeling of being afraid. In turn, you may over-protect yourself so that no one could hurt you ever again. Childhood emotional wounds leave us with a deep need to feel safe. We constantly desire someone to love and connect with.

However, when we try to over-protect ourselves, we end up chasing away the people we want to attract. So, managing your shadow emotions becomes vital for leading a healthy life.

Managing Shadow Emotions

Did you know that our emotions towards a specific aspect can change over time? Here, we get the needed opportunity to manage our shadow emotions. So how do we achieve that?

#1: Understand Your Type of Shadow Emotions

Do you recognize your shadow emotions? If not, you will struggle to control feelings that you do not understand. And, we feel and function better when we are aware of and deal with our real emotions. For example, if you feel agitated by your partner’s habits but mistake them for his/her uniqueness; you may mislead his/her into a committed relationship that breaks up eventually.

Secondly, understand the types of emotions and their effect on you. For starters, basic emotions like surprise, happiness, interest, anger, fear, and shame may arouse you or calm you down, respectively.

Like when you get suspicious out of a past fear emotion, you become alert to your surroundings. In contrast, we feel content due to our past happiness emotion. Hence, we become relaxed when content.

#2: Appreciate the Purpose of Unpleasant Emotions

Unpleasant emotions like anxiety, loneliness, suspicion, and irritation help us survive. However, they become more unpleasant when we fight them. Still, if you allow them to be there, they become less unpleasant.

#3: Listen to Shadow Emotions

If you have a partner you trust, you can tell them about your fears. That way, instead of ignoring, covering up, or denying this shadow emotion, you welcome and listen to it. With time, this fear will become more manageable.

#4: Often, Shadow Emotions Can Be Misleading

Note that; people can fake emotions to get what they want. Other times, people cover up their real shadow emotions with other “acceptable” emotions. When what we express is contrary to what we feel, we can drive people away or attract the wrong attention.

Yet, if you have a supportive, patient, and curious enough spouse, family member, or friend, they will try to understand you. In turn, they can help you bring out your real shadow emotions and get the help you need.

#5: Shadow Emotions Can Mess You Up

When a suppressed feeling crops up unexpectedly, the effect on you and those around you can be dire. For example, suppressed anger that builds up during childhood can show up in your adult life as domestic violence against your partner.

Here, you need to engage in shadow work to acknowledge and redirect these feelings to beneficial activities. That is, you can use this anger to advocate for children’s right to protection by the state.

#6: Have Self-Compassion

What do you do when you unexpectedly express a shadow emotion? Do you deny its existence, cover it up, fight it, or see the positive side of it? Well, self-compassion dictates that we look at ourselves as unique and whole, even when we have unpleasant feelings.  It also includes taking the chance and letting people into your life, even when you are afraid of getting hurt again.

So:

• Accept your scars lovingly. Know that no one is perfect.
• Observe what triggers shadow emotions in your life. Most likely, these triggers are deep-seated in your subconscious mind.
• Take measures to reprogram your subconscious mind and be in control of your triggers to shadow emotions. Here, you can meditate, listen to positive affirmations, or go for forest baths.
• Give yourself time to heal. Good habits, and emotional reactions, take time to grow.

#7: Convert Your Shadow Emotions into Assertive Anger

Assertive anger is about standing up for you without driving people away. Here, you want to be objective while expressing your thoughts to the other person. You remain open to new ideas. This approach helps you respond better to hurtful criticism.

Conclusion

We learn our emotional reactions, both negative and positive, long before we use them. Hence, if you have shadow emotions, they resemble a person who hurt you in the past. Embrace these feelings to get what you need from yourself and others. Doing so will help you feel and function better. Hence, you react to current situations based on fresh emotions instead of referring to the negative emotions stuck in your subconscious mind.