How to get rid of negative energy absorbed from other people?

As empaths and high sensory people we are often confronted with other human beings who communicate their “negative” thoughts with us. And we absorb these energies like a sponge, when our boundary system is not strong enough (yet). Especially when it comes to family members which are around all the time and have a strong connection with you by nature, it can be quite a challenge. And when out of energy yourself, depleted, or overwhelmed, it can be exhausting and hard to remember any helpful technique. So, it’s a good idea to try the ones that seem to be a good match with you, and write them down into your journal to internalize them as a habit for dealing with these situations.

There are several techniques to remove these energies effectively. And there are techniques to block them out already in the first place.

If you already absorbed negative energy by someone else, these are many ways to get rid of them.

1. Visualization

Imagine you’re inhaling white light, and exhaling black smoke. The white light climbs up your spine, and the black smoke exhaled is dissolving into the sky. The white light stands for fresh new positive energy, and the black smoke represents the negative energy absorbed by someone else, being removed out of your system. While you do that, you might experience warm sensations or see pleasant colors, which indicates that energy is flowing.

You can also imagine writing down a word or symbol representing the absorbed negative energy onto a leaf. Then you put this leaf into a bubbling water stream, and watch the leaf riding down the water on it’s little bubbly waves with a soothing sparkling sound. The leaf slowly fades out getting smaller and smaller until it completely disappears. In the end, all you’re left with is the calming sound of the bubbling water.

You can increase the effect of this technique with smiling, and using water sounds on your speakers or headphones. If you have a real water stream around, even better. Smiling uses around ten muscles, and some of them press on nerves that give impulses to your brain to release happiness hormones. And some say, the sound of water reminds our ancient brain due to DNA imprints of finding a dwell, which means a safe spot to live and create more life. Also, water sounds have a calming effect when it comes to rain, as predators don’t go for a hunt when it rains and we can feel safe, and sleep better.

Visualization can be a strong tool. You can also use it for protecting yourself, so you don’t absorb energies by others in the first place. For example imagine a glass wall around you, which tells your system that you can observe other people’s energy, but they won’t be able to touch your very own energetic system. This can be helpful in gatherings or using public transport as well.

2. Nature, Natural Patterns & Oxygen Inflow (Exercise)

Moving your body in natural surroundings can do wonders. As HSPs we receive a lot of information around us. Concrete jungles, crowded city places, honking vehicles, and other unnatural stimuli will not help removing bad vibes and energies out of your system. The opposite will be possible in healthy, natural environments.

Taking a walk outside, in a forest, next to a river, or simply perceiving as much natural entities around you where possible depending on where you live can help a lot getting in positive feelings again, after absorbing energies from other people. Observing or playing with an animal is a very good option as well. The interaction with those “unbiased” creatures can remind our soul of pure existence.

Moving your body to increase flow of oxygen will help your whole system getting back into a good state. If you combine running and a forest, or working out and a lake, or any other possible combination in your area, you will be able to be “back on track” quickly. But don’t rush, mindfulness will be your best assistant. Being mindful will also help you remembering what actually works for you, and reprogramming your habits of how you react to a negative energy situation will be more easy and effective long-term.

Also, simply watching natural patterns calms your nervous system and has a positive impact on your whole feeling, which makes it easier to remove negative energies absorbed from others our of your own system. Also looking at some very natural fractals and sacred geometry patterns can help, but this is another (very interesting) topic.

You can also go to a gym, and practice the increased blood flow and oxygen intake there. If there are TVs with nature documentaries, or wall art / posters, it can assist your nature + workout combo. Looking at a small smartphone screen with the latest National Geographics coverage of some newly explored species in the Antarktis while doing cardio might be a bit too much of a distraction and energy taker. Focus on cleansing your system, gaining energy, and getting rid of that bad stuff absorbed lately completely. The gym’s atmosphere of people working on themselves can also help, when you see hard fighting faces and realize other humans are also confronted with pain, challenges and maybe even worse energies than you were surrounded with recently.

3. Salt Bath or Shower

Some people swear on using salt in order to remove negative energies. You can buy yourself good amounts of Himalaya or other high quality salt (non-refined, no additives like anti-caking substances) for quite low amounts of money.

You can bath in salt water, or shower and rub your body with it – depending on what you prefer, how much time you have, or if theres a bath tube around. The physical rubbing process combined with the salt’s effect on your skin and PH value helps your system getting cleaned from negative vibrations and energies. You can literally scrub the crap away and absorb the healing effects of the natural salt at the same time.

4. Smudging

Some people also use a method called ‘Smudging’ where you put salt in all four corners of your room for 48 hours after burning a sage stick and distributing its smoke all over the room, especially in the corners and areas of the doors. This method is coming from an ancient/indigenous tribes to remove negative energies from a person or place, which involves sacred plants like sage, cedar, sweetgrass, tobacco and fire. You can say mantras additionally, to load up the space with energetic impulses for the desired change.

5. Curiosity & Gain of Knowledge

If you switch your perception of the negatively perceived energy into “data” you can learn from, it can help as well. Either while the other person is bombarding you with “negativity”, or after the experience – you can always tell your mind: “Interesting.”

When you still have the chance of interacting with the negativity sender, you can ask questions back: “Can you explain it a bit more, why you’re feeling like this?”, or “Interesting, why do you see it like that? Are there other perspectives”, to keep it “meta”. Each situation will come with its own topic, and there might be ways to switch the conversation into one that even provides value for yourself being able to train your brain and learn something new about the situation or the person’s perspective. Our system tends to be happy, when it gains value. This can be wealth, safety, nutrition, or knowledge. If you manage to morph your “opponent” a.k.a. “energy vampire” into a golden teacher, you’re mastering the situation brilliantly.

Also, realizing and remembering actively, that the negativity came from an external factor and not from inside yourself can help keeping the energy out of your system.

6. Breathing Methods

One spectrum of methods that can be applied directly and anywhere is breathing. Thanks to the ancient people of India we know a lot of techniques, and one is a very good choice when it comes to removing negative energies.

All methods out there come with a common factor: you breath in positivity, and breath out negativity.

You can release the energy absorbed from others best if you acknowledge its presence in the first place, like identifying an object you are about to remove from your system. Then you can imagine how your inhaling healthy breath is wrapping around the negative influence, and then carry it out of your system while breathing out.

Breathing methods in ancient Indian knowledge are described under the term Pranayama. One strong example for releasing bad energy is Kapalabhati Pranayama (“Breath of Fire”, or “Skull Shining Breath”). This breathing method is powerful and should not be practiced while menstruating, being pregnant, or when you’re younger than 16 years old. It uses lots of energy, creates heat, and releases toxins.

If you want to go the breathing path and learn how to use your breath to remove energies, you can look into “Bhastrika” or “Bellow Breathing”. The beauty of it is, that you don’t need any external tools and can do it basically anywhere you are.

7. Grounding

Having negative energy absorbed already, you can easily say: “I’m feeling so ungrounded after having just two minutes spent with that person”. And you can easily say: “It’s time to ground myself again.”

And being grounded can be seen literally: you’re rooted into the ground, so other people can not make you fly around. Totally grounded you will find it more easy to resist the energies, emotions and opinions of others in daily life.

Grounding can be done in several ways:

• Stand on the ground with bare feet, bend your knees a bit, fix your eyes on a specific spot, e.g. the horizon or a point in straight direction. Form a half circle with your arms, and keep your palms open and up. Your hands will be in front of your belly and you breath deeply in calm.
• Walk around bare feet in nature, your toes grabbing into the soil, your feet touching the grass, smile, hug a tree. This might sound cheesy to some, but it really really works. Telenovelas are cheesy, nature is breezy.
• Chant the word “Om.” It represents the vibrational frequency found throughout everything in nature (412hz).
• Grounding can be a very serious activity and pure fun as well. There are lots of “grounding tutorials” on the big video platforms available for free.

8. Crystals

If you believe in the strong powers of crystals, you can also use them for removing negative energy from your body, and home, or even your office desk. A good choice for this usage are Amethysts, Tiger’s Eyes, Obsidians, Black Tourmalines, and Citrine Stones.

If you don’t believe in healing powers of crystals, you can look into brain research connected to Alpha, Beta, … Theta waves, and so on. Patterns, frequencies, all of this isn’t esoteric nonsense. Of course you can exaggerate any believe system. The golden middle connecting science and transcendence seems to be a good choice.

“If you want to find the secrets of the universe, think in terms of energy, frequency and vibration.“ – Nikola Tesla

And all of you who believe in telekinesis, please raise my hand.

9. Essential Oils

For a quick and lasting change in a room’s atmosphere there are several essential oils that can do wonders when it comes to the energy traces of a person loaded up with low vibrations or negative energy. And you can use them directly on your body as well, which comes handy especially when you’re outside or traveling.

Good choices for this purpose are lavender, peppermint, lemon, orange, rosemary essential oils. Also cedar wood, juniper berry, cypress, and chamomile variants can help. You can use them in a diffusor, in a cup of water on your heater, or directly on your body. To apply the essential oils reasonably onto your pulse points or chakra areas, you can use carrier oils like coconut oil, olive oil, or jojoba oil, which even add extra care for your skin and tender loving care for yourself in general.

10. Mantra Meditation

To center yourself again after some negative vibes, you can meditate. To fully remove unwanted energies you can do mantra meditation as well. Repeating the same phrase can help center yourself even better than pure silence in your head, and if you attach meaning to the used mantra connected to the desired effect, you can feel that your meditation has a good influence on your “getting rid of that person’s influence”. Still, don’t see it as an internal battle. Do it from a place of love, or even understanding that the other person might simply have been in pain, or was struggling with a topic. Understanding and being OK with yourself, that this time you did not built up the energy shield can also help, instead of judging yourself. You don’t need to adapt to a negative way of thinking just because someone else did that around you. This can be hard as an hyper-empathetic HSP, but it can be trained like a muscle, by building up your energy shields and habits how to process negatively perceived information, and changing perspective into curiosity while being distanced with that visualized glass window or a highly effective energetic aura bubble.

11. Mudras (Hand Postures) & Yoga, and Clearing Moves

Another big shout out to our ancient Indian friends. Hand postures, or so called “Mudras” can help shielding and releasing energies. One of the well-known gestures is the Abhayamudra, that can be used for protection and peace. Another powerful one is the Karana Mudra, which also helps removing negative thoughts.

To put your body and mind into a positive state, you can also practice yoga, for example the sun salutation.

You can also use your hands, grabbing the imagined negative energy particles and throwing them onto the floor or far away with strong moves. You can start above your head, cup your hands and swipe the unwanted influences away from top to bottom of your body. At the end you can imagine yourself being in a protected energy space surrounding your body, where other people’s energies simply can not enter at all.

12. Overriding the Negative Influence with Positivity for Your Life’s Vision

Let’s go a bit more “meta” for long term effects and adding another method for quick relief. Do you have a vision? Something you want to create as a life work? Or a big idea you had in mind and are still drawing the outlines? Working on our own fulfilment can override nearly any negativity quickly, when we are back on our “own track” actively and zoom into it, getting into flow state. Everything else appears smaller and smaller and smaller until it disappears. If you don’t have anything like that, there might be a hobby or preferred activity that gives you the feeling of creating your own life respecting your ideas, higher values and what’s important to you. This can help getting distracted from the negative imprint and instead of growing it even more by focusing on this, you can focus on something that YOU want more of in your life. As an HSP you’re a highly needed person in our society, and it does not matter if others understand this already. What counts is that you are fully 100% good like you are, and we need you exactly like this!

And if you’re able to integrate the “negative” experience with someone else into your personal growth, or even your vision, you’re mastering the situation in excellence.

Our self worth is often directly connected to the overly need to help others. But first, we need to be strong and happy, before we can assist others on their quality of life. Oxygen mask rules in airplanes say it already: put on your mask first, before helping children and other passengers, which also counts for this flight called “life”.

(This article is related to an HSPdb Question, where you can find answers/solutions to HSP situations in daily life: https://hspdb.com/question/how-to-get-rid-of-negative-energy-absorbed-by-others/)