The Lunar Body

Energetic Hygiene Practices for the Digital Realm

January 19, 2022 Kristen Ciccolini Season 2 Episode 19
The Lunar Body
Energetic Hygiene Practices for the Digital Realm
Show Notes Transcript

Our digital connections to other people, devices, apps, and more can be felt just as viscerally as in-person interactions, contributing to chronic stress that can impact our immune system, hormone health, and more.

We have enough weighing us down in life, let's clear the energetic clutter with cyclical hygiene practices for the digital realm.

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Hello and welcome to the Lunar Body, I'm your host, Kristen Ciccolini, period priestess, nutritionist, and the founder of Good Witch Kitchen. I’m so happy you’re here, thank you for joining me for season 2 of this podcast that I have so much fun putting together for you.

I do want to note that with the first season behind us, I’ve learned some lessons on how best to create this show, and what it takes and what I need in order to make it happen. Aside from your listenership of course, which I value and appreciate so much, to put this out there, I do need it to be sustainable. 

To produce this podcast by myself, it takes a full day, to do any research I need to do, to write up the episode itself, to record, to edit, to write the show notes and social media posts. There’s a lot that goes into this one-woman operation and I don’t get paid to do this, so to support my ability to take a full day out of my work week to bring this show to you, you’re going to start hearing some ads or promotions, I want to be transparent with you about that and about what to expect. These will never be things I haven’t tried myself, or things I don’t use myself. They will always be things I use, I enjoy, I can answer questions about — it means a lot to me that you put your trust in me and you invest your time into this show so in return I want to respect you and your time with only the things that I really think you’ll enjoy. If you purchase something with my code or my link, that sends a little money my way that goes towards making this a sustainable project that I can keep putting out for you. So just a heads up, that’s what to expect moving forward.

Today we’re going to talk about digital hygiene, or energetic hygiene through the lens of the digital realm. It’s a new year, and as much as I try to stay away from cliches and as much as I believe that time is a construct that doesn’t mean anything, it does always feel like a fresh start to me. When I imagine a year, I see it from left to right, January to December. So hopping back to the left to start a new year feels like a new beginning, another cycle to move forward with.

I’m not really a New Year’s resolution-type person, long ago I made a resolution to never make resolutions again — I didn’t see the point, if you want to start something, just start it, time means nothing, why wait! Plus it’s winter, it’s a season of rest and reflection, a ton of action just may not feel right for you at this time.

What I do want, more than a resolution really, is just to declutter, to let go of things that energetically weigh me down. 

Something I hear from clients, from friends, from ME, is that technology, social media, always being connected — are all things that we want to take a step back from. Especially during the pandemic when it was the only thing we could really rely on, some of us got a little too digitally connected. Tech can be convenient, fun, exciting, and it can also be the bane of our existence.

What I want to explore is how we can keep that lightness around. Tech is a tool, and to different degrees we can choose how to interact with that tool. How can we utilize it effectively without slipping into overwhelm and burnout? How can we wield it in a way that serves us, because tools should serve us. Part of the answer to that is privilege, of course, so not everything we talk about may apply to every single person, but take what resonates and leave the rest.

Before we dive in let’s first define what we’re talking about here exactly. Digital hygiene is traditionally about cybersecurity — protecting yourself against digital threats like viruses, phishing scams, identity theft, hackers, and so on. It’s using strong passwords and two-factor authentication and anti-virus software. This kind of relates but isn’t totally what we’re focusing on. This isn’t a tech podcast, we’re more about inner technology here, but it applies because tech does bring with it a lot of stress in our lives, we receive a lot of energy through our phones and our computers so I’m more looking at energetic hygiene through a digital context. 

Energetic hygiene is a proactive awareness of what affects you mentally, emotionally, spiritually, and sometimes physically, and tending to those external forces. We know when we’re in person somewhere, we can be affected by the energy of different people, or the energy of a room can be real and almost tangible. But that same energy can come through on social media and email and however else you interact with others. It’s less tangible, but it still can have an impact on your stress levels – I’m sure you’ve all stressed deeply over an email from a coworker that had questionable punctuation, or getting a text from an ex, or getting ghosted via text, or if you’re someone who puts themselves out there online for the public to comment on, stressing over the types of comments you might be getting. 

To do this, you need a baseline understanding of your energy. If you work with your intuition, or if you track your cycle, you already probably have an idea. If you don’t already do these things, I recommend a couple things — you can download my free guide, 6 ways to superpower your intuition (goodwitchkitchen.net/superpower), and you can track your energy each day of your cycle, writing down one word for the general feeling of your day, or you can add more detail if you want to. Think about how you’re feeling mentally and emotionally, and where you feel your energy in your body too.

The more you track, the more information you have to work with, the more you’ll be able to see patterns and understand what impacts your energy from day to day.

It’s important for us to know how we’re impacted so we can take control and decide what to keep, what to let go of, what to set boundaries around, and what to bring in that’s new and refreshing. 

Knowledge is power, and awareness is protection. Protection magic can be very practical, which you know I love. And because you know I also love a cycle and a routine, we can make it cyclical too.

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We’re going to look at digital hygiene today from a cyclical standpoint.

We’re starting with follicular phase practices. Within the first couple weeks of your cycle, you’re typically best suited to prep and plan for whatever intention you want to move forward with.

To get started, think of all the ways that you use technology. This might be overwhelming at first because we literally use it for everything but maybe take a day to keep note of all the things that you’re using — apps, devices at home like your Kindle or iPad or Playstation or Alexa or your electric toothbrush, whatever, the streaming services you pay for and other digital subscriptions. Write it all down. You’ll see just how much tech you use throughout the day, and you can also note, if you want to, if you even like what you’re using. Maybe you find you read less with a Kindle, or none of your productivity apps are actually making you productive, or you never look at your photos because your photo album is littered with screenshots you forgot to delete and you don’t feel like sorting through them. Gather information here.

I’d also say this is a great time to figure out what works for your productivity. Since we have different levels of energy and stamina and creativity and motivation throughout our cycle, keep an eye on that throughout the month to see what tools are working for you and what don’t and if that changes over the course of your cycle. Like for me, I’m more active on Twitter in my luteal phase when I am feeling spicy and have a lot of opinions, but the rest of the month I just wish it never existed because I scroll endlessly and I’m not even fulfilled, the words I read are just passing through my eyeballs with no comprehension. This is all good to know about yourself. 

Before you gather your information, I should have said this before, you should probably start with an intention for this digital evaluation. How is your energy around the technology you’re using now, and how do you want it to be? Do you want to feel connected to your internet friends on social media or would you rather treat social like a dumpster — meaning you just post what you want and don’t look back? Nobody looks back in the dumpster at what they threw in there right? Does that feel liberating? Or does it feel empty because you value those connections? Explore a little about what you want to use your technology for, how it influences your energy, and what boundaries you might want to create to have the experience you want to have.

In the middle of your cycle around ovulation, this is when my energetic hygiene gets fuzzy. Because I have all the energy, and I want to disperse it, I want to get it from others, I want to tweet and post TikToks and reply to everyone’s Instagram stories. I engage in DMs with strangers and text all my friends. I might even talk on the phone like it’s the 90s. I tend to invite a lot of other people’s energy into my life at this time, maybe you do too because estrogen is peaking and you’re feeling communal and caring and social and you want to bond with others. 

Aside from it being an excellent time to take all your photos and videos now if you’re someone who creates content for your business, or you just want to batch your thirst traps when ovulation hormones make you feel sexy, it’s also a good time to consider your boundaries here. How do you feel when people don’t respond to you for a few days and you enter your luteal phase and suddenly regret all the conversations you started?  Or if you have boundaries around your social media, are you sticking to those in this phase? Of course, you can do whatever you want to do and you make your own rules, but I’m thinking for instance if you’re a business owner, and you typically don’t accept or respond to DMs asking for professional advice, but when you’re feeling like you want more social connection you make exceptions — does that flexibility hurt or help you? And I’m not implying anything with that question, for some people it may feel great, for others who have more of a following it might train people to not respect the boundaries that you put in place. Something to explore.

Ovulation also carries with it full moon energy, illumination, everything becomes visible. How’s your energetic footprint online? Google yourself, do you know what’s out there? How do you feel about what’s out there? Maybe you’ll find your old Livejournal giving off serious emo vibes that you don’t relate to anymore — hopefully you haven’t forgotten the password from 2003. Someone, somewhere is going to google you eventually so you might as well know what’s going to come up.

It’s also a good time for some cord-cutting. Cords are metaphorical connections —the connections we have to others online, the connections we have to our actual devices, our thoughts and interactions and emotions associated with those connections. If you’ve ever seen the movie Donnie Darko, remember the liquid-looking blob that extended from his chest like a tentacle, it connected him to certain things and people, it’s sort of similar to that. That cord is like an electrical wire sending energy back and forth to whatever it’s connected to.

Some of that energy is vibrant, electric, exciting, nourishing, life-giving. Other times it’s soul-sucking, maybe the cord is pulled tightly with lots of tension. You will likely know which end of the spectrum you lean towards when you think about your connections with certain people or apps or devices or tools or whatever.

Cord-cutting is a symbolic act, a conscious ending of a connection so you can open up more space, not necessarily to bring anything new in but maybe space is what you need, space for peace. 

To do this, I like to start by meditating on the connection to the thing I’m trying to separate myself from. What does it look like? What does it feel like in my body? Does it seem slack and inconsequential and cutting it will be easy? Or is it pulled tightly and cutting it will cause it to snap back on you? Where is it connected in your body and how? Does it feel easy to pluck out like a stray eyebrow hair or is it embedded within you like talons in your flesh? 

Knowing how an energetic cord feels in your body and where is helpful in taking care for how you cut it. If you believe in the chakras, maybe that can tell you how to cut it based on where it sits. If it’s in your throat maybe you speak a mantra out loud or speak your truth to someone or something, or if it’s in your heart chakra maybe you can explore a ritual focused on love and compassion, to yourself or the person you’re separating from.

Meditating on it can help personalize the way you do this. But in general, I recommend setting up a devoted space to this ritual, with items that represent yourself and what you’re disconnecting from. You don’t have to do this with literally everything you want to let go of digitally, like you don’t have to hold a ritual for everyone you unfollow — and this is a great time also to curate your feed and get rid of anyone who doesn’t make you feel like the amazing ovulatory goddess or celestial being that you are — but maybe choose something or someone that’s causing you the most grief, because rituals can be energetically expensive and the point of this is to conserve, to create space for more, so choose wisely. So have items that represent you and the other thing, and something to represent your cord — a ribbon, a thread, something that you can tie the two items together with. Speak your intention, internally or out loud, to separate the energetic connection, and be clear about what you want, thank any guides or spirits whose help you asked for, and make the cut, with scissors or a hand motion, you know like a fun karate chop.

This is a very simple way to do it, it can be this simple or it can be as elaborate as you like and informed by the details that you meditated on.

Moving into the second half of your cycle, the luteal phase, this is a good time for more detail-oriented stuff. Deleting all the apps you don’t use or that aren’t good enough for your needs, clearing some energetic space on your phone. You don’t need 10 astrology apps telling you 10 different things about the moon. If you still have co-star, strong recommend to delete that one. You don’t need its abusive push notifications in your life. The founder literally said she likes to troll people on purpose and provides negative predictions to push people to think of worst-case scenarios just to prepare them for the realities of life, which is psychopath behavior. So get rid of co-star, get rid of all the other apps taking up space on your phone that you don’t use.

If you haven’t already unfollowed people or muted energy vampires, go ahead and do that. Get to inbox zero if that’s a goal of yours, unsubscribe from all the random newsletters and email lists you’re on.

The luteal phase is more internal and focused on really honing in on what’s working and what’s not. So as you do these things, think about systems you can put in place to make sure you don’t have to do this decluttering as often. You could schedule a time each week on your calendar to go through your email and mass delete all the promotions, or take a couple hours to hit unsubscribe on everything. Go through your push notifications on your phone and turn off all but the most important ones if notifications are a source of stress for you. I like to set different sound alerts for different people so I know who’s texting me and can decide without having to look at my phone whether it’s something I need to address right away. 

Also one of the most life-changing systems that I’ve put in place for myself is creating a dashboard in Notion for my work and my finances, all the things I look at on a daily basis. Notion is the productivity app that I mentioned before, it’s an app on my phone and on my computer. I spent hours and hours learning and perfecting it and creating the organizational system that works for me, and that might sound like a lot and like it’s overwhelming, but if you love visual organization, if none of your productivity apps are really doing it for you right now, I highly highly recommend checking it out.

You can learn through lots of free resources on YouTube, look up the Second Brain system, there are also very active communities on Reddit and on Facebook which I’ll link in the show notes, and Holisticism also teaches classes like Notion for Babies which is like a 101. If you’re a health coach, I also teach a two-hour class on how to use it for your health coaching business, with templates you can copy for content planning, client databases, workshop creation, and more. I’ll link that in the show notes too. Maybe creating this system is your ritual, you can make it magical if you like, magic and technology can absolutely intersect, this is the most Virgo thing I’ve ever said but spreadsheets can be spiritual too!

Light a candle and ask for help focusing or finding the right systems for you, put crystals around your desk space if you want like selenite to help keep your space energetically clear, cleanse your devices with smoke or sound — set up your space for this organizational activity to feel good and to feel supportive.

Basically, getting organized is the name of the game in the luteal phase. That list that you made in the first half, of all the tech you used and how you’re feeling about it, you got rid of things that didn’t work in the luteal phase, now you’re left with what you want to keep. Of the things you want to keep, how can you make those work even better for you? What will you need to feel really supported by them if they aren’t 100% working for you already?

Now at the tail end of the luteal phase, of the waning moon, just before the new moon is what’s called the Dark Moon phase, when there is no light, we can’t see the moon at all. This is a mysterious time, the end of a cycle, there’s destruction, finality, liberation, vulnerability, bravery. 

How can you apply that to the digital space?

Banishing spells are often done around this time, and I have for you a really creative one from Kat Planchette, who so generously allowed me to share theirs with you. They created this zine called A Modern Witch’s Guide to Surviving the Digital Age, and in it there’s a protection spell for virtual representations of things you’d like to banish. 

They write: 

Often times we run into situations where we banish someone in the physical, IRL realm, but we run into the issue where we have digital photos of the person that we wish to keep for various reasons. Whether it’s screenshots that are of value but contain the name of a person you no longer speak to, or photos that include a person you banished, it’s important to find a way to handle the energetic implications of holding onto these digital mementos. It’s difficult to effectively banish someone if you have bits of them scattered about your digital life like glitter. 

If you are constantly stumbling upon pictures, screenshots, and videos unexpectedly, you are also rehashing old wounds and reinforcing once-severed energetic connections.

I’ve run into many situations in my own life where I’ve been forced to create spells where none existed. My fave is a sigil protection spell that works on my computer. I use sigil magick to keep my digital space cleansed, and to help reinforce banishing spells. 

For this spell, you will need to create a sigil. It’s important you have a quiet space, paper, something to write with, and a candle for later on. Make sure your devices are on Do Not Disturb. I downloaded the drawing app, Procreate, to draw my sigil. You can download the drawing app of your choice, just make sure you’re familiar with it beforehand. The first thing you will need to do is create a personalized sigil for keeping the energy contained within a specific digital space. In this case, we will be using a folder on your computer to contain any photos, videos, documents, and screenshots.

To create the sigil, you will need to write out a sentence spelling out your intention. This spell is to reinforce any of your banishing spells, and to keep you safe from any incorrect energies if you should feel the need to view the contents within the folder you create. You can rephrase that sentence, or write your own.

When making a sigil, the first thing you do is remove any repeated letters and vowels from your sentence. I like to cross them out and write a new line below with the letters that are left. The last step is to combine the letters that are left into a pattern, and to reduce those letters in the pattern until you feel it’s right. I follow my intuition with this. Make sure to take your time and to get lost in the process. This produces the best results.


The next step is to cast your sigil. We will be doing this step a bit differently. Open up your phone and create a new file on the drawing app that you downloaded. At this point, you will want to light your candle. I always like to activate my sigil while focusing on the flame of a candle. Take the final copy of your sigil that you drew on paper. Look into the flame and visualize your sigil. Focus on it and get lost in the design. As you start to feel yourself getting lost in your sigil, start to draw your sigil on your phone in the drawing app that you downloaded, . Once you have drawn your sigil, continue to get lost, focusing on the design you created and your intention. When you feel the moment is right, or for me it’s when the sigil starts to pulse, light your parchment aflame. Your sigil is now charged.

After your charge your sigil, you will need to take the other sigil that you drew on your phone and you will need to save it. If there is an option to add a file name type in random letters and numbers  (think a bitcoin address), save your sigil to your computer in a new folder using random numbers and letters for the folder name as well. This is done so your sigil is never consciously associated with any specific person, situation, or thing when you view it casually scrolling, only the intention that you created it for. If there is a preview photo option, add your sigil as the preview photo for the folder and keep it as such. 

From there, you can add any photos, files, or other digital mementos that you need to banish from your life to your newly created folder. After you add the files to your sigil folder, delete them from other places so you can release stagnant energy and focus on keeping your digital life filled with things that help propel you towards a happy abundant future. 

Delete the sigil from your phone. Restart it. Take a ritual bath in rosewater and restart yourself.

Thank you so much to Kat for sharing that with us, I know that will be helpful for so many people.

And then finally we enter the menstrual phase, the new moon phase. You can probably guess what I’d suggest here, since this is typically a low-energy, rest-focused period.

And yes, rest, rest, rest. Toss your phone into the sea, metaphorically of course. I am resisting the urge to tell you to do a full digital detox because that requires a lot of privilege to be able to be disconnected and unavailable, so instead I encourage you to rest where practical and possible. You may not be able to fully detach yourself from the digital world, but can you take a social media break?

Can you set up an auto-responder on your emails? I get a lot of joy out of setting up an out-of-office email when I’m going on vacation, I also use auto-responders when I just want to set boundaries around my communication. If you have the privilege of being able to choose how you interact with email, I recommend this for sure. Something simple like letting people know the window in which you’ll get back to them, I really appreciate receiving an auto-response that clearly lays out what I should expect — I’ve gotten people saying they will get back to me within 72 hours, up to a week, whatever, also I’ve gotten a bulleted list of responses to commonly asked questions, which frees up the sender from responding if the question has been answered there. Get creative with it.

You can also do this on your phone. On iPhone at least, it now has different options for Do Not Disturb — you can set up different parameters for work, sleep, and other focus options. You can silence all notifications but make exceptions for certain people, you can schedule it to be on at certain times of the day, you can also do an auto-reply.

If those aren’t options, try just a few minutes of being in your room without a phone or computer, or take a walk around the block without your phone. Let people know where you are and what you’re doing if you need to, but just go somewhere without an internet connection. I don’t know about you but for me I can physically feel the difference.

If you can’t take a break from it all, try some grounding practice to help anchor you inside of it. Imagine the space you are inhabiting, the real estate of the virtual place you’re connected to that you want protection from. It doesn’t have to be a scary place, it can even be places you enjoy spending time in the digital realm that you want to continue enjoying. But imagine physically inhabiting that space. Wandering through it with a protective bubble around you, kind of like those inflatable balls that you can get inside of, like a hamster ball. Or imagine a light enveloping you, keeping you safe. Meditating on that visualization, saying “I do not claim any energy that doesn’t belong to me” or “I release any energy that isn’t my own.” Then focus on how you want to feel in that space, think about your intention for being there.

And speaking of intention, this leads into a new cycle, so now what do you want to call in? I love digital collages for creating visual intentions. Visual magic. Sarah Faith Gottesdiener has been doing this for years online, you can see her work on her Modern Women website, she shares her collages with her tarotscopes. I know there are others who do this but that’s where I first came across the idea that we could create a spell in this way. Like a vision board, but less clutter. 

I tried vision boarding before but I couldn’t get down with it because it felt wasteful, and also I felt like even if I accomplished everything on it, I would get some sort of cosmic punishment for throwing it out when I was done with it. So I got into the idea of making a digital version, but it wasn’t untl I saw Sarah’s collages that I went from like, the live laugh love type vision boarding with inspirational phrases and magazine ad type images, to more symbolic images and honestly it looked a hell of a lot cooler. 

Plus with digital versions you can use them as your desktop or phone background to be reminded of your spell every time you use your devices. 

Okay, so that’s cyclical digital hygiene for you, my friends. I hope you enjoyed this episode, I hope it brings you more peace and less stress in your life, and I’d also love to hear about your energetic protection practices too, so feel free to reach out to me on Instagram and let me know, I love hearing from you.

I’ve got a very exciting episode for you next week with a very special guest, I wanted to pee my pants when she reached out to me, so stay tuned for that. I love you, thank you for being here, you’re the best.