An Interview with Tess Whitehurst

1. Your new Good Energy Book focuses on good energy within the self, while your first book (Magical Housekeeping) focused on promoting good energy within your home. What prompted you to tackle the topic of personal "good energy?"

While performing rituals and arranging my house in auspicious ways are really powerful activities and important aspects of my spiritual practice, the truth is, the energetic realm is all around us all the time, no matter where we are or what we are doing. Plus, the state of one’s own personal energy field has everything to do with one’s outlook, health, and life conditions. So, when we consciously live in both realms (physical and energetic) simultaneously, we can calibrate and harmonize our personal energy and the energy around us every day, on a regular basis. Years ago, when I discovered and started working with the ideas and practices in The Good Energy Book, my life, which had previously been characterized by a fair amount of anxiety and depression, changed profoundly—I began to feel consistently empowered and positive. Naturally, I wanted to share the practices that helped me get there.

2. Why is inviting good energy into our lives necessary? Isn’t it enough to have a positive outlook?

It really depends on the person. I find that when someone is naturally intuitive, compassionate, and spiritually tuned-in, that person is not only very energetically open, but also has a lot of spiritual power hovering around in his or her energy field. For people like us, inviting in the type of energy we desire, releasing the type of energy we don’t desire, and setting up good energetic boundaries can make all the difference between a good mood and a bad mood, or an exhilarating life experience and a disastrous one.

Of course, discord—and really this entire life experience—is more illusion than it is real. To illustrate what I mean, think of yesterday: where did it go? It’s nowhere. Like a hologram or a dream, it has dissolved and disappeared more completely than a cloud in a clear summer sky. Still, while we are in this present incarnation, our feelings and life conditions definitely seem real. When we are able to consciously connect with the realm of truth (AKA the Divine/God/Goddess/Love), and when we direct our intention toward the feelings and conditions we’d like to experience, we can flow with the illusion rather than against it, and perceive it in a much more pleasant and enjoyable way.

To bottom line it, the practices in The Good Energy Book can help us ground and protect our energy, regularly keep our minds focused and our outlooks positive, and more consistently manifest things like prosperity, synchronicity, and success.

3. The Good Energy Book includes a few chapters on clearing the clutter from our homes and the spaces around us. Why is this an important first step?

Everything is connected, and our outer environments are mirrors of our inner environments and vice versa. So you might say that clutter clearing is the panacea: it can clear any sort of block you can imagine—mental, physical, emotional, or spiritual. And I love this, because what could be simpler? If you have clutter, stop what you’re doing and clear it! Your life will naturally begin to meet you half way. What’s more, when we embark on any sort of creative spiritual work or magical practice, clearing clutter opens the floodgates to our success by removing anything that would get in the way of what we want to manifest. Metaphysically speaking, I see it as an important first action, like clearing the table before you set it, or sweeping the stage before a performance.

4. You also include a glossary of helpful ingredients, from gems to flowers to essential oils. Why are these things important to the cleansing process?

While I believe that intention is the only mandatory ingredient for any sort of energy work, there are a number of natural ingredients that can both help anchor our intentions, and lend their own unique vibrations and essences into the mix. With the glossary, I wanted to give the reader a quick reference guide to creating his or her own unique clearing and blessing practices. I feel that this is important because every person and every situation is different, and because creating a practice based on experience and experimentation is more powerful (and fun!) than simply following someone else’s instructions.

5. What do you most hope readers will take away from The Good Energy Book?

A really long time ago, when I was in the middle of an especially challenging time, my best friend Sedona provided the trigger that turned my momentum around by saying slowly and emphatically over the phone, "Hey, listen: everything is okay." After I took a deep breath and let myself believe her, I began to remember that I was not just okay, but also empowered—that I could personally affect positive change in my life. I would like for The Good Energy Book to provide that same trigger for readers, and to be something they can come back to again and again to help them take back their personal authority, stand in their strength, establish positive boundaries, feel safe in their lives, and generally remember that they have the power to create the conditions they desire. And, in turn, since everything is connected and everything is energy, I would like for this positivity to spread outward like ripples across a pond, healing and blessing everything and everyone in its wake.