Good Vibes and Protecting Your Energy: The Paradox of Purity
“Good vibes only” and “Protect your energy” have become common mantras in popular culture. I have embraced this language myself as I vibe check by making sure I’m aware of my internal thoughts and emotions. I protect my energy by drawing boundaries based on how I’m affected by my physical and social environment. I understand what it’s like to have to check myself and cut people off. While setting boundaries is important, it can also be a tricky practice. As I thought more about these processes, I found myself connecting them to more widespread notions of purity and purification. I also found myself thinking about the individual and social consequences of purity and purification practices. I highlight them in this post.
Purity seems to be quite common. It’s a practice that exists across religions and spiritual traditions. Purity’s presence across time and culture suggests it may be something common to humanity. The invocation of purity also brings up certain tensions in social life though. It’s a powerful spiritual tool that support grounding and clarity, but relationally, it can become the basis of our moral judgments. Using purity in that way can be isolating and constricting. One of my early introductions to purity as a moral value is my mother telling me: “Cleanliness is next to Godliness” (especially when I didn’t feel like cleaning up).
Here’s some of the ways purity shows up across some religious and spiritual traditions (and even in secular contexts):
In Judaism, there is the practice of mikveh, a ritual bath used in religious conversion and other moments of spiritual transition. Christianity has Baptism as a ritual purification cleansing sin, a call to be pure of heart and mind. Historical expressions of purity include the Puritans and ascetic traditions. In Buddhism, there is the call to be mindful of thoughts and engage in right thinking. Meditation is a ritual supporting mental clarity and, in turn, right thinking. Islam has Wudu, the ritual washing of the body prior to prayer. Ramadan is a month of purification through fasting. In Yoga, saucha is a niyama, an important personal ethic that emphasizes internal and external cleanliness. Smudging and sweat lodges are modes of purification in Native American religions. Finally, in contemporary spirituality and New Age thinking, choosing one’s thoughts and emotions carefully are important. They are energy vibrations shaping experiences people attract and how they affect others. Even in more secular language, people casually use “vibes” when evaluating situations, spaces, or relationships.
Across these examples, purity operates in a variety of ways that support clarity. Cleanliness is associated with renewal, devotion, discipline, and holiness. Purification emerges through awareness and choice. Both body and the Earth are involved in purification that supports spiritual connection. In turn, clearing our energy supports us being able to use it to create and live a fulfilling and meaningful life. Through purity and purification, these traditions offer us ways to be in the world but not of it.
Purity can be used as a spiritual tool of discernment, which can help us get clear on our values and live more intentionally. It further supports us in being aware of our attention and how we use our energy or life force. In turn, we can acknowledge harmful beliefs that we may need to release while also reaffirming or learning and cultivating supportive beliefs. Purity doesn’t have to be about perfection, but it can certainly help us (re)discover ourselves.
One way I use purification in my own life by practicing meditation to be mindful about my thoughts and emotions as well as my physical and social environment. It’s helped with deep self-exploration, allowing me to identify values, habits, and then make choices on how to be more intentional in word and deed. This practice has also increased my awareness of how I’m affected by and affect the social world. I notice how the people I’m with or the activities I engage in affect me and how my actions affect others. In this way, I use purity as a tool to exercise some agency over what I allow to shape me and how I engage with the social world. I’ve been lately reminding myself, “As the world spirals, center yourself.” I appreciate my purification practices and find them empowering because they help me make choices that support me in being centered and at my best.
At the same time, purity can have a shadow side. It can become isolating and facilitate withdrawal. Purity can be used to create hard boundaries when enacted blindly with fear and distrust. In turn, hard boundaries have the potential to dehumanize people who are reduced to their differences from us. It can be deployed as a tool to verify and protect moral identities like religious or spiritual ones. I have used it in judgmental ways myself, noticing moments when self-awareness gave way to moral superiority.
Earlier in life, I used Christianity to engage in judgment towards others based on their beliefs and actions. Then, when I was exploring and embracing a less religious, more “spiritual” orientation toward the sacred and divine, I noticed I would use “protecting my energy” uncritically. In those moments, I was often retreating into comfort rather than remaining open to insight. I’d moved from self-awareness, being responsible for myself, and finding clarity to embracing hard moral judgment that made me feel comfortable about who I thought I was, confining me to a comfort zone. Over time, I’ve learned that balance matters: maintaining one’s center while staying willing to encounter difference, or at least to tolerate the discomfort that difference can bring. While it is wise to limit engagement with people or environments that bring out our worst traits or cause us harm, growth requires a horizon wider than our comfort zone.
On a group level, purity and purification processes can have positive effects on a collective level. Purification rituals performed by groups can help establish trust and encourage social bonding. We often see this in religious and spiritual contexts as in examples I mentioned earlier. These group rituals can also provide emotional release in safe spaces. In some ways, group therapy can be thought of as a purification ritual where a creative space is opened for people to work through the shame of difficult experiences. Purification of thought can occur when groups come together to rethink cultural values that have been found to result in undue harm. In these ways, group purification can have positive benefits for the individuals within these groups and maybe even create group cohesion.
Likewise, extreme implementations of purity or blindly invoking purity on a societal level shows up as a shadow through religious intolerance, religious wars, and pushes for theocracies like the Crusades, Christian nationalism, Buddhist Power Force (BSS), among others. We can also view it in intra-religious violence like that between Sunni and Shia Muslims. Calls for religious and spiritual warfare represent shadow expressions of purification. Further, although, I mainly focus on purification in the ritualistic sense of connecting with the sacred and divine, purification and purity practices also show up in secular spaces, especially in relation to nationalism and even family at times.
Sociologist Michèle Lamont’s research explores how individuals use social categories to maintain a coherent identity. People use cultural categories to draw mental boundaries between ourselves and other individuals and groups of people. These boundaries can be used to help people create and justify social hierarchies. People use a variety of categories to draw boundaries against others. She finds that moral boundaries can be drawn along religious or secular. While they have the potential to be problematic, they need not be. It depends on their strength and how they are put to use.
In the case of religion or spirituality, a focus on purity can slide into a belief that one’s boundaries are divinely sanctioned and carry a sacred duty to uphold them. This can foster an uncritical acceptance of exclusions that feel protective but may unnecessarily deny others access to important opportunities or experiences. Indeed, we may potentially be denying ourselves access to human knowledge that could be beneficial for our growth and transformation. These risks invite important questions: who decides what counts as pure or impure? Under what conditions are these definitions made? And what are their consequences? Asking such questions helps see how purity is often blurry and complicated and how it is managed institutionally.
Purity can offer discernment and clarity when used as an internal tool but that discernment doesn’t necessarily have to lead to domination. We can use that clarity for decision-making that we feel is in alignment with our values and thereby allows us to act in integrity. Yet, when taken to an extreme or blindly wielded, notions of purity and purification can lead to oppression and domination. I’m not sure what the balance is, but it’s definitely worth considering the paradox. Purity has real value as a living practice but gets dangerous as a fixed identity.
In short, purity abounds. But, how do we practice it in healthy ways? I invite us all to consider whether we could use a bit more purity in our lives to embrace quiet and find optimal direction. At the same time, we are wise to consider how to use it with humility and porousness, while being conscious of our center. As we check the vibes and protect our energy, how do we craft our inner world and hold our center while remaining attentive to the consequences of our practices. As for me, I strive to use purity in ways that support me in returning to love, embracing wisdom, and walking in integrity. There are loving ways to be in the world but not of it - a common theme across religious and spiritual traditions that asks us not to get so caught up in the world that we lose ourselves. And we can use purity to do so if we choose that.
Author’s Note:
As someone exploring both spiritual practice and social research, I wrote this from a place of curiosity, reflection, and ongoing learning. These reflections on purity emerge from my own experiences as well as patterns I’ve observed in the world around me.
Rather than offering definitive answers, I hope this essay invites you to notice if and how purity shows up in your life - where it may support clarity, and where it may prematurely narrow what remains open or close you off to opportunity.
