The kitchen is often called the heart of the home. It’s where we feed our bodies with food and feed our hearts with family love. From this perspective, it’s easy to see why a messy kitchen and cluttered pantry can have a huge impact on the energy of a home. A stressed-out heart can wreak havoc on the rest of the body, so too goes a stressful kitchen. Keeping the kitchen tidy and filled with uplifting energy allows the kitchen to pump supportive energy throughout the home.
Keep reading to learn how to keep kitchen energy healthy and flowing:
- Preparing yourself for kitchen organization and cooking
- Energy blackholes and magnets in the kitchen and how to address them
- Using crystals in the kitchen
Set Your Intentions Before Organizing or Working in Your Kitchen
This step is so easy to skip, and yet it can change your whole perspective of approaching cleaning or doing a big project in a room (like cooking a feast and cleaning up after).
Kitchen Intention Setting:
- Quiet your mind. Grab a piece of rainbow fluorite to help with clarity and decision-making.
- Stand in your kitchen, specifically in the area you’ll work in, like the entry of the pantry if you’re clearing it out.
- Envision the space in its cleaned and organized state. Imagine how it all looks. You are looking for the items you use the most, where do your eyes and hand naturally go to find those things.
- Announce how you want the space to function. Use descriptive keywords if they come to mind, like alphabetized, eye level, calm, fancy, casual … whatever calls to you.
- Make notes and even map out how you were using the cleaned space. These notes will become the blueprint for your cleaning.
- Then clear the energy of the kitchen with your favorite energy clearing technique (sage smoke, singing bowls, hand-clapping, etc.) and speak your intention that “my kitchen with feel like [the keywords you identified above].”
Today I used this organization intention technique with my friend Lauren, the owner of an adorable furniture boutique. She sent a call out for supportive vibes as she worked to reorganize her backstock filling her garage. She didn’t know where to start. I popped over with some rainbow fluorite in hand.
When I asked what she wanted from the result of organizing the space, we quickly came up with a short yet powerful list: “organized, calm, totally works for her, and walkable.” Clearing the space with a singing bowl and setting that intention, the space and her energy were noticeably lighter. The task became a choice and opportunity, not a chore. As she said, it created the moment where you are “energized by the opportunity to create more of what you want and less of what you don’t want.”
Energy Magnets and Blackholes
Beware of what lurks behind the pantry door. The pantry and area under the sink are two magnets for chaos. Remember that negative and stagnant energy loves corners and the neglected spaces of the home. Clearing out these areas regularly with energy clearing and organization can greatly improve the energy flow of the home. Also note that, as I covered in my Bathroom Feng Shui article, the kitchen sink is another black hole of energy. For this reason, you may want to invest in a kitchen sink strainer or cover.
A Cluttered Pantry is a Cluttered Mind
Follow these steps to start clearing your kitchen’s space — and keeping it that way.
- Research! There are countless philosophies and tips for how to organize your pantry. I like this list from Housebeautiful.com and there are many more online. Whichever method you use, test it against the space you envisioned. Try to find the closest match to what your mind created for the space.
- Get yourself in the mindset. Use the intention-setting exercise from above.
- Pull everything out. Take stock of what you have and get rid of expired and unwanted items.
- Clean the space thoroughly while empty. Sort through dry goods, clean out wire shelving, etc.
- Group before putting back. Here is where you personalize how you want to access the items. Use the strategy that works for you. Consider: What do you use the most? What’s only used for certain special uses? What categories make sense for you? (By meal type? Use? Categories like oils and fats?)
- Place items back in the pantry in a system that works for you. One method would be by use: high-use items at the easiest to reach levels, next level gets placed on the shelves above and below, and least used go on the highest and lowest shelves. This is one of so many options. Follow your intuition and your vision of how you were using the cleared space. Place the items with the soonest expiring dates towards the front of the shelf.
- Expired items? If you notice you have items that you keep letting expire or keep forgetting you have, consider 1) not buying it again or 2) moving it to towards eye-level shelves so it’s harder to ignore.
- Schedule your next review. Make note on your calendar for your next review and make a habit of a refreshing (remove expired items and tidy up) on a regular schedule. Consistent maintenance is key to keeping stagnant energy from accumulating.
- Hire a professional organizer. It might seem a bit frivolous, but you could pick up some very useful tips for not only organizing your kitchen and pantry but keeping it organized.
Best Crystals for a Happy Kitchen
Because the kitchen is the heart of the home, it’s said to correspond to the heart chakra. Green stones and crystals are therefore especially useful in the kitchen, to enhance the heart energy and maintaining harmony in relationships and matters of the heart in this central space of the home.
Healing Crystals for Your Kitchen:
- Moss agate. This is my favorite stone in my kitchen. It’s a stone for farmers and agriculture, which lends itself well to the cooking area. It’s a calming green stone, so also great for kitchen stresses. Tree agate is another option.
- Amethyst. Transmutes negative energy into positive.
- Fluorite. Great if you struggle with deciding what to cook or make big decisions at the kitchen table.
- Green aventurine. Soothing heart energy, healing the heart, and generally promoting harmony.
- Sodalite. Known for benefiting group dynamics and communication, it’s a great addition to your kitchen or dining table.
Note that you can also orient the kitchen based on principles of Feng Shui, including emphasizing the kitchen’s Bagua Map position in your home. For example, a kitchen located in the health and family area would benefit from stones in blues and greens. If the location clashes with the use of the room as a kitchen, you will want to still represent the Bagua Map element in the kitchen, and possibly work with a Feng Shui expert for a personalized solution.
With your mind’s eye and some crystals in hand, you’ll be ready to keep your home, kitchen, and pantry organized and filled with healthy kitchen energy.