Cleansing

There are many methods of cleansing and I suggest you do a lot of research and small scale experimentation before you give up and choose to not cleanse at all. A general trend in cleansing is to ground yourself, which I find really important. I use a tree grounding technique where I imagine myself with roots pulling energy up from the earth as well as leaves that send energy back down. Another trend that I've noticed is the use of four elements, however I prefer to use five. Five?! That's right, not a lot of people think about the fifth element and it has many names that it goes by: akasha, essence, soul, life energy, etc. I prefer to call the fifth element either akasha or essence. :) It's pretty easy to work with essence since it's what makes everything up. For me the point of grounding is to allow myself to work from my essence with my environment instead of getting carried away by the other elements or my environment, which happens a lot in cooking. >_< I'll go ahead and explain how I ground and cleanse as long as you remember that this is something that I came up with through trial and error for myself. Don't feel like you have to do it my way, figure out what's best for you!
To ground I stand in a quiet place with natural lighting in comfortable clothes. I place my feet shoulder width apart, move my arms a few inches away from my body and face my palms forward. The tricky part for me is to slow my breathing and to keep it slow, as well as breathing deeply but not deep enough for me to get all dizzy and pass out! Relax your shoulders and focus on your spine. Imagine it as the core of your trunk, and imagine your trunk being your abdomen and legs. Move your awareness down until you reach your roots, which I assume are at different places for everybody. My roots start somewhere around my knees and when I reach them I push the air in my chest out as I push my energy down through my roots. I imagine the cool earth around my roots, the soil, water and rocks that make it up becoming aware of me. Push your energy only as far as is comfortable for you, I say this because when I push my energy too far I become the opposite of grounded and have trouble keeping my balance. If you could imagine what a plant feels when it's uprooted then you could imagine exactly what it feels like to push your energy to far. Once you've reached your comfort level going down breath in bringing your awareness back up through your roots, trunk, and up through your shoulders into your branches. The energy following your awareness back up trough your body will feel different than the energy you send down which may seem a little sketchy but once you experience it you'll understand that it's not. Then I send the energy taken from my leaves down into the earth.
The energy I draw up from the earth helps me expand my awareness through my branches growing while staying firmly in place through my roots and remembering who I am opposed to the world around me through my trunk. I usually stop when I feel, well for a lack of better words grounded and purified. grounding like this everyday helps remove spiritual baggage.
Some people use meditation to remove emotional baggage, but what I do is write. Mostly I write poetry but I write a lot of journal entries too! Free writing is how I reflect and sometimes when I'm really mad at someone or about something I write a letter to it/them. Then I just sit that letter out where I can see it everyday and let my emotions slowly settle. When I've settled down I draw a red X at the top of the paper and write a new letter apologizing and explaining that I'm sending those emotions away from me to the light. I love free writing. ^^ It's awesome! Other forms of cleansing include bathing, and meditation.
To cleanse and to clean a room are two different things, but I can't have one without the other. Unclean places always feel frustrated and absent minded to me. :/ So, before I even start cleansing I spend time decluttering. When I cleanse I light my sandalwood-rose incense because that's just a scent that I can really relate to. For me, incense is both fire and air, but from a lot of what I've read incense is usually considered strictly air, but whatever, magick is about doing what feels right to you. :) After that I take my salt water and spray salt water everywhere! I think that's my most favorite part, haha. Oh, I also try to have only two opening's in the room. For instance if I was cleansing my room I'd have a door and a window or two windows open because then you can start at one end of the room, and kind of shuffle uneeded stuff through the window. Don't be rude about it though! Remember your manners when handling energy and stuff 'cause it remembers and can come back to bite you in the ass. :P I'll let you guys figure out how to be nice though.
I think that's about it, grounding, emotional, spiritual, and physical cleansing. Sounds about right. Now ya'll come back now you here? Haha, couldn't help myself, my  country side needs to romp sometimes. Bye bye  now! :)