Did you know that healing crystals are energy absorbers and transmitters? Just like other energy transmitters, crystals are very affected by their surrounding environment. Whenever you bring a new crystal home, it will be full of other people's energy. That energy may be positive, negative or a combination of both.

That's why it's super important that you clean your new healing crystals as soon as you bring them home. It's also a good idea to clean them every couple of months depending on how often you work with them. Healing crystals are very hard working, and it's important to empty their energy every once in a while.

Now that we know why it's important to clean your crystals, I'm going to show how to cleanse your crystals, how to re-energize them and then how to program them.

When you bring your new crystals home you should cleanse them as soon as possible. There are many different ways to cleanse your crystal. I like to use store bought crystal cleaners (a mixture of essential oils in a spray or dropper).

Please don't buy a commercial glass cleaner! When I say store bought I mean from a new age store - not those harsh supermarket cleaners for glass crystal.

Add a few drops of the cleaner to a bowl of water and put your crystals in the bowl overnight. Only do this with crystals that are not friable (soluble in water). If you have crystals such as selenite, don't put them anywhere near water. Instead you can give them a light mist with the cleanser. Or you could use "intention cleansing" where you hold the crystal and imagine the universe cleansing it and giving it love.

I prefer not to use salt to clean my crystals as I have found that it can damage them. Every now and then I like to put my crystals out into fresh rain water - but not the friable ones! Crystals love a good bath and rainwater contains minerals that is very cleansing for them. Instead of using salt you can use salt rock crystals which are great crystal cleansers. Just sit the salt crystals next to other crystals and they will clean your crystals of any negative energy. They'll also clean the air of negative ions from electronic equipment. Citrine is a self-cleansing crystal which will also clean any other crystals in it's vicinity.

Generally putting your crystals in water will re-charge them as well as cleaning them, but it's good to put them out in either sunlight and/or moonlight to give them an extra boost. Just be mindful that some crystals such as amethyst will fade in sunlight (although this won't affect their power).

Now we come to the most important part of crystal cleansing - programming. Your crystals will still honor you with positive energy even if you don't program them, but by programming their purpose, they will be extra powerful.

Most crystals have certain qualities that lend themselves to different purposes. There are plenty of great books written on the subject, but to give you a couple of examples: citrine is great for money, rose quartz is wonderful for love, selenite wands are great for connecting to spirit. Once you decide what you want to use your new crystal for, all you need to do to program it is:

1) Hold it gently in your hand

2)Tell it exactly what you want it to do for you. When I say "exactly" I mean it! If you want it to attract money, then you need to visualize money coming to you, literally immersing yourself with all of the wonderful feelings of having that money. Bathe your crystal in your positive feelings of what you wish it to do.

3) Finally give your crystal love and welcome it into your new home

4) Find a special spot in your house just for that crystal.

As you can see, cleaning and programming your new crystals is very easy to do. Once you follow these simple steps your crystals will be powered up and ready to bring amazing things into your life.

If you'd like to learn more about simple rituals that can help create an abundant life why not check out: www.minirituals.com

Author's Bio: 

Cate Sonora is passionate about sharing tips and tools for manifesting dreams. Her website http://www.MiniRituals.com has simple daily rituals that help to attract health, love and wealth.