Everything You Need To Know About Your Aura

Spotify surprised its listeners with a new feature called your Audio Aura in its annual launch of Spotify Wrapped 2021, where the streaming platform lovingly reads your aura based on your listening habits. (Saw a bunch of Polaroid-style pics of blue-green blobs being described as “wistful”? That was what that was all about.) If you’re not well-versed in the esoteric side of things, you may have a few questions about what an aura is. There are a lot of layers to auras, literally, and knowing the ins and outs can help you stay aware of your energy, manifest quality company, and attract good vibes.

Simply put, auras are energetic energy fields that physically encompass all living (and nonliving) things, including humans, animals, plants, and yes, even your beloved cell phone. Think of them as your vibe, or like a natural radio frequency: Depending on your energy and moods, your auras flip through different channels, meaning your aura changes colors.

If this is sounding too woo-woo for your liking, it’s probably appropriate to note that even science can support the fact that everything emits different energies. While both cell phones and auras use electromagnetic waves to send signals, your aura is an electromagnetic force that is always surrounding you and is constantly responding to your thoughts, moods, and overall spiritual health.

Understanding the spiritual significance of your aura can help you gain intel on things like your relationships or deeper parts of yourself. “Your aura can act as an interior compass, one that tells you and honors how you are feeling emotionally, mentally, physically, and spiritually. It gives you permission to be you and feel what you feel,” meditation leader Olivia Panella tells Bustle. “Knowing your aura means you know who you are and how your everyday experiences, interactions, and exchanges shape you and your existence.”

Ready to read your vibe? Continue on for six things you need to know about auras.

Your Aura Has 7 Layers

There are seven different layers of your aura that are consistent with the seven chakras in your body. They’re also called the subtle bodies. Your first layer is called the the etheric layer; it’s the layer that’s nearest to the physical body, and it’s related to your physical health, pain, and pleasure. The second layer above that is called the emotional layer and is connected to your moods. Next is your mental layer, which relates to your mindset and judgments. The fourth layer is the astral layer, which connects your physical and spiritual body. Next is the etheric template, which represents your persona and identity. The sixth body is called the celestial layer, which is related to your enlightenment journey. The final layer is called the spiritual or ketheric template, and connects to your connection to the Divine, the universe, or whatever your spiritual beliefs entail.

Your Aura’s Colors Reflect Your Physical, Emotional, & Spiritual Health

Emotions are hardly black and white — they’re complex experiences that are often accompanied by other feelings at once. Your aura behaves in a similar fashion, so it won’t ever just be a single color, but an array of different hues depending on the state of your physical, emotional, and spiritual health. For example, a red aura represents passion, power, and ego-centered matters like fear or anger. According to Panella, your aura changes and adjusts to your mindset and overall spiritual health.

“It’s a great thing to look at it as the aura expands or retracts according to your reactions. If you think anything bad or ‘negative,’ are judgmental about a person, your aura will retract due to these low vibrational thoughts, and the aura of the person you are thinking about will also decrease due to this ‘negative projection’,” says Panella. “On the other hand, when you think open, supportive, loving, non-judgmental thoughts, both your Aura and the other persons will expand brilliantly outward.”

Your Aura Can Help You Attract & Manifest

Because auras are our natural energetic frequencies, they can attract different energy based on what frequency you’re tuned into. Have you noticed how some folks mesh so well together? It may be that their auras attract each other. If your aura is vibrant and welcoming, you’re likely to manifest people that emit that same energy.

According to the law of attraction, like attracts like — if you’re jovial and optimistic, you’re likely to attract the same energy. Being that your aura is the energy of your vibrational frequency, it plays an essential role in what you attract and manifest.

You Can Read Your Aura With A Photograph

Curious to know what your aura looks like? There are different ways to view your unique frequency including Kirlian photography, sometimes referred to as aura photography. This technique uses a plasma photo plate and a high-voltage insulator to capture your energy field. If you’re up for a supernatural science experiment, you can try your hand at aura photography at home — you will need a few acrylic plates and a high voltage driver board, though — or, you can get your aura professionally photographed and read.

The Size Of Your Aura Reflects Your Emotional State

Your emotions and energy levels ebb and flow, so your aura changes just as well. If you’re feeling down on your luck or have been extremely stressed, the color of your aura will mirror your emotions. Luckily, you’re not married to a single aura color for the rest of your life and it can adapt to the natural shifts in energy and mood.

“Our aura can fluctuate not only in color but in size as well,” says Panella. “It can decrease and retract closer to the body when the aura is not ‘healthy’ or ‘feeling good’ — this could come from feeling mental congestion — feeling sadness, anger, insecurity, doubtful, agitated, or during a time of transition. Everything we experience and partake in can affect our aura and can be stored in this energetic system,” explains Panella.

How To Cleanse Your Aura

Bad days are inevitable, and so is having a dull or intense aura. Thankfully, auras are fluid just like the everchanging moods and thoughts, and you possess the power to cleanse your energies for those off days when you haven’t felt aligned with your highest self.

“To cleanse your aura, you can take an intentional and wonderous bath ceremony, which can include flowers, candles, and healing crystals, then soak in the bath and release all that is weighing you down, visualize the bath cleansing you from these things,” says Panella. “You can also smudge yourself and your home, using ethical white sage (or alternatives like burning a DIY mugwort bundle or use sage spray) and with intention allow the smoke to cover your physical being and then go into every room in your house and let the smoke clear the energy from the space. Remember to work with a daily intention, mantra, or affirmation,” explains Panella.