Accepting Your Darkness Is Part of Accepting Yourself
Episode 21 of Wellness Me Up — Wellness Me Up Diary Entry
with Healer & Energetic Cleanser Empress Sparkle
Written and hosted by Amanda Reece, founder of Wellness Me Up.
You don't stop the negativity coming in. You let it out. Empress Sparkle is a healer and energetic cleanser here to talk about energy, darkness, judgment, soul ties, and why accepting yourself — all of yourself — is where wellness actually begins.
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Who Is Empress Sparkle?
Empress Amy Sparkle is a healer and energetic cleanser based in the UK who does something she describes simply as fighting against darkness. She works primarily in spiritual wellness and mental health — two things she believes go so deeply hand in hand that you genuinely cannot separate them.
We talked for half an hour before hitting record and I already knew this was going to be something good. My brain was lit the fuck up by so many parts of our conversation.
You Don't Block the Negativity. You Release It.
One of Empress's clients kept saying she needed to stop letting the negativity in. And Empress stopped her.
No. You don't stop letting it in. You start letting the light in. And you let the negativity out.
That distinction matters so much. Because so many of us have been taught to suppress. To suck it up. To put on the mask and push through. And all that does is let the negativity build up inside us with nowhere to go.
Empress teaches a technique — find a quiet place, bring up your white light, breathe out all the darkness, form it into a ball like a baseball and launch it as far away from yourself as you can. You don't have to cry. You don't have to get angry. You just have to find a way to release it.
This one resonated with me so hard. I had just been out with one of my nieces practicing baseball — showing her how to choke up on the bat, how to get into your stance, how to hover over the plate. And that feeling of the bat making contact with the ball? The vibration that runs through you? There is nothing like it. So when Empress described launching that negativity out like a baseball... I felt that in my whole body.
Holding it in is not strength. It's just a slower kind of damage.
The Eight Frequencies Nobody Talks About
Most people talk about the seven chakras. Empress works with eight — the seven earth chakras plus what she calls the soul chakra. And she believes we hold so much of our mental health in these energy centres.
The solar plexus — the yellow chakra — is where anxiety lives. It's where we feel our nervous system breaking down first. That's not a coincidence. That's the body communicating through energy.
This is exactly why spiritual wellness and mental health go hand in hand for Empress. They are the same conversation happening in different languages.
Soul Ties and Energy Vampires
I've heard about energy vampires before — people who drain you. But Empress added a layer I hadn't considered. When someone is draining your light... they're not just taking. They're also putting their darkness into you.
That buzzing feeling after spending time with certain people. The irritability that comes out of nowhere. The exhaustion that doesn't make sense. It might not just be that they took something from you. It might be that they left something behind.
Empress can see these soul ties during her energy cleansing sessions. She can actually see what's attached and where it's coming from. And that tells her exactly what direction the healing needs to go.
And just so we're clear — she also pointed out that she and I now have a soul tie. And from both sides it is absolutely positive energy. I'll take it. 😄
She Doesn't Always Tell People Everything She Sees
This one stopped me.
When Empress does a tarot reading at the start of working with someone she doesn't share everything she sees. Not because she's withholding. But because she knows some people aren't ready to receive it yet.
They're not ready to hold accountability for what's being shown. They're not at the stage where that information will help rather than harm.
This is the self-awareness that separates someone who truly holds space from someone who just says what they see. Knowing when to speak and when to wait. Knowing when someone needs the truth and when they need a little more time to get there.
She watches. She feels. And she waits until the person is actually ready to hear it.
She Got on a Train
This was the moment in this episode where I felt it in my whole chest.
One of Empress's clients messaged her three months into their work together. Empress's first thought when she saw the message was that something had gone wrong. That she'd been activated somehow.
Instead the message said... I got on a train.
This client had severe social anxiety from a traumatic experience. She hadn't been able to do something as simple as get on a train. And three months in — earlier than Empress expected — she woke up feeling light, did her meditation, packed up her son, and just got on.
She didn't even get off at a destination. She just rode it there and back because her three year old loved watching the countryside go by.
Empress got a little emotional telling this story. And honestly same.
Because that IS it. Not some dramatic transformation. Just a mum and her little boy on a train watching the countryside because she finally could.
Celebrate the Mini Victories. Actually Stop and Celebrate Them.
Empress said something about this that I want everyone to sit with.
We are conditioned from childhood to move straight to the next thing. Baby crawls for the first time and within ten seconds we're putting them back on all fours to do it again. We don't let the moment breathe. We don't let the victory land.
And we do the same thing to ourselves in healing. Okay did that, what's next? Okay boundary set, moving on. Okay breakthrough, let's keep going.
But what if you just... stopped. And sat in it for a minute. And said holy shit I actually did that.
That integration is part of the healing. Letting the wins actually land in your body. Giving yourself the high five. Not rushing past the moment that proves you've changed.
The WTF Wheel Question: What's Something You Used to Judge People For That You Totally Get Now?
The wheel went somewhere really honest on this one.
Empress said cutting ties with family. She used to genuinely not understand how someone could walk away from family — even alive family. And now having done it herself she completely gets it.
I jumped in with the same. I was raised with the belief that family is everything. You stay. You have their back. You don't leave. And I used to judge people who did.
And then I walked away from my own enmeshed family. And I understood.
We also reflected on the blood is thicker than water quote during this conversation. Yes blood is thicker than water. But water is what you can actually survive on. Neither of us came up with that — it's just something that landed between us and felt really true.
Judgment Is Darker Than Fear
This was a really meaningful thought from Empress that sat with me long after we stopped recording.
Fear is actually useful. Fear keeps you safe. The fears we have exist largely to protect us.
But judgment? Judgment is darkness. Because most of the time when we judge someone else we're judging them for behaviors we have somewhere in ourselves that we've managed to keep hidden.
That's not comfortable to hear. It's also true.
Stay curious instead. When you see something that activates a judgment — ask why. Get curious about what's underneath it. About what it might say about you rather than about them.
That's not about dropping your boundaries or letting everyone in. It's about thinking for yourself instead of letting other people's fears and opinions become your automatic reactions.
What Wellness Me Up Means to Empress
Accepting yourself. Pure and simple.
She said a huge portion of people cannot sit in a completely silent room and listen to their own thoughts without torturing themselves. Until you accept yourself — including the darkness — you cannot do that.
Wellness is being able to sit with yourself in comfort.
Not the polished version. Not the healed and sorted version. The whole version. The real one. The one with darkness and light and everything in between.
Want to work with Empress Sparkle?
Empress Amy Sparkle is a healer and energetic cleanser based in the UK working with women on their spiritual and mental health journey. Energy cleansing, soul tie work, tarot, group sessions, and one-to-one support available.
📱 Facebook & Instagram: Empress Amy Sparkle
🌐 empresssparkle.co.uk
If this one made something shift in you... share it with someone who's been blocking the darkness instead of releasing it. And subscribe to Wellness Me Up wherever you listen.
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