Common assumptions about spiritual hygiene/self-defense/protection?

Hello all, I'm working on a teaching project for the spiritual community I serve regarding spiritual or inner hygiene, self-defense, and protection, and resilience.

The crowd I serve is pretty "normie" (read: white Midwesterners, by and large) but they are spiritually curious and engaged learners, so this is new but welcome territory for them to explore. I've asked these same questions of them, but I'd like to get a broader sense of what's floating around in the noosphere.

When you think of spiritual hygiene, self-defense, and protection, what are some of your baseline assumptions, or some of the assumptions that you've encountered?

For example, I've encountered the opinion that you *have* to burn sage or some kind of smudge for protection, which taps into a larger assumption/concern around spiritual practice, especially along these lines, as being inherently appropriative and not something accessible to people who are descended from colonizers. So there's a thread here of helping folks tap in to what's available to them in just and sustainable ways.

I've also encountered the assumption, depending on the context or upbringing of the person I'm speaking with, that any kind of inner contact that is not part of "our team," so to speak, is evil, demonic, or otherwise untrustworthy. I do serve a lot of folks who come from conservative backgrounds so this is pretty prevalent. Either that, or they've thrown out the inner dimension of experience entirely.

The third big assumption I've encountered is that we're kind of flailing around out here on our own without any support to draw on, but we know that we're not. We're part of an ecosystem biologically, and I sense the same is true in the inner dimension as well. So there's a thread here about cultivating resilience through mutuality and reciprocal care.

tl;dr: what assumptions come to mind when you hear "spiritual self-defense?"

I hope this is a welcome inquiry, and I'm grateful for any insight y'all might have to share.