Do Natural Materials Carry Energy? High Vibes, Grounded Truths with Tommy Fordham

Last week I listened to Tommy Fordham, founder of Mallet London, speak about grounding, burnout, neurodivergence and what it really means to become the best version of yourself.

If you’ve ever heard Tommy talk, you’ll know he doesn’t do beige.

His language is raw, open and completely unapologetic; not for effect, but because it comes from lived experience. And in a room full of polished business talk, that kind of honesty lands.

Because it’s real.

And it opened up a conversation that sits right at the heart of my world as The Gemstone Detective:

Do natural materials actually carry energy — or do we?

The trainer that started the debate

Tommy is the brainchild behind the CTRNE trainer. The earlier versions carried a raw citrine in the sole; a daily, physical reminder of intention and abundance. The newer grounding models focus instead on conductive materials designed to reconnect the body to the Earth.

In the room he spoke about:

• high-vibe people

• grounding

• plastic as a disconnection from nature

• and what he called a “death frequency”

If you come from a scientific background, this is the point where you start separating measurable conductivity from spiritual language.

But at mine level, where I work, those worlds are never separate.

They sit side by side: physics, human perception, belief, story

So rather than dismiss the idea, let’s ground it.

Gemstone Detective Truth

All materials, natural or synthetic, have measurable frequencies. What differs is how their structure, conductivity and origin affect our bodies, our senses and our emotional connection to them.

The experience is real. The mechanism is human and material.

 Why natural materials feel different

 When Tommy spoke about plastic disconnecting us from the Earth, on a literal level he’s right.

 Most modern shoes insulate us from the ground. Copper and carbon conduct. But the deeper truth is sensory.

Natural materials: breathe, age, hold temperature, carry irregularity, come from somewhere

 You don’t just wear them... you experience them. And our nervous systems respond to that.

 Not mysticism. Biology.

 The part that mattered most

The most powerful moment had nothing to do with trainers. Tommy spoke about autism. ADHD. Burnout. Building a global brand while trying to function in systems that were never designed for the way his brain works.

That honesty matters.

Because across the gemstone world, from miners to dealers to designer, I meet brilliant people who are exhausted from trying to look successful.

His message was simple: You have the right to become the best version of yourself, not the version that fits someone else’s system. That’s not motivation. That’s liberation.

 What “high vibe” means at the mine face

Strip away the language and, in my world, high vibe becomes one word: integrity.

Integrity in: a person, a business, a supply chain

Because I’ve seen the opposite. I’ve stood where gemstones come out of the ground. So when I talk about abundance, I’m not talking about frequency. I’m talking about:

✅fairness at the source

✅truth in what we sell

✅protection for the buyer

✅respect for the people whose hands bring these materials to the surface

 That’s real wealth, and that's why I believe it's important to understand how to buy gemstones safely at the source.

Do Natural Materials Carry Energy? The conversation that now needs to happen...

This is the second time Tommy and I have met. This time he said he’d come digging with me in Tanzania, at the mine face.

In the dust and heat, where materials stop being concepts and become human stories.

Because it’s easy to talk about energy in a London room. It’s something else entirely to sit with miners, understand the risk, and watch a gemstone emerge from the Earth.

That human side of mining is often invisible in the jewellery world, but it shapes everything about ethical gemstone sourcing.

That’s where high vibe stops being a word and becomes a responsibility.

So let’s see if he’s a man of his word. I hope he is.

 Tommy calls it high vibe. I call it ethical.

And somewhere between copper, carbon, citrine and a future mining trip to Tanzania... we’re having the same conversation. Just in a different language.