Color has the power to shift our emotions and release stress— here's how to leverage it.
Color can be a great tool for understanding your inner world; they are here to awaken your intuition, challenge you and get you out of your comfort zone, where you can find your true inner voice.
The more I work with color, the more I realize just how important intuition is in order to create and develop your own personal story. I wrote Heal Yourself With Color to give you the basics for establishing a unique color recipe for your life.
How to Work With Color
You need to step away from the mind in order to feel and experience color in connection with your body and your feelings. I want you to notice the shift as you move from a place of "I think" to "I feel."
Before you begin, please understand that even if it doesn’t feel powerful in the moment, color is talking to your subconscious mind and benefiting you. The deep conditioning of your mind can take some time to break down and dissolve.
The only rule I set in my work is to trust yourself. If an exercise asks you to visualize a specific color but your intuition shows you another, just trust your intuition. Within the pages of my book, you’ll also find the meaning of whatever color presents itself to you.
A few things to keep in mind:
1 You absorb color in various ways.
We absorb color by looking at it, visualizing it, wearing it, being around it and even consuming it at the dinner table! To get as much benefit from color as possible, I want you to work with all of these modalities.
2 Color has both a light and a shadow side.
Like most things in life, color contains uplifting qualities (aspects that we associate as pleasant), while also possessing a shadow side (aspects that feel uncomfortable, challenging and which are normally associated with unpleasant feelings).
Consider both sides to fully understand the lesson offered. The shadow side is not to be avoided or neglected; it’s an important part of the story, since our fears drive our courage. You can’t have success without failure—they live together. When you interact with a pink, for example, you are not only focusing on compassion and kindness, but you are also acknowledging and interacting with the color’s qualities of dependency.
3 Two colors are better than one
Your body, mind and soul are a combination of elements and energies. Whenever one is affected, the others are too. If one aspect is not working as it should, another has to take on the extra responsibility, overloading it with a function that it may not be built for. In this way, imbalances can occur that affect the entire system. That is why you should always be on the lookout for more than one color.
Colors and Scents That Reduce Stress
Stress is something we all have to deal with on a daily basis, which keeps us on edge and drains our energies. When we are stressed, we can only see obstacles and we fail to come up with solutions that enhance our lives.
Anyone familiar with energy work knows that there are many aspects of modern society that can throw off our internal balance. In the age of social media, you don’t even need to be in the same room as someone to pick up on their energy — negative or positive. If you feel exhausted or emotionally disconnected, this surrounding negativity may be part of the problem.
At the end of the day, our energies are our own, and nobody else should be able to mess with them. Clearing your energy periodically will help keep the negative vibes away, and one of the best ways to do this is to use fragrance in combination with color visualizations.
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Herbal remedies and essential oils can evoke color memories and imagery, and the fragrance can transport you to a more peaceful and calm state of mind. In addition, some fresh or dried leaves, flowers and roots of certain botanicals can be safely ingested in teas, tinctures and food.
- Lavender: Calms the nervous system and aids rest and sleep. Dab two drops of the oil on your wrists or use as a pillow spray.
- Rose: Associated with rose pink energy, rose connects us to the energy of love and compassion, soothes emotions and balances hormones and mood. Add rose petals to tea or hot chocolate when you need to connect to love.
- Chamomile: A soothing yellow energy, the chamomile flower helps calm the stomach, releases anxiety and promotes sleep. Drink the tea in a yellow mug to intensify its power.
- Jasmine: The oil relieves stress, anxiety, depression and insomnia, and improves energy. Associated with the color white, jasmine is good for cleansing the body and moving energy around. Use it as a room spray when you want to attract fresh starts and new beginnings.
- Orange blossom: A soothing scent, this brings joy into a space. I love using it as a room spray before a gathering or when I’m feeling alone.
- Clary sage: Good for your lungs and respiratory system, the oil has a soothing green energy. Drink a cup of sage herbal tea when you need to heal your heart from rejection or heartbreak.
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