Hope| Healing| Humour

Why We Are Affected by Colors

The strong emotional connection felt visually.

When looking into a kaleidoscope you see beautiful shapes and colors. Shake it up and it disappears.

To me, life is very similar. Hold them up to the light and see what design appears, shake it, hold it up again, or twist it, depending on the model. Colors evoke many emotional responses and certain colors are associated with certain emotions.

In life, emotions are unescapable. Sometimes we get shaken up or twisted about, but as long as we let our lights shine and allow our emotions to flow we are okay in the end. It is important to feel a full spectrum and to allow them to flow freely through us. When we try to hold a certain emotion down in the dark, animosity festers and we become unwell.

Emotions, in essence, shape who we are as beings. We have the choice to face and process our emotions, or to coward away from them. When I face and process my emotions, I feel healthy and free. I allow the light to shine brightly in me. I see the world as a bright place and look forward to what each day brings.

It is only in darkness when people shy away from color as well as from other people. When depression, anger, shame, and grief overcome us, we are no longer able to enjoy the kaleidoscope of colors that the universe has to tickle us with.

I used to ask my children every day what their favorite color was that day. Because I believed, and I still do, that I could tell a little something about how they were feeling by their response. The deal was, they has to answer off the top of their head and not think too much. As a result, sometimes they answered based on what they were wearing or the first thing they saw, but it was a fun morning practice nonetheless.

Certain colors are associated with certain emotions. Marketing companies turn to colors to appeal to emotions to sell products. Look at the iconic 1979 Coca-Cola Ad Campaign “Have a Coke and a Smile” that used red and white as a selling technique.

For example, red is associated with both love as well as rage. Black is associated with both sex appeal as in the little black dress but also with despair as in wearing black to funerals.

Green evokes positive feelings of optimism. It makes us think of the outdoors so stimulates grounding and makes us feel balanced. Starbucks chose to use green in their Marketing Campaign.

Blue is one of the most popular colors for web design as it signifies a feeling of safety and inspires security and calmness. Many banks such as Chase and Capital One all use Blue as their theme color. Facebook and Twitter also adopted this color.

I could go on and on, but this is not a story on marketing nor is it a story about the psychology of colors. I simply wanted to give a few examples.

I have many favorite colors, but mainly it depends on my mood that day — as I used to ask my children. I love red-orange, yellow like the sunshine, green like the earth, blue like vibrant eyes.

I love to try to eat as colorfully as possible. To me, when my plate is colorful and vibrant, I am assuring myself to get a wide variety of vitamins and minerals, plus it is just more fun. Have you ever had purple cauliflower? It is far more fun that white cauliflower and tastes the same!

Have you had purple carrots? When you cut them open, they have the most spectacular orange center.

Candy cane stripe beets are stunning, and watermelon radishes are absolutely beautiful! Food can be as much a feast for the eyes as a nutritional delight.

As much as I enjoy and appreciate color, I also appreciate neutral tones such as greys, beige, and white. I find them very calming. I cannot have much white in my home because it is very dog friendly, but I do have a fond appreciation for it.

I am certainly grateful for all of my senses, but especially my sight. I often do a short meditation that goes like this:

I close my eyes and take a few breaths settling into the space around me.

Relaxing my face, shoulders, and belly.

Then, as I inhale deeply I imagine breathing in the color of my choice.

It begins to fill my whole body beautifully with that vibrant color and energy.

On my exhale, I breathe that color out into the room.

Next, I imagine others doing the same exercise.

So, I breathe in again and imagine taking in the previous exhale and colour of the person next to me.

Then I exhale that color.

And soon the room is full of a beautiful radiant rainbow.

We have all become a mixed kaleidoscope of shared colors and feelings.

To me, breathing each other in, and breathing each other out, with awareness and acceptance is the beauty and wisdom of life. Accepting each others “colors”, not skin colors, but rather emotional colors, true colors. Accepting everyone as they are, is the essence of life.

Thank you so much Liberty Forrest, Author for spawning my creating thinking about colors! This was a fun prompt! Daniella Cressman and Vincent Van Patten I would love to know your favorite color. Liberty, I do love the new blue for your logo, although I also enjoyed the purple. Sometimes change is simply refreshing.

Thank you everyone for stopping by and reading this light-hearted article. Please comment and tell me your favorite color and or how you feel color affects you.

I feel as though my views and engagement have been very low, although I am not sure why. I would greatly appreciate if you would take the time to read my last two stories that I was personally very proud of. The first one got me out of distribution jail lol — finally ( and it is not just about the Super Bowl so please continue to read it)! The second one I simply feel is just an important topic. Not sure why they are not getting traction, but feel free to comment and leave your insights. I appreciate all the help I can get, although I am trying not to get caught up on the numbers and stats, I have to admit it is a personal struggle. Thank you again.

Love and Light,

Libby