Have you ever wrapped your heart in a healing color?

 

When you breathe mindfully, do you picture a calming color that helps you ease into that place of deeper knowing?

 

Perhaps you hold the spring-green of new leaves opening. Or you breathe the subtle blue of forget-me-nots that dot the woodlands.

 

Whatever your favorite color, it is no doubt one that makes you feel a bit more animated or a bit happier when you see it.

 

When you think of your favorite color in nature, note its quality: a pure hue (full strength and bold), a tint (a lighter version, made by adding white), a shade (a darker version, made by adding black) or a tone (a version with a different value and intensity, made by adding black and white).

 

And what is the emotion that color elicits in you? Does your emotion too have a "hue," "tint," "shade" or "tone"?

 __________________________

 

Emotion & Color Inquiry

 

This exercise is designed to bring you more understanding of who you are, what your soul responds to and how you can use color to bring you more joy. 

1. Keep a special notebook and as you walk through your garden or your neighborhood, as you hike or visit new places, take a moment to be the present observer: Which colors call to you? Each month, journal the colors.
2. At the end of a year, review your notes. Are the colors that called to your heart each month similar or different?
3. At the top of a clean page, create 4 columns and label them by category: Hue, Tint, Shade, Tone. Place your beloved colors in the appropriate category.
4. Then begin your emotional inquiry. Which of your emotions do you associate with each category?
5. You can take this inquiry as deep as you wish. But knowing which colors support you throughout the year will make it easier to select the ones that will be your best companions month to month, season to season.

Note for those who live in areas where the seasons are not as distinct as they are in northern climes: This will be a more subtle examination, but you will find that distinctions do exist.

 

WELLBEING

The landscape of the frozen north, once wrapped in winter neutrals - delicate platinums and bronzes and browns and the seasonal assortment of whites, pearl to ecru to buff - is slowly greening. In southern climes, buds are bursting and full blooms nod in affirmation: Spring has arrived.

There is so much promise in spring color.

The promise of consistency.
The promise of potential.
The promise of joy.

Joy is big. An effervescent explosion of happiness. It takes up gorgeous expanses of space in our hearts, in our relationships and in our lives. It has, by definition, no container.

But what if we embraced the idea that joy, like color, has tints and shades and tones.

What if we made space in our experience to mindfully include . . .

• tints of joy - sitting on a sunny park bench, watching children play
• shades of joy - walking on the beach, remembering the person you were with the first time you saw the ocean
• tones of joy - appreciating where you are in your life because of the difficulties you've faced so courageously, so gracefully

How will you make space ... for more joy?

ANNOUNCEMENTS

Where is this place?

Don't look here and there; come within you. When you are here, then any place becomes beautiful. Then wherever you go, you add beauty there.

If you are unhappy, even the moon irritates you, sweet things nauseate, music disturbs. When you are calm and centered inside, noise is musical, clouds are magical, rain is liquid love. Book yourself on a trip to this most beautiful place in the universe then you find that every day is a vacation and a celebration.

- Sri Sri Ravi Shankar
  The Art of Living Universe.com 

Please note: This information is meant to be helpful and educational; it is not a substitute for medical attention. You should consult with your healthcare professional for medical advice and treatment. 

 

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