We all connect with colour on a daily basis through the clothes we wear, the furnishings in our home, the dizzying array of colours in nature – even traffic lights tell us when to stop and go according to their colour. Yet we tend to take colour for granted, not noticing the subtle and not-so-subtle effects colour has on us, and its potentially powerful impact in our lives.

When we start to use colour consciously as a tool in our lives, we find that it can help us with:

• our relationships
• our work and career
• our health
• our finances
• our spirituality

Every area of our lives, in fact! And the deeper our understanding, the more it can help us.

Colour and the Body

Let’s look at the physical for a moment. Science shows us then when we are in red surroundings – a red room, wearing red clothes etc – we will literally heat up; our body temperature rises. In a blue room, we cool down. It’s a physiological response. So even if our conscious minds don’t always recognise colour and its properties, our bodies do.

What happens when we go out in nature and are surrounded by green? We literally breathe more deeply. We feel better. We open our lungs.

Next time you reach for your clothes in the morning, notice what guides your choice. Weather and occasion will of course dictate to some extent, but those things notwithstanding, what do you want to carry on your body today? Which colours speak to you and make you feel good? Start to notice how your moods and energy play a part in your colour choices. Why is it that one day you reach for a soft pink jumper and on the next you want to wear a vivid red jacket?

Notice how you feel when you wear different colours. Experiment with accessories such as scarves and notice how they make you feel. You may begin to look at yourself and your colour choices more closely, and as you do, you are tapping into the basic psychology of colour and learning more about yourself and the world in the process.

Relationships and Emotions

What happens when we start to tune in to our emotions and let them guide us to the colours we need at any given moment? We begin to learn about ourselves and the thoughts, emotions and feelings that drive us. And as we identify our feelings and allow ourselves to experience them, we start to notice that we don’t have to get so stuck in them or let them rule our lives. Turquoise is typically the colour of the emotions – and paradoxically it can also be the colour of choice for us when we are avoiding feeling our emotions! Turquoise can be a great protector in times of troubled emotions because it enables us to hide our feelings. Now, if we want to grow and heal, we need to start feeling our feelings not hiding them! So if you notice you’re obsessing over turquoise, wearing it all the time and having it around you, take stock of where you are and notice if there is something you are not allowing to be expressed. Likewise, if you know you are blocking or suppressing your emotions, turquoise may be the key to help you unlock them.

>Blue and turquoise are the colours of trust and faith. So in relationships these colours can help us feel safe and able to trust.

>When it comes to ourselves, for many the greatest challenge is to truly honour and love ourselves. Here, pink and coral can guide us to a place of self-love and worthiness. Notice when you are feeling unloved and unworthy how pink can soothe and make you feel nurtured. A spritz of the Colourworks essence Pink Angel does wonders for a sad and weary soul. And bathing in a pink coloured oil can be a truly nurturing, deeply loving experience.

Colour and the Mind

Colour affects us on a mental level as well. Let’s take yellow for an example. In colour therapy we learn that yellow is the colour of the intellect, the mind, our capacity to think. It also links to the emotions of fear and confusion. And what do over-thinkers tend to have in common? They tend to think so much in order to avoid facing their fears! And all that thinking generally leads to confusion (you’ve probably heard the saying ‘analysis leads to paralysis’…).

On the other side of the coin, yellow is also the colour of joy and sunshine. Of child-like fun and laughter. So here’s the clue: if we can get ‘out of our heads’, halt the incessant thinking process, and turn it around 180 degrees, we start having fun, lightening up, and the answers we were so busy trying to force our minds to come up with arrive, easily and naturally.

Now often, however, this is easier said than done. And this is where colour therapy comes in. With tools such as the Colourworks system of coloured oils and essences, we can spritz, spray, rub into our skin, meditate, and even bath in the colours. And then our body and our heart get the message – and a shift can take place whether we’re consciously aware of it or not.

Work and Career

What happens when we’re struggling or frustrated in our work? We know we’re not where we’re meant to be and it becomes more and more painful the more we struggle to keep going. Yet fears and worries arise – how will I pay the mortgage? What else can I do? I’ve no qualifications or training for anything else.

Each and every time we feel disquiet, discomfort and despair in our life and work, it’s a sign and a signal from our higher selves. Something isn’t adding up here. It’s time to >make a change. Of course fears and doubts arise. Yet if we continue doing what we’ve always done, we’re going to keep getting the same results. And if we don’t like the results, we’re going to have to change something.

Now change is one of the greatest challenges we can face, and so we tend to avoid it like the plague. Yet change is often a great catalyst for growth and healing. And by saying yes to change, we can begin to put our lives on track and head for where we want to be instead of staying stuck.

So how does colour help us with change? And how can it help us in our work and career?

The colour choices we make, for example in a Colourworks reading where you are asked to choose coloured bottles of oils, will provide strong clues as to where our heart really lies and what we really want to be doing. If we’re working as an accountant and our heart yearns to be an artist, the palette of colours we choose is going to tell us our truth. It will be plain to see, even if we have suppressed our desire to break out and be more creative – the colours will tell the story! What we then do with this information is, of course, entirely up to us. But once we’ve seen something graphically and in colour it somehow takes on a reality and it becomes hard to pretend any more. The artist will out!

And then we can begin the process of working through our fears (yellow); listening to our heart (green or pink); following our inner guidance (lilac); reclaiming our power (gold); and making a decision (clear or silver).

Colour for Finances

Abundance and manifestation are two concepts we’re hearing a lot about at the present time. The Law of Attraction tells us that what we focus on expands and that our thoughts create our reality. This puts us firmly in the driving seat of our lives. Once we take these concepts on board we can no longer be victims, no longer blame or judge.

Yet so many of us carry baggage about wealth, money, abundance. We have hidden feelings of unworthiness. Or we may believe it is not possible to be spiritual and yet have financial wealth. Most of us have many limiting beliefs around money and wealth. Colour once again helps us by rooting out the hidden beliefs that are preventing us from stepping into the wealth and abundance that is all around us. The universe is fundamentally and utterly abundant. It is only our ability to receive – or our lack of such an ability – that prevents us from being fully and wholly abundant in every area of our lives.

An acute dislike of pink or an over-abundance of pink in our colour choices can be an indication of money issues and an inability to receive. Pink and red are the colours we most relate to finance – red being all the material, physical aspects of life and our need for survival; and pink being literally red with a light shone through it – which then shows up as intensified red issues….

In the Colourworks system there are several bottles that will help us with these issues. The base chakra bottle (C1) has had a quite miraculous effect for many people, clearing old ingrained fear-based money ‘stuff’ out of bodies and allowing the prosperity in. The Red Angel essence is called the Angel of Miracles and Prosperity and helps us get grounded and connected to the earth so that we might manifest from a place of stability and connection rather than fear.

Blue and turquoise bottles help us to have faith that everything is unfolding as it should, and as we begin to trust the universe more, then we open to more of what we want and desire and allow it to show up in our lives.

Pink, as mentioned above, will help us grow in self-love and self-esteem so that we no longer have worthiness issues and can open to receive.

And yellow and gold can help us banish our fears and feel at one with ourselves and our lives so that we can live from a place of genuine power and strength, and let the riches of the universe flow to us.

Green enables us to open to the abundance of the universe and to feel grateful for what we already have. And gratitude is the fastest key to attracting what we want!

Gateway to Spirit

As we move into a deeper connection with ourselves and the universe we find that colour points the way to our highest self, the Self that can love unconditionally, speak its truth and be authentically who it is.

Magenta is the colour of the divine - in any language! And it is a gateway to experiencing what is beyond our physical body, beyond our feelings, emotions and thoughts.

Magenta takes us into a place of deep powerful acceptance and grace where we no longer struggle or resist but allow and flow. As we do this we step into a place where we begin to know ourselves as divine, where we begin to see the God in ourselves and in all. And when we do that there is no place left for grudges, blame, resentment and judgement. We begin to see the oneness that is inherent in this universe and to feel it in our beings.

What we find when we step out on a journey with colour is that we learn to transcend our little egoic and fragmented selves, and become instead our joyful, magnificent whole selves and our lives become so much more colourful as a result.

If you would like to know more about how colour ‘works’, you are welcomed on a journey into your deeper self by attending my 2-day colour workshops for transformation and healing.