Room for Change:Consider Color

As we tread our way through grief with newly emerging thought patterns, we frequently return to past memories and our heads are focused downward. Our hearts can feel heavy, not light, and our trodden path rather gray and dull. Little seems to spark our interest.

Consider color http://tinyurl.com/lrjd37


Last week I moved to a new town. Everything I viewed was new, nothing appeared in focus. One new corner looked like the next. Everything seemed gray, nothing sparked my interest, except I knew this was the place I had landed and it was up to me to find my way. Similar disorientation accompanied me with the death of my husband but on an even larger scale, but in that transition I was in the same city I have lived in for years. Little came to life or made sense even in its familiarity.

Color sparked my interest yesterday in this new town as I researched a new exercise routine to get me out of my new home on a daily basis. Color also moved me forward. It was a colored cloth attached with coins that sat on a table in a store window in a nondescript strip shopping mall. The owner sold bellydance items and taught dance lessons in Latin and Middle Eastern dance. I called the owner and was encouraged by her to come try a lesson that evening. That color sparked my interest and moved me forward, making a positive change happen to me in a nondescript colorless day. It happened to be the first day the owner had placed the glitzy laden accessories in the window.

Often without thinking, we gravitate towards certain colors, whether is be in the clothing we wear, the wall colors we choose to surround us or the bedding and towels we use on a daily basis.. What colors do you gravitate towards these days? What colors soothe you? What colors make you happy? What colors surround you? You may have found that your favorite colors have changed.

Color therapy, used in complementary and alternative medicine,uses colors for their proposed healing abilities in treating emotional and physical condtions. It's premise is that certain colors cause a set response in an individual. There is however a lack of scientific evidence supporting color therapy. It's effectiveness and safety have not been studied completely.

Color may not help us heal,but it could help bring of spark of light in a day that feels dreary.
In grief one can feel lifeless, gray and dormant. Pick your favorite color and splash it somewhere. You can change it and yourself each day.

Blessings of the rainbow.