The power of color is real. The common question ‘what’s your favourite color?’ may sound like a desperate conversation tactic on a first date, but color truly has a huge psychological impact on humans – as the marketing industry knows well. We all know which colors we love and why. We know the color nuances we prefer and even how tints and hues of the same color appeal differently to us. We know which colors we like together, which we prefer to wear, which we want to see in our house, and which we want to see in our general environment. Did you know we can take color a step further and apply it to our self-care efforts with healing color visualization? Color visualization is a casual approach to focusing on colors and their accompanying positive traits in our meditation.
Healing color visualization is an exercise in which colors are assigned to positive affirmations intended to replace any negative thoughts and emotions. This is not to be confused with the holistic treatment called color therapy, which harnesses the healing effect of specific colors targeted toward the body’s energy field. Current research is exploring the application of color within the mental health community, but here we are discussing a more casual and personalized approach that attributes whichever colors you choose to the affirmations on which you want to focus during a meditation. By meditating on healing affirmations paired with corresponding colors, you are replacing negative thoughts with healing energy that creates space for new positive connections. Visualizing colors with such intention adds a visual aspect to a healthy thought, so that it is even more energetically real and effective.
How to Apply Healing Color Visualization
You can customize this approach to incorporate the colors that are most powerful for you. Listed after the steps below for assigning your healing colors are the colors which are most powerful for me and the attributes with which they are associated in my mind, as an example. Your colors may be different, but use this example and go through the process to create your own color affirmations to use in your personalized healing color visualization. The process is as follows:
- Identify all negative feelings with which you struggle. These stem from faulty thoughts and beliefs. It is important to address these faulty thoughts and beliefs and to work on sorting out that baggage. However, when you are time pressed or when you want to focus solely on dealing with the negative feelings that hamper your day, begin with this exercise by clarifying – and writing down – the feelings you experience that drag you down. Be thorough, and be specific.
- Next to each offender (negative feeling), write down its positive opposite. Every bad experience has a preferred positive experience on the other side of the mirror. Really think about this. If you feel panicky at certain times of the day, what would you rather feel? If certain triggers cause you rage, what would you prefer to feel instead? If you struggle with guilt of no discernable cause (though there is a cause, just unrecognized), how would you rather feel?
- Really dwell on each opposite/positive feeling, one at a time (or as a group if they are very similar). As you focus on each positive feeling, what color do you feel? What image do you associate in your mind with that quality? If nothing comes immediately to mind, mentally cycle through the color wheel – along with all their tints and hues – to see in your mind’s eye which most resonates with each positive emotion or state.
- Once you have gone through all of your preferred positive emotions and assigned them colors, list each color as a header on your paper (in whichever format you like, so long as each color is its own group/section). Underneath each color, list its corresponding affirmations. You may also choose to use different markers to write the affirmations if you have them available in your assigned colors.
- Now that you have all of your affirmations grouped by color, you have a quick reference for which color to visualize when you are struggling with any negative emotion and want to generate the opposite positive emotion in its place. This looks like simply closing your eyes to mediate and envisioning yourself feeling those positive emotions while surrounded by that color. Picture the color all around you, in the atmosphere, as a healing vapor. If you like, you could also focus on objects or scenery of that color. You may even dress in that color or gather objects in that color as a focal point throughout your day.
You may even take this a step further and paint your walls in some of the colors that are most healing for you. This may not necessarily remind you of the affirmations as you would of course get accustomed to seeing those colors every day as a normal part of your surroundings, but if you truly love those colors, then on some subtle level your visual sense will be pleased when you are in your home – and, after all, isn’t that what we’re after?
Personalized Colors and Their Healing Properties
As an example, these are the colors and affirmations that I assigned for my healing color visualization:
Sea green is:
- Delight
- Joy
- Gladness
- Stability
- Deep, relaxed contentedness
Sky blue is:
- Motivated
- Relaxed comfort
- Deep inner peace
- Productive processing in sleep/meditation
Periwinkle is:
- Comfortable
- Calm introspection
- Patient
- Peaceful detachment
- Applied wisdom/growth
Pink is:
- Inspired motivation
- Cheerfully assertive
- Relaxed confidence
- Positivity
- Joyful inner peace
- Graceful imperfection/self-esteem
- Cheerful anticipation/faith
Yellow is:
- Cheerful flexibility
- Joyfully bold confidence
- Liberating release
- Relaxed humour
- Wise reflection
- Restorative healing
- Magical manifestation
- Pure, joyful faith
Orange is:
- Inspiration
- Endurance
- Delightful self-esteem
- Disciplined intention
- Positive momentum
- Insight
Ruby red is:
- Strong focus
- Joyful awareness/wisdom
Sparkling red is:
- Deep inner strength
- Peacefully strong/assertive
- Wise reflection
Sapphire blue is:
- Inner quiet/stillness
- Deep love/compassion
- Restorative calm
Emerald green is:
- Nourishing contentedness
- Peaceful freedom
- Strong, calm, steady focus
- Inner balance/regulation
- Inner protection from toxicity
- Relaxed stillness
- Wisdom/truth
Colors are alive and full of potential for our inner space healing. What you choose to focus on gains power within you, and whatever tool you can harness to encourage that, whether visual or auditory, is going to bring positive affirmations to life in a more substantial way. Healing color visualization is a great way to invite beauty into your life – both to your inner space, as well as your living space when you incorporate your colors into your decor!