Colour therapy. (Yes, I’m writing in British English today because I have a Welsh guest). Have you heard of colour therapy before? Colour therapy has been used since ancient times such as with the Greeks and Egyptians. Today, colour therapy is used everywhere and anywhere including in fast food restaurants, more relaxed restaurants, massage therapy places, hospitals, shopping malls, and more. Colour therapy is also getting more and more recognition in media. My monthly Catholic diocese newspaper this month (December 2016 issue) discusses how colour was therapeutically and carefully chosen for a new Catholic Health expanded and renovated building for patients with speech disorders and severe physical disabilities to help them in easing their pain and comforting them. Today, I am honoured to have a thorough chat with colour coach/colour therapist Lana Morris of Wales, UK on what colour therapy/colour coaching is and how it can benefit those affected by adoption. Today we’ll be talking about those affected by adoption and the common feelings and disorders that arise for them.
Welcome, Lana Morris.
What is colour coaching/colour therapy?
Essentially, Colour Coaching applies colour psychology to the issues you are experiencing and helps you get greater insight into the root of the issue. Colour coaching is more active and uses colour as a means to identify subconscious patterns holding you back. In its simplest form it’s looking at the colours someone is drawn to, and applying the psychology of colour to understand the meaning of the emotion behind the colour chosen. Once the emotion is discovered ( and there could be layers of emotions) we use the colours to help us make sense of what our bodies- our emotions- are trying to communicate to us. Colour therapy is about applying and using colour in different ways, but it’s usually applied to your body to absorb it. So there are subtle difference between colour therapy and colour coaching. Applying colour is about using colour to ‘heal’. Basically if someone was coming for colour therapy, we’d apply a particular colour to them or their environment, such as advise them the best colour for their study, or what colour to wear to interview, or we would be working with their energy and applying colour to balance or invigorate or calm their chakra system. Colour therapy is used in many ways, for example, it’s been used with people with dyslexia in the form of coloured glasses or coloured acetate sheets that lay over a white page which has text, and by applying a coloured acetate, it stops words ‘jumping’ or moving around the page. That’s the application of colour. Yet most of the time, when someone is asking the question about how colour can help them, they are actually asking the question due to something else, and this is where we shift from colour therapy to colour coaching.
2. How did you get your training?
I found a colour teacher and training course and spent a year learning how to use a particular colour system called ‘Colour Mirrors’. After the course I became a colour practitioner and I’ve gone on to learn additional training around colour and the psychology of colour. My background is in Soical Work so I’d already had a lot of training in psychology, I just shifted my focus to the psychology of colour and the spiritual psychology of emotions.
3. What scientific proof is there for colour therapy?
There are a growing number of academic and health related journal articles exploring the scientific basis for colour therapy and whether it works or not. In 2005 a study was done in the Evidence Based Complementary And Alternative Medicine Journal by Azeemi and Raza where they looked at a Critical Analysis of Chromotherapy and how it was evolving scientifically. Other research carried out prior to this was by The Coalition For Health Environments Research exploring a review of existing research into the use of colour in healthcare environments. At that time, the results were mixed due to a lack of scientific application to the use of colour, no reliable data to correlate colour to emotions, as two of a number of their findings. Essentially it was felt that there was insufficient and unreliable data to prove that colour does and can assist health wise. However bear in mind this was over 10 years ago and since then further studies have been carried out. I think the main difficulty is that colour is a form of energy and we interact and absorb it every day. What is encouraging is that these early research studies were a catalyst to begin exploring in a more methodical way to study whether colour can impact the emotions or help us understand the emotional experience of a person. What is evident is the amount of interest in chromotherapy. Recent studies in the field of dyslexia have shown that using coloured acetate sheets over a piece of white paper with writing on it, can stop the letters jumping around, helping people with dyslexia to have improved reading abilities. Studies on the using colour such as blue street lights have shown that the crime rate can be decreased. Health centres often use the colour green in their treatment areas to assist people to feel calmer. The biggest area where colour psychology is applied is in marketing and shops colour schemes. Fast food restaurants tend to use primary red, yellow and some blue. Psychologically red relates to the emotion of motivation, anger, of being dynamic and speedy, so eating in a red restaurant means people eat faster and leave quicker so more customers come through the doors. Personally I would say that people should always explore any therapy or healing modality to satisfy themselves that there are benefits, and a good therapist/coach will always answer any questions that clients have. The next step would be to try it- if it works for them, then it works for them. Having seen how colour has worked in my own life and that of clients, I am a firm believer that colour therapy/coaching does work., and that science just has to catch up with us. Einstein notedthe frequency and vibration of colour and that we are all energy- it just feels that modern science has to catch up and perhaps look at alternative research methodologies to capture a better understanding of how chromotherapy works and if so, in what ways is that beneficial to us. Thekey issue for me is that if colour can help us express the emotions that we have suppressed or felt fearful of experiencing, and it can do so in a comfortable and supportive way, then that is hugely beneficial. Imagine carrying around feelings of guilt, isolation, anxiety, and fear, and having no way of expressing it in a way that feels comfortable? How painful is that? Yet if we say ‘what colour are you feeling at the moment?’ people can immediately tell you and from there we can safely explore the psychological meaning of that colour. It’s a simple and effective way of expression, and it enables the person to release all those emotions in a relaxed and painless way whilst be able to explore what the root of those emotions are.
4. Why should someone who is adopted do colour therapy sessions?
That’s an interesting question because being adopted can bring up intense emotions- rejection, abandonment, isolation, identity, and these are core- and often painful- emotions to explore. Not exploring them can create all sorts of problems in later life- higher suicide rates, lack of commitment to relationships, lack of communication of inner emotions, a lack of kinship or feeling of belonging, higher incidences of anxiety and panic attacks. These are all huge emotions to be carrying around all the time. So colour is a gentle non-invasive approach to beginning to explore, and make sense of these emotions and work towards a sense of inner strength, stability, clear identity and clarity over the root cause and how to shift from feeling these negative emotions to becoming happy within their own identity and how they fit and contribute to themselves, their families (adopted and biological) and feel confident, happy and at peace with the experiences they have had.
5. Why should someone who is a natural mother or father do colour therapy sessions?
Really the same response to your previous question in the sense of there are so many emotions when making the decision to give your child up for adoption and being able to explore these- issues such as guilt, separation, wondering who the adopted parents are in bringing their child up, secrecy- some natural parents may have never been able to tell anyone that they gave their child up for adoption, regret or denial. So again colour therapy can help in exploring and releasing these very heavy emotions and help to consider how these emotions are impacting upon their current experiences and situations.
6. Can you tell us some things related to anxiety disorder and colours?
Anxiety disorder is on a spectrum as it can range from a feeling of unease through to worry or fear that can be mild through to severe. Worry is the constant state- worry about what has been (past), worry about what’s going on (present) and worry about what might occur (future). Worry in terms of colour is characterised by the colour yellow- fear, confusion, anxiety, racing thoughts, lack of peace, lack of feeling of having any control over events, perhaps being obsessive about something (e.g. always touching a door handle to check it’s locked, through to cleaning all day or not being able to touch someone for fear of germs etc). So whilst yellow is the ‘generic’ colour that characterises anxiety, there will be other colours denoting other layers which contribute to why the person is experiencing anxiety. So colour therapy would be exploring those other colours so that we can unpeel the layers to discover the root of the anxiety and where it’s located. My course on anxiety and colour explores how colour helps us establish the underlying emotional subconscious cause of the anxiety and the techniques that can be used to shift these emotions and move out of anxiety into a sense of calmness.
7. How can colour therapy help those with an eating disorder?
Again what’s interesting is that yellow is also the predominate colour here- it’s about fear of loss of control, anxiety as to how to be perceived as having the ‘perfect body/image’ and lack of feeling of personal power and making the healthy choices. And again, other colours will emerge as a result of exploring the reason they someone has developed an eating disorder- this could be due to many emotions/factors red- anger at self and how others may be perceiving/treating the person. Green- resentment at not having the ‘perfect image/body’, blue- feeling unable to express self in a way that is heard. You find that although there may be one overarching colour to denote a particular issue, you’ll discover more as they relate to the person’s emotional experiences.
8. How can colour therapy help those who are adopted or a natural parent with some common emotions such as anger or denial? I would say the same as my previous responses to the last three questions. Colour relates to an emotion- the psychological meaning of the colour chosen can give us an insight into the subconscious emotion that the body is wanting to express, shift and release. This releases the depth of burden of the heavy emotions and enables the person to begin to view the situation in a different way, and how this relates to their emotional, mental, physical and spiritual wellbeing.
9. What positive feedback have you gotten from your clients?
I’ve had a huge response from clients- but the key that shows me how much they value and find the benefit from colour therapy and more particularly colour coaching, is that they are returning clients. Now that sounds a bit odd doesn’t it, as most people would say ‘ah but if they are returning you can’t have had much of a result’ in fact the opposite is true because each time they return its because they are going a little deeper or another issue has emerged for them that they want to shift out and release. Colour coaching assists people to explore the emotions that they may have been holding for considerable time, so those emotions don’t all spill out in one go, they’ll be triggered by something and each ‘layer’ is then released. So some people will have mild shifts and releases, others will have quite profound ones. If you imagine a coke bottle- and instead of coca cola, it’s filled with loads of emotions collected and stored over the years that feel heavy, that impact on the persons’ confidence and wellbeing. We would not shake that coke bottle up and allow it all to spill out in one go, because it’s too painful, overwhelming and incredibly damaging. So we take it at the pace of the individual so that they receive the best results and can process and integrate this in the way that’s right for them. The main feedback I’ve had from my clients is that even though some of the emotions they are releasing are seen as heavy and negative, they don’t feel that when they release- they feel light, they often have a giggle, and they get a lot of ‘aha’ moments. They also learn to tune into their intuitive knowing rather than their logic, and this intuition already knows what they need- they’ve just forgotten how to listen to it! My role is to help them re-connect to their intuition and help them process out the emotions causing dis- ease within them.
10. Does colour therapy have any ties to spiritualism such as angels?
Personally I would say yes in that if you look at it in terms of spirituality rather than religion- and there is a huge difference in definition and approach between the two. I would say that colour coaching falls within the spiritual aspect, and yes from a metaphysical perspective there are some colours which naturally connect to the angelic realm. As someone who is spiritual having a human experience I do believe that there is far more to the Universe that we are aware of, and I would say it would be arrogant to assume that only Earth has living consciousness on it- so I would say there are certainly other dimensions and conscious beings that we can access via our higher spiritual selves and higher consciousness. However, that’s my personal view- others in colour coaching/colour therapy may have different perspectives and interpretations and that’s what brings the richness of information, knowledge, and experiences for us to explore and consider!
Lana is available for Skype sessions for new clients from around the world. I have been using
Lana’s services for two years now and I can tell you they do help. Lana will not tell you what you want to hear, but what you need to hear in order to heal and understand.
Enjoy these colour therapy videos. Which colour attracts you most? Do you enjoy it and feel connected? If so, book a session with Lana. Be sure to check out lanamorris.com
Exposing Adoption 