Chakra Meditation, Mindfulness, and All the Colors of the Rainbow

Date: 09/19/2020

Through my daily relationship with color (through fashion), I have found a unqiue path to chakra meditation, and since, restoration in both spirit and body.

It has been a long time since I first learned to let color guide the decisions I make throughout the day. From the color of the bag on my arm, or the cast of the day’s ensemble, it has become more than a habitual practice to allow color to draw me forward. Like a wave, the color will ripple forward, connecting me with each and every one of them, and bringing me closer to myself. 

Truly, responding to at least this small self-preference has (over time) brought me more than just a connection to the world. Nowadays, amid the hectic life, these precious moments of getting in touch with myself have continued to spark a boost of positive energy within. It is reminding me of the goals I set for myself that day: goals of unity, of balance, and of being.

It is in these moments of listening to myself – in trusting what the universe has to offer – that I have learned to feel whole.

Of course, it is just when you begin projecting a certain kind of energy into the world that it will return to you in the most surprising of ways. For me, this was the simple, passing mention of Chakra Meditation by an acupuncturist I was seeing.

Chakra Meditation

Indeed, I’d heard of it. Seen it represented a fair number of times in some of my favorite films. I even sat down and tried it, keeping my body poised and my mind blank.  I am, as my friends know, passionate about living a healthy lifestyle, and have pursued many encouraging paths to physical and emotional restoration.

In this case, I just hadn’t found the right time to give it a second try. 

Yet in that moment, my guard completely down, I felt the concept take on a new meaning–like a word just learned, the idea of Chakra Meditation sunk deeply into my subconscious and took root there, allowing me to analyze it from every angle under a renewed light.

Soon at home with the world wide web at my disposal, I put on a colorful outfit and found out that just like me, Chakra Meditation has very keen ties to color and through that, to the body. 

In fact, that’s how I first began to understand that even colors can act as a passage, bringing our minds and bodies together–even making invisible energies visible.

Learning, as I did, that each of the seven chakras are rooted in color, I thus began a personal adventure of my own, consciously exploring my personal connection to each. Whereas with Red I found passion, and Orange, kindness, with Yellow I felt a positive confidence, and with Green, compassion. For Blue, there was love, while Indigo held focus, and with Purple and White I gained a sense of calm.  

Although these listed impressions of color are slightly different from those universally assigned to each of our chakras (according to practice), I was at the time soothed by a repeated theme amongst other tales from practicers of the art: that the method by which I would find mindfulness would be unique to my own experience of the world. 

Then something else happened–a happy accident, I think. 

A few days later, as I browsed my closet, listening to myself on what color I wanted to wear, I just so happened to find a question drifting across my mind: 

What if this is just my own way of meditating?

I stood there with my fingers paused, touching a shoulder of a bright yellow dress. Had I already been meditating and not known it? Suddenly, the old habit of listening to myself on what color I wanted to wear took on a completely new meaning, recontextualized as my own unique way of meditating–of bringing positive energies into reality through clothing. 

“Choosing a new outfit, either from the closet or the rack, became my own way of bringing my internal, positive energies into reality through clothing.”

It was as if the final piece I had been missing were finally cemented. Reminded of Pablo Picasso’s famous saying, “Colors, like features, follow the changes of the emotions,” I soon discovered that my connection to color was already part of the path I used to connect with myself. 

I was grateful for those eager teachers who encouraged me to follow that path; to use that personal “medium” of color as a tool for fostering mindfulness within. 

Finding Our Own Path to Mindfulness

Much to the joy of my more fashionable sensibilities, then, I found another outlet for my love of color. Words didn’t give me full access as a mindfulness mantra, color did. Even closing my eyes and picturing a certain shade began to take on a more evolved shape, helping me connect with that internal instinct to which I had always been only half listening. 

And regardless of whether I take the time to find a quiet alcove away from the hustle and bustle, or if I’m on the run and have but a spare moment to pick something from my closet, I now feel more confident knowing that meditation doesn’t have to look like what I always thought it did: it can happen anywhere, helping us to become more attentive and receptive when we again return to the world external to us. 

As I began to understand my own experience of Chakra Meditation as centred on color, I realized how much easier it was to choose a path to mindfulness based on something I was already so passionate about, using it as a source of energy to find truer and more lasting forms of mental and physical health.

In learning all that I have, it is now in me to encourage others to go out and find their own form of “meditation path”. Let it be something you can take with you through the day–something that already brings you a sense of calm; a moment of peace. Whether a fountain, a flower, a building, or just the sky, allow that passion to act as a motivator, a fuel that leads you to get in better touch with yourself. (And don’t just use it during times of stress! It is equally important to be mindful during happier times as well).

And if you, like me, see the world splayed in texture, and color, and style, then maybe color is your “tool”–your “medium” to finding that thing you’ve been missing, just like I was. 

Sending a boost of positive, colorful energy,