Color = happiness

A few years ago, I had a vivid dream that I went into a dark therapist's office to meet with my client, Cameron Diaz. She wanted to know the secret to happiness, so I told her:

• Cook
• Connect 
• Care
• Color

I've heard that all of the characters in your dreams are aspects of yourself, so I've thought a lot over the years about my advice to the "Cameron Diaz" aspect of myself.

Cooking, connecting and caring made sense, but I didn't fully understand the color part until last week when I joined Andrea Sher's e-course: Collecting Color: 30 Days of Photo Joy. I'm having so much fun!

Each day, for thirty days, she sends out a photo prompt (e.g. take a photo of a flower, color at your feet, a splash of red). I take 1-5 photos based on the prompt, and upload them to the course's Flickr group. It's self-paced, so I can do as little, or as much as I want, whenever I want.

 

Walking around each day on a "treasure hunt" for color has helped me to see beauty in the everyday. I took all of the photos in this post walking on the not always pretty streets of Oakland. When I look at them, I feel like I live in a magical land full of luscious flowers, yellow brick roads, and luminous symbols.

Last week, I wrote about the healing powers of different things. I think color should be added to the list. Turns out there is actually something called color therapy or chromotheraphy. Who knew? (OK, probably a lot of people knew, but not me).

I now understand what my dream was trying to tell me. Color matters: in my home, my clothes, my food, my environment. Everything. It is one of the keys to happiness.

How can you add more color into your life this week?

 

P.S. I think registration for Collecting Color is still open, if you wanna join me!

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