Color Over Clutter

Ok, so you have a lot of stuff even after you have pared down and purged–but you love it all, now what? If you love it, keep it! Clearing is a process and after a few rounds we feel lighter, more clear and free but we don’t all have to be minimalists right now. We know that stuff can bog you down, make you gain weight, keep you feeling scattered but it is also important that we live with the stuff we love. If it’s a lot or too much, here’s a solution:

Take some time to just zoom out for a moment and really look for a unifying color theme to all your stuff. You will usually find one.  Then, go bold!  Paint that color on the wall behind your ’stuff’ or on two walls or on all 4 walls. The focus of bold color will calm the cacophony of all the voices of your stuff and and like a melody have it singing the same harmonious tune. Use even just a ‘color block’ to define the space and corral the clutter.

Our body’s want to make sense of things around us…gestalt of looking for the whole big picture. In the same way that computers can’t make easy sense of the codes that we are asked to type in to make sure we are human and not spamming computers, that mechanism in our brain/body works to put pieces together to make a picture.  The fewer pieces, the less eye-movement and the less stress imprinted on our bodies. The best is to get rid of the excess clutter–the stuff that weighs you down–but if we pull the pieces together with the same color it has a similar result.

You may be surprised that that color you choose will often be the right one for you but here’s a quick guide:

Yellow, brown or tan will ground your energy.  Too much will make you crabby or lethargic or overly detail oriented.

Orange is a social color and firey answer to get you out into the world networking and talking.  Red will activate your spaces so make sure you know what you want to have more of (use the bagua for a guide).

Pink is a compassionate color and will make you more loving.

Blue is calm and loyal color,  Restful even when paired with white.

Black will get things flowing as it is water energy.  A little is elegant and social, emotional and flowing.  Too much would be like living next to a swamp or even Niagara Falls, you’d plunge deep into waters you may not want to know about.

Green–Thomas Jefferson painted the entry floor of Monticello, his beautiful mansion deep grass green to bring the healing energy of green into his life.  Fresh green can help you spring forward, be independent and lose weight.  Be careful to avoid “Mr. Yuk” Green in your spaces as this color can actually make you sick.

*Monticello Photo courtesy of Thomas Jefferson Foundation  http://classroom.monticello.org/teachers/gallery/image/181/Monticellos-East-Front-Portico/

In my talks around North America I tell audiences how to use color to bring joy and empowerment into their spaces, not just paint but color in any form, placed well will bring happiness to your life.

All my best, Fawn