When is a colour not only a colour? …When it’s blue!

Article by Anna Letitia Cook

Had a fit of the blues lately? Feeling blue? Gotcha!!

So which springs to your mind first when someone says the word blue? Try it out on your friends and family, ask them to tell you the first thing that comes to their mind when you say blue!! Could give you a lot of insight into how they are feeling at the moment, particularly if they are good at hiding things, or don’t want to worry you….

For me blue (almost always) means turquoise, powder blue, that gorgeous Arab blue that has a hint of mauve in it… the midnight blue of the sky when night is falling, the bright blue sky of the Mediterranean, the incredible turquoise of the Caribbean sea etc.

For my OH blue means a ‘coup de blues’, (he is French and of a decidedly more negative mind-set than me). Although he speaks perfectly good English for him blue or blues will always be feeling low, down, miserable (normally associated with grumpiness in his case – lol).

So next time you are feeling blue what can you do to bounce back?

Firstly, think BLUE, as in the colour… find yourself some images (your own ideas as I mentioned mine above) or use my examples and imagine yourself inside the scene with these images all around you, really live and feel what is happening in the scene. Feel the joy, pleasure, excitement, appreciation of your image… Hear the sounds around you, if it is sunny, feel the sun on your skin, if it’s the sea, smell the ozone….Enjoy it, smile, laugh, indulge all your senses totally! Really anchor that feeling of pleasure, and well-being inside you.

This as a starter should distract you and make you more interested in your scene so giving you some distance from your woes!

What is making you feel blue?

Now for some more practical ideas – if your feeling blue was caused by some concrete problems or worries make a list. Write down what the problems are, how they affect you, if they really exist in a way that can impact negatively on your life or if they are more in your head. What I mean by this is, do you need to do something to stop/change or control the problem or are you stressing more about what “could” happen before it has actually happened?

After the session of imagining BLUE the colour and your beautiful, pleasurable images that go with it, you will probably be looking at the whole situation with a much more distant and objective view… This is GOOD!

You can now progress to exploring and selecting options to overcome whatever it as that made you feel blue in the first place – and in a much more positive and productive frame of mind!!

Go for it! Grab that ‘feeling blue’ whenever it hits you and turn it around with vividly imagining scenarios using the “colour blue”…. not only will you feel better and take positive action, but isn’t it great to dream of all the places you could be really enjoying having fun with blue!

Bio:

Anna Cook is particularly passionate about mentoring women executives and boomers in finding clarity in their career choices in order to achieve freedom, fulfilment and leadership success. She created and became CEO of her first company in the entertainment industry at age 32. Midlife approaching, hungry for a dynamic change, she refocused her experience, founding WomenUP Ltd, a specialist consultancy focusing on the challenges of corporate gender balance strategy. Creator of the process SCOPE for career fulfilment. She is currently working on her first book ‘Liberate Your Career: The Women’s Guide to Freedom and Fulfilment’, with plans for a second, ‘Glass Ceiling Grans’, early next year.