It's All About Seeing Colors

I had an inspiring conversation the other night with an old friend. We sat and talked for hours, catching up on life, loss, love. He and I started talking about the times in our life when we moved, started anew, and found ourselves, found happiness, found life. And he said something that’s always going to stay with me:

“Everything used to be grey
But now I see colors again.”

I breathed that in. It was beautiful. And raw. And true.

When life hits hard, when we suffer a heartbreak or loss, things turn grey. And sometimes, as horrible as it can be, we become numb to the world around us. The greyness becomes our new way of life and, for a while, we accept that. We settle for it. We continue living in the dense fog of life.

Days – even months – pass by in this greyness. We feel stuck, held, dull, and worn down. Our spirits never elevate. And it stays this way until the day we wake up and decide we want to live life differently. We’re done being stuck in the fog.

And it’s at that moment that we decide to make a change. A big change. A change that will propel us into feeling life again and, more importantly, feeling alive again.

For me, it meant moving 3,000+ miles away from home. Away from comfort, security, and all the things that were familiar. Getting the hell out of my comfort zone was certainly one of the keys to making me feel alive again.

Little by little, the colors started to appear in my life again.

Instead of looking out and just seeing an ocean, I saw the glistening reflection of the sun in the deep sapphire sea. I saw the different hues of orange and yellow and purple and pink melt into the horizon as each day came to an end. My life was full of color again. Color was all around me.

The truth is, the color had been around me all that time. But I couldn’t see it. I didn’t allow myself to. Because of the things and events and people I was surrounding myself with and letting into my life, everything was still grey. I wasn’t opening my life up to the colors.

But then one day, we decide to make that change. We open up our heart and our life. And those colors start to seep back in. Little by little.

My friend sends me texts with a beautiful picture of the sky and the trees with the beautiful reminder:

“Remember, it’s all about seeing colors.”

And so I breathe that in again. I check in with myself. Am I seeing those colors right now? If not, what am I doing to prevent myself from seeing them? Maybe I’m putting too much on my plate and it’s clouding the color. Maybe I’m surrounding myself with things that drag me and bring me down. Maybe I’m allowing fear and doubt and worry to creep in and wash away the colors. Or maybe I’m just not allowing myself to see them – those beautiful colors.

I encourage you to do the same. Check back in with yourself from time to time. Are you seeing all the vibrant colors of life? Are you fully allowing yourself to?

See colors again, friends. Life is too beautiful not to.

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