I am green the color of growth. I can be tender and subtle. Green matches all other shades of green and looks good with other colors. I am earthy and healthy. I have inside me the soothing qualities of blue and the excitement of yellow. I am loyal. I say go and yes. I may not be very flashy -- I tend to blend with the environment but I am lively and nurturing and creative.
I just did this exercise of writing as if I am a color. I chose green which is my new favorite color. First of all it shows me that I have changed. I wouldn't have picked green several years ago. I think for me it tells me how much I'm into growing. Even spring doesn't grieve me so much anymore. I feel I'm more in the spirit of spring - growing evolving.
This exercise loses all it's depth in the Artist's Way. It's a deep exercise. Here's why -first you take your time choosing because on some level it's important to choose the right color. Why is this? - It's because your personal choices - even small choices are the way you declare yourself. On a certain level we know that if we choose green instead of say pink that says something very specific about our style and who we are.
How you answered it is also very telling because someone else with the color green might have said, - I am green. I am big and full. It isn't easy being green.
The thing about this is that the same color will appear differently to everyone. No one sees the same color exactly the same. There is no right or wrong answer to this exercise. So the way you describe yourself as a color shows your own uniqueness.
I quote Barbara Sher on this: "in this simple-minded little exercise on color...Your style is a style of perception, a way of seeing and feeling the world, that is unique --as unique as your fingerprints. You are born with it, and it develops as you grow and it is not like anyone else's in the world. It is literally incomparable."
Instead of seeing life this way from our own unique perception and appreciating others' styles we actually live by comparing ourselves to everyone else and placing ourselves into a rank. The depth of this exercise hopefully shows you how your perception is unique and how beautiful someone else's perception really is.
I quote Barbara Sher again, "The notion of competition - the idea that there is someone out there just like you, only better - is untrue. What's more, it keeps your attention focused away from yourself, on the struggle to meet the ill-fitting standards of other people, instead of looking inside and discovering your own. The things that are unique and incomparable about you are the only basis on which you can design a life that will truly satisfy you. And it is you who must be satisfied. There is no authority outside you who can tell you what's right for you. When you become aware of your own uniqueness, that's when you really begin to cherish and respect yourself - and to respect others!"
The last thing about this color exercise is this. It's a lightly obscured exercise in letting you feel free to speak up about yourself. You may have caught on that you were talking as this color and underneath it you were saying things about yourself. It's another way to bypass the critic or editor. The beauty of this exercise is we get to show ourselves to ourselves in a way that speaks in our own style and we can hear it.
