How to Colour Your Life with Shades of Joy
Written by Katie Tallo
“You are the author of your own life. It’s up to you to dream it, imagine it, sketch it, shape it, build it, go after it, and make it happen. And then color it in with bright, shining shades of joy and deep, lasting shades of meaning that are yours and yours alone. No one else can know the dream or the strengths you have within you that will help you make your dreams come true. No one else needs to. Because they’re yours. And so is today.”
These words are from the birthday card my mother chose for me in early August when I turned 47. She said they reminded her of me. I know they weren’t specifically written for me. I know they were manufactured by Hallmark Cards. But they were chosen for me.
They were chosen in honour of what my mother believes I have become. I have made her proud, not because of how much I earn, what I do for a living, what title or degrees surround my name, but because of the joy-filled life I have created for myself.
The day after my birthday, I stopped into a store called Surfer Girl and bought myself a gift. A string of beautiful prayer flags of red, yellow, blue, pink, green and orange. Tibetans believe the mantras on the flags are blown by the wind and spread to others. I hope these prayers blow in your direction and help you to colour your world with your own shades of joy. Embrace their messages, live their lessons, bask in their insights and fill your life with simple joy.
The Red Flag is for Tranquility
The peace that comes when energies are in harmony and relationships are in balance.
The Yellow Flag is for Wisdom
Knowledge, intuition, and experience combine to guide us in thought and deed.
The Blue Flag is for Peace
To bring peace to the earth, strive to make your own life peaceful.
The Pink Flag is for Love
An inspired form of giving, love breathes life into the heart and brings grace to the soul.
The Green Flag is for Courage
Not the absence of fear or despair, but the strength to conquer them.
The Orange Flag is for Happiness
When one’s spiritual needs are met by the untroubled inner life. Happiness comes when your work and words are of benefit to yourself and others.
These flags now fly just outside the screen door leading onto my deck from my office. I can see them as I write. At the moment, they are quite still in the summer heat. Maybe I need your energy to move them. Yes. A breeze just kicked up suddenly and they are blowing now. Something’s brewing. I hope it is your joy.
40 Responses to “How to Colour Your Life with Shades of Joy”
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Hi Katie, I love how color means so much and is so important to our daily lives. Life would be sooo dull without a splash of multi-colored loveliness!
My favorite color is purple… I wonder what emotions it carries or symbolism it has?
Hey there Scott, apparently purple has to do with spiritual intent and royalty, mystery and magic. You are right about colour being so important. My office is a warm tangerine colour and it surrounds me with a tropical feeling in summer and a warmth in winter. I never realized until just now as I look around how vibrant my creative space really is and how key to my sense of well being colour is. I love purple too, as you can tell from my blog. Cheers!
Katie,
Welcome back and Happy belated 47th Birthday!! We sure missed your postings and you. Hope you had a great break.
I loved the wording on your card and Tibetan prayer flags. I sure to have it checked it out, sounds pretty neat.
Thank you Preeti. It was very sweet of you to be worried about me and to miss me. I did have a wonderful break. I feel much more relaxed and calm. I do love my card and flags. They are daily reminders of what is truly important.
Hi Kate,
I love how proud your mother must be to have gotten you that card. It’s beautiful. I’m learning now to abide by nobody else’s expectations but my own. And it’s so liberating to follow the path that’s meant for each of us. For the first time in my life, I’m actually giving myself the time to experiment with my writing. It’s selfish and beautiful and so right. I deserve to give myself the joy that writing brings me. I feel like I’m gulping breaths of green, blue, orange and yellow as I say that.
Thanks for coming back. I missed your updates on my daily rounds.
Carolina, how lovely of you to say that you missed my updates. I feel such love from this online community of friends, readers, collaborators and fellow writers. You sound like you’ve found a rare freedom that many people search for their entire lives. I’m so happy for you. Experimentation, beautiful time for just you and your writing — I love it! You do deserve it sister!!! Be as selfish as you like – although I’d call it guilt-free self loving. Gulp away and take in all the colourful joy that writing brings you. Big hugs!
Our darling sweet beautiful Katie is back! I have missed you so much. I have waited to see when the next post will pop up. I had no idea I was so attached to your writing – and what a gorgeous post you give us, thank you Katie. Happy birthday to you and thank you for spreading this joyful tradition my way. I feel your energy already and I hope that those colors bring you all of those words they represent in full. Welcome home!
Farnoosh honey! It’s good to be back and I’m feeling very loved. Thank you for the birthday wishes. We must skype soon, once I’ve got caught up with life. Hugs to you!
What a beautiful post. I love symbols like that. They truly remind us of what we want to pursue and help give us inspiration when it’s lacking. I’ve seen them before but I never knew what the colors meant until I read this.
I hope our energies combined can create awesome change in this world. Thanks for sharing and happy belated birthday!
Hi there Vanessa, thanks for the birthday wishes. I love my prayer flags and I’m sure there are many meanings for them, but these ones have it spelled out right on the flag in English. I love to watch the words, peace, love and tranquility fluttering in the wind. I have to say, when I was writing, I swear, they were totally still and then just as I wrote, “maybe I need your energy to move them” a wind kicked up like crazy. It was kind of spooky. Maybe you’re right. Together, we can create awesome change. The idea gives me shivers. I feel inspired to figure out how we can make that happen.
I totally feel that. How indeed…
Katie, every time I read your words, they hold meaning to my life on the day of reading. Thank you so much for adding a spiritual rainbow to my world today.
Welcome back. And belated Happy Birthday wishes to you!
I guess we’re connected somehow Joanne. Or living parallel lives! A spiritual rainbow — I really love that. Thank you for the birthday wishes. It’s good to be back.
Katie,
First off…happy Birthday to YOU!!
And what a beautiful message from your mother – I very much feel joy as I read these words. And the flags…what wonderful symbolism to many of life’s true meaning….
Thank you Lance. Interesting. I’ve seen your face popping up everywhere the last couple of days. I’m so glad you feel joy and found meaning in this post. See you around, I’m sure.
Hi Katie,
And, welcome back!
First, Happy happy birthday!
What a beautiful card your mother picked out for you – and it does suit you so well.
Mother’s always know, don’t they?
I love that you went out and bought a gift that you can share with the world.
What a kind magnificent heart you have.
Thank you for allowing the wind to spread the prayers out into the world.
We need more of that, for sure.
Angela sweetie. Your words are very kind and as always make my heart melt. I look forward to reconnecting soon.
Dear Katie. A very Happy Birthday to you. Missed your posts just like everyone else. It is truly God’s gift that one can colour our lives so. .God bless you with every joy. Do keep writing and spreading. Great post
So thoughtful of you to say you missed my posts, Uzma. Thank you for your blessings and encouragement. It means the world to me. I can’t wait to keep writing and striving and, as Vanessa has said, creating awesome change.
Happy belated birthday, Katie, and may you have a joyous and healthy year ahead. Your mother sounds like a lovely woman, by the way! It is so good to have you back to share beautiful words with us all.
Hey Jean, thanks for the birthday wishes, and yes, my mum is lovely. Thanks for the wonderful welcome back.
Hey, Katie, I missed you and your prose! What a beautiful post you have for us today. The message in the card from your mother is simple, powerful and profoundly true. And the Tibetan prayer flags — I love those and reading this makes my shades of joy brighter.
Hi Belinda, lovely to see your smiling face again. I’m so happy you found inspiration and joy in this post. Thanks for the kind words. I missed your words too.
Katie,
Thanks for sharing the words from your birthday card. It makes me think of Natasha Bedingfield singing “…feel the rain on your skin, no one else can feel it for you…”
Your prayer flags remind me of the chakra mandalas I’ve been working on…very simple, but as profound as I choose for them to be.
You are a strong, beautiful woman, and I’m grateful to be in the sphere with you.
Take good care,
Jane
Jane, how lovely of you to begin my day with your sweet and supportive words. Yes, my daughter loves Natasha’s song so I know it well. It’s very empowering. Have a great day.
Hi Katie
Welcome back and belated birthday greetings.
This is a lovely post and informative too because I have always wondered about the meaning behind the colors. What really surprised me was for tranquility. I had always thought of red as an angry color – he saw red. I live and learn.
Thank you
Thank you Marion. It’s good to be back. I’m not sure if these message apply to all prayer flags but that is what is written on mine and so that is what they have come to mean to me. Red is such a beautiful colour – strong, passionate, maybe that’s why anger and sometimes sex are associated with it. Maybe tranquility is a state of being peacefully passionate.
Happy birthday, Katie. That was a neat idea, the prayer flags that you can see from where you write. For some reason I think of you in the Lotus position, levitated, in your tangerine room and encircled by the fluttering prayer flags. A sort of Kwan Yin. Don’t ask where that came from, it just sort of popped into my head! ;D
To be compared to the compassionate rebel is quite something. Meg, you gave me a giggle because I sound slightly freakish in your description. Just went for a run so my hips are way to tight for the lotus position and I haven’t mastered levitation yet, but my daughter did buy me a lovely little silver statue of a woman sitting in lotus position and she’s sitting next to my mouse. The love flag is fluttering particularly strongly this morning. Thanks for the laughs and continue to let me know about the images that pop into your head — they are intriguing and hilarious.
Katie you always make me smile! Hope your vacation was inspiring & relaxing. I have to get back to real life soon myself, but I think I’ll just blow in the breeze a bit longer with your beautiful affirmations!
Hey Meg. Real life? What’s that? I’m still riding the waves at the beach and basking in summer’s heat. This weekend they’re calling for yet another heat wave and I can’t wait. Loving this summer. Great to hear from you. Glad to make you smile.
Happy Birthday & Welcome back!!
“the mantras on the flags are blown by the wind and spread to others.” “A breeze just kicked up suddenly and they are blowing now. Something’s brewing. I hope it is your joy.”
Your poetic inspiration is quite powerful. It stirs my mind and moves my spirit.
& in reading this, I just learned about prayer flags
Thank you for the well wishes, Aileen. Not just poetic but true. Seriously! The wind kicked up just as I wrote that I needed “your energy” to get them moving. The world works in mysterious ways — or maybe the universe does. I feel such love today flowing my way as I dig back into past cleanse posts (in preparation for the launch of the cleanse) and the comments and support have brought me to tears a few times today. I am so blessed to have met such wonderful people in my readers and fellow bloggers, like you, Aileen. I can’t wait to meet you in the flesh, at Blogworld. My spirit is moved too.
Happy Birthday Katie! I hope your holiday has energised you.
I just loved this post and I can understand why your mum is so ptoud of who you have become. Loved the prayer flags and isn’t it interesting that in fact they relate to general Christian principles of living!
Thank you Maria. Yes, my holiday did energize me in a whole new way. I was reminded of what is truly important. I’m so glad you found messages in the flags that resonated with you and your beliefs.
really a true fact,,,,,superb………
Thank you. I’m glad you enjoyed and found truth in this post.
Katie,
I have just discovered your blog, and especially felt these thought on color spoke to me! I just “neutralized” my house’s wall colors so it will sell (Anyone feel free to say a prayer about that) and I miss it! Love color, love this post!
Hey Kelly, welcome to my blog. And yes, I’ll say a prayer for your house to sell. I bet you can’t wait to move so you can surround yourself with colour again. I’m glad this post spoke to you. Do have a look around and enjoy what you find. All the best in beginning your own blog, Kelly. I hope you do.