When Resistance Becomes Recognition
I was reluctant to embark on an exploration of myself through the lens of the colour red. I don't know exactly why, or what the corresponding feeling was. It felt like a 'not again' moment, surrounded by a sense of 'I have done this before'.
During my recent visit to Dev-Aura, red had begun making its presence felt once again. It was a colour I had loved as a child, yet one that had gradually become less prominent in my life. The experience had left me questioning how well we really know ourselves, and whether some aspects of who we are become visible only when we allow ourselves to experience them.
Having experienced the Aura-Soma system for the past twenty years, I have come to understand that no two journeys are the same, even when we work with a bottle we have worked with previously.
During my recent consultation, Equilibrium Bottle 89 (red/deep magenta) appeared in second position. Within the Aura-Soma system, that position reflects what might be available to us at a particular moment in time, whether we choose to unfold it or not.
Reluctantly, I chose to work with it.
I deliberately avoided reading or recalling information about that particular bottle while using it. I wanted the experience to take precedence, so I simply observed and noted what came into awareness.
As I often tell my clients, applying an Aura-Soma bottle to the physical body, as Vicky Wall intended, can be approached as a way of introducing a new message into what I sometimes describe as the body's record of our physical experience. For me, the value of this process lies particularly in the awareness it may invite.
When Resistance Appears
While using the bottle, I first found myself pondering what stops us from moving forward in life and making meaningful changes that, on paper, seem good.
Here is where I met resistance.
It came in the form of the what-if questions. What if you fail? What if you end up worse off than where you are right now? What if it doesn't work anyway? You make all those efforts for what?
I was intrigued by where all these questions were coming from.
Often we are told to push through and move forward. These words are meant to be encouraging, but what if we do so simply because it is easier to continue along a familiar path? What if our behaviours and thought processes keep us moving in the same direction, even when we know that something doesn't feel right?
When we pay attention to our feelings, we might glimpse possible alternatives. But when we don't pay enough attention, when we bury our heads in the sand, another experience can sometimes demand our attention.
Pain.
I've experienced pain, like most of us, both physical and emotional, as part of growing through life. As children, we stumble and fall while learning to walk. As teenagers, heartaches and the dramas of relationships become part of our emotional education. As adults, pain can sometimes appear less frequently, yet feel more intense.
Do we learn through pain?
Is pain what makes us decide to change course in our personal and emotional lives, or in our professional careers? And do we need to reach a breaking point before we change?
Over the years, I have noticed that people often begin exploring themselves when some form of discomfort has already entered their lives. Sometimes it is subtle, not necessarily in intensity, but in the sense that it can be difficult to recognise or describe. Something feels unsettled, although its source may not yet be clear.
I wondered whether my experience with red was unfolding in another way, bringing this relationship between pain, change and awareness into focus.
If pain has become a familiar signal that something needs attention, perhaps bringing awareness to it could help us recognise habits and thought processes that might otherwise remain unquestioned.
The Patterns We Carry
As my experience continued and my journal entries became denser, everyday life brought family dynamics into my awareness. I began reflecting on how emotional pain can remain present across decades, sometimes influencing the way we relate to ourselves and others without our conscious recognition.
I wondered whether some of these patterns could also travel between generations, not necessarily because we consciously choose them, but because they become so familiar that we rarely question them.
I often think of blood as a symbolic expression of family connections. Expressions such as 'it's in my blood' seem to speak not only of our physical inheritance, but also of the behaviours and emotional patterns we absorb.
At this point, the connection with red became visible.
I began to think about our 'red parts' as those instinctual aspects of ourselves where familiar, sometimes inherited behaviours can seem so deeply rooted that we respond before we have even had the opportunity to reflect.
From Judgement to Acceptance
Observing these patterns made me wonder whether, before the willingness to change emerges, we first encounter the harshness of our own self-judgement.
We fail and judge ourselves, and when we succeed, we judge ourselves too. In doing so, we create further divisions within ourselves, separating what we consider the good parts from those we would rather not acknowledge.
But what if we could simply observe these different aspects of ourselves with enough detachment to loosen the grip of judgement?
Perhaps, in the space left behind, self-compassion could begin to emerge.
Rather than asking the analytical mind to judge every feeling and experience, could we allow it to fulfil its practical role while giving our emotional intelligence more room to express itself?
What might happen if feeling good became something we allowed ourselves to notice and follow? The body might feel less tense, the mind lighter. We might catch ourselves smiling or rediscovering a sense of joy in everyday life.
I began to realise that our wants and needs do not always arise from awareness. Sometimes they seem to be constructed by the analytical mind, shaped by expectations, familiar habits or ideas about what we should be doing.
I wondered whether loosening our attachment to some of these demands, and the weight they carry in everyday life, might create space for a renewed sense of passion and energy.
Red has shown me the denser sides of myself and has ignited the lighter ones. It has brought reflection and awareness to parts that were forgotten or overlooked.
There is no good or bad in any of those parts. Their combination constitutes who I am in this moment, but I now know they are there.
At times I will greet them as old friends; at other times I will politely decline their invitations, but I have come to accept them.
That acceptance has brought a sense of ease. The instinctual parts of myself, once hidden from awareness, now seem lighter than they first appeared.
Almost as though the red itself has become lighter, gradually moving towards pink.
And what I have come to understand about pink, through my experience with colour, is its association with unconditional love.
Explore Your Own Experience with Colour
Curious to explore colour further? Discover the Aura-Soma learning pathway and opportunities to deepen your understanding through experience and education.
Explore the Aura-Soma Pathway
Curious to explore colour further? Discover the Aura-Soma learning pathway and opportunities to deepen your understanding through experience and education.