Episode Highlights:
- Tina describes feeling colorful while writing a thank-you note with gold paint pen on blue glitter cardboard, explaining how creative expression with vibrant colors brings her self-satisfaction and joy, especially when "sparkles" are involved
- Heather reveals that dyeing her hair pink and purple serves as both self-expression and a reminder that there's "something beautiful and effervescent inside" her, even during periods of depression when she may not feel it
- Michelle connects her colorful wardrobe choices to her personality, noting how she gravitates toward vibrant clothing and uses even black as a base for contrast and impact rather than to hide
- The hosts explore Tina's background in color theory and graphic design, learning how colors like McDonald's red and yellow combination are deliberately chosen to create discomfort that encourages quick turnover
- Tina explains why colorful belongs in the humor category rather than joy or energy, noting that colorful people often have a "silly" quality and don't take themselves too seriously - embodying a "I don't give a crap about what you think because this makes me happy" attitude that celebrates uniqueness without needing approval
Podcast theme music by Dubush Miaw from Pixabay
This episode of the #FeelingsMatter Podcast was recorded and produced at MSR Studios in Saint Paul, MN. No reproduction, excerpting, or other use without written permission.
This episode is sponsored by
FeelWise - bridging the gap between reflection and resilience, offering practical tools to help people overcome obstacles, embrace change, and grow stronger emotionally. https://www.feel-wise.com/
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Episode Transcript
Do you have trouble talking about your feelings?
Speaker 2 (00:06):
You're not alone.
Speaker 1 (00:08):
It's a topic that can make even the most.
Speaker 3 (00:10):
Powerful people somewhat squeamish.
Speaker 1 (00:15):
You're listening to Feelings Matter, where our mission is to
demystify everything about emotions so that we can all get
more comfortable in talking about them. Joining Heather, Tina and
Michelle as we unpack a new angle on emotions and
the psychology of human nature.
Speaker 2 (00:36):
Feelings Matter. Hello, and welcome to Feelings Matter.
Speaker 4 (00:47):
I'm Michelle Stinson Morels, I'm teenage Scheiger, and I'm Heather Hampton.
Speaker 5 (00:54):
All right, miss Tina, what do you got for us
this week?
Speaker 4 (00:58):
I got colorful and colorful? This visual around Colorful is
a very colorful feely. It has all the colors of
the rainbow, and the feely is also holding some paint brushes,
and their hair is all loopy and they have it
(01:20):
looks like a little football or some sort of a toy.
And their expression is a little goofy, a little bit
not fully googly eyed. But the pupils are slightly closer
than they should be, which makes you a little bit goofy.
And there's no teeth, which is also a little goofy,
(01:40):
and there's also a big honeybun on the top of
the head. So our definition here is I feel interesting, multifaceted, energetic,
and distinctive, And I think that's a great definition. I
feel a little bit colorful today. In fact, I wouldn't
have been aware of that until I looked at this.
But I've had more energy today than I have had
(02:02):
in a while, which is good. Yes, I feel distinctive,
like probably every.
Speaker 6 (02:07):
Day, because what we're working on and what I work
on every day is just so darn different from the
day to day life as it could be by my choice.
Speaker 4 (02:20):
And it is multifaceted because I always have about seventy
five things on my to do list and they're all
very different. Am I experiencing a heightened sense of appreciation
for vibrant and vivid colors?
Speaker 5 (02:32):
Always?
Speaker 4 (02:33):
Do you have an urge to express yourself creatively through
use of colors? Always? And especially if they're sparkles? Sparkle
is your favorite color? Before I got on this recording
with you guys, I was writing a lovely thank you
note to our foster care organization that bought fuel Wise,
(02:54):
and I was telling them how they're heroes and how
much we appreciated the important work they did. And I
wrote it down in a gold paint pen on the
back of a blue glitter piece of cardboard, And so
clearly I'm being drawn to like glitters and like shiny things.
And it was making and I was feeling very It
(03:18):
was this like a sense of self satisfaction, like I
get so like into these like colorful creative It's a
creative feeling, like it's I get it so into it
that I get really satisfied with what I just made
because it's really colorful and sparkly makes me feel happy.
Speaker 7 (03:37):
Joy.
Speaker 4 (03:37):
Are you feeling a sense of joy or delight? Why? Well,
I'm surrounded by a lot of colors. This is pretty specific,
but yeah, that's what made me feel colorful today. Yeah,
what do you guys think about that?
Speaker 5 (03:49):
I feel like colorful?
Speaker 8 (03:52):
It is.
Speaker 5 (03:55):
An emotion that I strive for. I think one of
the reasons why I color my hair right.
Speaker 8 (04:02):
My hair is currently pink and purple, and I talk
about my depression all the time, but I think having my.
Speaker 5 (04:10):
Hair be colorful is a reminder to myself that there
is that beautiful spark inside of me, even if I
may not be feeling it, and so dyeing my hair
is a way to express to people outside don't judge
a book by its cover, but also just a self
(04:33):
reminder that there is something beautiful and effervescent inside of
me that I don't feel all the time, but is
a is really a delightful experience.
Speaker 3 (04:46):
And I'm oh, my gosh, how I love that story.
See I'm learning new things about Heather too. The first
time you've ever said anything about that, so you I
appreciate that. That's just that makes me appreciate ciate your
self expression with the way that you show up, the
way you present yourself, that just hits different for me now, Heather,
(05:09):
thank you and what it's worth.
Speaker 4 (05:12):
Your hair ombres from beautiful purple into pink into blues
always make me feel colorful and effort vessel. It happens. Yes,
so good, Yes, good to working.
Speaker 3 (05:30):
I've been sitting here wondering at what point does an
emotional experience like that that we have a deep connection to,
at what point does that shift from being just an
emotional experience to a bit more to do with our
personality or our character. Because I identified so much with
(05:54):
particularly what Tina had to say, so I get a
lot of compliments on especially my summer wardrobe.
Speaker 2 (06:01):
It's very bright, it's very colorful.
Speaker 3 (06:04):
And I tend to when I'm shopping for clothing, gravitate
toward vibrant, colorful.
Speaker 4 (06:13):
Do I have black in my wardrobe?
Speaker 3 (06:15):
Yes, I do, and I use it a great deal
to be a base or a foundation that I then
will put color or pattern or something. I very rarely
will show up in all black unless it's for a
particular purpose, Like I have a very pretty formal black
(06:37):
gown that you know. It's a full length, it's cut
like a mermaid tail type train.
Speaker 4 (06:42):
It is.
Speaker 3 (06:43):
It is a full law and formal dress, and it
is black, and I'm looking for that particular color and
the contrast between that black dress and my very pale
English Irish skin. For I'm looking for that to make
it impact. So even in black, I don't wear it
(07:04):
to hide. I wear it for the contrast. I wear
it for the impact. And for me, I do think
that stems from Dare I say a colorful personality?
Speaker 4 (07:19):
I can Dare.
Speaker 3 (07:22):
I think that particular emotional experience is ingrained enough in
me personally that yes, it is a contributing factor to
my personality and who I am as a person.
Speaker 9 (07:37):
Feelings matter is brought to you by feel wise. Most
people can identify three emotions sad, mad, and glad, but
there are over one hundred and fifty six ways to
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Speaker 2 (07:54):
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Speaker 9 (07:55):
You build your emotional vocabulary and transform under standing into action.
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Speaker 3 (08:20):
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Speaker 4 (08:27):
I think for me there's a tie to my creativity.
It is also something I talk about with emotions all
the time that they are a lot like a color.
Everybody has their own experience of red or yellow, or
blue or purple. And there's color blindness, right, So wouldn't
(08:51):
it make sense that everyone's experience of yellow could be
completely different, Not that you look at yellow and see purple.
But there's a good be different shades. There's will be
different warps, there's going to be different intensities. And I
think with emotions, we all have an experience of sadness
or joy or something like that, but each of us
has our own unique experience of that emotion. Well that's
(09:15):
unique to everyone else, which is also what inspired me
to do this work a bit, because when you come
to colors, there's a color wheel, and there's opposite colors
on the color wheel. There's tertiary colors and analogous colors,
and there's a whole structure to colors despite the fact
that we each experience colors in a unique way and
(09:39):
it's all relational and relative and maybe a percentage of
intensity or a percentage of a shade or a hue
that's combined with different variables. And then I did create
RGB for emotions. I haven't really put it out into
the world yet, but I took that little philosophy of
color and just applied it to emotions and made a
(10:00):
whole system out of it. And I'm still very colorful
about that.
Speaker 3 (10:06):
Tina, your background in training is in graphic design, and
I am aware that there's a lot of color theory
that is studied as part of a graphic design degree
and whatever. And I know in marketing there is, especially
when we're talking about marketing and graphic design, that we
(10:28):
look to certain colors to evoke emotion as well, so
that kind of flows both ways. Either you feel an
emotion and associate you with a color, or you associate
a color with an emotion.
Speaker 4 (10:40):
Can you, because you're the one that's actually trained in this,
can you.
Speaker 2 (10:44):
Speak to that just a little bit? Please?
Speaker 4 (10:47):
Oh? Absolutely. Colors have long been used in marketing to
evoke emotions or spark action. Some of the classic examples
are McDonald's. The interior of a mcdonaldnald's restaurant is Oh, classically,
I don't think they do it anymore, but it used
to be bright yellow and bright red, and those two
(11:07):
colors together are colors that you would find on the
back of a poisonous snake, and so at an evolutionary level,
our brain is attuned to seeing red and yellow together
as a danger, as something to pay attention to. Why
in the world would you put that in an eating establishment.
(11:28):
The reason that you put it in an eating establishment
is so people don't linger, So they're uncomfortable a little bit.
They're excited a little bit when they get in there
because of that color combination, but it's not very comfortable
to hang around, so they get out quickly and make
room for the next customers to spend their money. Ever,
(11:49):
since I've heard stories like that and studied color theory,
That's where I think my interest in emotion originally developed
was how do colors influence in motion? And how can
I as a designer as an artist intentionally use colors
to get the effect that I'm looking to get with
what artwork or this piece of communication. And that's been
(12:12):
quite a long.
Speaker 2 (12:13):
Journey, and it's still informing the design of the feelies
that we are using as part of this process to
become more aware and identify our emotional experiences.
Speaker 3 (12:29):
Like your particular emotion is colorful, It's got many colors.
It's very vibrant and very energetic. And an emotion that
I covered recently was affectionate where it was all read
because that emotion evokes warmth.
Speaker 7 (12:48):
Right.
Speaker 3 (12:49):
Yeah, We're still blending back and forth between how we
communicate and how we express with what we feel internally.
Speaker 4 (12:57):
Every single feely was color is a huge part of
the design of that feely. You would notice that affectionate
and mad are the same color that could be dangerous.
There is that excitatory that that's not when it's not
combined with yellow. Red is the stimulating color of love.
(13:21):
So yeah, and obviously there's color of anger hot.
Speaker 8 (13:31):
I'm curious as how you ended up putting colorful into
the overarching category of humor, because I feel like colorful
could live in a lot like it could live in love.
Speaker 10 (13:44):
I think it could live in pride. I think you
live in energy, it could live in joy. So I'm
just wondering if you have some insight that you could
share about how you ended up in humor with colorful.
Speaker 4 (13:58):
I think that's a really great question. I think it
is true that it could land in so many different places.
Sometimes the word colorful is used to describe a person
who can exude things in such a way that it's humorous.
A color character colorful to me has an aspect of silly.
(14:21):
And when I think of silly, I think of humor.
And so it was just making a choice. And nothing
is right or wrong or set in stone, because again,
everybody's individual experiences is one and the same. But if
I find myself feeling colorful, I might find myself a
little bit more on the silly side than I find
myself in the joyful. And this is my perception in
(14:43):
the joy or the positive interest or anything like that.
And it just landed there it landed with humor. It's
where it landed. Could it go to a different place
or could it go away altogether? We'll stay tuned for
version two, won't we tell me what you think? I
love it that.
Speaker 2 (15:03):
I perceive anyway that.
Speaker 4 (15:07):
What you're connecting to you.
Speaker 3 (15:08):
There is that Colorful doesn't take itself too seriously. We're
leaning into the humor side of things because at this
point I'm not really taking myself that seriously. This is
not something that if you don't like my dress that
I'm wearing today because it's too bright, I really don't care.
Speaker 4 (15:27):
There's a fun.
Speaker 7 (15:30):
There's that fun nineties. Yeah, it's more like that.
Speaker 11 (15:34):
I don't give a crap about what you think because
this is making me really happy and I feel so
myself in whatever this is that I don't need your approval.
Speaker 4 (15:45):
You know, it's fun. It's fun to be colorful and
fun and funny. Yeah, because you were.
Speaker 2 (15:53):
As Yes, And we honor and appreciate to Erickson that
it wound.
Speaker 3 (15:59):
Up in the model because this is a somewhat humorous experience.
What do we do with colorful, well, other than being
able to recognize it and just hold it and honor it.
What do we do with colorful?
Speaker 4 (16:17):
What places could it take us?
Speaker 7 (16:20):
So some of the techniques are practicing compassion, be the panda,
and try something new and ask up and ended questions.
Speaker 4 (16:31):
Yeah, so, I think the humor the colorful is really
about expanding upon that fun, funny, lighthearted, distinctive, unique flight
thing that you're feeling right now, taking a moment to
listen to somebody mindfully without clouding your thoughts with what
am I going to say next? If you're in a
very good feeling state like this, it's a good opportunity
(16:54):
to show compassion for another and be the panda. Is
an appreciation for the uniqueness is actually be the pandas
probably the most colorful self expressive you appreciate how unique
you are in the universe. There's only one of you,
There's only one you are unique. The panda doesn't get
a PhD to be special. The panda doesn't fold a
(17:19):
position of authority to be special. The panda is just
special because the panda is unique. And we often forget
how unique we are ourselves and how colorful we are ourselves.
And it's a really great way to celebrate that and
let it spill out into the world. Around you and
help other people feel unique and colorful as well.
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