What’s the Colour of Your Thoughts?

The other day, while watching the sky shift from a soft blue to a dull grey, I found myself wondering, what’s the colour of my mind right now? Is it scattered like grey clouds? Calm like a still blue lake? Or perhaps buzzing yellow with excitement?

We often ask how we’re feeling, but rarely do we pause to ask: What am I thinking? And even more rarely: What tone do those thoughts carry?

I’ve started to believe that our thoughts carry colours. Not literally, of course, but in a way that’s deeply felt. You know what I mean, right? Some thoughts have a heavy, murky tint. Others feel bright, clean, even expansive. And then there are those that sneak in quietly, like shadows at dusk, unnoticed but still shifting the mood inside us.

Invisible paintbrushes

We’re painting our inner world all the time, often without realising it.

A passing thought like “I’m not doing enough” might seem harmless, but it leaves behind a dull undertone, a pale grey that quietly dims everything else. Before we know it, that single thought shapes our emotion (guilt, maybe), which nudges our behaviour (overworking, perhaps), and then becomes a part of how we live, relate, decide, and even love.

If you zoom out just a little, it’s amazing, and a bit sobering, to see how one unnoticed thought can ripple outward like that.

It’s not about judging your thoughts. We all have every colour inside us. But what I’m learning (and re-learning, daily) is this: awareness changes the art.

Awareness is the First Stroke

For me, awareness is the quiet hero here. Not the loud kind that shouts affirmations in the mirror, but the gentler kind, the one that sits beside your anxious thoughts and says, “Oh, this again. I see you.”

Once you start noticing the colour of your thoughts, you may find you’re not always the one choosing them. Some are inherited, from childhood, society, culture. Some were once helpful, but now outdated. And some are simply habits, not truths.

But with awareness, we get to choose: Do I want to keep thinking this? Does it still serve me? What’s another way to look at this, not naively, but honestly?

Sometimes, I just imagine adding a new brushstroke: one of compassion. One of calm. One of maybe I don’t have to figure it all out today.

What palette are you using?

Sometimes, I notice I’m working with the same old colours: worry-blue, comparison-grey, self-doubt brown. And because they’re so familiar, I don’t even question them, they just seem like truth.

But they’re not always truth. They’re just thoughts. Thoughts we’ve thought often enough that they start to feel like wallpaper, always there, quietly dictating the mood.

So I’ve started to check in with myself:

• What’s the colour of my thoughts today?
• Do they feel open or tight? Heavy or light? Generous or guarded?
• And do I want to keep painting with these?

This isn’t some grand self-help routine. It’s just a quiet curiosity. A moment of noticing. And that alone has shifted something for me.

Recolouring isn’t repressing

Just to be clear, I’m not talking about “positive thinking” in the Pinterest-quote kind of way. This isn’t about slapping a pastel pink over your anger or pretending your sadness is sunny yellow.

Some days, our thoughts are stormy. Some weeks, they’re nearly black. That’s real. That’s human. There’s no need to paint over anything.

But what if, instead of reacting blindly to those thoughts, we simply noticed the shade they were casting?

What if, in that noticing, we gained the space to soften them? Or to balance them with other colours we may have forgotten were there, like calm, trust, or hope?

The point isn’t to fix your thoughts. It’s to see them. Because once you do, you’re not at their mercy anymore. You can respond rather than react. You can edit the brushstroke. Or, sometimes, let the canvas sit untouched for a while.

Final Thought 

A little practice (That Isn’t a Practice)

If you’re reading this and wondering what to do with it, maybe start small.

Just ask yourself once a day, What’s the colour of my thoughts right now?

That’s it. No journaling required. No big shift needed. Just pause. Observe. Feel the texture of your mind.

You might be surprised at what you find. Maybe you’ve been swimming in grey without even realising it. Or maybe your thoughts have been kind and clear all along, but you just hadn’t slowed down enough to see.

And if today your thoughts are mostly tangled or dark, that’s okay too. Even the night sky is full of stars. So maybe the question isn’t just what are you thinking, but what are your thoughts quietly colouring inside you?

And if you could choose, what colours would you like to see more of?