The color at the eye of my storm

A tornado spins around me. The world moves fast, chaotic, unpredictable, loud, and I’m somewhere at the bottom of it, trying to hold still. 

Lately, I’ve been drawn to the idea of spirituality, not as a distant or abstract thing, but as a practice of living. I’ve realized that the chaos around me will never stop; it just changes its shape. So the only peace I can find must come from within, from learning to create a stillness that can’t be taken away.

I imagine stillness as a soft ring of light surrounding me, my aura — a force field that keeps me from unraveling under the pressures of modern life, the weight of expectation and the uncertainty of everything ahead. It’s the energy I build to stay grounded in who I am, to keep from losing myself while still reaching toward everything I dream of becoming.

Lately, I’ve been asking myself endless questions: What kind of person do I want to be? What kind of life do I want to lead? What kind of world do I want to help create? And when I sit quietly inside the eye of the storm, I feel something radiating from me. 

A color. 

But what color is that?

I can’t see the world through just one shade. My aura shifts with me: alive, layered, never constant.

Sometimes, I feel red. Passionate, ambitious, full of restless energy. Red reminds me of vitality and drive — the part of me that refuses to quit, that wants to build and achieve and matter. But I’m not just made of that sharp, burning edge. I’m not all fire and control.

Other days, I am blue. I try to keep my circle calm, my voice truthful, my presence peaceful. Blue feels like communication and serenity, like a breath that softens everything. But even blue ripples. I’m not calm all the time; sometimes I’m full of laughter that spills over, I’m wild with emotion or I’m swept up in what I can only describe as female rage and teenage angst. I think that’s part of my palette too, the messier shades of honesty.

Then there are moments that glow amber. When I’m with people I love, my insides feel warm, like my organs themselves are lit from within. When I play tennis, paint or listen to music that makes me see the world with a shimmering tint, the air around me feels sunlit, forgiving. Amber is the color of joy, of being seen, of remembering that even in exhaustion, there’s still light left in me.

But sometimes, when I crave quiet, I find myself turning green. It’s the color of compassion, growth and healing. It reminds me of the kind of career I want to pursue — a humanitarian surgeon, someone whose hands restore what’s been broken, whose work brings people together through healing. Green reminds me of that calling — the quiet urge to mend, to serve, to make pain lighter for someone else.

But it’s also the color I feel within myself when I’m trying to heal myself. It’s the gentle voice that tells me to slow down, to forgive my own stumbles, to treat myself with the same empathy I hope to give others. Green is the color of growth, and growth, I’m learning, isn’t always graceful. It’s often messy, full of moments of self-doubt and renewal.

And maybe, beneath it all, I am purple. The color of intuition, creativity and quiet transformation. Purple feels like the space between thought and feeling, the part of me that is always searching for meaning beneath the noise. Spiritually, purple feels like a connection between my inner world and something beyond me, something I can’t quite name but can always sense. Purple is also where all my other colors seem to converge: the passion of red, the serenity of blue, the warmth of amber, the compassion of green.

I used to think peace meant holding myself perfectly still at the bottom of the storm. Like if I could just find the right color, one that stayed steady and didn’t bleed into the others, I’d finally understand who I was. But maybe peace isn’t about stillness or certainty. Maybe it’s about learning to stay present while everything inside me keeps shifting.

Some days I’m red, driven, impatient, alive. Other days I’m blue, quiet, thoughtful, trying to keep my head above water. I have moments of green when I’m grounded and hopeful, amber when I’m warm and full of light, and purple when I feel most like myself — curious, creative, trying to make sense of it all. None of those colors stay forever, but I think that’s okay. Maybe that’s how it’s supposed to be.

Because the truth is, I’m still figuring it out. I’m still learning what peace feels like, what love looks like, what it means to be my own person. Some days it’s messy and uncertain, but even in the blur, there’s something beautiful about watching all my colors move and mix and shift together.

At the bottom of the tornado, I don’t see one perfect hue anymore. Heavenly by C.A.S plays softly in the background, and for a moment, everything feels suspended. I remind myself that I’m still learning what my colors mean, that they’ll keep changing, just like I will. And maybe for now, it’s enough to simply let them glow.

Eesha Bellad is a sophomore majoring in Neuroscience from Orange County, Calif. She is a Copy Editor for The News-Letter.