Crack the Color Code of Love and Switch On Your Relationship

By Nick Seneca Jankel

The Color Code of Love – A Simple and Powerful Tool for Anyone in a Committed Relationship

To grow with and for another is true love. The more we can heal our childhood wounds within the laboratory of love, the more we get to become the person we were always destined to be. Our partner can create the ideal context for us to heal. As we do, we thrive as individuals and as a couple.

Yet this is far easier said than done. We all have highly tuned protection mechanisms that leap into action the millisecond we feel attacked, criticized, judged, powerless or unsupported. It does this to protect us and it does a fabulous job. Our protection mechanism reacts so fast we often don’t know what the cause of it was before we have actually reacted. That is because stopping to think about a threat to our survival can get us killed (by saber-tooth tigers and the like).

After decades of practice using our most favored reactions (like getting angry, sulking, shutting down etc.), our body-mind can whip up a defense against a perceived slur faster than we can cognitively describe what is happening. The moment we react against them, we disconnect ourselves from them (and our own sense of love and truth). We have ruptured the beautiful bond between lovers, which hurts our original childhood wounding even further.

Even more challenging is that the more intimate we become with someone – the more we know their tone of voice or the look of one eye raised – the more we tune up our reactive habits to respond even faster. We become so well tuned to there other that for much of the time, we are just reactions reacting against their reactions. This cycle is like a game of upset ‘pong’ with an arms race. It can escalate quickly as stray emotions fire off reaction after reaction. No creativity. No spontaneity. No intimacy. Just predictable fights as we unwittingly, and often fully purposefully, flick the spinsters that still wound the others heart.

The path back to open-hearted connection can be fraught with pain and danger after a rupture. IN truth, some couples never truly make it back. After years of these habits running our relationships, divorce, adultery or the comfort of becoming gloried room-mates can seem less painful than trying to open our hearts and engage.

So the more we can master the reactive system, our Survival Trip, the more we can engage an alternative and equally intrinsic biological system: Our Thrive Drive. We can learn to hack our survival defenses and divert our energy (psychological and sexual) away from defense and disconnect; and towards what both parties want more than anything: To feel somebody hears them, sees them and is there for them.

It all comes down to the micro-moments; the coal-face of intimate relationship. In these micro-seconds, the quality of our day (and our lives) lies in the balance We have to become masters at hacking our system – with what I call Thrive Hacks – in those precious moments where there is still a choice between reaction and creativity; angst and empathy; connection and disconnect. The challenge is, in the moment we can feel ourselves reacting, by the time we have worked out what the feeling is – and then shared it with our partner in an empathic, calm way (so they don’t react back) – the reaction has usually begun in us both.

So I have invented a Thrive Hack that can derail our fights before they happen by allowing us to signal to each other where we are at before the reaction can get into full swing. It is a short-hand that cracks the code of love. Instead of trying to put everything into words, we use colors. Without all the words, which take up so much cognitive effort, it becomes much easier and faster to nip a conflict in the bud. Then we can stay switched on and connected, even when the survival drive in our biology wants to switch off and disconnect. The more you use the color code system, the more each gets coded into your brain and the faster empathic communication can happen. It helps us communicate in a powerful way when the last thing we want to do is communicate. So we stay in connection.

Here are the six color code of love we use, with a shirt-hand of what it means; and the long-hand conscious explanation that nobody has time for in the moment!

The 6 Color Code of Love

Color Code of Love – Pink: “Ouch, that hurt.”

What you are consciously communicating without saying it: Something in what you said or did felt like it transgressed a boundary. I am fully willing to know that that might be my stuff; or a combination of yours or mine. In the meantime, I am sensitive and could get reactive. Please do your best to empathize with me and validate my feelings. I will own them later. For now, please help me reconnect with you because I really want to.

Color Code of Love – Red: “Back off!”

What you are consciously communicating without saying it: I am very reactive. Back off as things could get intense. I know this is my stuff, but I need your help not to blow up or shut down. Do whatever you can to help me, not because you have to, but because you love me. We can unpick the triggers later when I am back to feeling calm.

Color Code of Love – Blue: “Just do what I ask please.”

What you are consciously communicating without saying it: For whatever reason, this is really important to me. We don’t have time for a full discussion on this. For now, it would work great for me if you could go with it and we can talk about it all later. I know this could be one of my foibles, but I really would value your support right now.

Color Code of Love – Black: “I’m sad.”

What you are consciously communicating without saying it: Please give me a hug and / or nurture me in the way you know I like. Something has triggered a wound and I am finding it hard to share what or how. I am feeling raw. Know that I am working on it, processing it, to be free of it. In the meantime, please just be there for me.

See Also

Don’t Play the Comparison Game

Color Code of Love – Orange: “I need space.”

What you are consciously communicating without saying it: For whatever reason, I am feeling attacked or afraid. I need some space or time to understand what is happening. I know it is my responsibility to come back into connection when I am done. I will be back within 24 hours. Please don’t react in that time. Trust me.

Color Code of Love – Purple: “I am down on myself”

What you are consciously communicating without saying it: I have an internal dialogue where I am criticizing myself about something. It’s not you, it really is me. I am having trouble loving myself; and therefore you. I am not sure I can accept love from you. This is my stuff but I know sometimes I take it out on you; or it feels like I am not loving you fully. I don’t want to do that, so it may be best to leave me be while I work on this.

Click HERE to Connect with your Daily Horoscope!

About the Author

Nick Seneca Jankel is a wisdom teacher, social entrepreneur, and in-demand innovation and leadership expert with a triple First from the University of Cambridge in medicine and philosophy. He has advised multinationals (Nike, Microsoft, Disney) and social organizations (Oxfam, WWF), written for newspapers and magazines (including The Guardian and The Financial Times), and anchored a BBC TV series. Everything Nick does is centered on “switching people on” – helping individuals, teams and organizations break through old patterns and create a thriving future. He is a partner of WECREATE and founder of Ripe & Ready.

Connect with Nick Seneca Jankel at: www.nickjankel.com