The Colors of Early Motherhood
During pregnancy, there is often a lot of focus on color. What shade will you paint the nursery walls? What about all the tiny newborn clothes; pink, blue, yellow, or green? There’s space to choose, and space to appreciate each choice.
A New Palette
And then motherhood comes rushing at you with a new palette of color. Some are thrust at you without your ability to chose or even think. There’s the bright red you meet in the hospital that lingers for weeks. There are new yellows and browns in diapers. The soft pink of your baby’s lips. The off-white of breastmilk or formula. There are the soft purples under your tired eyes. The pale yellow of dawn during those 6 a.m. feedings. The deep, muted blue of the light during a 2 a.m. diaper change.
Beyond that, there are the emotional colors. The golden shimmer of joy and connection as your bond with your baby grows. The dark blue of sadness when nothing feels right and your body feels foreign. The red of frustration when the baby won’t stop crying and no one seems to help. The gray of a sinking depression when life doesn’t feel how you imagined it would.
Changing Colors
The colors aren’t static; they are constantly shifting, changing, transforming. Some days feel muted and washed in gray. Others feel too bright, too neon, too much.
Many moms struggle to communicate or share these feelings with those around them and feel alone or out of control in this shifting landscape.
Seeing Color in Therapy
In art therapy, color becomes a language for what words cannot express. It offers a tool to share your inner world and, perhaps for the first time, see it more clearly yourself.
When clients feel stuck searching for words, I often invite them to start with a color.
Is this feeling purple? Or yellow?
Is it just one color, or are there layers?
What happens if we add another?
Creating doesn’t have to be focused on making a beautiful art work. It’s about allowing what’s inside to take form outside of yourself where you can see it, share it, and understand it.
An Invitation
If you could choose a color (or two or three) for this season of your motherhood, what would it be? What emotion does that color carry?
Maybe you pull out some markers or crayons and start to put those colors on paper. What do you notice?
There is no wrong way to do this, just let your intuition and the color guide you.
Finding Meaning
Over time, these colors begin to shift. The blues soften. The reds quiet. The golds grow brighter. And something new begins to emerge. A colorful portrait of motherhood can hold all the contradictions: love and loss, joy and fatigue, chaos and calm.
You don’t have to make sense of it all at once.
Healing happens in layers.
If you’re feeling lost in the colors of early motherhood, therapy can offer a space to explore, create, and heal at your own pace. Through art therapy, EMDR, and deeply personalized counseling, you can begin to make meaning of your experience and reconnect with yourself.
Whether you’re struggling with pregnancy anxiety, postpartum depression, intrusive thoughts, body image struggles, or simply feel unsure of who you are right now:
