An Interview With Candice Georgiadis
Don’t be afraid of negative space. We tend to want to fill every corner of our homes with something, leaving empty spaces is important. It allows you to think and create new things.
As part of my series on the “5 Things You Can Do To Help Your Living Space Spark More Joy”, I had the pleasure of interviewing Walaa.
Walaa is a certified color therapist, author, and qualified interior designer mentoring women and entrepreneurs to find renewed confidence, a strong sense of purpose, and a better life balance. As an intuitive color healer and trained interior designer, Walaa has developed a unique 5 modality system for harnessing energy to develop emotional fluidity. She uses a combination of color frequency, crystal sound healing, body release movement, mental reprogramming, and breathwork in one-on-one sessions, group sessions, and workshops to help release blockages. Through her sessions, Walaa encourages women to spiritually and emotionally evolve, giving as much support as they need to move beyond fear, exit of toxic relationships, develop a strong self-understanding through acceptance of their own shadow, and discover a deep connection to their purpose. Her book, Heal Yourself With Color: Harness the Power of Color to Change Your Life, was recently released in July 2021.
Thank you so much for joining us in this series! Before we dive in, our readers would love to learn a bit more about you. Can you tell us a story about what brought you to this specific career path?
9 years ago, I was in Tokyo, I was struggling with my inability to wear vibrant colors and envied everyone around me who wore these colors beautifully. I was hiding behind my dark colors only. I wanted meaning, I wanted to feel my life and be part of it. I found color therapy which helped me understand that I was hiding, not wanting to embrace who I truly was or allow others to see it. Color therapy transformed my life, it helped me dive deep within myself and discover parts of myself that I was hiding from. This helped me find self-acceptance and find the joy in understanding my day to day challenges. I now work with color therapy as a base to redesign people’s lives, online circles, their spaces and offer mentor sessions.
The interior design aspect was hard for me in the beginning as I knew in my core that our spaces affect us more than we are aware of. I want to give people healing spaces, spaces that support their lifestyles and well-being.
Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you started this career?
This career has taught me compassion and understanding, it helped me see people’s actions and behaviors from a different lens. The deeper and longer I do this work the stronger my belief in humanity gets.
Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?
When I began my career, I wanted a playful approach to my work, I thought color is playful, it’s diverse and I wanted to show that. So, I put my list of services on a long menu looking flyer, named the services after food and drinks. Of course, no one understood what I was trying to sell, it was a long menu that sounded like it had food, but it wasn’t?!
I didn’t do my market research then; people didn’t know what color therapy was. I learned I needed to be clear and begin with a small educational offering. Then let my clients guide me to what they need next.
What are some of the most interesting or exciting projects you are working on now? How do you think that might help people?
When you asked me this, the first project that came into my mind was my own home. At the beginning of this year I moved to the countryside, somewhere I never thought I would be because I always considered myself a city girl.
This home has been one of the most challenging and exciting projects to design because it feels that we are all healing in it. The universe made us a family at this time to heal in this home. Working with color, people expect me to constantly be surrounded in it. Even though my color expression has never been in primary colors, it’s always been in earthy tones.
This project has helped me let go of what it is that people expect of me and embrace the healing space that I wanted to create for myself and my family intuitively. Putting all of our needs and creating this space to help us achieve all of what we seek.
Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?
“Pain is better outside your body”. When we don’t go through the emotions that are uncomfortable by avoiding or numbing them, we store them in our bodies that later create different tensions and discomforts in the body. I have learned to let go of pain by going through it, giving myself what I need during that time and that helped me relate to the world from a place of love.
None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story about that?
This is a hard question because I have a very very long list. Today though I want to acknowledge my friend and brand manager Stacey Jessop. We met years ago at a training and she’s been the heart and soul of my business and my own development.
We shared a lot together as we unraveled my own brand expression, color expression and the blocks underneath it all. It’s beautiful to have relationships with women who empower themselves and each other.
Thank you for that. Here is the main question of our discussion. What are your “5 Things You Can Do To Help Your Living Space Spark More Joy” and why. Please share a story or example for each.
- Don’t be afraid of adding color. It doesn’t have to be with large pieces or walls; you can always start with small accessories and elements. There are thousands of shades, tints, tones of every color too.
- Ask the space what it wants. Whenever I design a space, I always do a round of touching the walls and asking the house, office… etc. What is it that it needs? Perhaps energy, color, emotions, textures, etc. You feel it and you know.
- Don’t be afraid of negative space. We tend to want to fill every corner of our homes with something, leaving empty spaces is important. It allows you to think and create new things.
- Greenery. Plants bring life and growth; green is a color that helps us heal and disconnect from the noise. Use it in plants as it will vibrate higher.
- Color intentions. Colors that are earthy will ground you, colors that are luminous will wake up the space, colors that have white in them will soften the space. Always ask yourself, ‘how do I want this place to feel’ and pick the colors that represent that for you.
You are a person of great influence. If you could start a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger.
Start creating colorful streets, vs the dark streets we drive on. Have soothing colors on highways, uplifting colors in neighborhoods… etc
We are very blessed that some of the biggest names in Business, VC funding, Sports, and Entertainment read this column. Is there a person in the world, or in the US whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch with, and why? He or she might see this, especially if we tag them
Nadine Burke Harris, because of her work on childhood trauma, something I truly believe in. I would love to have a conversation about how we can teach more people and governments about this. We can create healthier compassionate societies.
How can our readers follow you on social media?
Thank you for these fantastic insights. We greatly appreciate the time you spent on this
Walaa of Walaa’s Colorways: 5 Things You Can Do To Help Your Living Space Spark More Joy was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.