Color Your Life Happy

Create Your Unique Path and Claim the Joy You Deserve

Non-Fiction - Self Help
372 Pages
Reviewed on 11/13/2016
Buy on Amazon

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    Book Review

Reviewed by Jack Magnus for Readers' Favorite

Color Your Life Happy: Create Your Unique Path and Claim the Joy You Deserve is a motivational self-help book written by Flora Morris Brown, Ph.D. The author, a Professor Emerita of Critical Thinking, is an author, speaker and publishing coach. She’s also the mother of four children, who she had and raised while she was working and going to school to pursue her academic degrees. Brown got her idea about writing this book while listening to televangelist Joel Osteen exhort his audience to claim their joy. It started her thinking about how we should proceed to make our lives happy ones. She began writing a blog where she’d invite her readers to ask questions, and she’d share stories from her life, including how the choices she made led to a happier life. As her blog grew, she began to research the growing trend of positive psychology and the sudden interest in happiness. It hadn’t always been a popular topic; happiness, and the children of parents raised during the Great Depression were pushed into careers and life paths that were not necessarily conducive to that state. Brown’s book shows readers how to understand what happiness is, how to embrace it and how to make it their own. There are often lifestyle changes one has to consider in the quest for happiness. Some are simple, like getting organized or finding a new passion, but others are more challenging as Brown discusses in her work. She includes an appendix with an extensive list of recommended readings and an index.

Flora Morris Brown’s motivational self-help book, Color Your Life Happy: Create Your Unique Path and Claim the Joy You Deserve, had me thinking of the author as a friend, mentor and confidant by the time I had finished her opening chapters. Brown is honest, outspoken and extremely generous in sharing her life stories with her audience. As a fellow baby boomer, I wryly smiled at her references to the rather grim parenting methods of the 1950s, and I applauded her efforts to be one of those parents who did not continue the trend of harsh child-rearing, opting for a more joyful and humane approach. Her book is filled with ideas on how to start adding happiness to your life, from tiny steps to whopping big life-changing ones, but they’re all sound and quite inspiring. You might want to bear in mind that the author had her fourth child while working on her Ph.D., giving her nearly super-human stature in my mind, but I think that’s part of the magic in this book. You can color your life happy, and you can do it relatively easily. First step is reading this engaging and beautifully written book. Color Your Life Happy: Create Your Unique Path and Claim the Joy You Deserve is most highly recommended.

Arya Fomonyuy

Color Your Life Happy: Create Your Unique Path and Claim the Joy You Deserve by Flora Morris Brown, Ph.D. is a stellar message on creating a life that is rich, happy, and meaningful. In our competitive culture, it is easy to get drawn into the illusions of happiness propagated by the media — thinking that our happiness can depend on someone else or that we have to have certain things or be in a certain position or state in life to be happy. In this book, Brown gently and confidently leads readers to the life-changing truth that happiness, unconditional happiness, is within their reach and that they have the power to create a life filled with color and beauty.

So what is it you’ll find in this book? In a nutshell, Color Your Life Happy: Create Your Unique Path and Claim the Joy You Deserve shows the reader the path to say “yes” to their dreams and to create the life they want. Happiness is a choice. It comes as the result of our conscious decisions to take control of our lives, the openness to life, and the joy of simply living. As you read her experiences and stories, you suddenly realize that life can be simplified and joyous when we approach it with a deep sense of humor and gratitude.

Flora Morris Brown, Ph.D. writes with unwonted confidence, combining traditional wisdom with powerful lessons in psychology to offer a message that can transform anyone’s life. In the heart of this book is the clear message that we are the authors of our life and that we create our happiness. This book has had a tremendous impact on me; it’s a book with a message you can’t just ignore. If you apply Brown’s teachings to your life, you’ll begin to see great opportunities and understand the hidden potential within you. A wonderful book with a life-changing message for mankind.

Viga Boland

Are you searching for happiness? Who isn’t, right? Have you spent a small fortune attending seminars, hours watching videos, and many dollars buying books in the hopes of finding the secret to being and staying happy? Well, you can stop all that searching right now! Just get yourself a copy of Color Your Life Happy by Flora Morris Brown, sign up on her website to receive her blog posts, and you’ll have everything you need to recognize happiness when you see it and Color Your Life Happy.

What a delightful, easy and important read Color Your Life Happy is. Flora’s style is conversational, personal and friendly. Reading her book is like sitting down and having a chat with your best friend, a friend who is close enough and knows you well enough to remind you of what you really do know but keep forgetting. Flora understands you: she’s been there. She’s bottomed out, but recognized that inside each of us are the answers to getting back up. You just have to trust yourself. Flora Morris Brown urges you to stop listening to that inner critic who tells you you can’t, and trust that inner voice, your intuition, that says “go for it!” She’ll insist you start now to say “no” to everyone else and “yes” to yourself. Doing otherwise can stop you from being really happy.

In Color Your Life Happy, Flora Morris Brown presents all the positive reinforcements you find in the countless number of books available on how to be happy. Yes, she includes quotes, but she expands on every idea by using anecdotes from her own life. These anecdotes are sometimes funny, sometimes touching, but always relevant and so enjoyable to read. As I read Color Your Life Happy, I found myself constantly reaching for a pen to jot down a great thought or sentence, like these:

“When we're feeling stress, it's because we're not accepting that what is, is.”
“Treat your body like a temple, not a dumpster!”
“Give up the ‘if only’s’ and ‘what if’s.”
“Being happy and successful is not a matter of luck. It's a matter of doing what is most important to you minute by minute, day by day.”

You have to read this book to see how she develops and expands on those thoughts. It’s all wonderful wisdom and so worth your time reading. Flora tells us we should take on challenges and be willing to fail…or quit when it just doesn’t feel good and isn’t working for you. Consider how much nicer it will be when you’re in your rocking chair and you can talk about what you did with your life instead of what you’d wish you’d done! She encourages readers to set realistic expectations and not to guilt trip over not being perfect or making a mistake. When you think about it, it’s all just good common sense. Color Your Life Happy is a book you need on your night table or somewhere ever handy when you need that important pick me up or reminder of the wisdom of the Serenity Prayer.

Another appealing part of Color Your Life Happy is its presentation: each chapter features a lovely illustration above the chapter heading. Along with that come highlighted sections, chapter summaries, and an extensive bibliography. Flora Morris Brown has really researched her subject. She includes book titles and quotes other authors as she writes, and suggests websites worth investigating. I certainly plan to check out many of them. There are also poems to make you smile and reflect, and a delightful story about a Mexican fisherman and an American tourist in Chapter 6. If that story doesn’t convince you to slow down your crazy life, breathe, and take time out for those things that do make you happy, nothing will. Marvellous book and highly recommended.