Yellows: The Natural Thinkers
Yellows see things other people don’t see because they look for light, and know that, as the Grateful Dead say, it’s found in the strangest of places. It is because of this light they’re always collecting from the shallows that they will give you a light when you have none. As a group, they have a reputation for being weird, and I mention this only because it stands as a sign of their courage to go where no one else treads; their quests bring them into contact with their true self as they become uniquely peculiar through developing their own interests. Yellows are the people who will sort through the piles of lies in Watergate to find the real truths. They want to see the truth inside the lie—and then, they will go in through the back door to get there, and develop their own beliefs, in spite of any other person’s.
Yellow Gifts
Method and Aims
They’re not looking for the darkness; they move in tune with the timing of natural cycles, with the knowledge that the earth entrusts to them, with the rhythms that natural knowing makes, because they observe nature for patterns and apply these to their experience, using them to figure out how things work. Their touch reminds you to release your pain, because they intuit where meridian points are blocked, as an acupuncturist would. They are the best at learning how to pronounce a new language, because they watch how each native speaker pronounces their words with their mouth. They both intuit and observe human beings and their ways as parts of nature—that’s one of their secrets for finding out the truth. They see the connections between natural struggles and our own. For they need no books.
A Basic Definition
People who analyze everything or always instinctively understand how to proceed with a structure that’s already in place—thinking above and beyond, and who spend more time in thought than the average person—tend to be yellow. Toggling back and forth between these two forms of gaining knowledge, analyzing and gut-feeling, yellows set themselves adrift in a sea of truth-making, seeking to figure it out, collect all the facts, and find the stanchions for the foundation. Then, as well, they create a better way to help you forward. Yellows are the natural map-finders. They look for the route that you can take to get from starting point to goal, either physically, on the ground, or functionally, in another area—even spiritually. They explore, and they will eventually record in some form how to get from place to place on the journey so you do not get lost. That is why they love good books and writing comes easily to them. But if they don’t prefer to stay in school, you can also find them inventing a machine. They are just as hands-on as they are philosophical.
How They Think
Yellows automatically examine each piece of data they find to see how it fits into the whole picture they are working on completing. They work diligently either to answer your questions or to create a body of knowledge with conclusions and reasons for reaching them. While they are doing this, you may decide they are slow of wit, since they take so long. However, this is not the case. As Heidi Shelton-Oliver has observed, a yellow’s mind works like a spoked wheel. So each bit of information must be followed out from the center spoke to its logical conclusion when placed side by side with the other pieces of information. It doesn’t go into the making of the wheel if it hasn’t been examined. The compulsion to invent a new wheel is motivated by a desire to describe “truth.” And this, my friend, will answer your question—both those you asked, and those you didn’t. (Usually they answer the one you really asked if they are working on your challenge, not theirs, instead of the question you thought you did.) You might want to get a good life purpose to work on while you wait for answers to ensue.
The Definition of Truth, for Our Purposes
Truth is a contentious word in an environment where it’s become increasingly volatile to discuss religion, philosophy, and politics. But that won’t stop yellows from being themselves and looking for it anyway. If you have a true yellow before you, ask him or her whether she values the truth—use that language. Truth is never a dirty word for one. That’s how you can tell it’s their gift. Just remember that truth can be mystical, metaphorical, relative, personal, nonexistent, or absolute. It has many definitions. A yellow might add that the truth is palpable, finally clear, and stands out as the most logical answer available to us. Truth, for yellows, always has real relevance, can be applied, and will reorder experience along new lines. It will sustain you. That’s its spiritual benchmark, but it’s shelf-life limited. According to Joseph Crane, it’s a vehicle, not a destination. Truth is trust in things unseen, and that’s why many people don’t like the word. It’s truth that finally lays bare what is really going on. But those who arrive at the station of truth know it in their being, because they feel the accord they have and hold with what stabilizes in their soul as being real. Mountains of evidence can be given to back it up, and all of that evidence is findable by a yellow. This is why we can trust their conclusions when they’re ready to give them to us.
Information that comes after an accepted truth will change it and make it new. Therefore, truth is an answer to a question that is most nearly correct given the information that is known at the time. It is a constellation of facts that have connections to create a whole picture. Yellows search for something that frees human beings from constraint, and this is the truth they want you to know about and use to make your life better and keep you safe from harm (in survivalist, poignant terms).
Mr. Snowden
Edward Snowden, high-school dropout and whistle-blower for the National Security Agency’s surveillance program, which collects metadata both at home and for the US government around the world, uses classic yellow soul-ray methods to find the truth. His most basic approach is the use of his self-taught own mind. Yellows are curious and seek the truth as a matter of course. With a community-college computer education, Snowden was suspected of trying to break into classified files while an employee for the CIA. He then took a job as a contractor, and from there he gathered evidence that the US was spying on foreign countries and its own citizens alike. (Yellows always find a way in when denied access.) It’s difficult to find one who doesn’t feel disturbed by the fact that our laws are either not being followed or are erroneously written. They want to hold onto, and keep undisturbed, pathways to truth, and when those are violated (such as the constitution), they perceive that everyone is endangered. If you were in charge of finding ways for people to live good lives, wouldn’t you feel an injustice was being done if they were threatened? All interviews with Mr. Snowden show a detached, yet warm and curious person interested in protecting the public good. Like all yellows, he shares the details incessantly on what he’s discovered, and knows seventeen different ways to get around security. He changes his mind, questions his decisions, takes a long time to perform simple tasks (because he’s paying attention to every detail), yet always comes back to the idea that a massive compromise of security is a good enough cause to become a refugee for. He’s a yellow’s yellow, of the golden soul-ray.
Neutrality
Because if we had no one who could remove their emotion from a belief system, get past their own desires long enough to answer a question on a formal basis, take a neutral point of view, and defend the truth (not to mention deliver it), then we would have a much harder time trusting our decisions that they lead from a foundation of actuality, reality, and feasibility. Asking too many questions about everyday things and making a treasure hunt out of a problem to be solved that most people think for two minutes about are symptoms of a person who uses stoicism to encounter the divine. Yellows reach the top because they are smart and they use their own form of scientific method, which consists of staying skeptical for far longer than most others would, and figuring out all aspects of a topic. I do, however, advocate truth with a heart.
Solving Your Problems, One by One
If not by inventing things, they bring you solutions. Yellows work out how you could successfully diet, how to surgically repair the arteries leading to the heart, how to travel to work bipedally. They tell you which is the best dumpster to rent and what the best bike shoes are. And if they can’t find the best bike shoes, they’ll invent a new pair. They do it because the design isn’t functional enough. A yellow is always more concerned with content above form. But eventually, form will come into the mix as a matter of course. They are wily like a cat. They follow a cowpath to show where the knowledge leads, taking you with them. They have a clean energy, one of innocence, not experience, and one of ultimate distraction. Though their non-conformity is bold, their manner is tidy. Though their striving is hard, they make it look easy. Never be fooled by a yellow. They eventually come through. It might take them years, eons. But like water smooths rocks, eventually their hard edges give out as they work out their sums. Eventually they come to be seen as the one who knows. The result of all their problem-solving experience can be stunning, such as the story of a woman I know who worked on an assembly line with no college degree and landed herself in the engineering department because she could figure out how to make better parts.
Releasing Thought from Emotion
To see how yellows stay nonemotional when they are coming up with their truth, let’s take a moment to consider what the word emotion means. Emotion refers to a circumstance that creates a feeling. Emotions are multivarious movements of energy that thoughts bring with them. Like a hand fan, they extend in finite directions from a spectrum of motion in time and space. They consist of the reactions, responses, and behaviors someone has while perceiving a situation. What yellows are able to do is hold at bay such responses to individual thoughts while they are cross comparing and assembling them together. What they are working on is completing a holographic picture and don’t consider one building block to be any better than any another. All facts are equal, they say. In fairness, consider all facts.
They take three times as long as we think they will. That’s how yellows can’t afford to explore each emotion attached to every thought they capture, because if they did, they’d get too overloaded with the consequences of each thought. Since they are not bringing to a close, or a conclusion, their thought process in a fast manner, they know innately they can afford to wait on emotion while they’ve put all the pieces together to come to a firm conclusion. Some people find extricating themselves from emotion easier to do than others—it all depends on how in touch with your solar-plexus chakra you are, or how well you’ve developed this energy center both now and in past lifetimes. But suffice to say, yellows do it best because their soul ray gently implores them to do so, granting them the clarity and peace of mind to do so. Yellows unfold truth. Their lives stand the test of time as expressions of truth’s exploration and logical conclusions, as lived out in their minds.
Mr. Exact
One of my strongest yellow examples is known among family friends as “Mr. Exact.” Once I asked him to do a cleansing process according to some unusual directions—at a time when the sun was at its highest point in the sky. While everyone else had always assumed this was noon, Mr. Exact consulted sources to discover when the sun was at its highest point, and it turned out to be 12:31 p.m. Yellows do not take things at face value, they go and investigate. They investigate little things because they adore small jobs. Looking for the pathway to truth starts on the ground, with details.
The Humor of Taking Things Literally
Since yellows are always paying attention to details, valuing each and every one, it can be hard for them to get jokes. They will try to figure out what you’ve said, and not get it. What they value like cash is a specific form of humor that plays on words in the incongruous. They often don’t get other types of jokes because they are built to take things seriously in order to process and analyze. Literal humor, though, is the humor of Spaceballs, where you see strawberry jam smeared on a spaceship hurtling through space, because there is a jam in the machine. Yellow's favorite jokes are those like the one with a headline stating “Inbred Cat” over a picture of a cat with its head sticking out of a piece of bread. Double meanings, anything that juxtaposes the literal world with the rest of the world—can be imposed as truth or dare. A game? A game of tricks, a game of life. Usually, I come to remind my yellow friends to stop taking things literally. When they take you literally, sometimes you have to learn lessons. It will force you to do things that you never thought you would do.
Yellow Traps
Like all the master chakras, yellow have traps that describe how they act when their egos are in charge. In those places, yellows expect you to believe their conclusions and to follow them in lockstep, which can lead to a trap of manipulation, where they expect you to think and play their game their way (because they are the ones who are right). Once someone no longer wants to participate in the pinball game of trying to follow the yellow rabbit down into the hole and through the warren in the dark, and not getting to think for themselves, a line has been crossed. As with all traps, there can be a gray area where we are not sure whether or not someone is in a trap—whether ego is too dominant or not dominant enough, or whether the person is motivated to act for the good of all. Circumstance dictates this.
Confusion
The most serious root trap, outside emotional coldness, is schlepping facts and truths but not collecting them into a whole body of knowledge that can be understood and communicated to others. Leaving all the Lego pieces in a mess on the floor interminably will not help anyone, least of all this master chakra. In these times, to get organized, to refocus, to reconnect with natural knowing, and to connect to reason is the best thing to do. Not working toward collected truth that makes sense and keeping everything up in the air won’t help anyone. This makes a yellow scattered and unfocused. When confusion abounds in your world because of them, they are in their traps. Remember, these are the clarity-bringers. They need time to do it, but you should feel a sense of freedom, not debris. We all have this when we look at the state of our solar plexus chakra. Either it can do the functions of truth-seeking effectively, or it’s in a state of chaos where we don’t believe in ourselves and trust ourselves even less.
Passivity
Sometimes, immovability, or passivity, is a trap. They will tell you something cannot be improved—that if you are married, don’t get divorced—and if you are not married, don’t get married. That point of view, in itself, is not a trap—it’s typical yellow thinking, which they get from their green side: preserve the structure if it doesn’t cost you a lot of energy to do so. If it’s the fastest way to get from point A to point B, they will recommend the status quo. But if yellows get stuck in rigidity, it’s a danger zone. The trap-like state is refusing to change their mind (not to say that they don’t change it too much in their traps, as well). If the winds are really blowing, and they need to go to a new place in their life in order to advance, then it’s time to let down the guard, feel emotions, and proceed with new life. It is a yellow who knows the truth and won’t change, even after they know better, that really irks me and is the reason I’m writing this book. They are all about preservation, recommending the surgical strike. Still, when they get lost in confusion, don’t wrap things up or get pieces in line for a conclusion, or even just a transition, they can neither know nor clearly share what is true.
Unavailable Emotionally
Yellows will stuff emotions, cordoning them off so they cannot be reached, and withdraw from society. They are supposed to keep emotion out of analysis. However, they must not keep emotions out of life. On their trap-side, they don’t see the usefulness of emotions. They can read too many emotions as inappropriate, and thus, those very same emotions tend to become inappropriate when finally expressed. Not only that, but they can fail to relate to others emotionally when it’s really necessary to keep a relationship going. They give you the cold shoulder.
Yellows feel that knowledge is a point of view, and they stick to that. Because ultimately, they are right. They will insist on holding points of view that others do not if it fits what they see is the best, most solid position to command. And because they are so committed to the truth, they can hold onto such a point of view in spite of gale-force winds. Only a new truth can dissuade them, and only when they are open to receive it. Mostly, they are open, but when their emotional box gets triggered and they explode, or implode, then they are not open. Sometimes they try not to be emotional out of malice. Other times they lose control over their emotions because they go unexpressed for so long.
Communication Skills with No Finesse
While not explicitly a trap, delivering the truth too bluntly verges on being a trap if it entails a history of suppressed emotion. (How else could the person learn to be impolite in the first place, if they didn’t repress their human feelings?) Traps are places we mess up, where we need to watch our actions. Yellows stuck in their traps can always use communication skills. They can always use more compassion and understanding. No one ever told me that a yellow was too heart-centered. No one ever told me that he or she was too loving, too kind, or too rational. The brain can use a letdown to the heart chakra. Yellows can use their supple, flexible side to reach people if they keep the big picture in mind when speaking to them, feeling in their heart what is necessary before saying what they have to say. When it comes to a yellow, “the truth will out,” as they say. And probably more often than not. The question here is: how will it be stated? This is a blue concern, but it needs to be addressed since so many yellows alienate through lack of delivery, when a good number of others knock the ball out of the park with it.
The reason that there are more yellow men on dating websites than any other color is because they spend too much time in their heads, in their traps, and they neglect the emotional side of life. Women who are yellow tend to be more in touch with emotions because it’s more socially acceptable to be that way. Yet all yellows I encounter as a spiritual advisor usually need to be encouraged to feel their feelings. It can go a long way toward helping them interact better with others.
Taking Too Long a Journey
Yellows do not always live in the world of reality. They can fail to connect a present circumstance with the idealism in their heads, and they don’t pick up actions they need to take. Cases of yellow children who don’t turn in their homework because they are not finished yet are common. In these cases, the child chooses to get a zero instead of risk a B, not because they don’t care about grades, but because they care about the quality of their work, and it’s not quality until they’ve worked on it enough. They can take a long time to complete their projects, but they need to consider the timelines of others as well and fit their schedules to the realm of reason and timing.
Doubting Truth
After working so hard on a research project, whether it stays in their heads, finds its way to press, or becomes an object of curiosity (an experiment) to show everyone, you wouldn’t think yellows would doubt the end of the road when it’s near. Still, in a trap-like state, they cannot stop questioning, even after their conclusion has been proven sound. In order for yellow information to be good, it must be delivered timely (for a yellow—but not too long) and then they must believe it! And then, act on it, but not in a pie in the sky way. It’s a delicate balance, to work with all these elements and keep them streamlined. They must accept their own truth: that is the final challenge.
Cliffhanger
What do yellows do with all the data they collect? They store it in their minds. The metadata that the government collects is just one big yellow mind, which the tiny yellow mind of Edward Snowden accessed. Yellows find the most relevant facts by sifting through every last line of computer code, but it doesn’t have to take them a long time, as in the following story.
“Once when I was rock-climbing, I slipped down a few feet and was barely grabbing onto rock, holding my entire body weight up while slipping off. My friend was at the top of the cliff, and after a while, when we could see no way out, started to shut down, knowing I would die. He was already crying and acting like I was dead. I didn’t know what to do. All of a sudden, my mind brought forth a word. It was a word that came from the primordial soup of humanity, somehow from the farthest reaches of my mind, clawing its way through the depths of my psyche, breaking water like a deep-sea diver, and that word was mommy. I remembered all the times I was safe with my mommy when I was baby, naked on her chest, nestling in her breasts, and my hand reached up to grab something, and it went into the exact spot where there was a knob of rock and I could hang onto to pull myself up, and that was how I finally was able to heave myself up over the cliff.”
This example really shows how a yellow reads the natural world, and communicates with it, to find the best paths to follow. Not only did the Universe motivate this person with an experience that might want to make him save his life, the experience (of breasts) paralleled the knob of rock he grabbed to save himself. That is so yellow! It’s safe to say that most yellows live dangerously, whether physically or mentally. It’s hard for me to think of examples of yellows where they weren’t cruising off a cliff like the Fool in the tarot card deck, totally innocent, hobo bag in tow, ready for the next adventure. Both mental and physical progress is really the same, for them, in the end, because to question common knowledge, as we have seen in our examples so far, is to place yourself on the edge of embodied experience, pushing the envelope. While it can take them a long time to think things through, as they question everything, the linkability of their data is legion, and they can touch one piece of it to get the answer they need instantly.
An Answer's Impact
What helps guide yellows in their research is their spiritual sources—the environment of our experience; their “natural” knowing, their core consciousness to “just” know; these abilities allow them to engage all factors in a search for truth in an even-handed way. Once they tell you their answer to your question, short or long, it may not be what you expected to hear—and sometimes, you won’t want to hear it. Especially when something was your fault, because you were negligent in some area, and then certain things failed to take place. When life doesn’t work how you thought it would, yellows have a talent for sharing in an off-hand way, sometimes through a question alone, truth that sets you free. But there are times when it will almost kill you to hear it. That truth that a yellow so easily came upon, that perspective they spent years gathering, sounds devastating to you because you weren’t built to perceive as they perceive, so their perceptions can be arresting. But like so many of us, even yellows can want to run when the going gets tough. The truth is not an easy talk to walk.
While some yellows are better than others at softening your experience of the truth they find, others will just give you their truth as they see it and wonder why you’re dismayed. The best thing about this gift is it bows to no emotion in its answer, in its time, in its substance. This is why a yellow’s information is considered “foundational.” It is their knowledge on which we can build wisdom, love, joy, healing, talent, and all our fine arts. If we let it.
Famous People with a Yellow Master Chakra
An example of a famous yellow is Leonardo Da Vinci; he was constantly observing the natural world to find the truth of how things worked, activating his natural knowing and bringing analysis to bear upon it in order to convey this. He rejected any knowledge that did not grow out of one’s own observation of the world. A typical yellow, he did not need books to do research. He recorded all of his research in his notebooks and drawings and used this knowledge to invent things. He was an engineer and philosopher; for him, art was a medium of research and shared knowledge.
Another famous yellow is the character Sheldon from The Big Bang Theory. He has unique interests and moved to the top of his field due to his thought process. Sheldon always uses his mind to search for the truth and makes decisions based on fact. He's not afraid of appearing unconventional. Can you find the yellows in your life? What makes them yellow?