I blame Uma Thurman. Not entirely, obviously. But she was involved.

I was watching Chambers, the psychological thriller series starring Thurman, and although auras aren’t exactly the main plot, something about that bit of the story sparked me to explore my aura!

It was such a random question, but I was intrigued. Perhaps because I was already thinking quite a lot about who I was, how I felt and where I had somehow gone in perimenopause, in the middle of looking after everything else.

Spirituality has never felt particularly strange to me.

When I was young, my auntie and uncle, Tom and Irene, described themselves as faith healers. I’m not even completely sure what that means, or whether we were “actually” related, but I called them auntie and uncle and that was that.

We had probably already eaten the quiche and cucumber sandwiches, followed by a slice of Black Forest gâteau, because that is the sort of detail my childhood memory has chosen to preserve. Then, in the middle of what felt like an entirely ordinary family afternoon, auntie Irene put her hands on my grandma’s back.

Tom and Irene were deeply involved in spirituality and the spirit world. Healing was part of that world, along with the belief that there were forms of energy and presence we couldn’t necessarily see. I absorbed that before I had the language to describe it. It didn’t mean I grew up believing every supernatural claim put in front of me. I think it just made me comfortable with not knowing. There might be an explanation. Either way, I was interested.

My Persian family background gave me another connection to ideas around protection and the unseen. There is cheshm zakhm, the evil eye, and the use of esphand, or wild rue, traditionally burned in some Iranian households as a protective practice. There is also māshā’Allāh, said after admiring someone or something as a way of acknowledging beauty or good fortune without inviting envy.

I’m careful about talking about Persian traditions as though there is one universal Persian experience. There isn’t. For me, these things are part of the cultural landscape I am familiar with and they made the language of protection familiar.

As did … crystals, tarot cards and Hafez, whose poetry has often felt less like an answer and more like a lightbulb moment. Then there is the evil eye bracelet H’s sister gave me. I wear it because I like what it represents. I don’t expect a small blue eye on my wrist to take responsibility for my life, that’s a bit much to ask of a bracelet. It’s just a reminder of affection, culture and the fact I haven’t seen her since 2018. Sometimes that is enough.

This is where my rational brain and my crazy brain differ. My rational brain knew perfectly well that an aura photograph isn’t a medical test or a scientifically validated personality assessment. But my crazy brain wanted to know anyway. I also had a slightly more superficial concern. Would I look luminous, surrounded by some beautiful, ethereal glow? Or would my aura be the spiritual equivalent of a psychological thriller, slightly dark and mysterious?

When I finally saw the photo, I have to admit I felt a little disappointed. It looked less mystical and more Mystic Meg, which wasn’t quite the ethereal experience I had been hoping for. I say that affectionately. There was colour everywhere, though. Gold and yellow, orange, red, blue, purple, green and white. It wasn’t so much a splash of colour as a Jackson Pollock painting. Quite a lot going on for one aura, really.

Gold and yellow are often associated with confidence, optimism, intellect and personal power.

I laughed. Confidence has been a complicated subject for me. At 50, I can know perfectly well that I am capable and still walk into a gym and suddenly feel like the oldest, biggest person in the room. I can know something intellectually and feel something completely different emotionally. But perhaps confidence isn’t something you either have or lose. It’s sometimes the fact that you just can’t get to it. The gold made me think about the version of myself that is still underneath all of that. She hasn’t gone anywhere though, I just haven’t always been able to hear her.

Orange is often associated with creativity, expression and enthusiasm.

That feels like me. I like ideas, conversation in the gym, getting excited about something before I have worked out whether it is practical. I like music and movement and having something to look forward to. But I’ve noticed that I’ve become more careful. Then, because apparently I have nothing better to do, I think about that. There is a point at which self-awareness becomes exhausting. The orange made me wonder what would happen if I allowed myself to be enthusiastic without immediately editing it.

Red is associated with vitality, physical energy, passion and movement.

That one didn’t need much interpretation as I’m always in red zone when it comes to the gym. I know exactly when I feel most like myself and it’s usually when I’m giving it my all in the gym, pounding the punchbag or engaging in Ignite Strike class. I went to Zumba recently after a break and, for an entire class, I didn’t think about anything else. I was too busy trying to remember where my feet were supposed to go. I danced, sweated, laughed at myself for my dodgy footwork. I felt ridiculous but also completely happy because for that hour, my body wasn’t something I was judging, it was something I was using and that made me feel great. I had spent so much time living in my head that being properly back in my body felt amazing.

Blue is traditionally associated with communication, truth and insight.

I notice things. Words, tone and small changes. The bit that perhaps wasn’t meant to be noticed at all. It can be a useful quality, a superpower at times, but it can also be defined as a work in progress.

Purple and indigo are often associated with intuition, imagination and spiritual awareness.

That took me straight back to childhood. To Tom and Irene, and to my grandma. To watching something I didn’t understand and accepting that it mattered to the people around me. It also brought back a memory of someone I met years ago who described me as “extremely spiritual”. They barely knew me and I hadn’t told them about my family or my childhood. So I remember thinking: How on earth did you know that? Maybe they didn’t. Maybe they simply noticed something about me. Perhaps spirituality isn’t always about what we believe. It could be just about the questions we keep asking. I’m happy to leave that one unanswered.

Green is often associated with compassion, healing, the heart and emotional balance.

Of all the colours, this was the one I found myself thinking about afterwards. I’ve always considered myself empathetic. But I’m beginning to recognise that I sometimes confuse empathy with absorption and they are not the same. For years, I’ve been quite good at noticing what other people need, but I’m less good at noticing what I need. I just know I’m getting better at noticing that now. Perhaps that is the useful bit, listening when my body tells me to slow down.

The white surprised me.

In aura traditions, white is often associated with peace, clarity, protection or spiritual awareness. I don’t know whether any of those things are objectively sitting around me in a shimmering cloud, but I do know that the idea of peace caught my attention. I can worry about something, decide I’m no longer going to worry about it and then worry about whether I’m worrying about it. So perhaps white represents something less mystical for me and more about pace and a little less noise. I don’t want to become the sort of woman who meditates at dawn, I’d just like to have a bit more room inside my own head.

The strange thing is that I didn’t come away convinced, I came away interested. Before seeing the photo, I think I wanted it to tell me something. But afterwards, I realised I was more interested in what I was telling myself. The colours had given me something to think about.

My relationship with my body and the things I have lost touch with, including the things I might be ready to find again. None of that means the aura photo was revealing some secret scientific truth about me. But it did something I hadn’t expected and it made me stop. At 50, stopping is surprisingly difficult because there is always another message to respond to, another job to do at home and also another person to think about. For me, there’s always another reason to put myself at the bottom of my own list. So maybe that is why the experience stayed with me.

I’m not suddenly going to start explaining auras to everyone I meet. I still like evidence and question things. But I also don’t think everything has to be either scientifically proven or completely dismissed.

There is a space in between and that’s also where I seem to be happiest. Curious, but not credulous. Interested in spirituality without needing to turn it into an identity, and that is what being 50 is teaching me. I don’t need to know exactly who I am, but I do need to notice when I feel like myself. That might be dancing badly at Zumba, writing, waiting for H to translate Hafez for me. It might be wearing an evil eye bracelet because someone I love gave it to me, or it might be noticing that I’m tired and not immediately treating that as a personal failing.

It might even be looking at a strange, colourful photograph and allowing myself to wonder … I still have days when I look in the gym mirror and feel too old or too big, but then I start moving. Usually, somewhere in the middle of it all, I find myself again. Maybe my aura has always been there, or maybe it means nothing at all. The useful part isn’t the colours, it’s just having a reason, at 50, to look at myself properly. And for the first time in a while, I quite liked what I noticed.

Can you actually see an aura, and if you can, does it tell you anything useful about yourself?

I had my aura photographed and looked at the colours around me, then compared the interpretations with my own experiences, beliefs and a rather sceptical brain.

Free with a decent AI prompt

I expected something vaguely ethereal and possibly a little mystical. Instead, I got a riot of colour, including gold, yellow, orange, red, blue, purple, green and white, and rather more to think about than I expected.

Worth doing, provided you treat it as an interesting experiment rather than a scientific assessment of your personality. The photograph itself became less interesting than what it prompted me to consider about confidence, energy, boundaries, empathy, intuition and rest.

I went in wanting the photograph to tell me something about myself. I came away realising I already knew quite a lot of the answers. The experiment simply gave me an entertaining, slightly peculiar way of asking the questions.