Blue Sky Mind's 12 Most Popular Posts of 2018

In 2018, Blue Sky Mind saw 4,000 unique individuals come across the site. It saw 30-something new blog posts published, some of which were viewed up to 500 times. That’s something I’m proud of.

In 2018, Blue Sky Mind’s had its first full year out in universe. As its keeper, I wanted to reflect on the experience, in all its highs and lows.

The highs you’ll find below. That’s where I’m sharing my postes with the mostes from the year.

As for the lows…honesty hour. Most of my blog posts were seen by fewer than 100 people in 2018. And if you happened to notice, my publishing frequency has steadily dropped from one post a week, to two posts a month, to one post a month…maybe. I’m struggling to produce quality content at the rate that I’d like while having a full time job and personal life. My subscribers (the ultimate prize for any blogger) are steadily ticking up, but remain at a fairly small number.

But that’s ok. I’m just getting started! No one every said the first year of blogging would be glamorous. I’m exceedingly proud that 4,000 people would be able to find my way to their words over the course of a year. Some of those people even felt compelled to reach out with kind words of appreciation or encouragement. To all of you who’ve supported me through this first year, I am so grateful.

Please join me in celebrating one full year of writing by revisiting Blue Sky Mind’s top ten most popular blog posts of the year, along with two of my personal favorites.

The 10 Most Popular Blue Sky Mind Posts of 2018

1. Thankful Journal #1

This was the first gratitude journal I ever published on BSM, which I wrote basically as a reflection on 2017 using the “six core needs” framework. I think that people were hungry for some positivity in the face of a tough year (politically and professionally for me). To me, gratitude is that soothing balm that allows me to bring all that is right in my life to the forefront of my minds.

2. Lisbon, Portugal: Itinerary & Tips

In December of 2017, I traveled to Spain & Portugal with my mom and grandparents. We hit all the hotspots, including Barcelona, Madrid, Lisbon, and Porto. I’m a notorious over-planner when it comes to international travel, so in each of my guides, I share the who/what/where/etc. and our meticulously planned itinerary. I like to think that I do the research (and make the mistakes) so that you don’t have to.

3. 10 Questions With A Badass Female Solo Traveler: A First Timer's Guide

This is one of my personal favorites from the year, because I got to capture the incredible solo travel story of one of my very best friends. This is an inspiring read for anyone who has contemplated jetting off to spend three months exploring Southeast Asia (or any part of the world, for that matter).

4. Using Mindfulness for Weight Loss: How I Lost 15 lbs. in Three Years

On the one hand, I’m happy that perhaps my most vulnerable post of 2018 landed in the top five; it means that I’m not the only one who cares about their weight and struggles to manage it at times. On the other hand, it’s scary to open up about something as shame-laden as your own weight and difficulties in managing it; it means people are free to judge me for my lack of willpower or hyper-sensitivity to my appearance. But it wouldn’t be authentic for me to pretend like this didn’t matter to me a whole lot. So in this post, I share a little more about my weight journey and ultimately the strategies / lifestyle changes that allowed me to arrive at a very happy place with my body.

5. What Is Mindful Eating? 10 Experts Define It In One Sentence

I like to write about positive psychology and healthy eating, but let’s be honest -- I’m clearly not the expert. Everything I believe to be true I’ve read in books or on the internet. They are intellectual and scientific opinions from experts who are far more qualified to explain an idea or phenomenon than I. That’s why when I sought to explain the concept of mindful eating -- to which I am completely devoted -- I pulled together the most resonant definitions from doctors, dietitians, and medical associations.

6. Traveling To Cambodia: What To Wear & Packing List

Is packing not one of the most stressful activities we are asked to do on a regular basis? I believe yes, and that is why I am low-key insane about my pre-travel packing lists. I do spreadsheets, hardcore research, and create a mindful time/space for the actual packing itself to take place. In this post, I publicize said research and final list for my 2018 trip to Cambodia, so that others have a comprehensive base to work off of (as well as my trial and error learnings).

7. Winter in Barcelona, Spain: 3-Day Itinerary

When I plan a trip, I’m trying to maximize my time there. To me, it’s part of being purposeful about my travel -- how do I see and learn the most from this 28-hour round trip plane ride? Read on for where to stay and what to eat / drink in Barcelona, Spain, as well as the perfect 3-day itinerary.

8. Happy Travel: The Ultimate 9-Day Cambodia Itinerary

I started labeling my travel posts with the term “happy travel” this year, because I feel like it encapsulates how I try to plan my vacations. Equal parts adventure, history/culture and relaxation. Mind you, there is never a trip where every moment is happy. But, there is a way to be mindful about where you travel, why and what you do when you get there. Kevin and I’s trip to Cambodia is the perfect example of this effort.

9. What I Learned From "The Happiness Advantage: 7 Principles of Positive Psychology" [Cheatsheet]

Guys, meet the book that started it all. I had never heard the term “positive psychology” until someone gifted me this book in 2016. To this day, it’s my favorite book written on the subject and this post spells out the topline takeaways that everyone can benefit from. Read the cheatsheet to see if checking out the book might be a strong move for you.

10. Spain & Portugal in the Winter: Packing List

This trip again! When I went to Spain & Portugal last December, I was in for a bit of a rude awakening. It’s COLD in December. It is not the warm sunny southern Europe that everyone pictures. So that changes the packing list just a little bit. No, sorry, it changes it a lot. If you’re making your way to that part of the world at this time of year, I would encourage you to pack your warmest coat and take a peek at this list.

2 Small But Mighty Posts on Blue Sky Mind

These posts didn’t get the most attention this year, but when people landed on them, they spent a long time reading. I think that’s a pretty good indication that these posts might be uniquely helpful, and therefore worth elevating for a second look.

1. Thankful Journal #2

Here’s another post centered on the fact that life throws you a curveball now and then (like falling deathly ill at Coachella), but gratitude is the most powerful mental medicine of all. I think it’s also an ode to the simple moments and things in life that can often go unnoticed, but can be such a powerful influence for joy (like cherry blossoms or having breakfast with friends).

2. What I Learned from “The Science of Happiness,” Yale’s Most Popular Course of All Time (Part 1)

I’m really proud of this post. Basically, I took Yale’s seminal positive psychology course online and took all the notes and synthesized them for you guys. This is truly part 1 of everything you need to know about positive psychology and how to harness its power for your life. Follow it with part 2 of my course notes for a comprehensive crash course.

It’s been an amazing year of learning -- how to write good content, what type of content you guys like to read, what I like to write myself, etc. It wasn’t the year that I was able to produce content the most consistently, but I hope that is something I’m better able to manage in 2019.

Ultimately, nothing makes me happier or is truer to the mission of this site than helping educate and inspire busy professionals to make simple, permanent improvements to their happiness. Thanks for reading and I hope to see more of you in 2019!

To stay on top of my semi-monthly musings, subscribe to Blue Sky Mind.

Using Mindfulness for Weight Loss: How I Lost 15 lbs. in Three Years

I’ve lost roughly 15 pounds over the last three years (but have been trying for about 10). What changed? Let’s explore.

First, I’m uncomfortable with the title of this blog post

But I want people to read it, so I know that I have to frame it in a context that people will understand. And click. And scroll. And actually take this in.  

Me, walking the mindful path away from self negativity.

All my life, I’ve been surrounded by women (and some men) who wanted to lose weight. I know that a blog post promising weight loss will pique the interest of the masses. Just like I know a blog post promising contentment from the slow and steady mindful path most certainly will not.

I’ve been thinking a lot about why more people my age are not as obsessed with positive psychology as I am. And I think it all comes down to one thing...we think in terms of the things we’re told to want. We’re told to want high-paid jobs, hot bodies, social media likes, and many expensive possessions. We’re told to want happiness, but we’re told the formula for achieving it is in attaining the above. And only in attaining the above.

I’m not different. I’ve been miserable at a few points in my life, and it was all because of the fact that I was pursuing this idea of the perfect female body with reckless abandon for all of the things that truly contribute to a sense of well-being and contentedness in life.

Fortunately, in the words of Rihanna, what I found in this hopeless place was love. For myself! But after many hard years of having next to no love for myself. Sad!

So, I thought I’d share a little on the topic that got me started on my mindful journey. It’s the topic of weight loss, and how I was able to finally, finally - after years and years of trying since I was a sophomore in high school - lose weight. It all happened when I began pursuing mindfulness “full time.”

Weight loss is not the goal of mindfulness, but it can be a byproduct

First of all, let me say that I realize the irony in a blog post that positions weight loss as a key benefit of mindfulness. Even though my relationship with my body and food ultimately are what catapulted me onto this mindful roller coaster ride, I struggle with linking the two so closely in the title of this post.

The point of mindfulness is not to slavishly invest in yourself with the hope that if you practice enough self care, you’ll get the highest paying job or the most Instagram likes. The point of mindfulness is to invest in yourself such to the degree that you are able to show up better for the world.

Not not sucking in, but still mostly satisfied.

By taking care of your own emotional needs, it follows that you should be able to help pull others up the ladder. Think about it like you’re putting your air mask on before the other passengers. You can’t be the best version of yourself and unleash your incredible light on the world if you haven’t embraced and cultivated that best version, that light.

Weight loss should not be the end goal of mindfulness. It can and often is a byproduct of a much more healthy relationship with one’s self, but it’s not the holy grail of mindfulness. I’ll be the first to admit that I remain utterly and overly preoccupied with how my body compares to what I believe it’s “ideal” state should be, and that I often use mindfulness techniques to bring me back to a place where I’m comfortable, if and when I move beyond that point.

But that doesn't mean that I stop practicing mindfulness when I hit my goal weight or that I just pull out the below trusty tricks when I’m feeling slightly sausage-like in my clothes. It’s because I am 100% committed to life in the slow lane, taking time to very purposefully “do me” that I now enjoy a very loving, respectful and proud relationship with my body.

How my mindful practices helped me shed the ol’ lb’s

Mindful eating helps with portions & cravings

One of my favorite healthy substitutions as of late: lentil pasta!

Portions; they should match your level of hunger, not the package or serving size. People think I’m crazy because I will put four fork-fulls of leftovers in a tupperware container to eat later. Most people ask, “What’s the harm in finishing it off?” But I refuse to eat past my personal point of fullness these days. I often only eat half the granola bar or banana or bag of chips, because all I need is a quick 100 calories to get me to my next meal.

Try this: Next time you pop a bag of pretzels at work, eat half, fold the bag over, and stick it in your desk drawer out of sight. When you break the cycle of eating whatever is put or packaged in front of you, you break the cycle of overeating.  

In addition to mindful portion sizes, I also practice mindful substitutions. For instance, I LOVE pasta. It is undoubtedly my favorite food in the universe & living without it for me is a sad existence. But since it’s not fair to my body to eat exclusively white, processed flour for every one of my meals, I have learned some very handy substitutions: zucchini noodles, spaghetti squash, or lentil/chickpea/black bean past.

Click here for more mindful eating tips and tricks.

Prioritizing conscious movement means exercise without the pain

I used to work out a lot. It was a habit ingrained by my mother, my high school cheerleading coach, and the online fitness community when I was first starting to try to lose weight. The unfortunate thing was, the more I worked out, the more I felt like I needed to eat in order to “build muscle” or “replenish my energy storehouses.” As the old saying goes, your body is 80% diet, 20% exercise and my equation was way out of balance. I was trying to outrun a binge eating problem, and I’m just honestly not that disciplined.

As of late, I’ve turned away from forcing myself to the gym and toward conscious movement. I make a point to walk or do yoga every day, because I know my body needs to move. I still challenge myself to 1-3 tough workouts a week, which I know are also good for my body. I think the main thing that’s changed is that rather than pushing my body to do what I want, I ask it what it needs.

Try this: Aim to get 10-12k steps per day. Build it into your daily commute. Get off the bus one stop before you have to. Get a sleek little fitness tracker you actually like to wear. Mine displays red lines when I’ve been sitting at my desk for too long. When that happens, I get up and start doing laps around the office floor. So far, no one has called me out and it feels like a huge favor i’m doing for my body.

More respect for my body means less alcohol (& fewer calories)

My ideal beverage scenario these days. Worth a glass or two, no?

I went from binge drinking 4-5 days a week in college to socially drinking 2-3 days a week post-grad. I think this is likely the biggest component in my ability to lose weight and keep it off. Learning to recognize that my drinking habit was severely unhealthy was something I had to do with the help of a therapist. By no means have I given it up -- a girl loves her wine -- but I make very conscious decisions about when and where and why I’m drinking alcohol. If there’s no reason to be drinking, I try to find a healthy alternative that still feels indulgent.

Try this: Next time you’d rather not imbibe, pour yourself a glass of Kombucha, La Croix, or whatever sparkling beverage tickles your fancy.

Prioritizing sleep repairs the body & mind

I’ve invested in making the bedroom my happiest place :)

I get 8 hours on the dot every night by going to sleep at 11:15 pm and waking up at 7:15 am. My mood is wildly erratic if I don't get this consistently good sleep, and my cravings are so much more intensified. When my body is tired, it truly just wants sugar and simple carbs for quick energy. Make sure you’re nourishing your body with consistent, good sleep. It’s so important.

Try this: Invest in an eye mask, ear plugs, and a tempurpedic mattress topper. Consciously create a nighttime ritual that prepares you for sleep (mine is reading, meditation, and gratitude) and practice it before bed every night.

For more on how to create the most amazingly cozy space, check out my post on hygge for the bedroom.

An honest self-dialogue helped me find my flow (& stop obsessing about food)

Find a hobby that engroses you so completely your forget what it’s like to absentmindedly snack. Good positive psych mantra, ya? But seriously, when I’m writing or working on my blog or engrossed in an absolute page-turner (currently Educated by Tara Westover - so freaking good!), food is the farthest thing from my mind.

Yes this book is from the library and yes you should try it!

I used to have such a problem with snacking, both in high school, college and in previous jobs, because I was so bored. So unengaged with life. I lived to eat. I worked out to eat. I trudged through class and emails and social obligations to eat. It was crazy. But it was because I hadn't identified a passion or a purpose for my life, something that invigorated and stretched my capacity to produce and affect change in the world.

The effect is that I now watch fewer TV shows and read more books. I have more health, growth & meditation apps on my phone than I do social media. I’m more excited to advance my passion for positive psychology and bring what I’ve found to the world than I am to eat almost anything.

Try this: Think about some of the things you loved to do as a kid, write them down, and try consciously incorporating one per week until you’ve tried all. You might reignite a long lost passion that makes you YOU.

Also try this: Take mental stock of the kind of content you love to read about on the internet or in books or talk about with your friends. Then think about your unique skill set. How might you engineer an intersection between the two?

For more on the definition of flow, check out this post on Your Six Core Needs & How To Meet Them.

Moving away from a toxic environment made room for self-compassion

This environment is a little more my speed these days.

I loved my LA college experience, because it brought me the greatest friendships I’ve ever known, an education that I loved, and the transformational growth period I was looking for.

What I didn’t love was the culture of LA that played out in unrealistic standards of beauty, too much alcohol, and unfulfilling relationships.

These days, I’ve mostly stopped saying yes to events that would be a rehash of college party days. As fun as they were, they brought me little peace or satisfaction in my life. Instead, I try to invest in my important relationships by setting up 1 on 1 time or smaller, more intimate gatherings.

Getting away from a toxic environment allowed me to feel a little less judgement for myself, subsequently making a little more room for compassion. Self-compassion, as you might guess, is essential if you want to have a loving and nurturing relationship with your body.  

I now use mindfulness to manage anxiety

A lot of times, weight loss comes from struggle and not always purposeful struggle. I can’t talk about my weight loss without mentioning the single greatest factor: I lost 10 pounds during a nasty breakup and was able to keep most of it off. I mention this not because I advocate for anxiety in your weight loss regimen, but because I want you to know that there is a less cut and dry side to my story.

I am your average human who went through a blistering emotional heart wrenching, lost a bunch of weight through anxiety, turned sharply toward mindfulness and meditation and self care to heal, and ended up solving one of the biggest puzzles of my life: how to have a loving relationship with my body.

But I’m still anxious about sharing this blog post

Ollie cat helps me remember not to take life too seriously :)

It’s terrifying to put this out in the world, because what if you’re reading it, and I weigh just as much as I did three years ago? Will you judge me and laugh at my presumptiveness? Will you forward to your friends and say snotty things? These are the questions running through my head.

Although I feel comfortable in my own skin right now, that is not always the case. And I get anxious thinking about the fact that someone might one day read this and call me a hypocrite, because I’m definitely not 15 lbs. less than I was in college. It’s a silly fear to have, but one that I’m going to allow myself. Weight in America is so fraught with emotion and judgement and pressure and obsession, it would be a little weird and self-indulgent if I were to waltz in and claim that I have the silver bullet and that I’ll probably love the way I look forever now. My work here is done!

No, I don’t think that’s how it’s going to be. I can already tell you there will be times when I look at myself and struggle to think positively or speak loving words or not restrict unhealthily after putting on five pounds. Because honestly, it happens every week. But at least I have the tools to help me get back to the headspace where I can.

One of my deepest hopes is that we can all be more publicly honest about this issue, rather than hiding our struggles out of fear of judgement or shame. We have to know we’re not alone.

Some people will never have to work this hard

Isn’t that crazy? It is to me. I’ve felt such a sense of disgust for not just my body, but for my entire being, at more than one point in my life. That might sound dramatic, but isn’t everything when you’re young? It doesn’t even matter how insignificant the suffering is in the grand scheme of things, because pain is relative. If the worst thing in your life is the fact that you don’t feel like you can love your body, it’s still an awful, painful thing in your life. Some people will not be able to empathize with this sentiment, and, to be honest, I hope that’s the future for everyone.

But if you’re reading this and thinking about how crazy it is that someone (i.e. me) would need to have regular conversations with their inner child so that they don’t eat themselves into a coma regularly, just know that you’re one of the lucky ones.

Other mindfulness strategies for losing weight

There’s a massive community online that have already figured out that this is the most effective way to arrive at a loving, respectful, and proud relationship with your body. Here’s some sentiments from one of my absolute favorite wellness sites, Greatist.com:

Willpower is finite. Don’t build your relationship with food on it.

1. Stop dieting. Willpower is finite! Stop all of the diets, even the most innocuous, like “the whole food diet.” If it positions anything outside of a given set of food as negative or “bad,” then there is always the potential to rebound.

2. Learn to negotiate with yourself. If you have a delicious piece of cake that happened to be sitting in the break room, perhaps you don’t have your normal two dates dipped in salted peanut butter after dinner (Kylee). Or maybe you do! But at least you think about where you could even out the distribution of caloric goodness in your day.

3. Figure out the emotional “why?” behind the eating. "No one gets to be 100 pounds overweight without some serious emotional baggage” — I think my “why” was something like a deep dissatisfaction with myself. Not my life, my life has always been great. More like a deep dissatisfaction with my self worth. I didn’t really have an affirming relationship with myself, and so i looked to food to fill that hole.

And then I just love these sentiments from Psychology of Eating. I wrote in some of the mantras I need to repeatedly tell myself:

The strongest roots take the longest time to grow. Trust yourself.

1. Non-judging. “It’s okay that I had the slice of cake and two dates dipped in peanut butter. It doesn’t make me a bad person, it just means I had an extra hankering for sweets today.”

2. Patience. “The best relationships take time and care and effort. I will spend forever on my relationship with myself, and I won’t give up.”

3. Beginner's mind. “Being skinny won’t bring me lasting happiness. But radical self-acceptance might.”

4. Trust. “I listen to my body and trust it when it says it wants pasta. I trust it equally when it wants veggies.”

5. Non-striving. “My goal is not a number on the scale. My goal is to journey toward balance and peace with my own body.”

6. Acceptance. “I accept that my body will never look like most Instagram model’s, but that it’s beautiful in its own way.”

7. Letting go. “I choose to let go of defining my self-worth by the number on the scale or by the size of my jeans. It is not important to my happiness.”

Do you have any mindfulness habits that have improved your life in ways you couldn’t have predicted? I’d love to hear your story in the comments below!

Up Next: Read Eating Mindfully: How To Devour A (Super) Burrito With No Regrets

What Is Mindful Eating? 10 Experts Define It In One Sentence

My Path to Mindful Eating  

Mindfulness is a central part of my life these days, and it all started with food. I struggled for a long time with a balanced approach to eating, resulting in a long series of extreme diets. By the time I went to college, I had tried more diets than most 50 year old women: low-starch, keto, Medifast, macro-counting, calorie-counting, paleo, countless others I cant remember. It also lead me to a lot of failure by binge. 

Nothing is less mindful than shoving food into your mouth as soon as you get home from school, hoping your mom wont notice how much is missing from the cupboard. On the other end of the spectrum, nothing is less mindful than enforcing Nazi-style food rules on yourself that prevent you from celebrating a friend's birthday with a slice of cake or just having a piece of whole wheat toast after a tough morning workout.

There's that old saying: "Eat to live, don't live to eat." Well, all that obsessing about food had my brain living to eat. And that's not a very positive psych way to live. 

Fortunately, I stumbled upon mindful eating around my senior year of college. By then, I was eating fairly well - lots of protein, fruits, and veggies - but denying myself whole grains because I was drinking too much (and there just wasn't room in the calorie budget for both #pictureofhealth). 

Mindful eating is a concept that has completely changed my relationship with food, and I'm eager to share it with others who may have struggled with some of my same challenges. There are so many definitions of the term, and everyone will have their most resonant. I'm hoping you'll find yours in the list of expert opinions below.

What is Mindful Eating? 

1. The Center for Mindful Eating: “Mindful eating is using all of your senses in choosing to eat food that is both satisfying to you and nourishing to your body.”
2. Psychology Today: “Mindful eating involves paying full attention to the experience of eating and drinking, both inside and outside the body.”
3. Zen Habits: “Mindful eating is learning to pay attention. Instead of eating mindlessly…you notice your thoughts, feelings, and sensations.”
4. Foundation For A Mindful Society: “Allowing yourself to become aware of the positive and nurturing opportunities that are available through food selection and preparation by respecting your own inner wisdom.”
5. Michelle May, M.D. of Am I Hungry?: “Eating with the intention of caring for yourself [and] the attention necessary for noticing and enjoying your food and its effects on your body.”
6. Healthline: “Mindful eating is about using mindfulness to reach a state of full attention to your experiences, cravings and physical cues when eating.”
7. Harvard Health Publishing: “Mindful eating means being fully attentive to your food—as you buy, prepare, serve, and consume it.”
8. Psych Professionals: “Mindful eating uses the act of mindfulness, or being present, to help overcome eating problems in our increasingly busy lives.”
9. Lexicon Of Food: “Mindful eating is the practice of cultivating an open-minded awareness of how the food we choose to eat affects one’s body, feelings, mind, and all that is around us.” 
10. Today’s Dietician: “Being aware of the nourishment available through the process of food preparation and consumption, choosing enjoyable and nutritious foods, acknowledging food preferences non-judgmentally, recognizing and honoring physical hunger and satiety cues, and using wisdom to guide eating decisions.”

And since often the people around you have the biggest influence on your life, some pretty sage advice from my very fit boyfriend: "Listen to your body. Don't eat when you're not hungry. Learn to want the things you need, and you can eat whatever you want." 

How Eating Mindfully Changed My Life

I started at #8 (with problems), and it took me about six years to get to #10. Today, I ask myself before each meal, "What do you need to feel nourished right now?" That simple questions has had such a profound impact on my life. Sometimes the answer is, "Actually...nothing." Other times it's ice cream. A lot of times, it's veggies, protein, and whole grains. 

Not only am I ten pounds lighter than I was in high school (or college, for that matter), I am not obsessed with food. I still love it and am concerned if my appetite starts to slip, but honoring my body's needs and my brain's desires (moderately, of course), has completely changed the way that I think about food for the better. 

And finally, I used to have crazy stomach issues. I was bloated all the time, even when I hadn't eaten an insane amount of food in one sitting. When I started eating mindfully - which, in this case, was loving myself enough to stop putting pain-inducing food into my body - the bloating, acid, and discomfort decreased dramatically. 

So that's mindful eating and why it's important to me. If you're just starting down the long road of eating issue recovery, I hope the above definitions serve as a solid foundation for your budding relationship with food. If you're already pretty healthy, but feel like there's always room for more mindful consideration, add one or more of these mental frameworks to your toolbox and I promise you'll get even more out of the food you already love.

Is mindful eating a helpful framework for you to think about food? I'd love to hear about some of your experiences with it. I'm going to be writing a lot more about mindful eating, including strategies for how to do it and recipes that help make it easier. Subscribe to the blog if you'd like to stay in the loop!

Up Next: Read Eating Mindfully On A Time & Money Budget