Episode 31: 3 Simple Ways to Remember the 'Blue Sky'

WE’RE BACK!! This episode explores the mindfulness concept of the ‘blue sky’. When all we see is clouds, it's hard to remember the blue sky is there. But the more we’re able to pop our heads above the clouds and see the blue sky, the easier it becomes to remember it. Today we’re talking about 3 simple ways you can remember the ‘blue sky’.

Episode Transcript:

INTRO MUSIC: Welcome to The Compassionate Wellness Podcast. I'm Alex Treanor. I'm a Nationally Board Certified Health and Wellness Coach, and I am so excited you're here. The wellness industry is full of do's and do not's, should's and should not's. But I like to take a different approach. I'll be sharing all things health and wellness from a joyful, real-life compassionate perspective. If you're ready to drop the cookie-cutter approach and create a life you truly love, while eating a cookie or two along the way, let's dive in.

It has been a long break! Longer than I anticipated. I took a little bit of a hiatus from the podcast, but 'we live baby'! We back!

I hope your new year is off to a good start. We're well into the new year now. I planned originally to just take some time off for the holidays. But then life was life-ing and if I'm honest, I kind of enjoyed just having some downtime and taking a little bit of a break. So that holiday break just kept getting extended. People were getting married. Friends were having babies, all the things and I just took some time to revel in it.

Now I'm ready to be back and I am excited to be sharing again. I'm feeling ready and refreshed and happy to dive in. I hope that you're having a good year so far, I hope that you have been doing well. I love still getting to talk with you. I'm still doing coaching. So still working with clients. And that's been fun, but excited to be back to the podcast and sharing messages with you and thoughts that pop up along the way.

The message I have for you today was actually inspired by one of my recent travels. My best friend from high school lives up in Oregon and I got to fly up and visit with her recently. And Oregon I think we all know is...well, can be gray. Not always gray, but usually gray. And as we were flying in, it was such a beautiful day. The sky was blue. It looked great. I was so excited. As we kept getting closer, you know the plane descends a bit, you get closer to the clouds. I remember thinking, wow, this is such a gorgeous day. It's beautiful blue skies. Ten minutes later, we're going through clouds. It gets a little bit bumpy. Ten minutes beyond that and it's completely gray. The plane descended into those clouds came through the lower side of them and lo and behold, it was actually a great rainy day. I had no idea as we were flying in because everything looked so beautiful and so bright from the vantage point that I was at.

Now I live in the desert, we get a lot of sunny days. I see a lot of blue skies. But I have also lived in Seattle. I've lived in Pittsburgh, which was actually way greater than Seattle, believe it or not. So I have had my fair share of those gray days. And it was such an interesting reminder of the idea in mindfulness about the blue sky.

If you're not familiar with this concept, the idea is that when we meditate, we remember that the blue sky is always present. We have thoughts that pop up. Some of them we might like, some we might not. But we aren't judging those thoughts. And they roll in as if they are clouds on, let's say a stormy day. Those clouds roll in. And sometimes everything looks gray. We feel consumed by the thoughts, these clouds that are all around us. But the idea is those thoughts also roll out and behind them is always that blue sky. The blue sky is always present.

Meditation and mindfulness helps us with that. It's a good way to kind of ground yourself, come back to yourself on those days when you maybe feel lost in all the thoughts that you're having, or kind of that whirlwind that life sometimes presents us.

After my plane arrived, I was talking with my friend and she was talking about how it had been so gray this winter. It had rained so much. And actually the next day was a beautiful sunny day and you could feel the energy around town. Everyone was excited that it was sunny. Everyone was commenting on the weather.

Sometimes when we're in that gray for so long, we forget that blue sky exists. And literally seeing it on this plane, seeing the difference and knowing on the same day that blue sky was there even though the clouds were also there and it was hard to imagine.

It reminded me that we have to give ourselves those opportunities to see the blue sky. When it's been gray for so long, it can be hard to remember that it's there. Because we only see gray! We only see the clouds; we only get stuck in our thoughts. We have to make opportunities to see that blue sky and to break through. The more often we carve out time to actually remember that blue sky, the easier it is to recall on those gray cloudy days. But if we don't make the time for it, it's so much harder to find those moments of relief, to find the mindfulness moments, to remember that there's a bigger picture and that blue skies are available. So whether you are actively pursuing your goals, or maybe just trying to make it through each day, maybe you're in a resting phase, it's important that we carve out time to remember the blue sky. The more frequently we do that, the more naturally it will come to us. And the easier we're able to handle those cloudy days.

So I want to give you three different ways that you can carve out time to remember that blue sky. This is far from definitive list. There are many different ways to do this. These are three ways that come up a lot with my clients, that I've used personally and have a really enjoyed. But there are plenty of other ways to do this as well.

The first one I want to give you is to practice mindfulness meditation. This whole example of the blue sky comes from mindfulness meditations, it comes from taking time to view our thoughts like those clouds and purposefully remembering the blue sky. That's more than just telling myself, the blue sky is there when I'm feeling stressed, right? It's regular practice, it's consistently carving out that reminder, which can come in the form of meditation. If you don't have time for a full on meditation, maybe you can do some deep breaths. So just a quick version, 30 seconds, a minute, it doesn't have to be a 60 minute sitting on a pillow, zoned out kind of experience, right? It can be something simple that you incorporate into your day to just give you that little boost.

The second way is through gentle present movement, things like yoga, a yoga practice, or taking time for some stretching, something that gets you in touch with your body. This is a very grounding exercise, because you physically are feeling your body. We talk about this a lot with mindful eating and being very present with self. When we're in those blue skies, we are trapped in the thought bubbles, and kind of floating and at the mercy of everything happening around us. So doing some gentle yoga, some stretching, puts us back into our body and grounds our thoughts grounds our feelings and allows us to see that bigger picture.

The third thing that you can do is to have fun, do something you enjoy. Sometimes this is referred to as being in a flow state or in the zone, which is basically just doing something and being fully engaged in it for the purpose of enjoyment. Being so engaged in the activity that you don't get caught in your thoughts that those thoughts clear away. The clouds clear, and show that blue sky, when we can just have fun, and do something that brings pure enjoyment to us.

Quick recap then three ways you can remember the blue sky, deep breathing or mindfulness meditations, gentle present movement, and having fun.

As always, we like to end with something for you to think on or a way to incorporate this message into your life for this week. So I would encourage you to build on this list. What activities help you to remember the blue sky? These are three simple things that have popped up pretty continuously. But there's so many different things that can help us. So what activities help you remember that blue sky? And how can you carve out time for them

this week?

It feels so good to be back. It's so fun connecting with you through this podcast. And I enjoyed my break. I did, I will say that, and I'm also equally excited to be back. Mindfulness, health and wellness, these are topics that I am truly passionate about and sharing these messages is so important to me. So if this message resonated with you at all, could you do me a huge favor and go into your app and give this podcast five stars do a little rating, maybe even a review? If you're feeling up for it. That would just really mean the world to me as I try to continue bringing this message to more and more people.

I am also currently accepting clients. So if this is something that you feel like you need some help with need some guidance, not sure really where to start with finding that blue sky or being more mindful in your day to day life. I would love to work with you on figuring out some things and how we can incorporate more joy, more mindfulness, more excitement into your health and wellness routines. There is, as always a link in the show notes where you can schedule a free call with me, we can chat, see if my program might be a good fit for you. But if this resonates with you, you're my people. And I would love to work with you.

I hope that you're excited for what's to come. If you have topics you're interested in things you want to hear. I'm in recording mode. So I would love to hear from you on that as well. But I'm so glad to be back with you. I hope that you have a wonderful, wonderful week, and I will talk to you next week.

OUTRO MUSIC: Thanks for joining me on this episode of the compassionate wellness podcast. If this message resonated with you, please share it with someone you care about. I'd love to connect with you as well follow me on Instagram @alextreanor.coaching, or visit my website alextreanorcoaching.com. And as a reminder, Treanor spelled kind of goofy, it's T-R-E-A-N-O-R. For any references mentioned in this episode, be sure to check out the show notes. I hope you have a wonderful day and don't forget to make time for something you enjoy.