Monthly mindscape – Lines
Last month for my monthly mindscape I shared a story about my favourite birthday. This month I’m going back to the original format, picking an image found on Instagram and writing a short piece of fiction with this as the prompt. This is my play-time on the blog. I get to explore topics in a more creative way and generally have a bit of fun flexing my fiction-writing muscles. This…
Why I removed ‘body positivity’ from my social profiles
When I first discovered the world of body positivity, I felt inspired. I found people who were happy in their bodies and started a journey of learning. I was passionate about loving my body as it was, started to call myself ‘body positive’ and added ‘body positivity’ to my bios on Twitter and Instagram. I wanted to come up when people searched ‘body positivity’. I wanted to be seen as…
Here’s what’s wrong with the wellness industry
This is another one of those blogs that makes me a little nervous to write, but it’s a subject that’s been on my mind for a while. When I first started Blue Jay of Happiness I wasn’t sure what niche or category it would fit in, but since I had ‘health’ in my tagline, I thought I would look at other health bloggers for inspiration and even signed up to…
How I eat what I want
How often do you think about what you’re eating, what you plan to eat or what you ate earlier? Are these thoughts about hunger, taste and satisfaction… or are they filled with numbers, guilt and shame? Back in my teens, the only thoughts that swirled around my head were the latter. I thought about how the food I ate would affect my body, how many calories I was consuming, how…
Monthly Mindscape – Enough
With all the commotion of moving in January then going on holiday in February, my usual monthly mindscape posts have gone amiss so far in 2018. These monthly posts are where my inner fiction writer gets to have a little fun. When I first started doing them, I used a set of prompt dice but now I like to pick an image from Instagram that particularly inspires me and write…
Self-love; it’s a journey
Recently there has been a rise in the self-love movement. A wave of ‘love yourself’, ‘embrace your natural beauty’ and ‘you matter’ buzzwords are hitting us from all angles. And while of course, I am all for this messaging, I think the way it is marketed can be a little… irritating. And I say marketed because it seems a lot of brands are capitalising on the movement, joining in with…
Being body positive in everyday conversation
To be “body positive” means so much more than loving your body. If you saw my last body positivity post, you’ll have seen that it’s a movement to give marginalised bodies a voice. It means rejecting diet culture and refusing to believe what society has taught us about ‘beauty’ and even ‘health’. In my online life, I consider myself to be body positive. I’m speaking up about issues that I…
What intuitive eating really means
The nutrition industry is one hell of a minefield. There are so many different schools of thought, all screaming over each other “No THIS is the best way to eat”, “Don’t eat that, eat this” and “If you eat like this, you’ll be happy/lose weight/be healthy forever.” OK, I’m exaggerating a little, but you see where I’m going with this. Along with the noise, there’s also confusion. New terms get…
Body positivity – what I’ve learnt so far
When I first wrote about body positivity here, I talked about learning to love my body and some ways I was actively showing my body more appreciation/love. Since writing this post I’ve delved much deeper into the subject and have learnt more along the way. So I thought today I would share a little bit of what I’ve learnt and point you to some excellent people to follow and podcasts…
Yes, it’s OK to love yourself
When I was at school, there were a couple of girls I was friends with. I found out that they were writing notes about me behind my back, commenting on everything from the way I wore my make up to the way I ate (which, for those wondering, is apparently like a squirrel). While these nasty notes were just another part of school life back then, one comment in there…