Préface
“Helena Woods” on YouTube


• 63k subscribers, consistent growth daily

• 210k recent monthly views


• 42.5k returning viewers


Blog - helenawoods.com / Most searched blog posts are related to slow living in France.


• 12k monthly views

• 3k unique monthly visitors

• 60% organic search


• 40% direct visits


Audience


• 90% women, living in the U.S.A. and Canada

• Ages 26 - 55 years old


• Average age: 35-45


 Book / channel promotion

• Helena Woods created her channel and grew her audience in the pandemic, and creates videos inspiring people with her slow European lifestyle.
• The author has an engaged following on Youtube who frequently ask for a book. They will enjoy the book and videos relating to it, create online discussions about it, and leave comments/reviews. 
• She also has a dedicated + loyal audience on Instagram and her email newsletter. She has about 2,000 people on her email list. Many have purchased from her online shop from the mailing list alone.
• She will create “day in the life of an author” videos on Youtube (these types of videos are very popular on YT and highly searchable) while in the process of writing the book to create some excitement and hype.
• She will create a high quality book trailer on her channel.
• She will include her book pre-order information in each one of her slow living and France videos on Youtube, as a voiceover or talking about it to the camera.
She will create a slow living online course that she will offer as bonus material for preorders.







Auteur

Helena Woods is a creative storyteller, photographer, Youtuber and blogger. Her first love has always been writing, she's been writing stories since the age of 7 and has over 60 journals completed. She's been consistently blogging since 2015 and she currently writes a monthly column for Radiant Life Magazine. She's been a guest on several podcasts such as the Wild + Awake podcast with Bridget Nielsen, Cozy and Connected podcast, Health & Soul and Spiritual Assholes. She resides in France. You can visit helenawoods.com for more on this author.

Texte du rabat

Living peacefully is within reach if you slow down your life. With slow living you, too, can embrace simple living and mindfulness for peace-induced days!

Échantillon de lecture

Chapter 4





Slow Living in Practice





 “How we spend our days is of course how we spend our lives.” 

 —Annie Dillard 



    

 We live in a society that has an intense sense of urgency. We want things done quickly and efficiently. We want fast food and fast cars. We don’t always celebrate the quiet things that develop slowly. Things that require patience. Like jewelry making or painting a work of art that takes meticulous detail and brush strokes. Look at growing a baby or tending to a garden. These things take time.  

 Time doesn’t actually move quickly. We just think it does. 

 If you’re someone who tends to say, “Where did the beginning of the year go…it feels like it was just yesterday,” that’s a clear indicator to slow down. Time doesn’t fly by, we’re just rushing through it. We jam pack our schedules, filling it to the brim with work meetings, side-hustles, and social events, that it does, indeed, appear like life is moving fast. But that’s because we’ve made it so. But you can make the conscious choice to embrace simplicity, a life of less, and opt to live slower. For it’s when we live slower that we have more time to revel.  



Slow Down Your Routine



 What we do with our days is how we spend our short but beautiful existence. And how we start our day is a great indicator of how the rest of the day will ensue. We’re living life deliberately, rather than living life by default. When we begin our day from a peaceful place, we’ll remember that initial feeling throughout the rest of the day when our work and family life gets a little chaotic. We’ll have a measurement, a setpoint, to remind us of the energy and values we want to embody for the remaining hours in the day. To put it simply, when we wake up, we need to hop on the appreciation train.  



 There are two rules to starting your day mindfully: 





1. 

It needs to feel good doing it.




2. 

It needs to be completely and entirely focused on you.





 Your mindful morning practice is not for anyone else. It’s not to be seen by your friends, your partner, or your followers on social media. This is your sacred time. How many hours in our days are spent focusing on other people? Responding to other people’s emails, working and chatting with others, sharing life with someone else. There is plenty of time in the rest of the day to share and give, reciprocate and serve. But this is not the time for that. This is a time for you. This time in the morning is meant to dazzle and delight you, it’s meant to open you up to the magical mysteries of your inner world, to nourish yourself and remind you that life is worth celebrating. Your mindful morning practice is not the time to scroll on social media or respond to emails. It’s a time to get quiet and listen to the inner whispers of your heart, the whispers that can only be heard when you get really still and silent. 

Contenu

CHAPTER 1 WHAT IS SLOW LIVING
The myths of slow living + productivity
How we’ve been taught to be happy
What we’ve been taught to believe success is
We need to define our own success 

 CHAPTER 2 THE FOUNDATION
What we learn from death—your time matters/your life is valuable!
Your Core Values 

 CHAPTER 3 SIMPLICITY
Essentialism
Boundaries
Work + Worth
Don’t turn your want-tos into have-tos
The Energy We Consume: cut back/digital detox (and physical stuff)
Silence 

 Chapter 4 SLOW LIVING HABITS
The Importance of Slow Routines: Morning & Evening Routines
Stop thinking you need to respond ASAP
The importance of time in nature 

 LEISURE TIME 

 French Lifestyle (silence, quiet, focus on rest & enjoyment)
Pleasure > Perfection
Self-Care & Pampering
Ambition while living slowly
Efficiency and productive living
Presence and Meditation 

 CHAPTER 5 APPRECIATING THE SIMPLE JOYS
Inspiration of children and importance in having fun / lightness
The power in seeing life big-picture (zoom out)
Follow your excitements 

 CHAPTER 6 CONNECTING WITH YOUR INTUITION
Intuition vs the ego
Losing our connection with ourself.
Other people: listening to others
Be Your Own Influence: Self-sovereignty
Your multifaceted self
Developing trust and connection with yourself.
How to access the inner voice (breathing, gut, presence) 

 Chapter 7 GOING BEYOND
Allowing What Is
Surrender
Stoicism
Nonattachment – stop trying to force things. Thirsty energy.
Patience & Trust: trusting the divine timing of your life
Resilience

CONCLUSION