Seeking calm
California beauty, breathwork, and a book
I knew I wanted to have a few things planned at the start of this year to fight the cold weather and enter 2025 feeling good. The painting I’m sharing reflects my New Year’s Eve trip up the north California coast. The scenery of cliffs leading into the ocean is gorgeous.
A watercolor painting I made evoking coastal California
At Wilder Ranch State Park in California - dozens of seals in a cove!
We then went inland to be offline (no cell service or wifi) at Orr Hot Springs - I would highly recommend. It was lush in the way of redwood trees, as in moss so thick that ferns grow on it. It looks like the trees have feathers or sprouted hundreds of tiny wings.
A breathwork app
I’m in week seven of a ten week breathwork program (for free) through the app Elite HRV. HRV stands for heart rate variability and is a measure of overall health. The higher your HRV, the better and this breathing practice is designed to improve it. The program has 20 minutes of breathing twice per day at around four seconds inhale, six seconds exhale. At first I thought this was so much daily time to spend on breathwork. But I easily spend that much time and more on my phone daily, so my aim is to replace that time with this program. I am really enjoying it and would recommend the app to anyone, it has a great interface to set yourself up for box breathing etc. for however long you’d like.
Sliders to adjust your seconds of breathing
A visual cue so you don’t have to count
A book: Meditations for Mortals by Oliver Burkeman
In this book he explores “the role of bold, imperfect action [being] at the core of a fulfilling finite existence”. It’s a great summary of wisdom on not trying to “get on top of everything” on the to do list, because you never will. One of my favorite anecdotes in the book is from a Dutch Zen monk Paul Loomans who refers to tasks or areas of life you’re avoiding as “gnawing rats”. But rather than fighting your rats, befriend your rats. Turn them into sheep, “a harmless, docile, fluffy creature that follows you around until you decide to do something about it”. I love metaphorically turning an overwhelming set of tasks into a frolicking flock of sheep baa-ing about.
I hope you create your calm for the year ahead.
Love,
Christina
https://christinacopeland.my.canva.site/