A NEW SEASON OF THE ELEGANT LIFE | All the elegant, exciting changes!
I’m back from my month-long holiday feeling rejuvenated and excited for this NEW season of The Elegant Life.
I always find that I receive a tremendous amount of guidance and inspiration on my holidays. And this time was no exception.
My Soul has been desiring to express itself even more fully AND I have felt an even greater calling to share my teachings on feminine confidence, feminine energy and how to live a spiritual, elegant lifestyle with even more women around the world.
Why?
Well, last year it became crystal clear that what women really wanted and needed was more confidence. But not the old type of confidence. You know, the type associated with achieving? I’m speaking about the feminine type of confidence.
So many women have asked me over the years:
“Erin, how do you show up so easily on YouTube and Instagram?”
“How do you have the confidence to do and be who you are now when your first job was as a primary school teacher?”
It was indeed quite the journey, yet it led me to know the path to fully embodying feminine confidence.
In fact last year I took a group of women through my newest program, The Elegant Art of Feminine Confidence, and it changed lives.
This program is and will continue to be my foundational, signature program to help women, like you, to finally, finally have self-love and self-confidence.
The process
It involves assisting you in actually understanding and LIVING The Elegant Life. Along with this, I take you through activations to reawaken the feminine energies you’ve been disassociated with, forgot, or never even knew you had. It’s truly empowering.
This summer my Soul guided me to showcase exactly what The Elegant Lifestyle really is, both here on the blog and on my YouTube Channel.
So in today’s video, I show you some of the fun things I did on my holiday. I will also give a and break down what you can expect to see and learn in this NEW, elevated season of The Elegant Life.
May this season inspire you and most importantly serve you in upgrading into the next best version of yourself.
If there are any topics you’d love me to make a video on, please do share them in the comments below.
And, if you would like to learn more about how to fully embody feminine confidence feel free to watch the Masterclass I ran in July!
I stood there in shock, not really knowing what to say.
The next thing to come out of my mouth was, “Ah bon?” (“Oh yeah?”)
(Oh my God Erin, what was THAT?)
Guy started speaking so fast saying,
“When you stretched out your arms for me, it was my sign that you felt as I do. I asked the Universe to give me a sign and this was it! I knew it from the beginning, Erin.”
(It was a sign? I was just being my Canadian huggy self!)
Racing through my head, all in a millisecond, was:
When I think of us together I feel very happy, but at the same time I’m scared. I’ve only been in France for 3 months and I want to explore life by myself. If I dance with someone I can and I like that. I don’t want to be tied down.
Argh! Sometimes I think I’m ready for a relationship and other times I think, “NON!!!, NON!!! pas mainteant (not now). Nothing serious!
Out of my mouth came,
“Guy, je ne sais pas. Je t’aime mais je ne sais pas si j’ai l’amour pour toi comme tu as pour moi.” (I don’t know, Guy. I like you, but I don’t know if I have love for you like you do for me.”
“Tu m’aime? Je le savais!” (You love me? I knew it!)
Huh? Je t’aime?
Here’s where the tricky part comes in with the French language.
They simply do not have the phrase, “I like you.” ‘I like you’ and ‘I love you’ are the same.
I kept trying to explain what I meant by I LIKE you, but I don’t know if I LOVE you.
I tried saying, “I mean I Love you. You are an incredible person, but I don’t know if I LOVE you.”
Can you see the problem? He was so confused but so blissful at the same time!
He told me to come to his house later so we could talk more.
He gave me a huge hug and then left while walking backwards, staring me square in the eyes with such an intense look on his face.
Oh. My. God. What just happened???
Do I go to his house tonight? What if he gets too intense? Oh, I don’t want to lose our friendship!
Time for a call to Sandra to sort this out.
Join me HEREto see if I go and what happens next – big hint!!! France is the country of l’amour:)
P.S. What do you think I do? Should do? Have you ever experienced this situation? What did YOU do? Let’s chat in the comments below!
I’m here in my bedroom and missing home, my family and Tony.
This is real.
The family is very nice. I think the boys really like me as they hang around me, tell me all sorts of stories and beg to sit by me at the dinner table.
Today, we went for a long walk in the countryside then came home and had an aperitif with Jean Do and Maelle – nice tradition!
The boys joined us and had juice in special cups and then we had a lighter meal of steamed broccoli with almond sauce.
And, they always have a cheese plate and baguette after dinner. Another nice tradition!
I’ve been reading The Art of Happiness and Seven Years in Tibet that Tony gave me and I’m feeling such a peace inside. I don’t know why!
Why am I feeling so connected to this?
Perhaps this year will give me the time and space to develop my spirituality more – something I have been desiring since I took that meditating course at University.
Tomorrow Maelle is going to take me to the school to meet with the principal and then to my own language class.
Gosh, when you actually live in a country they speak the language SO quickly. I am really finding it difficult speaking french and understanding people. I’m feeling so dumb! Plus it’s leading to so many miscommunications…
The other day, Maelle got really angry with me.
The boys were home with me, as kids don’t go to school on Wednesdays, and after lunch, Maelle came home. She asked one of the boys if they had had breakfast and he said no. She turned to me and asked why and I said that when I asked him he said, “Pas Encore” so I thought he didn’t want any thing else.
Turns out, “Pas Encore” also means “Not Yet!”How have I never known this??? I have only heard it used as “Not again”.
Then I was helping her with dishes and she saw an empty milk bottle and says, “Francois-Clement didn’t have his bottle?”
I replied, “Non”, wondering what she was talking about as this was the first I was hearing of any bottle giving.
She was fuming!
I said, “He has a bottle every morning?”
“Oui, une bouteille de lait chaud!” (A bottle of warm milk)
“Okay” (A 4 year old???? Who ever heard of giving a 4 year old a bottle!! I was to hold him in my arms and feed it to him. What???).
I became silent and wanted to pack my things and go home. I’m a professional who’s been married and through a recent divorce! I don’t need this!”
I went to my room and and read A LOT of my book “Seven Years in Tibet”. It makes me feel good inside so I calmed down and gained perspective.
The boys came to get me for dinner and I decided to be the bigger person and try to make conversation.
Slowly, everyone opened up and we had a nice time.
I think I will decorate my room and try to make it feel like ME. I will hang up my photos and pictures and add some candles. That should make me feel better.
I’m really looking forward to going to Language school tomorrow so I can meet people and learn words and phrases that I never knew existed!
Join me HERE when I meet not 1 but 2 friends and learn a lesson that I live by to this very day. (In fact it’s one of the main things I teach inThe Art of Living Elegantly).
Have you ever moved or lived in a different country? Have you experienced similar language barrier issues? I’d love to hear about them in the comment section below!
Today was court day for David and I had to attend in case they wanted me to testify.
“How am I going to sit there with him looking at me?” I thought. I didn’t have to testify in the end though. Thank God.
The prosecutor offered him a deal, which he took, so after a long while of back and forth the case was closed. He would have to report to probation once a month, take an anger management course and refrain from contacting me or coming to our home for one year.
David got up from his seat and walked past me. Our eyes met. Man he looked handsome, just like when we first met.
I felt deep and utter caring for him since we’ve been through so much together. This all seemed so surreal.
I have questioned my decision on many different occasions. And, for many reasons, I’ve doubted myself.
The house is finally finished and it’s beautiful. I really resent not being able to live in it after working so hard for it.
There were many great things about our marriage and I miss those times. He always made me feel like I was the ONLY one for him. I want to feel this again. Will I?
I never wanted anything really horrible to happen to him and by how his hands were shaking in court, I know this has scared him.
Time will heal us both. I just need to continue on my journey of discovering who I am and what I want.
I need to get a very strong sense of who I am so that when I get in a relationship again I am sure of my beliefs, desires and needs.
I felt my sense of self slip away when I was with Matt and I didn’t like that feeling. Heck, even HE didn’t like it!
Hmmmm…what do I want?
If I’m honest, I SO want to go to France and live there. I’ve been feeling the calling for 2 years! Well actually, it’s been my dream since elementary school.
How can I make this a reality though?
I asked God this question and was told to go to the University’s International section where everyone I had ever admired had gone to figure out how to do their studies in a different country.
“Maybe they can guide me,” I thought.
Because it was summer holidays I spent days reading through books on “How to Work in France”.
I found numbers of schools and tried calling them.
I was SO nervous to speak French with a real Parisian!!!
“La Parisienne” said they weren’t accepting non-European teachers at this time.
After a couple of weeks of researching and becoming excited as well as disheartened, I realized that I basically had two options:
To be a Grape Picker
To be an Au Pair.
I was a teacher, and a damn good one! How could I be an au pair!?
Well, it’s wasn’t my dream, but at least I’d have experience with children…?
I went back and forth on this. I chatted with countless people saying, “Yeah, I’m thinking of going to live in France, but…
I’d have to leave and come back during a recession where all they do is lay off teachers. I need to be smart and stay here to keep my name in the loop.
I’d have to be an au pair! I’m not a spring chicken! I’m a 25 year old divorcee!
I NEED to work! I didn’t want a long drawn out divorce so I settled for nothing but $10,000. How am I supposed to live on that?
I’ll never forget the day that something clicked within me. I remember where I was. I was sitting outside on a beautiful summer’s day, chatting with a friend of a friend and he said,
“Go for it! Life will be here waiting for you. It’s your dream!”
It was almost as if I needed that permission. I went home to Edmonton after a great weekend and made my decision.
I was going to France. And I was going to be an au pair. This was MY time.
And as soon as I announced my decision my whole body knew that THIS was exactly what it was supposed to do.
Join me HERE when the VERY FIRST MIRACLE OCCURS in this exquisite journey!
Have you ever had a dream (or maybe you still do?) that you so desperately desire(d), but logically it just didn’t or doesn’t feel doable? Share that in the comments below. Perhaps I can help you see your way through it a bit.
I went to Calgary and talked to a lot of people and they all agreed that Matt was acting weird. One girl was even a therapist and she said she thinks he’s had the chase and now he can’t commit.
I was determind to talk to him when he called. I needed to express my feelings about everything and then decide whether I’m even still interested in keeping this thing going.
Tuesday he calls and I give him the cold shoulder big time. I am just soooooo mad at him! He seems like such a fake to me now. Like he is a COMPLETELY different person than he showed me at school.
I have NO idea what’s going on with him but tonight he phoned and we’re going out tomorrow.
I have to say I am seriously thinking of ending this because I literally do not recognize this person and it scares me how different he is.
Can someone actually act as good as he did and then be how he is is now???
I HATE THIS F-CKING SHIT!
This makes me want to just go to France and screw everyone and start my own life over without any screwed up MEN!
AHHHHHHHHH! I just want to SCREAM!!!!!
We’ll see how tomorrow goes.
Friday morning Matt called and says he got called into the gardening centre (he was working at a Garden Centre over the summer) so we can’t go out.
I was SO disappointed and angry because he didn’t even sound sorry or sad that he wouldn’t be seeing me. So I said, “I thought this would happen.”
He said, What do you mean?”
“Oh, there just seems to be a trend happening here.”
He was unhappy but managed to be the bigger of us two and said, “Have a good day.”
All I said was, “Yeah, thanks.”
Days went by and he didn’t call. I’m thinking, “Wow, he is giving me a huge hint that he wants things to be over.”
I’m depressed, stressed and angry.
I had a HUGE cry after reading the poems he wrote me and thought, “Where did all this go???”
I decided to call him and leave a message asking him to please call me.
He did and we set up a time to meet tomorrow.
Damn! He looked amazing. I melted. I missed him so much. I missed the terrific times we had at school and the feelings we shared.
All I wanted to do was hug him and say, “God, can’t we just make this work?”
I was SO nervous. My whole body was shaking. He asked right away what I wanted to talk about.
We chit chatted and then I said I felt disappointed. As soon as I said this he chimed in, “Well, I’m VERY disappointed too.”
I was shocked!
He went on to say how he hates the way I’ve treated him on the phone and how he cannot continue to feel pressured by me, and that he still needs time.
My gut hurt when he said this. I felt so stupid and embarassed at my behaviouron the phone – that was so immature and how I would have acted when I was a teenager, not a woman!
The feeling pressured part caught me off guard though. I asked him if he still needed time because he wasn’t over his girlfriend and he said, yes, and that he’s working through the hurtful things she said to him.
“Oh God,” I thought. “This is going to take forever!”
We went back and forth and I took a lot of criticism. He basically told me that he finds my behaviours totally unattractive and that he DID feel things for me but now he just feels as a friend.
That made my heart feel broken. I wanted to burst out crying.
I told him that I began to feel like I was just satisfying a need because that was all we did when we were together. This really pissed him off and said that now I’m attacking his character.
I felt bad but in my heart that’s how I really felt!
He is really hurt and angry and I’m hurt, scared and upset that I’ve lost someone I feel like I love already.
He was going to leave in anger so I reached out to touch his arm and said, “I don’t want to end things this way.”
He calmed down and said some complimentary things about me and my strength and my dedication to my job, and that basically I’m a complete package.
I didn’t understand how he could say that after saying everything else.
I said, “I guess not complete enough”. If I could have broke down sobbing on that table I would have. My behaviour lost this possible love!
Oh my God, Erin, what have you done???
We walked to his car. He gave back my candles and Shakira CD that I had brought to his house. We chit chatted a bit. I apologized for my behaviour and said I don’t think he’s gotten who I really am and that this is not what I’m all about.
He said “I know. I wanna hug you”
He took me in his manly arms and gave me a beautiful, warm hug and asked when I was leaving for my trip to New York and when I’d be back.
“Call me when you get back,” he said.
Ahhhhh, a good ending. Thank God.
I walked to my car in shock and heart break.
This meeting had turned out completely different than I expected.
Here I was, embarrassed and broken, with my candles and CD in hand walking back to my car, with my future totally unclear.
When I returned home all I could do for the rest of the day was think.
Was I right in feeling what I felt?
Was it okay that I expressed what I felt I needed to?
Was he right about me?
I realized a lot today:
I was totally out of line for treating him poorly on the phone the way I did. I always dreamed of having an ADULT relationship and then I go and act like an immature adolescent. I’m embarrassed.
I DO need time to cut these guys out of my life and really become strong and sure of who I am and what I think is right.
I do think I was justified in stating that I wouldn’t have felt as strongly as I did if he would have made me feel more special OUTSIDE of the bedroom, even for just 1 day! I stand behind this and I think I made this point clear when I reminded him of things he said. He admitted, “Maybe I should have sent you flowers. I’m sorry I didn’t make you feel special”
I hope he thinks about things as much as I have and I hope he takes to heart some of the points I made. It will be 4 weeks until I’m back from New York, so we’ve both got time.
I am going to miss him incredibly but actually I think this time apart will make us both cool down, have time to think about how we really feel about one another and hopefully get rid of some of our personal baggage.
And of course, I hope in my heart that he misses me and that when I get back he will have a clear picture of what he wants.
But before I go, I have a court case to attend….Davids.
Join me HERE for the post where I make the BIG decision to follow my dream and LIVE IN FRANCE!!!! See how it all plays out!
Did you take away any A Ha’s from this video? If so, I’d absolutely LOVE to hear them in the comment section below!
With so much Love,
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Congratulations on taking your first step into The Elegant Life!
