It’s that time again! Time to thrill you with my December Favourites! Or as I like to call them, Mes Petits Plaisirs;)
This month I have TWO favourites. The first will gift you absolute relaxation and pleasure (and romance!) and the second? Well, you will be the talk of any party or celebration with this one! Let’s dive in, shall we?
My December Favourites
Novel – Seven Letters From Paris by Samantha Verant
I discovered this novel about 2 years ago. I’m always on the look out for a great francophile novel and when I read the synopsis for this book I KNEW I had to read it.
Synopsis:
At age 40, Samantha Verant’s life is falling apart-she’s jobless, in debt, and feeling stuck… until she stumbles upon seven old love letters from Jean-Luc, the sexy Frenchman she’d met in Paris when she was 19. With a quick Google search, she finds him, and both are quick to realize that the passion they felt 20 years prior hasn’t faded with time and distance.
Samantha knows that jetting off to France to reconnect with a man that she only knew for one sun-drenched, passion-filled day is crazy-but it’s the kind of crazy she’s been waiting for her whole life.
After reading this book (in about 1 day) I just had to find the author and tell her how much I loved it (Facebook is a wonderful thing!) I told her how much her story reminded me of my own personal love story in France and she encouraged me to write about it. So I did! Samantha Verant is the inspiration behind my blog series: The Making of a Spiritual Woman: A Pilgrimage That Began in Paris.
This blog series has been THE most watched series here on The Elegant Life. So many women tell me they see themselves in different parts of my story. ENJOY discovering yourself!
This cake has such a lovely, soft flavour and a very moist texture. Best of all, it takes no more than 5 minutes to prepare. Okay, even better than that, it looks absolutely elegant and will be the showstopper of any party or celebration. Ready to learn the recipe? (Watch how in the video above at minute 4:50)
Ingredients:
160 g/5 1/4 oz. caster sugar
250 ml/8 fl oz. vegetable oil
225 ml/ 8 fl oz. natural yoghurt
2 eggs
225 g/ 8 oz. plain flour
3 teaspoons baking powder
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
250ml/8 fl oz. double cream (whipping cream)
25 g/ 1 oz. icing sugar
100 g/4 oz. fresh raspberries plus 8 same sized raspberries for the garnish
Method:
Grease 2 round bakings pans.
Preheat oven to 160°C/325°F.
In a blender or food processor, mix the sugar, oil, yoghurt, eggs, flour, baking powder, and vanilla until just mixed. Be sure not to overmix.
Evenly pour batter into the cake pans and bake in oven for approx. 30 minutes (until lightly browned and top springs up when touched).
When ready, flip both cakes onto a cooling rack. Leave until cool.
Pour cream into a medium bowl. Add icing sugar and whip until stiff peaks form.
Fold in the 100 g raspberries.
Place 1 cooled cake on a cake pedestal. Spread the raspberry cream mixture on top. Place second cooled cake on top of the cream.
Sift icing sugar on top to lightly garnish the surface. Finally, place the 8 raspberries on top to decorate.
Voila! Un beau gateau!
See you in 2018!!!
Love,
SHOP THIS POST – December Favourites
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What would life be like if…. all that holds you back is gone?
So, now you know why my year in France is a year that I will never forget and will always hold so dear to my heart.
In 1997 I left Canada a broken, insecure, unfulfilled person and in 1998 I returned a peaceful, confident, and spiritual woman.
It is my greatest honour to pass along some of the wisdom I gained. The life lessons I learned that year have served me every day since then.
I’ve had ups and I’ve had downs, but whenever I come back to these lessons, I feel peaceful, aligned, and confident in who I am and why I’m here.
Are you ready to learn them?
Okay!
Here are 5 of the Top Life Lessons I learned in France:
(Psst…for full explanations of the lessons, watch the video above)
How to live a life filled with Peace, Pleasure, Prosperity, JOY and Beauty.
How to connect with one’s own Divine Nature and how to allow that essence to be so fully YOU that you GLOW and touch other people’s lives with that glow. Shortly after returning from France I was walking in a Health Food Store and a woman stopped abruptly in front of me and said loudly, “WHOAH! YOU ARE GLOWING! You are actually GLOWING!” I just smile when I hear this now because I know it’s not me they’re seeing and feeling, it’s the Divine/Source Energy. This was a wish I had while living in France. I wanted to GLOW like the Buddhist Masters did. And, voila! With time and doing my special daily practise (the one you can find inThe 6 Phase Visioning Meditation) I was able to fulfil my wish! And it just keeps getting stronger and stronger as I practise.
How to LIVE your spirituality, not just talk or read about it.
How to know and LOVE yourself intimately, so you never compare yourself with others again.
How to know what your soul desires and how to elegantly manifest it.
Again, these are just SOME of the gorgeous life lessons that France gifted me. The beautiful thing is that much of what I learned has deepened even more since then.
For one, my connection and alignment with Source is something that has deepened to such a level that I consistently receive Divine Downloads for myself and the people I mentor.
I giggle every time I receive an email or comment during a session like this,
“Oh my God, are you psychic? It’s like you know me perfectly and we’ve only just met!
or
“Oh my God, are you psychic? I asked to hear these exact words as a sign today!”
Please know that if you have found your way here, it’s not an accident. It shows you are ready to receive all of the Elegant Processes and wisdom that I have been guided to share.
If you weren’t ready to receive it you wouldn’t have been guided here. So congratulations for being ready!!!
It is my wish and intention, that today is the beginning of your OWN personal pilgrimage. One that takes you on a beautiful journey back HOME, to your Divine Nature – the place where Inner Peace, JOY, Abundance and Beauty resides.
Living from this space allows you to live in Elegant Flow where everything you desire (or something even better) flows elegantly to you, without hard work or huge effort.
So, let’s get this journey started, shall we?
Each week I will be sharing wisdom with you on how to be a Spiritual Woman who lives The Elegant Life, so make sure you put a note in your calendar to come back here every Wednesday.
Also, I LOVE connecting with you by reading and responding to your comments and questions, so please do write to me in the comments, okay?
Since I will only be posting once a week now, I invite you to follow me on YouTube, Facebook, and Instagram for even more inspiration and wisdom.
See you next week!
Love,
Erin
This exquisite meditation will enable you to embody the life you desire. Using this meditation daily will create a powerful vortex for your dreams and desires to enter and become your reality. More importantly though, it will prepare you to be fully ready and open to receive your dreams and desires once they appear. No more sabatoging yourself. THIS life will be your new normal.
Well, this beautiful story could continue… in fact it could continue on for years since the connection between Guy, Emil and my current husband, Ilker, is very interconnected. This has been a full circle love story that I will hold close to my heart forever. It’s the story of how I became the Spiritual Woman I am today and how I truly live “The Elegant Life”.
Here is the short version of how things ended with all of the key players in this beautiful story…
I did see Emil one last time – in Prague. That story can be for another time because it wasn’t the kind of meeting I expected, in fact I felt heart broken at one point and then strong and resilient near the end.
The interesting part is that after I returned to Canada, an amazing thing happened to reconnect us and I spent months trying to find a way to get him over to Canada. However, in the midst of this, I met my husband. When I finally told Emil about my “boyfriend” we eventually stopped communicating. The last time I heard from Emil was on my wedding day.
I hadn’t heard from Emil for years but on the morning of my wedding day, which was in Turkey, just next door to Bulgaria where he lived, I opened my email to find, you guessed it, an email from Emil saying he missed me. Yeah, I know….
Talk about a year!
1997, a year that began with drama and things I never thought would happen to me in my life…to experiencing things that were amazing, AMAZING!
In one year I went from stressed, insecure and scattered to spiritually aligned, peaceful and confident in who I was as a woman.
During the remaining months in France my relationship with Guy as well as my spiritual evolution flourished.
I left France with a daily practise that I did every morning without fail…and still do to this day.
When my sister came to visit me in France, just before I left, she was in awe at the reaction I was receiving from people on the street.
“Did you SEE that?” she’d say. “Look how people are reacting to you!”
I was oblivious to it – I just thought their stares and double takes were perhaps because they thought I was someone famous.
But no, there was something different about me.
I felt inner peace.
I felt connected to my “Divine Nature”
I felt beautiful.
I intimately knew and LOVED who Erin was. I loved what her style was and I knew what she required and what she desired…. I just loved her.
WATCH the video above, at minute 5:44-6:30, for a little giggle:)
Guy is, to this day, the greatest gift of my life. He GAVE me the life I have now, as it’s because of everything he showed me, did for me and taught me that I am the woman I am and that I have the life I have now.
This is why he and I were meant to come together that year. I served the evolution of his soul and he served the evolution of mine. No, it wasn’t meant to be a long term relationship, but it was truly a year we will both always remember and be thankful for.
I’ve not seen him since 1998, but we spoke regularly for years.
A period went by when our communication totally stopped.
He got married, I got married. We both had children, etc. but a couple of years ago Sandra, he and I almost reunited in Paris. (Sandra and I did and that story is one I MUST tell you since it miraculously occurred after I used my Elegant Clearing Process™).
Sadly, Guy is divorced now, but he is still teaching yoga and is highly respected in what he does.
If you go back to post #1 of this series, “The Making of a Spiritual Woman: A Pilgrimage That Began in Paris”, you will see that it began with Guy and I sitting on a park bench and me staring up into the sky saying with such sadness and hopelessness, “I just want to be happy, Guy. I just want to be happy.”
Well, here’s where I will end this series…
Picture it being July 26, 2003 and I’m on a boat, with 150 plus guests sailing down the Bosphorus in Istanbul, Turkey.
I’m wearing a simple, elegant wedding dress that is so ME, and I’m with my father. We are dancing to the Father/Daughter song and all I keep repeating is, “Dad, I’m so happy right now. I’m SO happy.”
I felt peace in my heart and full JOY and contentment with my life, who I was marrying and who I was as a woman.
I want to say a massive thank you to my husband; my dark-haired, spiritual, generous, guitar playing, great cook, music loving, great lover of a husband for loving me unconditionally and gifting me two incredibly beautiful souls…our children.
HERE is a post I wrote culminating all the BIG LIFE lessons I learned in France and what that means for YOU.
I always felt I needed to share this story, but I never wanted to share it just for ME. There was a purpose and the Divine told me I needed to share it.
The beautiful responses I’ve been receiving privately just solidifies WHY I needed to share it.
The post HERE shares how we’ll be moving forward at The Elegant Life.
I really cannot wait! It’s been 20 years since I began my pilgrimage back HOME to the truth of who I am, both as a soul and as a woman, and I finally feel ready to BE the woman I was meant to BE; to share these exquisite Elegant Processes & Principles it took me years to learn and embody.
Now it’s your turn to begin your OWN beautiful pilgrimage, but the good news is that your pilgrimage will be supported by exquisite Elegant Processes!
My trip to Italy was incredible! Spaghetti and Tiramisu really DOES taste different there!
I will never forget the evening my friend and I dined under the stars eating spaghetti bolognese and tiramisu while being served by a funny, passionate Italian!
I will cherish this trip for a very long time. What a stunning country full of vivacious life, history, beauty and dark-haired men! LOL!
I just HAD to call Guy and talk though.
I felt ill inside the few days before coming home. I knew he would be open to talking as I had spoken to Sandra and she told me that he was better.
He had finally realised why I had been telling him over and over for two weeks before I left that it was over and I didn’t want to hurt him anymore.
It felt so good to talk with him in a civil way again; with calmness and peace – how we used to.
He told me that I’ve always asked him to understand me, so now he is asking me to try and understand him. He was just in shock at seeing me kiss Emil, so he lost it.
I totally understand that.
He also said, “I don’t think you realise I much I love you.”
We both agreed that we needed each other in our lives and that after we drive Sandra to her new home in Bretagne we would carry on as friends.
Peace at last.
Now…what in the world do I do about this romance with Emil???
Sandra gave me a note that Emil had written for me while I was in Italy. Oh my God. He really, really felt the way he said he did!
He wrote so beautifully and with such heart. I have to admit, I’m in shock!
God, why am I always so in shock when great men like me?
Emil wrote that he loved me, that he wished he could spend every minute with me and that one day at work, the theme song from The Titanic, “My Heart Will Go On” played on the radio and he cried like a baby.
What???? My tender, emotional, gorgeous man felt the same emotions I had been feeling as I stared for hours at the photos of us in the flower fields by my house?
I’ve never felt THIS way before. It’s different than with Guy. This love feels more like the kind you see in a romance novel or movie. With Guy it was…hmmm… also a romance novel or movie, just a different script.
But with Emil, because he was my type, this added factor of attractiveness completely made me swoon and fall deeply, quickly.
I’m going to go to sleep and dream about him.
Dear Diary,
Today Guy and I drove Sandra to her new family in Bretagne. I’m so happy for her as the family seems so down to earth and the home they live in is gorgeous! It’s near to the Sea, so I can picture Sandra spending a lot of time at the beach.
I will miss her so much though.
On the drive home, Guy and I had a lot of time to talk. I opened up and really tried to explain how I believe we weren’t destined to be together forever, but that we were destined to meet each other and share this experience.
He said all the same beautiful things as usual but then the conversation shifted and we began talking about life like friends. Ahhh….this felt right.
At one point he turned to me and said something that hit me right in the heart and was perfect for me to hear in that moment.
He said, “Erin, I have to tell you that the man who you decide to spend the rest of your life with will be the luckiest man on this earth, because you are truly a beautiful person.”
For the first time in my life, I actually felt and believed that yes, I AM a beautiful person and I deserve to be truly loved and appreciated for who I am.
This is a very spiritual time for me right now and I am learning so many beautiful, spiritual lessons.
When I read from Deepak’s book, “The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success” I just sob from the absolute truth about how this whole thing called life works…
Dear Diary, Today I felt like leaving the family – I cannot take the mother anymore!! She is SO off and on with her emotions and the LAST thing I need in my life right now is stress!
I spoke to Guy about all this and he said that he is here for me with whatever decision I make but to make sure that I leave without regrets.
He also added…
“Now is the time to bring your meditation into your life.”
Oooooh, that hit home. This was a powerful spiritual lesson for me.
Being with Guy this year has gifted me more than just love and compassion. He has helped bring me back HOME. Home to my Divinity. Home to where my peace & happiness reside and where I don’t feel the need to always run or react in anger.
I know how to align myself and actually EMBODY the essence of an enlightened being now. Guy was right, now was the time to really bring my meditation into my life.
Join me HERE for the finale of “The Making of a Spiritual Woman” series. Find out what happened with Sandra, Emil and Guy, and how they actually led me to my husband. I came full circle, from sitting on a bench in France telling Guy, “I just want to be happy”, to being on a boat, on the Bosphorus in Istanbul saying….
With so much love,
Manifest your desire into reality. Download this free meditation
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