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
I LOVE this scale! You can place one bowl on it and add all of your ingredients into that bowl, whether it be liquid or dry, metric or imperial! You just press the “zero” button after each ingredient and voila! No clean up (except the one bowl)! CLICK IMAGE TO PURCHASE
J’adore this vanilla extract! It is a full bodied vanilla that really takes your baking to a whole new level. The difference is truly distinguishable. CLICK IMAGE TO PURCHASE.
If your Soul desires to have a life changing 2018, where life feels both peaceful AND blissful then purchase this luxury spiritual retreat now. Let go of your limiting beliefs & negative emotions that are holding you back, not allowing the abundance to flow in, not allowing the partner you desire to elegantly appear in your life, not allowing you to have the body & health you so desire and start living an elegant, exquisite life forever more.
What would life be like if…. all that holds you back is gone?
I realised something HUGE recently and I have to apologise to you!
You see here on The Elegant Life blog I am constantly talking about gifting yourself pleasure, receiving pleasure etc. yet I have never actually made any blog posts specifically around pleasure!
One day I was enjoying some of my favourite You Tubers sharing their November Favourites and a message whooshed down into me,
Erin, you have SO many things you love and enjoy and you need to share them with the Spiritual, Elegant Women who follow you!”
How could I not have thought of this myself? J’adore talking about things I love and sharing my favourite things with women who I know would love them too!
So, Voilà! Welcome to a brand NEW monthly series on the blog!
Each month I will share my favourite things so that you may be introduced to things that could potentially bring you tremendous pleasure as well!
My November Favourites
Fragrance – Jasmin Rouge by Tom Ford
This Tom Ford fragrance is my absolute new favourite! Those of you who follow me on social media know that my signature scent has always been My Burberry, and I still adore that and wear it often, but… but! This fragrance blew me away when I tested it while casually shopping with my hubby. I literally could not stop sniffing myself! The notes in here are some of my favourites:
Jasmine
Bergamot
Cardamom
Mexican Vanilla
The mixture of these notes with all the others creates a full bodied scent that makes you feel Signature, unique, and beautiful. You’ve got to have it!
Book – Choosing the Simply Luxurious Life by Shannon Ables
About 5 years ago I was searching for francophile blogs as I felt the urge to bring more of my Frenchie-ness into my life. Well, I stumbled upon a blog I have been reading ever since, www.thesimplyluxuriouslife.com
Shannon Ables, the woman behind the blog, wrote a book which encompasses all the topics I love – cooking, organisation, signature style, french way of living etc.
I resonate with her on many levels but perhaps the biggest one is that she often mentions how we must CHOOSE to live simply luxuriously.
Yes, we Spiritual, Elegant Women know that we CHOOSE how to live our lives every – single-moment- of – every – single – day.
This book is one you can reread often or just pick up, turn to a section and get inspired in 5 minutes.
I really don’t watch much TV, but two summers ago my parents introduced me to a show that my husband and I have become obsessed with!
This show is like the best novel ever! (Well, the show is based on the book series by Diana Gabaldon, so that would make sense).
There is love, passion (wowza!), incredible drama, history, a whole season based in Paris, France, shocking twists, and some of the best acting I have ever witnessed, particularly from Sam Heughan, who plays one of the main characters.
The episodes are on regular cable but you must, must, must start back at Season 1, which can be found on Netflix or Apple TV. Trust me on this one!
Retreats – The Elegant Life Experience
Okay, I couldn’t do this November Favourites post without mentioning what I believe is THE best gift you will ever give yourself.
If you desire a deep connection with the Divine|God|Source AND you adore luxury, abundance & beauty (even if you don’t fully experience them…yet) then THIS spiritual retreat is for you.
Most spiritual retreats strip back the luxuries of life but at The Elegant Life we ADD them to your life since the Divine epitomises Unlimited Abundance, Beauty, Creativity & Expansiveness. At this Spiritual Retreat you will be basking in an environment full of LOVE , BLISS, & PEACE as well as beauty and abundance.
If you have ever dreamed of staying at The Ritz Carlton Hotel as well as one day attending a Spiritual Retreat, then this opportunity is perfect for you as you’ll be checking two items off your bucket list!
For 5 nights and 4 Full days, you will embark upon a personal pilgrimage back HOME – where truth and bliss and peace reside.
You’ll fall back in love with yourself, have unwavering confidence and reverence for yourself and feel more connected to the Divine/God than ever before.
See you in a couple of weeks! And, if you love any of the November Favourites I mentioned above please tell me about it in the comments below, okay? Thank you!
Ever felt like Spiritual Growth & Personal Growth was really hard sometimes?
Women all around the world are feeling overwhelmed by life right now and to top it all off they are women who strongly desire inner peace! Argh! What to do?
That’s what this Series is all about and that is most definitely what this week’s post is about.
I want to show you how BEAUTY can be used to help you connect with The Divine so that life begins feeling…well… BEAUTIFUL!
And also that life begins to flow more elegantly. Ready?
In last week’s post I spoke about Creativity and how the Divine is constantly intending for something to be created. YOU were intended and created too – isn’t that so special?
Everything the Divine creates is beautiful – yes, even the sometimes challenging experiences that we are gifted in order to help us grow and evolve.
You see the Divine always desires the best outcome, the most expansive outcome for it’s creations, and therefore you wouldn’t be given an opportunity for spiritual growth in your life if it were not beautifully intended to serve you in some way; to help you become more full of beauty and expansiveness.
So, the next time you are feeling like,
Why me, God???”
Remember that the experience was purposefully created for you in order to gift you the opportunity to grow into who you truly desire to be. (aka the most beautiful version of yourself)
If you are currently experiencing something difficult ask yourself these questions:
What is it from this experience that I can learn?
What woman can I become by experiencing this?
The second way you can experience Spiritual Growth and Connection with the Divine is through focusing on YOUR beauty.
I want you to begin having reverence for yourself. Why? Because it is imperative that you tune in to the fact that you wouldn’t be here if you were not intended by God to be here.
You were created exactly the way the Divine desired and intended you to be so please be grateful for who you are and have deep reverence for it.
You can begin a pilgrimage of getting to know, love and accept yourself by:
Remembering who you were as a child. Think back to how you were as a child in terms of your talents, personality, natural abilities, joys, likes etc.
Give yourself permission to BE that person again, albeit, in a potentially more refined way now that you are a woman.
Start dressing in the style that you love. (Watch the video above at minute 12:34 to hear me share a recent story of mine where a Parisian woman solidified this point for me)
So, when we start viewing beauty in ALL things; opportunities, challenges, people, places, and US (both inside and out) we live in resonance with Divine energy, because the Divine IS beauty.
I’ll be spending a full day on the topic of getting to know ourselves intimately, loving ourselves deeply and expressing our inner and outer beauty during a retreat that I’ll be speaking to you about in a few weeks, but for now, focus on the things I’ve mentioned here for a whole week. I guarantee you’ll feel like a brand new woman in just 7 days.
If you can think of any woman who you love and would benefit from hearing about this or any other topic on The Elegant Life, please use the SHARE buttons at the top of this post. We need more women living from a Divine space of Beauty in this world.
Abundance is often spoken about in Spiritual circles however in today’s post I want to talk about it in a completely unique way; how to get into harmony with abundance so that you elegantly tune into God/Divine Consciousness.
Once we are vibrating harmoniously with Divine Consciousness we are able to elegantly manifest anything we desire.
Are you ready to learn about this from an Elegant Life perspective?
Today I felt a bit under the weather, so to honour myself I have recorded a video for you, but not written a matching post. Thank you for understanding. The video is only 11 minutes but it’s a good one. Someone told me they had shivers up their spine while watching it so that’s always a good sign;)
Please let me know in the comments if you’ve ever felt the vibration of abundance. It doesn’t just have to relate to an abundance of money, it could be of love, nature, anything!
Enjoy the rest of your week and I’ll see you back here next week for another attribute of Divine Consciousness that you can tune into!
P.S. If you missed last week’s video I HIGHLY recommend you read or watch it as it speaks to the POWER of being in harmony with Divine Consciousness. Click here to take you there.
Ladies!!!! I cannot tell you how excited I am to be back blogging, vlogging and supporting you.
I had an absolutely wonderful 2 month holiday, but there were some challenges that appeared, and I want to share them with you so that you can see how a Spiritual, Elegant woman chooses to move through them.
My kiddies and I first flew to London. I had the opportunity to stay with one of my best friends and visit with my other two besties as well.
How wonderful it was to be openly welcomed, hugged, and cared for. Having close girlfriends was once only a dream. After spiritually evolving so quickly, people I called friends suddenly dropped out of my life. So to meet up with these three beautiful women again meant the absolute world to me.
My kiddies and I swiftly left to travel from London to Calgary. However, due to an unknown Canadian government rule for dual citizens and some extremely unhelpful Air Canada employees, except for one angel, we missed our flight.
The saga that took place is a story I’ve told so many times over the summer, so I won’t go into it all, however we ended up flying to Toronto, only to be held up in security, and then another set of security only to have to run like cheetahs to the terminal which was literally just closing.
We finally landed in Calgary and soon after, my daughter got the flu and a chest infection.
When my hubby arrived he and I went for a special Reconnective Healing session. My intention was “for anything and everything that was still within me, blocking my Divine light, to transmute and be cleared.”
I had been given the clear message before I left for holidays that The Elegant Life would expand even more this year and I needed to ready for it, so when this Reconnective Healing Session entered the picture I said, “Yes”.
While receiving the healing, I heard messages in my awareness like this:
It’s over, Erin. Done. It’s finished now.
“Hmmm, don’t know what that means but… okay”, I thought.
Overcoming Challenges of Health
Later that week I began coughing and feeling unwell. I ended up having to go on antibiotics but still didn’t get better. I was coughing so much that I was bringing up some pretty nasty looking stuff (releasing, clearing, yep!)
I still enjoyed some special moments while my hubby was in Canada with us, but on the final day, when just my kiddies and I were to board a flight from Calgary to London, London to Istanbul then Istanbul to Bodrum…I broke. I asked my sister to please take me to the doctor.
Turns out that this pneumonia was in the exact spot as that pneumonia. That year I had A LOT to clear (oh, just a bit to get over…abuse, grief, restraining order, divorce…) It seems there was a bit left to clear:)
I was prescribed two different antibiotics, got a strong IV to give me energy, and off I set for our flights.
After my pneumonia was fully gone I felt renewed & so much lighter. And what I will share with you next week is what transpired the following month in August.
Stunning is not even the word to describe it….You see, when we clear old programs, old beliefs & old stories within our energetic system we allow more space for all of the intentions we have asked for to elegantly float on in…feeling like we’ve just been touched by magic. Mark your calendar and be sure to join me next week for that post!
Overcoming Challenges: How YOU Can Elegantly do this!
This summer has been a doozy for many people. People are going through major obstacles & challenges and I wanted to share wisdom on how you can see your way through anything. And how after you’ve moved through it, you will see and experience the miracles you were meant to.
As Spiritual women we have TWO choices:
We can experience obstacles and challenges and feel like a victim.
We can say, “Ah, I see there is something to CLEAR within me.” Then, as we clear, we really listen to Divine Inspiration about what we require to do to help us move through this with ease. And, along the way, we energetically become a match to that which we desire.”
When we incessantly talk about our challenges & complain about every thing and every one we simply create more blocks to our light as well as the miracles waiting to manifest.
We don’t learn. We don’t grow. We don’t evolve.
No, we stay stuck, all the while ensuring that more drama will occur.
Because remember: like attracts like. So if you are being negative, more negativity will be brought to you.
This is where free will comes in. It’s not the Divine trying to “punish you” or “test you”. It is simply the Divine allowing you the free will to choose how you desire to live.
Either way, in the end, whether it takes 1 month or 10 years of experiencing the SAME issues over and over again, you will one day get fed up and turn towards LOVE & JOY – and that is the only thing Divine Energy is interested in. Not the time limit.
YOU decide how swiftly and consistently you experience peace and happiness in your life.
I know that is a tough one to swallow, but as I mentioned to my hubby this summer as we were walking,
“Have you ever noticed that whenever you have a problem you’re there?”
So, if overcoming challenges (the Elegant Way) has been on your mind lately, please hear this…
The Universe/God/Source is responding to YOU.
Do you feel emotionally chaotic inside?
Have you always struggled with setting boundaries?
Is there one issue that continues to come up in your life? What is it?
If that issue were not an issue anymore, what would your life be like? How would you feel? What would you be doing? What would you be enjoying?
Do you find it difficult believing in yourself? Your worth? Your capabilities?
Do you find it difficult to give yourself permission to slow down, relax, pamper yourself, go on a retreat, go on a girly holiday, get a spa treatment?
Do you have health problems that keep you from doing work you love? Do you worry that if you get healthy you’ll have to work too hard?
Do you struggle with your weight, feeling beautiful or loving yourself?
Do you struggle financially?
ALL of these issues have a certain frequency and vibration. So because that frequency is being sent out to the Universe from you, unconsciously, what gets sent back is similar experiences or feelings because that is how the law works.
Now, what’s the reason behind the law being set up this way? It’s to provide you with free will. No judgement, just support towards you evolving.
What? How is giving me all this grief supporting me, you ask?
Each experience will come into your life so that you have the OPPORTUNITY to choose a different way and finally become who you require to become in order to begin experiencing the life you TRULY desire.
I love this poem from a buddhist book I received in France….
“Autobiography in Five Chapters”
1) I walk down the street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I fall in.
I am lost…I am hopeless.
It isn’t my fault. It takes forever to find a way out.
2) I walk down the same street. There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I pretend I don’t see it.
I fall in again.
I can’t believe I’m in the same place.
Bit it isn’t my fault.
It still takes a long time to get out.
3) I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I see it is there.
I still fall in…it’s a habit
My eyes are open.
I know where I am.
It is my fault.
I get out immediately.
4) I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I walk around it.
5) I walk down another street.
-Portia Nelson
This Buddhist book then goes on to say:
The purpose of reflecting on this is to make a real change in the depths of your heart, and to come to learn how to avoid the “hole in the sidewalk,” and how to “walk down another street”. Often this will require a period of retreat and deep contemplation, because only that can truly open our eyes to what we are doing with our lives.
Yes going on a retreat as I did 7 years ago can completely transform your life, however, it is also in the daily practise of what I call, “Coming back HOME & Aligning with Elegant Flow” that you will begin to experience life differently.
Simple Ways of Aligning With Elegant Flow
Every time you see and hear yourself reacting to life in a certain way (and experiencing a certain outcome) become CONSCIOUS of it.
Then, make a CONSCIOUS choice to change your reaction.
Apologise or make it right somehow.
Repeat, “I love you, __________.” (Insert your name here)
Do something to raise your vibration. You can learn 14 of my favourite ways HERE.
Or, do The Elegant Clearing Process™, which can be learned after you’ve gone through The Art of Living Elegantly™.
Spiritual, Elegant Women CHOOSE to live elegantly, and yes, it is a daily process. But the more and more you choose to live this way, the more life becomes elegant.
The Elegant Life is:
When life flows.
Elegantly moving through challenges.
Desires manifest almost effortlessly.
Your heart is almost consistently in a state of Peace & Exquisite Joy & Bliss.
You feel you have beauty and purpose in your life; your Calling is absolutely clear.
You have a deep connection with who and what you really are.
I promise you this… once you become the woman you are required to be by consistently making different choices than you habitually do, whatever your soul has been desiring will come into your life SO easily & elegantly you’ll be absolutely shocked and amazed.
I experience this personally over and over again and so do my clients.
Do we still have challenges in life? Yes, of course, because we are all constantly evolving, it’s never finished. But the process is smoother and quicker, which is really nice, trust me on this one!
If you feel ready to go deeper with this learning and begin the pilgrimage of coming back HOME to elegance, beauty, love, abundance and joy go HERE to learn The Art of Living Elegantly.
With Love,
Erin
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