Quick, Easy, HEALTHY Dark Chocolate Recipe

My honey and a friend of his are heading to Harleyfest in Milwaukee today (yes indeed, we like to ride motorcycles!  Well...right now he drives...I ride;).  The drive is 14 hours from here in SC/NC, so I made m'Honey and his friend some meals and snacks to take on their drive up and back.  I always so appreciate having nutritious food on the road instead of eating stuff that makes me feel crappy.  So I go super easy for the meals.  Boiled eggs, crispy bacon, pimento cheese (I'll share this recipe at some point) on coconut flour bread (will also share that recipe) with some romaine lettuce, bagged spinach and pre-cooked snausages (wow, I had to *un* autocorrect that one five times!).  

One of the snacks...I've been promising several of you this specific delicious and nutritious snack recipe for awhile now...I'm sorry it's taken awhile!  

Guess what it is???  

CHOCOLATE!!

Awww, nuts.  You probably already guessed that from the caption.  It's worth it!  As far as sweetener, I leave that up to you.  We all have different tastes.  I like my chocolate super bitter without a whole lot of sweetener, m'Honey likes it with...you guessed it...a l'il bit of Honey;)  Test it out for you.  I've tried using sugar alcohols (xylitol, erythritol, etc), stevia, monk fruit, and my body just doesn't like any of them.  So we stick with very small amounts of natural sweeteners.  You do what works for you!  You can also play around with the coconut oil-to-cacao (or cocoa) ratio to find what works for you.  

Easy Dark Chocolate Recipe

Serves: 12

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup Organic Cocoa Powder
• 1/4 cup Organic Coconut Oil, melted and cooled slightly
• 1/8 tsp Pure Vanilla Extract (I like more...again...up to you)
• Maple Syrup or Honey or stevia or erythritol or xylitol or whatever...your choice.  And your choice how much.  We use very little.  
• 1 pinch Salt

Process

1. Mix the melted coconut oil into the cocoa powder in a small bowl 1 Tablespoon at a time. Scrape down the sides and bottom of the bowl periodically to make sure it all gets incorporated.
2. Stir in the vanilla, sweetener and salt.
3. The way we like to do it...pour into a reused, cleaned gallon sized ziplock baggie and flatten out.  You can, of course, also get fancy and put the mixture into chocolate forms.  I've tried a many times and I still like the simplicity and aesthetics of the ziplock!
4. Put into the fridge to set completely.  If it's in a baggie, make sure it's on its side so it can flatten out.  Leave in fridge for at least 3 hours.  
5. You can also put in the freezer if it's in the baggie and you're in a hurry;)  In that case, wait for an hour and then either go to step 6 or put it in the fridge.  
6. Take it out, have the visceral satisfaction of breaking it up while it's in the baggie, pour the shards onto a plate...and enjoy!  
7. Store in the fridge.  Coconut oil is super healthy but the melting point is very low, so it will be a runny mess otherwise.  

Notes

I love to add a dash of cayenne pepper and cinnamon.  You can also experiment with lavender, banana, coconut extract, nuts...lots of options!  

How did it go for you?  What are your preferences? Let us know!  

The Power of Creating

I love creating.  Love everything about it.  I've been spending more time welding fantabulous creatures and very VERY large metal flowers, and playing in junkyards.  (You can take a look at some of them here).  I also love everything about the process of finding the parts and pieces.  I've never really known anything about how cars work, but now that I've been taking them apart to use the parts (actually if I'm lucky, they've already been taken apart for me;), I just can't believe how intricate and incredible they are!  It's one of those (many) things we take for granted.  And once you look under the hood, wow.  Just boggles my mind that all these moving parts work together in perfect harmony to create motion and safety and functionality.  From the engine to the moving windows to the brakes and wheels.  

One of the other many many things that I love about the process is the people.  It's so much fun to share what I'm doing with car mechanics, junkyard managers, etc. and to see the interest and excitement in their eyes as well.  They are eager to help me find the best pieces, the most interesting things, and to describe what the pieces are and how they work in the machine.  It's become a beautiful collaboration.  

So...LFI theme for August is to get out there and do something totally new, even if it's just...going to a junkyard and looking at all the interesting pieces.  Or go take one Aerial Yoga class.  Or take a welding class.  And do it with the openness of a child.  It's all about the experience.  

Big love,

Lorrie

Your August Guided Code with Lorrie

We have so very many fun things going on here!  Including the launch of the new site.  I'm having fun learning new things every day, especially about how to bring you more and more inspiration.  New meditations, new courses, and new products!  For this month, I suggest trying something new...just for the fun of it.  See what happens:)

Big love,

Lorrie

Yummy Love Your Body Meditation

*If you want to get right down to it, scroll to the bottom of the post for the recordings*

So much of our experience here in this realm is related to our BODIES.  At the same time, so many spiritual teachings neglect the body.  Dating to waaaaay back, there are many teachings that the body, the physical, should be ignored or even rejected.  

And I say...*back up!*  Reassess.  Not only are these bodies assets, they are to be enjoyed (more yumminess on that in other posts).  They are to be...well...emBODY-ed.  That means developing a loving, feeling, symbiotic relationship with your body.  And I can tell you from serious experience that until you really accept and get into your body, you're going limit your expansion.  On all levels.  You and your spirit...essence...soul...higher self...source...god..."Big 'S' Self" (a friend of mine and I made that one up and it makes us laugh every time)...whatever you want to call it...are not separate from your body.  Source is flowing through your body at all times.  Your body IS source.  Which is not only a really beautiful thing, but also a really good thing.  Because that means you don't have to remind your heart to beat.  Or remind yourself to inhale and exhale.  You don't have to prod your liver to work.  You don't have to remind your stomach to digest.  

Now...you may have had some...not-so-good-feeling experiences with your body.  Anyone, anyone?  I say this in jest, cuz, well, yeah...we all have!  I'm happy to share my own experience, many of you are familiar with it (you can take a look at it here).  And I find that lots of times when we experience negative feelings we can disassociate from our bodies.  Whether those feelings are physical or emotional...well, we want OUT.  Which is totally understandable!  We just...disconnect.

We set up this experience perfectly before we came here.  We wanted to have bodies.  We wanted to be deeply connected with them.  Because we wanted to have a way to *know* how we feel about things.  We wanted a way to know when we are on track with our truth, with our desires, with our knowing...and when we're off track.  Other reasons too and we'll get into those at another time;)  

When you can FEEL your body...when you can FEEL your feelings in your body...you are so much more able to shift those feelings (physical and emotional) and to let them move through.  In fact, they will move on their own when you allow yourself to be with them!  If you try to ignore them or change them right away, you're doing yourself a disservice.  Because those feelings are there for a reason.  

Before we get down to it, I'll give you some backstory about this particular Living From Inspiration Meditation.  It's a super duper sweet story and one of my favorites, because it involves my gorgeous nieces.  

A few years ago, I was staying with my brother and his family in Albuquerque, NM.  They have this beauuuutiful big house with a casita in the back.  Every morning, I wake up and do my meditation, workout and then go to the main house and have breakfast with the family and always sit next to, you guessed it, my lovely niece, "A".  She's about 3 or 4 at this point (I'm so bad with ages, but I'm pretty sure).  So sweet, so beautiful.  I sit down on a bar stool/breakfast stool and help her up to the bar stool/breakfast stool next to me.  And she puts her sweet hand on my arm and says...

"Auntie Lala...I love your eyes...and I love your face...and I love your arms...and I love your legs...and I love your shoulders...and I love your hair...and I love your shirt...and I love your nose...and I love your fingers.........."

And she keeps going on.  And on.  And on.  For about 3 minutes straight.  Which is a looooong time for a 3-4 year old.  Just loving, loving, loving everything about me.  And oh!  I try to interrupt!  And say "I love your face...and your arms...and your legs..." She will have none of it.  She just keeps going...and going.  My only choice is to sit...and let it all in.  Which I finally do.  

It was so sweet.  So much love.  And I have never forgotten it.  *That* is how we can feel at all times.  Because Source is always flowing all that love to every single part of us.  

This meditation will help you get connected to your body and establish a loving relationship with it.  The first recording goes through instructions.  The second recording is the actual meditation.

In the instructions, you'll learn that as you're going through the meditation, if when you get to a certain body part you notice any pain, tightness, or resistance of any kind, pause the recording and take some time to just BE with the sensation.  Without trying to figure it out, without judging...just be with it.  Embrace it.  And when you're ready, start the recording again and keep going.  

So get comfortable, close your eyes, and melt into this. 

What is the Little Golden Thread? — Living From Inspiration

I've been studying this path - practicing it, really - for many years now.  And I love it.  I love every single moment of it (well, I do *now*;).  And now I don't even really think of it as a path.  It's a way of being.  It's like breathing.  It's who I am.  Which makes it effortless, for the most part.  

One of the most valuable things I learned about fairly early on is what I call the "Little Golden Thread."  

Let me tell you how I discovered it.  

For a long long time in my life, I was a PUSHER.  Oh, lawdy, me, boy was I good at pushing.  I always felt like I had to make things happen.  That I had to really work to achieve and to become who I wanted to be.  Yet I always knew and hoped that there was an easier, more elegant, flowing way of being.  A different answer.  

As I began spending more time meditating, more time letting go of old paradigms and creating my own life, more time playing and looking for the ways in which everything is being taken care of for us...and mainly, as I got quieter...I started to notice something.  

It wasn't there all the time. But when I was...

quiet...

gently appreciating...

resonating with something or someone...

I found there was a gentle tugging.  So gentle, so quiet, I may have missed it if I hadn't been quiet myself.  Before in my life I would have disregarded it or not been able to hear or feel it.  I realized it was a call.  And it was beautiful.  Shimmery, golden...my Little Golden Thread.  

So I started to follow that gentle tugging.  And what I found was that it lead me to the most wonderful experiences, people and things!  Oftentimes in roundabout ways that now make me laugh.  

There have been times in my life where I have experienced blow-your-socks-off miracles and creations I can directly relate to my intentions, almost to the letter and within a matter of hours or even minutes (I'll tell you about those sometime too!).  But what I've found is that this Little Golden Thread leads me in a way that is gentle and loving and I anticipate the path with easy joy.  It really feels like I'm being led by the hand by the most loving force in the world.  Towards delight.

These days, it's so integrated for me that it's just what I do most of the time.  The direction I go in.  I don't even have to feel the tug.  It's my built-in default compass and inspirer (yes, I make up words) to often-effortless action and joyful expansion in my material and spiritual life.  

You can connect with your Little Golden Thread, dear one.  It doesn't have to take hours of meditation or study.  Start simply, by appreciating the things in your life and focusing on what you love.  Feel the feeling of love.  Open your heart.  Take in all the colors and sounds and feelings and movements and people and tastes and smells as if they are your lover.  Commune with the Divine on a moment-by-moment basis.  Which simply means talking to your Great Love.  Simply.  Conversationally.  And if you find yourself out of sorts or grumpy or sad, be okay with that too.  Love those feelings as if they are small children - embrace them and be with them.  Let go of any stories or thoughts around those feelings.  Listen to or watch some of our free audios and videos to line up with your Connected Self.  Sign up for an Online Retreat or Sessions with Lorrie, those are very powerful ways to open up and get quiet and connected.  

When you do these things, you will begin to feel the gentle, playful, loving tug of the Little Golden Thread.