Hungrie Norie's Raw Nik-Naks 6---Raw chocolate squares

I love my chocolate, who don't? I've been buying lots of them lately, so, I decided to make them again. Some of raw chocolate taste like rubber, and don't melt nicely in mouth. Some can taste really grainy.... I have my favo brand, only a small bar and cost a bit compare to cheap chocolate. They are yummy and worth paying for.

Lots of raw chocolate recipes I've looked at have either honey or agave nectar in them, coconut nectar sounds good, but here in country town of Suffolk, no one sells it. I don't want to wait on line delivery, when I want to do something, I want to do it NOW. So, quite often, ordering on line is no good for me.

So, I used coconut sugar again. It doesn't make anything sweeter or anything in my opinion, but it gives nice flavour and cuts off bitterness from the cacao powder. I wanted sugar free and vegan, so, I added some nuts and sultanas. 

Here's the recipe, add some nice protein powder or any super food powder etc or edible oil make chocolate even taste nicer. I only add vanilla powder though, simple......

Half cup cacao powder

Half cup coconut oil

Half cup cacao butter (melt below 45℃, I kept it about 35-40℃, no re-heating)

2 tablespoon coconut sugar (I don't think it's completely raw)

2 teaspoon vanilla powder (I'm not sure they are completely raw)

2 tablespoon each cashew nuts and sultanas

1 tablespoon cacao nibs

Melt cacao butter and add to cacao powder and vanilla and coconut sugar. While melting cacao butter, cream coconut oil really well.  (like making cake mix, butter and sugar to cream). Then, hold coconut oil into chocolate mixture and add some nuts and sultanas. It cools down quick, so, quickly do all. Put the mixture in lined tray (need to be already ready!), using parchment paper, flatten the surface. Hands be better with the paper, body temperature soften it. Then, when it's flat, put the parchment paper on the top of chocolate, tidy up, cool it in the fridge till set. Take out, cut into squares. 

I keep mine in my fridge.... 

When coconut oil melts, it doesn't melt together with cacao butter, means, it split/ separate. That's why I creamed it and fold in to it. 

Actually not many people tell you coconut oil doesn't melt together with cacao butter. If coconut oil is really creamed and similar texture and temperature with chocolate mixture, they combine really well (Remember making frangipane? It's a bit like that). I've made another batch since my last one, I added protein powder (vegan, raw) and carob powder. Ratio of fat and powder is different from last one, due to coconut oil melts quick in my hands and making my finger really messy........

Here's the recipe I did for second batch:

1 cup Cacao butter
Half cup Cacao powder
1 tablespoon Carob Powder
2 tablespoon protein powder
3 tablespoon Coconut sugar
3 teaspoon Vanilla powder
1/4 cup chopped hazel nuts
2 tablespoon sultanas
2 tablespoon cacao nibs
sprinkle grated coconuts on top

It's fun to play with recipes but I don't earn lots of money from my day job, so, I don't want to waste my ingredients. They are not cheap in U.K, I tend to use anything in my cupboard lying round. It's a bit similar to making a pizza isn't it? Top with anything you like!

I really liked this one, I gave a piece to my friend Tony (he's a fussy chef), and he even liked it. Chefs are really fussy on someone else's food, so i got a complement, that means good. 

I found going raw food completely is costly and I don't seem to have enough time making everything from scratch. I do what I can and when I can and I do enjoy cooked food (and cooking) with varieties of method, I get board really quick otherwise....

One thing I'm not so keen on doing this job is tiding up. I get chocolate everywhere and I got  a tiny kitchen, I wish I had a KP (kitchen porter) to wash up for me, I don't even have my boyfriend here either... 

I can almost hear my pastry chef nagging next to me....again.....

Smile to my Ego on my mat

Always makes me smile when I bump into my ego on the mat. It all starts from simple things....

When my teacher correct postures for other students (or when she's giving other students attention), I can hear my voice saying: " what about me? " Me, me , me, all about me, how self-centred I am and no consideration to other people. And when she corrects my alignment, my voice says " what about her? (could be anyone apart from me, of course) " can't win, can't you? 

I realised when I come into recovery (from drug & alcohol addiction), I wasn't the centre of the Universe. Actually, I'm a part of the universe, not the centre. It was hard to accept that I wasn't significant to other people other than to myself and my family. For example, I am sitting in a cafe as I'm writing this, having my drink, about 25 people here. They all don't know me. Funny thing is that when my addiction was/is in full power, I tend to think " Hey, don't you know me? I'm Norie! I'm special." Beginning to think I should get a special treat... It's quite comical really my brain actually does that, and start to believe it. 

Another voice I hear in my head is to start comparing with myself to other students who are more advanced or longer experience on yoga etc, and make myself feeling inferior, jealousy, insecurity, all leads to my self-confident and self-esteem. I came from such a low self esteem ( non- existence) , sometimes challenging to build up. 

Again, once go back to my practise, they all go. I start concentrate on practise I'm doing, and remember to be grateful and happy with what I have today, and all my ego start disappearing. 

Actually I really love and appreciate when my teachers correct my postures. Sadly, my favourite youtube yoga teachers can't come out from my laptop and correct me.... (I hope to save up money to go to see them!) I sometimes blame those vids, "too fast!" "too advanced for me!" and thinking of giving up. I always gave up things I couldn't do especially when I was growing up, it was easy to give up but hard to build self-esteem from that. Those behaviour creep up on my yoga mat. 

When I come across challenging situations, these days, I tend to try out different ways to crack them. Just like how I do my practise. Instead of blaming others (youtube video/ teachers), I slowly work towards those yoga poses, and take a baby step by step. . ., this works for me fine.  Only me making things complicate and difficult for myself (silly me!), that is why I need to remember to make things simple....

One more voice I hear was....complaining about Ashtanga yoga. I used to moan a lot.
I never liked ashtanga yoga, once I did it loooong time ago, I didn't like it. But I gave it another go, and I booked 6weeks class for beginners classes. Tried a few, then still did not like it. Then good few years passed. One day, I was watching youtube and found a video completely changed my attitude towards it. This person was doing so peacefully and calmly. Now I found peace and serenity in the yoga.  What an beautiful practise! Since then, I've been trying out workshops and home practise.  I see the same peace in martial arts, kung fu, karate, kyu-dou, calligraphy etc, they all have it. 

I want that peace.

By the way, 

I remember when I was growing up, I used to go to classes in calligraphy for 6 years and it was a part of study subjects too (so I did about 12 years in total...), if my attention was everywhere I could not write/draw. I needed to centre myself and be calm to do it... I didn't know that time, I just realised recently. I had ADHD (still have, but those days, it was worse and there was no such diagnosis, of course), I found really hard to keep still and I just did not have enough attention span to do it, so, I did what I could manage. I still do, I just do what I can manage, not doing everything anymore. I'm still "human being", not "human-doing". 

For me, that's why yoga helps. Qi gong helps. 

After my class, I walk home and give myself smile meeting my ego on my mat. 

What yoga does to me

Today, I had really intense shift at work, I work as a support worker for people with learning disabilities. Love my job, always wanted to do it.

When I feel really intense and feel stressed, I feel around my head (top head) and my shoulders and back start to tense up. Today, I noticed ,within this intensity, there were release moments, even a just 1 second. What I noticed myself doing was that I was breathing out every time I got these moments. For instance, when I sat down on a chair in the canteen, I felt release and I breathed out. As soon as our clients calling my name and asking for my attention, the intensity increased. 

It was just a bit like my yoga classes, sequences my teacher does. Almost as if I could hear her saying "enjoy the release..." especially after a plank sequence or warrior sequence, finish with 3 leg down dog or go onto child pose, really feel the release and really nice. It was a bit like that. I spoke to her this afternoon about it, when I attended her 12 step yoga.

Anyway, all in all, I felt like I had really good shift and enjoyed every moments despite of hard, challenging day. Then I remembered this morning's early practise....

I went to my early yoga class this morning (starts 6:30am). At the end, on savasana, I went to deep again, I was tripping. I started to see images and I saw me doing this shift already today, and feeling really fantastic thinking "I really had a good shift".

That was exactly how I felt after my shift. 

When I came out from savasana, I felt a bit confused, I thought I finished this shift, but I hadn't... What happened? 

Then question....

What does yoga do to our brain? I know it produces brain chemicals like GABA, endorphin, dopamine etc, what else? I can search on Internet for hours and hours (that's what I do with youtube...) however, I'm not going to do that. To be honest I can't be bothered. Shall I get really lazy and get Marcus (my boyfriend) to search it for me?

I think just leave it for now...... and have a mug of mate tea.... 

Let's watch youtube in a meantime.

Yoga--- the best drug?

I really think sometimes, "why didn't I find yoga earlier?"

Obviously, it wasn't my journey to find yoga when I was in London cheffing, or even earlier. I remember my mum used to tell me she used to do yoga a bit when she was young, but when I was growing up, I didn't think much of it.

Even when I was a school girl, I had really stiff body, as I got older it got worse and worse! 
Cor, blimey, even my own mother couldn't believe and quite often questioned me why my body was so stiff (lack of excise? and too many cakes!). By the time in my 20's in London, my body was super stiff, spending the most of my time drinking and going out. Eventually went into mind-altering substances (quite quickly got worse..), since then, I never looked back until things got really really bad.

I thought those drugs gave me the best feelings apart from the consequences...... (but I didn't know that time...)

Well, well, well, I've began to feel really euphoric on savasana (my favo asanas. yummy!). It doesn't happen every time, but started to happen more and more. Tonight, my lovely yoga buddy, Vic, felt the same as me. That was awesome. I felt going really deep in savasana, I felt like I was tripping. Lots of different images and feelings, colours, I noticed myself going deeper and deeper. I knew that it wasn't only me feeling like this. 

When I opened my eyes, I was totally spaced out. 

First time I felt like this, I saw 70's floral patterns appeared on my yoga mat as well and they were moving! The patterns I saw were the same patterns (or similar) when I was off my head.

How did I feel? I can not explain how fantastic I felt after my practise. I never felt like this. It was just really calmly, peacefully awesome..... 

I told my yoga teacher with great excitement " the best drug ever! Why didn't I start earlier?"
And the best bit of this is: I can feel it with being clean, serene and sober. I feel good about myself both physically and mentally. No crap come down. Builds my self-esteem. Self- awareness. Feel energised and the same time really chilled out. Feel full of love. Become healthy mentally, physically & spiritually. Full of gratitude. No self-hatred. And letting go... Endless list of positive things. Thank you very much to my yoga teacher, Jacqui.

I just keep going now. 



Sahasta 
Yoga and sports massage in Suffolk
www.sahasta.co.uk

My yoga practice---this morning

I went to my Saturday class this morning. I like Saturday one, it's 2hours and we practise forearm balancing poses after we do all hard work! It's really worth it. I think because hard work, I feel sense of achievement, bump up my self confidence and self esteem, all good yummy ingredients to be "me".

Well, when the time to practice "falling angel" and "scissor legs side crow",  I started off doing really well. Then, when we moved to scissors leg one, I felt myself losing patience. I felt that last week, but I put that under the carpet, I didn't really want to admit it. Then it brought it up again this morning, I thought It was time to explore what it was making me so impatience. 

After the class, I wanted to hear what my teacher thought and had a quick chat. She shared some of her story of her students too. Kind feel better I am not the only one being like that. Anyway, when I got home, I realised why. I seem to lose my concentration, and "ah, I've been looking forward to do that today" then I started to hurry myself, "let's do it now and get it over with." Almost as if I could tick it off my "to-do-list", that kind of thing. 

I do that at work. I always done it. When I was a chef, I did my M.E.P (prep list), I write a to-do-list at work, I do shopping list, every opportunities, I make lists. And I love ticking off, because I feel like I've done something, I've achieved something. 

For yoga practice, I know now it doesn't work like this, especially for me. I need to leave my excitement aside, and calm myself down, just concentrate what I have in front of me. Do it one by one, remind myself I have time for it. 

Actually it reminds me of when I was cheffing. The last place I used to work in London. Busy morning, lots to do on my "list, I had full of ingredients on my bench. I was in "shit"( very professional term!), my head chef came to me and said: "tidy up every thing, go upstairs and have a fag!" And he started tiding up my bench. I thought he was an bastered, told him I didn't have time for that. But he forced me to do that anyway, and I listened (I had to, had to listened what the head chef said). My bench was empty and cleaned, I went upstairs to smoke a cigarette (I quit this 4 years ago too) . Came back in the kitchen, and started again. Result? Thanks to my lovely head chef (I didn't think that time), It was very smooth. I worked much better, and my products looked happy and tasted even more yummy. It's easy to forget that. I just need to keep remind myself when I'm impatience till it comes natural.

I always smile to myself when I realise how I am, and even laugh at myself, how funny I am. This is another my motto, "don't take things seriously and personally" and smile. 

My yoga practice---Last night

I, yet again, had fantastic yoga practice last night. 

I've attended about 6 classes this week. I enjoy my practice. It has taken my qi gong to another level too. I love it! Every time I do qi gong, qi gong speaks to me now and feel completely different from before. All helps, doesn't it.

Last night, it wasn't as intense as usual and shorter routines, different clients.... It was an awesome. 

When we were in savasana, I felt energy came up from my base, by then, I was already feeling spiral and started seeing lights. After the class, I asked my teacher If she did sequence on the base. She said yes.

She did that before, her classes are usually really challenging. Slow vinyasa flow, really work on core and build strength and flexibility, I really enjoy the challenging slow sequence. It gets really intense and the release from them are just phenomenon. One day, after savasana, on short meditation, cross legged, feeling really spiral, and then, I felt energy came up from the base through whole of my body. I only felt like that when I did qi gong, I wasn't expected to experience that again, with yoga, in such a short time getting back. Cor, blimey, that was really powerful. 

Then I walked back to my home. It was really misty. 

I looked up the sky, moon was above the mist, still shining. Then I saw each tiny individual particles, they were really tiny, I stopped and watched them coming down from the sky. Very pretty. I was feeling quite jolly, I wanted to share it with someone, so I shared it with my friends Russell and Vicki today. 


In the cafe today...
I met up the Russell and Vicki at the lunch time in a cafe in the town. Nice little cafe. We had lots of chat and laugh, and some nibbles. Had lovely time. We wanted to have cakes, but couldn't fine it anywhere on the menu. 

As we were about to go out, Vikcki pointed pout there were little boards for cakes, What? I was a bit gutted. As she pointed out to the boards, they fell on the floor before even I looked at. Anyway, Vicki said it might've been Marcus who hide the cake menu board from me, as I have been having a bit cakes this week. I couldn't sleep because having itchy back, heart burn, stomachache etc, I get all this If I have a bit too many cakes, but I still do it. Silly me!

Funny thing is, Marcus texted me on Wed night, after me getting back from Norwich seeing my friend Emma. Saying; "are you itchy?" ???? what is he talking about? I hadn't even spoken to him about my cake intake this week..... When he popped in, asked him how he knew, he said, he got a notification from facebook I put out a post " Oh, cakes, cakes cakes, why are you so yummy and lovely looking? I had 2 of you on monday, and tuesday, and this massive piece today! yum yum!" with photo of my cake and Emma with a cake...... Marcus doesn't do facebook.... 

My yoga practice--2nd round!

I haven't written a blog for ages. So, I decided to change my blog. I sometimes just want to write my thoughts, so I changed it. "Yes, Andy I changed it!" 

Early this year, it was about late March, I started getting back to practising yoga and wanted to be an instructor. During working in an care homes for elderly as an carer, I always felt If I was a qualified to instruct/show old people to move and right excise, it would help their mobility and help to cope with some of medications they were on for ages... that was in my head, It wasn't my intension to be anything else. I just wanted to do some light excise/chair yoga and qi gong with them. 

So, I met up with my friend Siobhan, who was an experienced yoga teacher, for an advice. After chatting, decided to go ahead of training to be an yoga instructor. Initially, I thought it was fine to just do the course on line and I'm on the tight budget (my job doesn't pay well), I don't have spare cash to pay for my training for £2-3000. On line course was just right and fit into my busy, shift work. 

So, now it's been 6-7 months passed. I'm nearly finish with my paperwork. How many hours I've been doing? Been doing lots and I'll just carry on till fill my attendance paper. 

Anyway, how's it been? 

It's been really enjoyable, I'm not only saying about the course, just the whole experience of practising yoga. I started once a week, then twice a week, then three times a week... When I couldn't attend class, I practiced at home with youtube. ( I have some favo channels, tell you later!)

Now, I attend classes whenever I can, this week, I've done 6 classes plus 1 home practice. I now dedicated to my yoga practice. Just like I did for my qi gong.

I didn't realise, when I started getting back, I would love yoga so much. I didn't love this much before. I thought yoga was "alright". I really liked it, but not this much like now. 

What's changed? 
Me! I've changed. 

I enjoy, when my yoga practice shows me how I do my life and yoga practice have connection. When I come across challenging asanas, I need lots of practising, and patience. Need to practise asanas bit by bit (baby step, I shall say) and finding different ways, asking or watching different people doing it etc. And that's exactly how I deal with challenging situations in my life or work. I need to ask experienced staffs at work how they deal with clients, suggestions, advice, their stories... and it really helps me. This is just one example of many experience so far I've been having for last 6-7 months.  

When I bumped into my ego on my mat, so frustrated with myself why I couldn't get into certain asanas, losing my patience. I blamed on my age. Who else I could blame? What else I could blame? I didn't want to admit I was the only person there. This is my old behaviour (it's easy to blame someone else, not taking responsibility for my behaviour), I thought I left in the past when I got clean from drugs etc, worked on myself. Ha ha ha, still there in me. That's how those behaviours creep up when I'm not mindful. 

Then my practice, actually reminded me (again!) to let go and be in present moment (how many times I hear that phrase). And then, it went. Since then, I have now faith, it will come and body will respond (and it's happening!  Actually it was said by a yoga teacher from one of my favo vids on youtube and I really hang on to that), as long as I'm healthy and fit that's all matters at this moment. I'm still really impatience, "I want What I want I want it NOW!!!" Oh, no, not now, I wanted y'day. That's how I am, but If I let my addiction to run my life and will all tits up. 

Anyway, back to my course, I feel sometimes lonely. I met some people doing teacher trainings at yoga centres and they have peers. I don't. I would love to have peers and chat about the course and progress about yoga practice. That is why I enjoy chatting with my yoga buddies even they are not on teacher trainings.  

At this moment I'm not sure If I teach yoga next year and not entirely confident with it, I've changed my initial plans. Anyway, it's still miles away in future, so, don't have to think about that right now. It doesn't matter If I go into teaching or not, I just enjoy the whole experience practising yoga, that's all.

By the way, is it only me? I don't really like the word teaching/teacher etc....