Peanut Crusted Butternut Squash and “Can You Hear Me Now?”

still hot and bubbly, and I never use an oven mitt, so my hand are full of kitchen battle scars.

I hope all of you had a nice weekend. This weekend at my Yoga training, we had a singer/yoga instructor, Suzanne Sterling, teach us about activism, using sound, and finding our “voice”. It was probably one of my favorite workshops so far in the training.

First of all, Suzanne is pretty amazing. She co-founded the non-profit group, Off The Mat, which does some pretty incredible things for the world. I hope to get more involved with the organizations and maybe attend one of their leadership trainings. But what really touched me was about how Suzanne explained to us we live in a “soup” of sound pollution. This pollution even impacts children’s growth. Think about all the mindless advertisements heard on tv, or even cold, hard gossip. Yoga is healing because it gives us that elusive silence. Its our chance to “rest our ears”. Many people dont appreciate silence, or they are scared by it. And some people are too silent. Many of us were told in childhood not to raise our voices and talk back. But what does that do? It programs us to shut up in times we need to say something and express ourselves. When we dont express what impacts us, we store it as stress and we can get stuck in the trauma. I think thats why I’m so open about my eating disorder. As most of you disagreed with my decision to “come out” on national tv, I almost feel proud I did it after hearing what Suzanne had to say.  The more I talk about my wounds, the less power they have over me. Plus, it gives me the power to inspire and help others express themselves when they have been silent for too long. Even though it may not have been the smartest thing to say on national tv, I think I secretly hoped someone struggeling noticed, and maybe thought about reaching out to get help for themselves.

People may notice that diagnoses for mental disorders only happened in the recent years, but actually, people have been suffering for ages. But they didn’t SPEAK about them, they shut up.

Does that mean there aren’t disruptive, noisy people who maybe say too much? No. As important as it is to speak, it’s just as important to LISTEN.

As a yoga teacher, I learned this weekend that my voice is a powerful tool in shifting the moods and energies of my students. Humans and animals naturally react physically to sound. Even if you dont do it intentionally (like dancing), when you hear a very load base, you feel the vibrations in your hearts.  Sound is a carrier of consciousness.

So although I have some experience teaching, I’m trying to “find my voice”. Its what makes my yoga class unique, cause as we know, voice is like fingerprints. Its uniquely mine.

So I actually have a question for all of you….Were you told not to use your voice? We you ever told not to speak up or maybe to shut up? It scars you a little bit doesnt it. Does that experience affect how much you say today? If you have a blog, do you find you really express yourself? Maybe your blog is a facade, maybe your not really expressing yourself at all.

Personally, I think my blog expresses me pretty throughly. I have no shame in expression, I do think I have a voice, and I’m thankful someone is listening

On to food….

For today’s recipe, I decided to utilized the peanut flour. To be honest, I’m sort of over the peanut flour hype. I still find flax and corn flour make better pancakes and you simply cant compare peanut flour to peanut butter, PB will always have a special place in my heart and my pantry.  But I did buy a bag of it so I used it to coat some butter nut squash. I brushed the squash with coconut oil (or use butter, in fact, please use butter. Yet another very underrated food that people are convinced is bad for you. I just used coconut oil cause I have a whole jar sitting on the counter and I need the counter space) and dipped it in cinnamon and peanut flour.

before baking...