Before the Flood - Full Movie

Leonardo DiCaprio and National Geographic created this wonderful movie, that I can highly recommend. It is more than important to watch this and learn about the environment, the planet and the change.

Vegan Pumpkin Pie / Thanksgiving

This Vegan Pumpkin Pie that we had for Thanksgiving was so delicious. Im going to share the recipe here. As it is not created by me, you can find the source down at the bottom.
The crust is perfect, the filling is moist and delicious. It was my first ever vegan pumpkin pie but also my first pumpkin pie! I definitely want to eat this again and I can highly recommend it to you!

Ingredients:
Crust:
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour, plus more for rolling
1 tablespoon vegan granulated sugar
1 tablespoon white vinegar
Fine salt
1/2 cup coconut oil (packed)
4 to 6 tablespoons ice water

Filling:
One 15-ounce can pure pumpkin puree
8 ounces silken tofu
2/3 cup vegan sugar
2 tablespoons cornstarch
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
Fine salt


Directions
For the crust: 
Put the flour, sugar, vinegar and 1/2 teaspoon salt in a food processor, and pulse to combine. Add the coconut oil in small spoonfuls, and pulse until the largest pieces are pea-sized. Add 4 tablespoons ice water, and pulse until evenly combined. Squeeze a handful of the dough together; it should just hold its shape. If the mixture is too powdery, pulse in an additional 1 to 2 tablespoons ice water. Turn the dough out onto a large piece of plastic wrap, pat into a 1/2-inch-thick disc and chill for at least 1 hour up to overnight.
To make rolling easier, let the dough soften up a bit-it should be slightly soft when pressed-at room temperature (this may take anywhere from 20 to 40 minutes depending on the temperature of your kitchen). Roll the disc into a 12-inch round on a lightly floured surface or between two pieces of floured parchment paper. If the dough gets too warm, refrigerate it to firm it up. Ease the crust into a 9-inch pie plate. Fold the overhanging dough under itself, and crimp the edge as desired. Chill for 30 minutes.
Position an oven rack in the center of the oven, and preheat to 350 degrees F. Line the chilled pie crust with a large coffee filter or foil, and fill with pie weights. Bake until the edges are lightly golden, 20 to 25 minutes. Remove the coffee filter or foil and weights, and continue baking until the crust is lightly golden all over, 15 to 20 minutes more. Transfer to a rack, and let cool completely.
For the filling: Process the pumpkin puree, tofu, sugar, cornstarch, cinnamon, vanilla and 1/4 teaspoon salt in a food processor until completely smooth, scraping down the sides of the bowl as needed.
Pour the filling into the parbaked pie shell, and bake until firm and set, 40 to 45 minutes. Let cool completely on a rack. Chill for at least 2 hours up to overnight. Slice and serve.

INSPIRED BY: Foodnetwork.com

Breakfast Idea: Oatmeal

Many foods fall in and out of favor. Health trends come and go. Not oatmeal. This whole-grain powerhouse has been packing serious nutrition and hearty flavor into breakfast for generations. It’s one of the few comfort foods that are as good for you as they are just plain good.

To get the most out of this super food, be a bit particular.

Some packets of instant oatmeal, for example, are loaded with sugar -- as much as 8 teaspoons per serving -- and high in sodium. Always check the label to see what you're getting.

Oatmeal is a classic breakfast, I enjoy it every day. The good thing is, it can be made different every time: Add pineapple and coconut in the summer for a refreshing sweet and sour version. Add cinnamon and dates

Its a quick breakfast, made like this: Boil water and soy milk in a pot, add the oats, toss around until the water is gone. 

Reasons why you should have Oatmeal every day:
1. Oats contain a lot of fiber. Fiber helps to stabilize the digestion, but also lowers cholesterol. It also balances blood glucose levels, so you don't have a sugar drop.
2. Oats provide important minerals (e.g. thiamin, magnesium, phosphorus, zinc, manganese, selenium and iron) and vitamins (especially b-vitamins).
3. Oatmeal fits perfectly to fresh or frozen fruit. Fruit is full of antioxidants!
4. Sprinkle some cinnamon on top, that is a secret fat burner!

The Warrior's Heart

The Warrior's got a brave heart. What does that mean? Thinking of all the movies (Game of thrones, braveheart, ..) we watch, that take us back in time and show us these brave warriors, we can see a similarity: A warrior's heart means opening the heart to fully connect body and mind. A warrior is brave, he doesn't fear pain. Opening the heart to others means that they can emotionally touch us. They can connect with us. They can hurt us. A warrior always knows that life can be over at any time. But fear and anxiety is not a solution, because we will die anyways at some time in our life. An open heart allows us to be brave and to have the full experience of every emotion. 
In Yoga, Virabhadrasana II, Warrior II is the position we can open the warrior's heart. It harnesses the archetypal spirit of the warrior. Many martial arts contain some variation of the warrior pose. Remember that the greatest warriors combine power with compassion that flows from the heart. Consciously expanding the chest stimulates the organs of the thorax, including the heart and lungs. This action illuminates the heart chakra—the energetic source of our emotions. In this Scientific Key, we illustrate some simple steps for opening the chest in Virabhadrasana II. Begin by drawing the shoulders back and down. Open the heart, open the ribcage, start to breathe deep. 
We waste our life, breathing in a short and fast frequency, but we can actually heal physical and emotional pain with these deep and long breaths. Breathing deep relaxes and stimulates our mind, it helps us to make decisions with our heart, not just with our mind. Breathing deep detoxes our brain. So many negative thoughts are stuck in our brain because we never really breathe. 

Breathing is the easiest way to connect with each other. We all do it, to survive, every second. 

Breathing is the most important thing we can do, and we barely use it. 

The first two weeks of my yoga journey have been a bliss. I really connected with who I really am, I finally started to breathe, to feel my heart. This is not just another spiritual "blablabla", the heart is a muscle and we often forget that. We can train that muscle the same way we can train our biceps or our legs. A strong heart can make our whole body, mind and soul stronger. Therefore we have to breathe. And nobody can help us with that, no pill, no machine would do that for us. We have to take action. We have to inhale, we have to let go and exhale. Breathing deep in any situation can help us, we see what is going on and we can learn to act, not to react. Emotional stress will fade away, and physical pain often caused by emotional stress will finally be healed. We can release all the negative habits and thoughts. Breathing deep allows us to be present. Being present in life means that there are no emotions like hate, revenge or reward. We don't do, get or deserve things because we did whatever we did in the past. We are here and now. 

Why I Write Everything Down

“When you write down your ideas you automatically focus your full attention on them. Few if any of us can write one thought and think another at the same time. Thus a pencil and paper make excellent concentration tools.”

Michael Leboeuf is totally right with that. In my experience, I always felt better after writing down whatever thoughts came to my mind. It seems like I could clean up my mind. Sometimes we overthink things and once we write them down, we can let go. Finally we have space in our head to focus on the important things now, how to reach our own goals. 

Today I would say, writing down my thoughts is one of the most powerful habits I have established in my life in the past few years. I still remember getting my first journal when I was eight years old. It had a dark red mystic cover and it said: "Book for witches". My mom gave it to me when I started getting into the Harry Potter saga, maybe because I played witches and wizards. 

Somehow I continued writing down my thoughts, worries and wishes when I was in high school. I learned how powerful and motivating this tool was. I had so many crazy ideas in my mind and I could save them by writing them down. I guess everyone has these days where your memory is just like a leaking bucket. 
Memorable situations and events were collected in this little book. Once I reviewed what I wrote down, I could easily recreate what happened. This recreation is directed by a number of things such our believes, our emotional state of mind and our self-image. And these things helped me a lot working on my personality. 

Also some ideas can pop up at the most awkward situations. They won't stay long, so I can highly recommend writing them down in a little notebook or even just the notes app in your phone. 

Having written goals is as powerful as a vision board. Its basically the same. A written goal brings clarity and focus. It also gives you a direction. A written goal is a powerful reminder of what you need to do to achieve your goal, to keep yourself on track and may even help you when you find yourself considering about a hasty decision. 
Call me a witch but every single goal that I wrote down came true so far. 

You can't hold that many thoughts in your head at once. If you have a problem, it can help to write everything down, not only facts but also feelings. This can help you a lot: You will have a better overview about what is best to do now. You will start thinking in the moment. 

And the most important thing is that by writing your thoughts down, you will get to know you, your life, your believes and your wishes. Maybe you have an image of your life going pretty well and then you realize that you complained about everything in too many entries. It can help you focus on being more positive. 

Healthy Eating starts with Self-Compassion

One of my friends told me about her experience that she had during another tough day at work. She forgot to have breakfast in the morning, so she was starving later. One of the mates at work offered to bring her some take away so she said yes. They had pizzas together and she finished her pizza quickly. One the one hand she was starving and hungry and on the other hand she felt guilty over eating so unhealthy again. Furthermore she felt way too full and was talking about her lack of willpower like this: "I shouldn't have done that, why can't I say no? Why do I always eat take away food that is so unhealthy, doesn't make me feel good afterwards?" 

When I tried to eat more healthy, this scenario sounded so familiar to me. What i didn't realize at that time is so important: The key to a healthy lifestyle which also includes a healthy way of eating is self-compassion. 

The more understanding and forgiving we are of ourselves, the better we can take care of our needs.

Self-compassion means to me the following:

• Self-kindness: Be kind and understanding toward yourself. Forgive yourself in situations of failure. It doesn't help you at all if you criticize yourself again and again.
• Common humanity: You are not alone. You share this experience with so many other humans. This is life. In most cases there are so many different things that are more important right now. 
• Mindfulness: Dont identify with painful or negative thoughts. Be aware of them but hold them in balance. Don't ignore them.

If we never allow ourselves to eat unhealthy, we automatically create rules in our mind. And I believe there is some excitement in everyone to break the rules. The more understanding and open we are, the more motivated and focused we are towards living a healthy lifestyle. 

A lack of self-compassion closes the door to learning about our daily habits, patterns, needs and triggers when it comes to food. 

Focus on a healthy relationship with eating and food and yourself, forgive yourself for the past. Give up black-and-white thinking. Healthy eating is flexible, it also includes being social and eating out. Healthy eating starts in the morning: No wonder you are starving if you haven't had breakfast in the morning. Healthy eating needs consistency: You can't expect to loose weight in a 30 day challenge. Healthy eating starts with a healthy mindset. Be positive. If you are thinking negative while or after eating like in the example above, you may be eating the wrong things, or you may be thinking the wrong things. 

What's this all about?

Hello and welcome to my new blog.
However you made your way to my blog, I want to introduce you to this blog in the first post.

What's this all about?
This blog is actually not my first blog. I've been blogging since 2007, but only in german language. (you can find everything about my german blog here.)
I've been thinking a long time about starting a similar project now, in english. I know I can reach so many people when leaving my comfort zone and finally I am confident enough to start writing in english. 
And if there are any spelling or grammar mistakes, please don't blame me for that, I promise, I'm doing my best. ;-)

This blog will mostly be about vegan food, recipes, yoga, and anything similar that might be interesting. Why I am vegan and why I practice yoga will be discussed in the following posts. 
Also I won't introduce myself because I think it is nicer if my readers get to know me from post to post. 

This Wednesday, my yoga journey will start, so I will give you more updates soon. I am very excited for this project. 
Donna Karan, who's practicing yoga for quite a long time said this: 

"Yoga is not about getting your leg over your head, but about being present on your mat so you can be more present in your life."

I truly believe this: Whatever happened in your life, it started in your mind. Anything is possible, anything you wish for or you don't want to wish for starts up there. 
We are what we believe in. Even scientists found out that the most successful people have a positive mindset. Be present. Be in the moment. Be positive. In whatever situation you are, this will help you. 
Whenever I was overthinking anything, yoga helped me to reset my mind. 
And there's another thing that helps me a lot, and that is writing. So let's get this blog started!