At the risk of sounding like a “preachy vegan”, I am going to discuss my mental shift in how I see things surrounding animal agriculture and my perspective on compassion.
Over the last two-plus years, the decision that I made that has had the most profound impact on my life and perspective has been the decision to switch to a plant-based diet. I have discussed in a previous post how this impacted my health, but it also has impacted my perspective on life. Not only how things impact my life, but others around me as well as the lives of the other species that we share this planet with.
After going plant-based, I started to realize how unnecessary much of our food industry actually is, particularly animal agriculture. The thought of how the incarceration, exploitation, pain, and suffering of animals has no added benefit to people, public health or the planet started to crystallize in my mind.
I went plant-based for the environment, first and foremost. That has been a cause that I have been concerned about for quite some time and see the implications of climate change acted out on a nearly daily basis of late. After going plant-based, however, it struck me that there is not a need for animal agriculture.
The thoughts of how these animals are raised with no purpose in life but to be killed and used as a food source has increasingly bothered me as I have seen how I can maintain a healthy and fully sufficient diet without any animal products.
Then I started to think more about personal responsibility for actions chosen and how each of us has the opportunity to be more cognizant of how our choices impact others, especially the people that surround us or that we have relationships with.
This has sparked the exercise that I have been going through, challenging myself to own my actions more and to better communicate with those near me. I have always wanted to be an advocate and provide a safe space for others, but my actions have not always taken others’ feelings into consideration. That is something that I am striving to change.
Some may question how my first post relates to going vegan, and this is how. Through the slow changes in my perception that I attribute being kickstarted with my change to this lifestyle, I think I am gaining more empathy, sympathy and allowing myself to open up more. I am starting to see the vision of who I want to be even more clearly and trying to take the first steps in getting there.
On top of the impact of veganism on my outlook, I also started doing yoga this year at the encouragement of a close friend. I have found that yoga practice has been extremely beneficial at clearing my mind, setting intentions and focusing more on those and removing some noise from my mind, which has a tendency to run on a loop from time to time.
So, in the spirit of the intentions I have been setting in my practice and the goals I am setting as the person I want to be, I have set some goals/intentions for myself going forward on this journey:
- Communicate openly when dating or with a partner, set expectations early on and disclose anything relevant to the situation
- Talk about feelings more with friends, especially male friends. I feel that these dialogues often get lost, overlooked or seen as immasculine, but the emotions are there and otherwise risk getting acted out instead of processed
- Actively ask for consent: it is not enough for me anymore to go with the flow and rely only on nonverbals in the bedroom, but I want to make sure this is verbalized and I want to own initiating that conversation going forward
- Focus more time on things that bring me happiness and gratitude and take the time to recognize those feelings.
Have you thought about how you impact the world around you lately? Do you have some personal goals you are trying to attain? Comment below, set that intention and go get it!
