Bye-Bye Meat & Dairy….Why I’m (Hopefully!) Going Vegan!

I love meat.

Sure, I can go without beef or pork for a long while, it’s no big deal. But chicken? Now that’s a WHOLE other story!

And you tend to forget about fish, the way we’ve been conditioned; it’s almost as if they don’t count as an animal! Plus, I love a juicy king prawn!

Then you’ve got your dairy………milk drenched cereal, rich cheesecake, milky tea, stringy pizza topping and any kind of moist, tempting cake…….how an earth can I leave all that behind?!

I’ll tell you how!

Perhaps the biggest change that has occurred with me since my awakening, my deeper questioning of life, of the last 2 years and my commitment to continuous personal development, is my connection with nature.

When I try to explain this, some people don’t get it. I wouldn’t expect them to, simply because it’s something you have to experience yourself to understand.

One friend said to me that she already was a nature lover, so going through an awakening would make no difference to her. But you see, I have always been a nature lover too.

But now, I’m more than that.

What I feel now is a much deeper, more intense connection. Partly it’s because I understand that we are all one; every living thing is made of the same substance, we are all connected, one giant organism. I can FEEL it. Emotionally, I am way more attached to everything now.

I spend greater parts of my day just looking at nature, admiring it, totally in the moment, intoxicated by the magic. Whereas before, I would walk with my head down, oblivious to nearly all the beauty that was around me.

I was so wrapped up in my own inner thoughts and the anxiety and stress and worry about ME, I was unaware of the rich blue sky, the grand silhouette of a tree, the miracle of a bird, floating through the air.

My curiosity is now constantly engaged with nature; I often stop to watch a tiny insect, fascinated by its shape and colour and delicacy. I can barely restrain myself from hugging a large, sturdy tree if I pass one! And I will stay rooted to the spot to stare at the moon for minutes at a time.

Sure, I noticed the stars and beautiful flowers and a cute cat every now and then before, but by no means was it with the intensity and dare I say, love, that I feel now. And it certainly wasn’t every day.

I have even spotted the beauty in things that I have passed by a dozen, a hundred, perhaps even a thousand times and never noticed previously.

For example, there are trees in the city centre that have been there for years, perhaps even decades, and I’d never noticed them before. One sits outside of MacDonald’s and I must have sat in the window of Maccie D’s dozens of times (for my sins!), walked through that section of town hundreds or thousands of times and never seen them before.

I mean REALLY seen them.

Because they are truly beautiful.

The weirdest thing of all is that (and I can’t believe I’m saying this!)….

I now actually LIKE dogs!!

You don’t understand – I have always HATED dogs!

I mean, with a real passion. They have been the bane of my life. No doubt they pick up on my fear and hatred and that’s why they always seem to bark at me! I would go so far to say I have a phobia of them. I would cross the road if one was coming towards me. If I had the choice of extinguishing all dogs from the planet, I would not have hesitated……..but now!

NOW!

I find myself constantly falling in love with dogs! Actually find myself CRAVING one as a pet!

WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED?!

Now I’ll admit, I’m still a bit scared of the big ones but it’s not a fear born of hatred. I’ll still cross the road if it’s a bull terrier or one of the dangerous looking beasts. But overall, it’s been a remarkable turn around. I always considered myself a staunch cat lover, if I had to make the choice, but now……..it’s a real close call!

I just have a much closer connection with animals.

And that means that I cannot bear to see them suffer. Before, I wasn’t blind to their suffering for our pleasure but like most, I chose to ignore it.

Out of sight, out of mind.

But I can no longer do this. We are not superior to animals.

Although I’ve always known about the slaughter of animals, the awful conditions they are kept in, I only recently learned about baby cows being dragged away from their mothers to keep the milk meant from them, for our consumption. I also didn’t know of the pain hens go through when bred to produce eggs more frequently.

How can I consider myself a true animal lover if I accept this?

The fact is, I’m not and neither are you if you are prepared to overlook this suffering.

That’s not me being “militant” or trying to force views onto anyone. It’s just a fact. You can’t pick and choose what animals you love if you call yourself a true animal lover.

Then there’s the health benefits. I’ve already shown in this video, how a vegan lifestyle can prevent cancer and surely to god everyone is aware by now that meat (and certainly the preseravatives used on them) is damaging to human health. The evidence is firmly out there, if you look for it.

I want to FEEL what it’s like to eat the vegan way.

I know a couple of vegans and have spent a lot of time lisetning to vegans such as Ralph Smart and Brett Moran talk about how it makes them feel. I think this is what people who aren’t vegan really don’t understand – the feeling of being on this diet.

Most of us are brought up with the idea that vegans are skinny, unhealthy, deficient in vitamins and in need of  a damn good meal! Some even view you as less of a man if you aren’t a meat eater! It’s this kind of ridiculuous stereptyping and misinformed lies that generations have been brainwashed with.

I don’t discount myself from that brainwashing by the way…………but no longer!

The truth is that changing your diet drastically to anything different is going to affect you negatively at first, simply because your body needs to get used to it. But every vegan I know and watch on YouTube looks wonderfully vibrant and healthy. And they all claim to have:

more energy

more mental clarity

better looking bodies and skin

better digestion

and for some, it has initiated a newfound connection with nature, similar to my own awakening.

All of this is bound to make you feel more alive, ramp up creativity and productivity and turbo charge your life!

Ralph Smart says it all starts with the food, yet for most of us, eating healthily is way down on our to do list. We’d rather enjoy our food than be as healthy as possible. But here’s the thing;

every vegan I know used to be a meat eater.

They’ve all given up meat but will tell you that after a while, the craving for it goes away, so you don’t miss it. And you start to taste new foods and aquire new tastes. I read recently a great quote:

“Every taste is aquired, apart from breast milk.”

This makes so much sense! We like what we like becaue we are USED to it. The more you try something, the more you start to like it. I really don’t like alcohol but I’ve had periods in my life where I started keeping some in the fridge and I began to aquire a taste for beer – especiallly after a hard day’s work! It went away once I stopped keeping it around.

Same for sugar. I have an IMMENSE sweet tooth! But after a few weeks of giving up milk chocolate, wine gums and doughnuts, I didn’t want them and when I tried them again, I found them way too sweet for my palate.

So although right now, I’m struggling to see how I can possibly give up pepperoni pizza, kung pao chicken, king prawns and other staples of my diet, I also know it can be done.

And besides, many of the things we eat are not because we really want them, it’s because we are comfort eating to make ourselves feel better. That’s why I used to eat Ben n Jerry’s by the tubload frequently and had to have a cake with every cup of tea, at the same times every day. I looked forward to that comforting feeling, which was often the best I felt all day.

But I don’t need that any more. Not with my new life on the horizon.

I still want to enjoy my food but not if it’s gonna hurt me long term. Not if it prevents me being the greatest version of myself. I want to feel high on life, not on drugs, alcohol, sugar rushes, caffeine spikes or anything artificial and temporary.

I want it to be a constant flow of abundance and I believe veganism is the way to achieve this.

Wish me luck!