I included this interview I did with Rae back in 2021 because I reference it later in this post. Rae most eloquently expresses some of the most powerful ways of interacting with those who are not (not yet anyways) vegan.
For some at least, the holidays can be an exciting time to spend with the people that you care about perhaps the most. Through this opportunity comes expressions of love that emanate from traditions handed down over many generations over and over and over again to the point of it becoming second nature and therefore natural. The effort involved is an expression of love. The excitement of sharing is an expression of love. The assumption that it wants to be received is an expression of love.
So when faced with this dilemma of having to turn down your sweet dear old grandmother or mother in law or whoever we are put in a very awkward situation. How does one most properly turn down an expression of so much love?
It’s a perplexing dilemma indeed. Because, to love is to perfect and nurture ones spiritual growth and independence says M. Scott Peck. What then is the spiritual growth for the vegan being presented body parts? And what then is the independence if turning it down offends? So herein lies the challenge of love. The question of whether or not this is a functional love is probably pretty irrelevant at this point. It’s the holidays and no one wants to make a scene.
So here we are, dead Turkey on the table and over there a part of a lamb’s body. If the children really consciously could conceive, knew and had a clue they would be horrified, Petrified. But this infantile habituation desensitized them to the point of oblivion. And so they are overwhelmed with the love that surrounds them. And if ever there was a time they had resisted they may have been forced to swallow.
Does one take a liberation pledge? What about taking advantage of the opportunity to inspire others somehow? If you’ve been doing this for some time there just might come a time where your patience wears thin. And God forbid should you ever explode cause now they can blame it on you. So what is a vegan to do…
The most simple solution is to fast. But, really, eat before you leave. And/or bring as much incredible vegan food as you can and immerse them with diverse beauty. Or invite them over and say, no need to bring anything! Or just eat what, if anything, is vegan and only speak when spoken to.
Ok, it’s not that bad really. Unfortunately this day really doesn’t have to be any different than any other day. I try not to isolate myself. But, I have become so immersed in my work for the vegan community that I have a very interesting reason not to show up consistently anymore. I still show up, but on my terms. If I am in the mood to handle it I’m going and I may even have a really great time. Otherwise, no biggy, maybe I’ll show up next time.
At the end of the day it’s best to be assertive. As much as raising children vegan is the most important message to me now being assertive is basically right there with it.
Emily of Bitesize Vegan did a great video that reminds me of how to deal with nonvegans. She actually has several on that topic. I would like to see more examples of assertiveness.
Assertiveness is truly an artform. The concept has been made fun of. But, when you really understand it, assertiveness can be one of the most powerful and beautiful things. It just takes knowing how and practice, practice, practice. Then when it becomes second nature you “might” pull this tool out at just the right time when emotions start to rise. If someone is pushing your triggers or getting emotional it may be hard not to reciprocate or react aggressively or passively or both. Anticipation helps.
When you anticipate something you’re mentally prepared. So, here we are, it’s XYZ Holiday, you’re ABOUT to leave. You at least had a snack. You’re also bringing some things to eat and maybe even share. Maybe you and a friend can talk about what you anticipate someone might say. Now’s a good time to practice.
When I started the Stories, Insights, & Perspectives series on YouTube.com/VeganLinked in 2020, several hundred interviews ago, on that first run I met JC & Rae Sikora at their dome in New Mexico. This was such a magical experience from traveling in to the hike we took and the incredible sceneries, their PERFECT whole food vegan meals, everything was just the best ambiance. Rae said in her interview “when I’m dealing with individuals whether it’s friends, family, strangers, I feel like my job is to ask questions that get those people to ask themselves questions”. And “I’ll ask questions let’s just get people sort of questioning themselves and looking into their hearts and coming to their own conclusions you know is this really how i want to live is this the most compassionate choice i can make that’s not for me to decide for them they need to come to it they need to look in their hearts”. This is from the video included in this post.
Assertive communication of course goes further than just asking questions. It’s said 80% of communication is nonverbal. And we also need to be aware of own feelings. This way we can express them clearly from the position of “I”. I feel like. Instead of “You” which is considered aggressive or just not saying anything which would be passive.
When you anticipate and don’t let things escalate you can more easily be assertive and heard. Then they are essentially forced to look at their self and not escalate. The better you get at this the more contagious it becomes. It’s truly a fascinating and extremely powerful thing; something everyone ideally would master, including advocates. The goal is for everyone walking away from the conversation feeling good.
This post was originally created on RaisingChildrenVegan.com which is my other website I’m working on. I was just needing some content to experiment with when developing the forum. I got a little carried away so I thought it might work well as a post on VeganLinked.
Posting on VeganLinked is a newly launched feature. Right now I just have 4 categories (Recipes, Science, Stories, and Misc) which may be sufficient. But I have a desire to do rant like this. And I also want somewhere to archive, organize, and share responses to people’s questions or misinformation. So, another category may come out of this. Or perhaps that would be better for the forum. I’m still not sure. Let me know if you have any suggestions 🙂 Read more...
Since April 4th I’ve taken a break from editing interviews and have been working on both VeganLinked.com and a new sister site soon to be released. I’m finally feel like VeganLinked.com is getting to a point where I can use it! So, I wanted to test out posting with this update.
The pictures are of a house in Asheville, NC I bought in May 2020 for a VeganLinked project doing videos with Dr. Garth Davis. I wanted a studio near him to do videos regularly. I fixed up the house to rent out so I could afford to do this. I put an accessary building on the property and turned it into a studio. Five videos in and Garth had to move back to Houston. So, I switched to doing interviews full throttle around the country. Sometimes I’ll take a break to work on the site hoping one day to have it right enough for the VeganLinked community to use as a tool.
The Posts section of the site is starting fresh with just four category options: Recipes, Science, Stories, and Miscellaneous. I think these categories are a great start and I’m excited to see this section grow from there.
I also started a forum on the site. I’m not exactly sure if people will want to interact there but if they do it’s ready for topics. I’m not exactly sure which forums and topics would be good there yet.
As far as navigating the site, joining, adding listings & events, etc… the user experience should be significantly better than ever now. The login experience should be cleaner and now directs users to their profile. I hope this will encourage them complete their profiles with a picture, banner, and their vegan story.
Stories in the blog will be an opportunity to share more elaborately with pictures, video, and offer a way for people to comment on your story. All types of stories may be shared here. And the stories you post here will link back to your profile where all your stories are archived. The same goes for anything you post here such as recipes, science, and misc..
Notifications seem to be working good now. So I’m a little more excited about actually using social features like “friends”, “follow”, and “messages”. I’m still testing thigs though. And I may have found better options for future upgrades if necessary. But this may be just all we need.
The default categories show on the listings now in searches, archive pages, and the homepage. I’ve been wanting to display at least that there for many years now. So I’m really happy to have that finally. I think that will draw people into the site more deeper and more intuitively.
I also added a much nicer navigation menu on mobile. It’s much more concise only showing a link for “listings & events” instead of having all five of those sections across the navigation. When you select Listings & Events you’re brought to Professionals with a search bar where you can change to the other sections. I had to get the filter to work on the search page before I could do that. So, that’s working good enough now to simplify things.
I am trying to get all I can done before I start working on the homepage. I really want to minimalize it strategically. Once I finish wrapping up all the other functionality and flow behind the homepage I’ll start working on the homepage. And maybe then I’ll be done enough to run with it.
It’s been over a month straight, long days, every day, working on this site and the new sister site. Soon I’ll have to get back to finishing editing and getting ready for the next tour of interviews for the channel. Manifesting this vision, one year at a time… Read more...