Tag: plant-based diet

Vegan Male: A Contradiction Of Perception

Published on by Gabriel Heartman

2013-10-10 11.18.24

By Christopher Tydeman

“So how was your turkey for Thanksgiving?” asked the cashier with cheery eyes and honest curiosity.

 “Oh, I’m a vegan, so no turkey.” I replied, a part of me couldn’t believe I outed that. But it was true and it felt good to say.

 “So did you have Tofurky?” She asked. That would have been my same question just six months ago.

“No. I actually had veggie dogs with vegan macaroni salad.” A part of me just wanted to crawl out of the store inconspicuously and put a paper bag on his head.

 This ‘voice’ which I recognized as a part of me named Simon said, “So, let me get this straight. You told her you were a vegan AND you didn’t really have a Thanksgiving meal?”

 “Because that is the truth. What is wrong with you?” I asked him, inside my head, of course!

 “Could you out yourself as any weirder?”

 “But it was true. Why is that weird?”

 “A manly man could have heard you and then what?”

 “He would have heard that I was a vegan who had veggie dogs on Thanksgiving.”

 “And?….”

 “Where is this going? And are you losing oxygen with that paper bag you have on your head?”

 “Christopher, men don’t admit they are vegan, especially on Thanksgiving. It’s a thing. You know…a guy thing.”

 “Oh…yes, the guy thing. Right. I forgot. Wait…what’s the guy thing again?”

 “You are seriously going to give me a rash. Thanksgiving is a time to let your inner cave man out, man. Make that sound that Tim Allen made on his TV show….ar, ar, ar! Even if you don’t, you just pretend to. On the down low. You know…hush, hush.”

 “I see what this is about. I went across social masculine norms. Okay, I feel you. So you want me to lie to be accepted.”

 “Thank you for understanding.”

 “That was actually rhetorical.”

 “What?”

 “Simon, I am not going to pretend to be something I am not just to fit in with your perception of everyone else’s perception.”

 “I’ll give you twenty dollars.”

 “Simon, you don’t have money. What is under this concern, Simon?”

 “I guess I am afraid you will be laughed at or judged by other men as not being a man because you chose not to eat animals and other animal by-products. Like you are weird or from another planet.”

 “What if they are weird and from another planet to be eating animals?”

 “Uh…I don’t know how to answer that.”

 “Do you know how many vegan males there are in the world?”

 “Ten?”

 “Simon, You know that isn’t true. More than you or I can possibly know. What if that number grew to ten thousand or ten million?”

 “Then I would feel more comfortable.”

 “Why?”

 “I guess I would feel more a part of a larger crowd. Safety in numbers, I suppose.”

 “I feel your need for safety and acceptance, Simon. That is understandable considering years of social and familial conditioning. It’s not healing overnight. But it is important for me to be who I am for reasons that are mine which are emotional, spiritual, and physical.”

 “I feel where you are coming from. I have some work to do with this. I actually love the food we have been eating. It is just this perception piece. In a way, it feels cool to be a little different. Like the cashier seems genuinely interested in what a vegan eats.”

 “You are intriguing to people, Simon. That is another way to feel into it.”

 “Hmmm…okay. I can feel some coolness in this.”

 After this internal dialogue had been going on, the cashier and I talked a bit about what I eat. She ended by saying, “Well, I think it would be a process for me. You are a brave man.”

 “Did you hear that, Simon?” I asked him as we were headed for the car.

 “ar…ar…ar!”

 “Oh boy.”

Christopher Tydeman has been embracing the SoulFullHeart Way Of Life off and on since August, 2010. He is a SoulFullHeart facilitator-in-training, author on this blog, and he hosted the SoulFullHeart Experience Radio Show. For more information about the SoulFullHeart Way Of Life, visit soulfullheart.com.

The Emotional Reasons Why It’s Hard To Give Up Certain Foods

Published on by Jelelle Awen

peopleeatingdinner (2)

To truly be conscious about what we eat is not just about what is going in our mouths, but what is going on in our hearts.

There are many great practical tips and guidelines out there for transitioning from a meat eating or even vegetarian diet to a completely plant-based diet and lifestyle. Lots of wonderful tips for how to give up and find substitutions for your favorite meats and dairy products. I don’t want to just share tips about what vegan foods to eat or great recipes, I want to offer an exploration into an area that I feel is most at root of our food choices but is the one that is least talked about: the emotionally conscious and subconscious reasons that we eat the food that we do.

I introduce this topic in this post about choosing a vegan diet being what I feel is the most emotionally and spiritually conscious choice. I have been working with parts or subpersonalities of myself and with others for over 10 years and I’ve been serving others in various capacities for over 15 years, including a five year career as a certified medical assistant in which I gave dietary advice to cancer patients. Once I began getting to know my own parts, I realized that their relationship to food was deep rooted and often not even conscious to me, until it was.  My inner magical child part called Aurora was the one who was leading the cry and desire to not eat animals anymore.  As a kid, I was not a big meat eater and I remember sitting for hours at the table with ice cold pieces of fish or steak in front of me because I just couldn’t find a desire to eat them and my parents wouldn’t let me leave the table until I did. This is a common practice for parents to do this and one that I feel is blatant emotional abuse, but that’s for another article perhaps.

When I began to connect with my inner child and through the years developed a relationship with her, it became impossible to ignore that I would be actually harming this part of me to eat and prepare meat. I remember having a very strong visceral and emotional reaction inside of me the first time I heard the sound of pigs screaming when they were being slaughtered (sounds just like humans! says Aurora.) One of the journaling questions that we have people engaging in SoulFullHeart ask a part of themselves is, “What is your favorite food and why?” It is an interesting exploration into your emotional consciousness to feel the answer to this question.

The reason for a favorite food usually has to do with a subconscious emotional need or association of comfort related to family or childhood. We receive a huge template related to food choices from our birth families. We are literally ‘at their mercy’ every day and night for most of our childhoods in terms of what we will be fed and what we eat. Most of us have little choice about what we are going to eat or not eat (cold fish swallowed down by warming milk, feeding food to the dog under the table…sound familiar?), so we learn to associate love and emotional needs with certain foods. It amazes me how many times I have witnessed, especially men, share a process around how they felt their mothers loved them through the foods that she would prepare for them. This may have been the only source of affection and love they received from their mothers, so it leaves a very deep emotional impression. My husband Wayne has felt this very deeply in parts of himself, including his inner child. So, if your mother fed you meat and that equaled love and attention and emotional needs getting met to part of you, wouldn’t it make sense that it would be really difficult for parts of you to give it up? Or milk and cookies after school? Or a big turkey on thanksgiving?

This is where emotionally conscious negotiation with parts of yourself comes in. Through journaling with your parts and sharing this with a SoulFullHeart facilitator, we feel the relationship that parts of you have with certain foods, what you experienced in your childhood around food, and support you to become more emotionally conscious about what you are eating connected to your feelings. We also offer body health and nutrition sessions which aren’t just focused on your physical body but also connected to your emotional process and your parts. We have seen this offer much deeper and permanent results for people because its working at the level of physical consciousness and emotional consciousness.

People commonly talk about ‘comfort eating’ or how they are ‘emotional eaters.’ I am offering that we are all emotional eaters to the degree that it is predominately subconscious to us. This is why diet programs so often don’t work for people. This is why facts and data about animal violence in raising meat, the environmental impact, and the health benefits still don’t get people to change what they are eating to a vegan diet. This is why most of the diseases that people suffer from can be traced back to diet. One of the very few things that we can completely and totally control in our worlds is what we eat or don’t eat. And parts of us like to make big (subconsciouslly motivated) statements with that control. Until we can consciously feel what our relationship truly is to the foods we eat, we are literally in the dark about why we eat what we do and how to change it. Unless another part of us comes in and uses will power or self righteousness or even self image or peer pressure to change our food choices, but none of these motivations is actually a self loving and emotionally healthy reality. To truly be conscious about what we eat is not just about what is going in our mouths, but what is going on in our hearts.

Jillian Vriend is co-creator of SoulFullHeart, parts work facilitator, writer of books and on this blog, and sacred humanity-Divine Feminine teacher. She has been serving others in various capacities for over ten years. Visit soulfullheart.com for more information about the SoulFullHeart Way Of Life.

Conversation With Divine Mother: Being Vegan As A Reflection Of Your Inner Emotional Health

Published on by Jelelle Awen

krishna with cows (2)

Note: This blog article was previously published on our SoulFullHeart Vegan Blog, which we are now consolidating into this blog.

If someone can digest a violently abused animal and not feel anything about it, that’s the degree that there is emotional abuse and violence going on subconsciously inside of them. One part to another. This abuse is a product of their childhoods and past lives. 

Hello, Divine Mother, It’s Jillian. I’m wondering if you might offer something about being vegan as a message to those who are following that path and those that are curious about it.

Hello, Jillian. I like that you are publically writing with me, like Wayne’s 90 days with Yeshua. Perhaps we would do 90 days together too?

J: Oh, wow, well I feel a reaction to that, probably my daemon Morgaine who says that feels overwhelming and intense right now.

DM: Well, all respect to Morgaine, it feels like it would most benefit her and bring you and I in closer connection while offering my voice and message to your readers, which is hard for most people to hear on their own.

J: Why is it hard for most people to hear? Wait, I thought we were going to talk about being vegan?

DM: Ah, dear Jillian, did you forget that I like to weave and circle my way through? Yes, we’ll talk about being vegan, and I invite you to feel into offering 90 days with me too. Negotiation with Morgaine, yes?

J: Yes, for sure. Ok, it ruffles some feathers in the moment but, of course, I will feel into it. So, being vegan?

DM: Why is this even a question, this choice? This one is so basic, so fundamental, so critical that it is surprising so many people still struggle and resist it. How you treat all creatures is a reflection of how you feel about yourself. Humans have rock bottom self worth, priorities based in false self image and attainment, and have disconnected from the reality of Oneness. These are all the symptoms that lead to the condition of abusing, murdering, and then eating animals.

J: I thought you might be more neutral on this issue, considering how many pressing issues are facing us humans right now.

DM: The nuclear crisis in Japan, the ongoing slaughter in Syria, the starvation of millions of children all over the world…you mean all of these issues?

J: Yes…ah, my heart feels heavy when you just start to list them. I want to ask you how we are ever going to find our way through, but that feels like a piece to feel into during our 90 days together (‘if we do that’, pipes in Morgaine.)

DM: Finding your way through is not about mentally solving the problems, but by feeling and following your heart. This applies whether to what you choose to do for a living to what you choose to put in your mouth to whether you choose to heal this life or not. If your choices are motivated and centered in your heart, you will find your way through.

J: But we haven’t placed a priority on the heart! We’ve placed it on our minds. Our society has made a false god out of what our mind can reason, rationalize, and filter, even to the point of so many spiritual offering being about controlling your thoughts, positive thinking, and manifestation through thoughts.

DM: The mind is an important filter, made too important by your modern culture. This is what I am here to help bring into balance. I want to say much more about this yet I feel your sweet inner child Aurora wanting me to talk more about animals and being vegan.

J: Yes, she would like that!

DM: Humans are interesting to me when it comes to their relationship with animals. You project so much of yourselves onto animals, yet, at the same time, you don’t actually get how they are a reflection of you- both your shadow and your light. Does this sound like a paradox? It is, but it doesn’t have to be. Projection onto something comes from an unhealed and subconscious heart, the false self as you and Wayne call it. Projection distances and it plays victim to the projection without taking ownership of it. Take ownership of the projection and you become free to feel what the object of your projection is actually offering you.

J: My mind is struggling with that one but my heart seems to get what you are saying. Aurora says, “Yeah! We are all as innocent and pure as a puppy, but we project onto the puppy that it is cuter and more pure than we are. We give that puppy the love and adoration that part of us wants. Or we project onto an animal, like a cow or a pig, that they are worthless, only good for killing, that we are entitled to eat them, and we feel that way about part of ourselves too, like that part is worthless and only good for killing.”

DM: Yes, miss Aurora. You’ve always been so heart smart.:) I invite people to feel into this question: What if how you treat animals is a reflection of how you treat and feel about yourself? I know I said this already, but it such a crucial point that gets completely missed in the discussion of what to eat or not eat.

J: That’s because emotional truth and the heart are usually missing from the discussion!

DM: Yes. If someone can digest a violently abused animal and not feel anything about it, that’s the degree that there is emotional abuse and violence going on subconsciously inside of them. One part to another. This abuse is a product of their childhoods and past lives. Oh, especially past lives. But, most people don’t acknowledge emotional consciousness as being the underpinning force to everything they choose to do or not do. I am so glad that you and Wayne are bringing that with SoulFullHeart. It’s so important, Jillian. Keep bringing it. Do not give up. People’s hearts will open to it in time.

J: I’m still letting in what you are offering about if we can digest abused animals than we have an inner abuse going on. Wow. I definitely feel that with myself in the past. My inner abuse was around the cycle of self judgement and then shame that left me feeling acutely self consciousness about myself. I felt a part of me wanting to eat better and not  eating animals was so ingrained in my soul and in Aurora, yet I couldn’t consciously make that choice while the inner abuse inside me was going on.

DM: Your choice to heal that inner abuse was a hugely brave one, my daughter. Hugely brave. Your culture makes heroes out of warriors, but the true heroes are those who are willing to go into their own hearts and heal the pain and congestion that is there. These heart heroes can then offer this same path to others who can then offer this to others and on and on. Do you see now though how this choice to not eat abused animals anymore is actually a very deep one? One that goes far beyond just buying different products at the grocery store?

J: Yes, wow, yes. This is what I have felt to offer with our SoulFullHeart Vegan Blog, Mother. I feel like parts of people can beat them up about not being vegan or get very defensive and angry when someone suggests that a plant-based lifestyle is better. This just continues the cycle of inner and outer abuse, doesn’t it? It still at its base and core combative and emotionally unconscious.

DM: Yes, it is. Some people do choose to be vegan through a combination of will power and punishment-shame. Yet, over time, their soul and heart consciousness responds to it in a positive way, even if they haven’t healed the deeper emotional congestion we were talking about earlier.

J: It feels like this conversation and your invitation for someone to feel into the question: ‘What if how you treat animals is a reflection of how you treat and feel about yourself?’ is a huge start to shifting consciousness around this issue.

DM: Yes, it is a start. And everything must start somewhere. I look forward to ongoing conversations with you, Jillian.

J: Yes, Mother, me too. I will talk with Morgaine and get back to you.

DM: I’m always here, my daughter. Always and for anyone who has need and vulnerability in their heart and desire to connect with me.

J: Love you, Mother.

DM: I love you too, my dear daughter. And Aurora and Morgaine.

Visit soulfullheart.com for more about the SoulFullHeart Way of Life. You can read Jillian Vriend’s book In The Arms of Mother: Healing Through Conscious Connection With The Divine Mother and Introducing The SoulFullHeart Way Of Life onsoulfullheartbooks.com.