My Life Changed When I Saw This
Clare Mann
Vegan Psychologist | Vystopia Transformation Coach | Author of Vystopia |Communications Trainer Animal Protection
Before I tell you, let me ask you a question.
What happened that set you on the path to veganism?
Perhaps like me, it shifted the whole trajectory of your life and you made significant changes in how you think, feel or have led your life since then.
For me, after thirty years of being a vegetarian, a couple of incidents totally shifted my perception, waking me up to the woefully inadequate nature of being vegetarian
What happened next was so significant that nothing has ever been the same again.
What happened…...
About fifteen years ago, I lived in a rural area of New Zealand. I thought my partner and I had found paradise, and a particular experienced sowed the seeds for a massive change in my life.
One night I heard the unrelenting howling of dogs from the next property.
My partner and I investigated only to find five dogs in outdoor cages, brutally thrown in there and covered in blood and cuts. One of them had been scored by a wild pig and I learnt later that they were part of pig-dogging, a barbaric practice where dogs are starved for up to four days, and then taken out to hunt pigs.
Demented with hunger, they viciously tear pigs to death for the hunters, who see this as sport, to retrieve.
The next day I got the SPCA to investigate. They took the dogs away, only to be returned as the hunters tidied up the cages, promising to treat them better.
Then something else happened…...
This, and another experience of witnessing calves being brutally taken from their mothers within the first week of birth (so the dairy industry could sell the colostrum and milk), made me ask more questions.
Hearing that herd of mother cows bellow and cry for thirty hours without stopping, then all stop at once in a piercing silence, made me ask more questions.
Upon our return to Australia, my partner researched industrialised animal use and after watching videos, we and our two dogs at the time became vegan on the spot.
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What did I learn from that experience?
I couldn’t believe that my ethical choice to be a vegetarian for the past thirty years was meaningless if I had wanted to avoid harming animals. How could I not see how the government, industrialists and marketers work very hard t keep that information from us?
I couldn’t believe that I was so naive to believe that somehow milk and eggs were bi-products, instead of the incarceration of animals who suffer mercilessly in the system.
The suffering imposed on animals through the dairy and egg industries is immense, and I felt lied to. I’d believed I was being ethical but realised that the only way to align my desire to cause as little harm to animals as possible was to become vegan.
What next?
From that day on, everything changed. Things that seemed important to me became insignificant.
A trip to a shopping mall with a girlfriend was no longer pleasurable, instead I saw cruelty all around me.
For example:
And so much more......
So my life changed and despite the weight of The Burden of Knowing, I knew I'd been called to play my part to end this cycle of institutionalised, hidden, unnecessary and normalised cruelty.
One of those things was to create a word for that burden and write the book "Vystopia: The Anguish of Being Vegan in a Non Vegan World". It not only explains the extent in this existential shift in our worldview but provides solutions to turn that into powerful action for change.
If you haven't read (or listened to the audio of Vystopia) I promise you'll find yourself in it from the first chapter.
Link to Book: https://vystopia.com
Whole Food Plant-Based Gluten-Free Vegan
1 个月Muito útil
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1 个月I see in my 15 years experience in dubai & oman now there is no human being , but in europe they have great human being
Marketing and Communications Management
1 个月Really powerful book, thank you. I listened with much interest to the vegan sales force idea - and and am excited to pursue this idea more.
Social Anxiety & Fear of Public Speaking Expert | Emotional Intelligence Coach Helping LinkedIn Professionals Harness AI for Growth & Success
1 个月Thank you for sharing your story Clare Mann What inspired me to stop killing and start respecting life was The Best Speech Ever by Gary Yourofsky and having my ignorance and arrogance challenged by the sight of my victims bludgeoned to death at the slaughterhouse. I almost had a spiritual heart attack when I witnessed those atrocities. I became vegan in the moment I saw it 13 years ago. What resonates with me the most personally and moves me to action is raw truth without sugar coating it. When I see gas chambers with pigs screaming in them I have a visceral experience of dying inside. I see myself inside my victim. I suffer with her and it is that suffering that transmutes into action.
Transformation catalyst exploring resilient, regenerative futures | Storyteller | Network Weaver | IDG Southern Africa Network | Climate Coaching Alliance Africa | #hopepunk #metta #secondrenaissance
1 个月Thank you for writing & sharing this personal story, Clare - but, more importantly, for your compassion and care, your commitment to doing something tangible about this crisis. I was also vegetarian for ages, pescatarian at some point, but never felt fully comfortable. The change was gradual: as I worked on my self-awareness , I became less defensive, more receptive to friends explaining why they were vegan. I was handed a flyer that encouraged me to research the cruel and environmentally harmful practices involved in mass-producing food products from animals. As a journalist I was invited on a tour of one of the country's largest beef producers, and walked the entire process, from the massive feedlots to the long lines of distraught creatures being fed into the slaughterhouse, then the kill-zone and all the brutal scenes, sounds and smells that came afterwards. Around that time I learned my brother had gone vegan, and decided to follow suit. So did my triathlete husband, influenced by movies like The Game Changers and Seaspiracy. We haven't looked back. But I still feel the pain of all those billions of tortured animals. Those momma cows whose babies are torn from them at birth: as a mother, I just can't support it.