Waking Up

The past year has been FUCKING crazy!

I'm reading my journal from last December, when I first started to peek down the rabbit hole, and I’m instantly reminded how insane my awakening has been.

Food started it all for me. Last September Sugar Balls casually suggested a '30 day vegan challenge'. At the time I was accustomed to polishing off an impressive two to five cheesy, meaty meals per day and I wasn’t really 100% sure what the word ‘vegan’ meant.

“Challenge accepted!”

I’ve been told that we are the sum of our experiences and I'm all for expanding my comfort zone, so without much thought I decided that I was in, and we were off... Vegans for 30 days in Las Vegas. “Las Vegans”!?

It took about two days for the reality of the challenge to fully sink in. “Inconvenient” is the word that most accurately sums up my early vegan days. Before opting-in to the 30 day vegan challenge, I was completely unaware that animals and animal products are in so many of the things that we consume on a daily basis. Animal parts are in marshmallows, cereals, candies, breads...the list goes on and on. My days of selecting snacks based upon their catchy names and colorful packaging had come to a screeching halt and I was suddenly forced to read ingredient labels for everything I wanted to eat.

Who knew that one delicious packaged cinnamon bun commonly contains 20 or more ingredients? Sure, I was vaguely aware that most of what I was eating had originated in a science lab, but I was completely caught off guard by my inability to pronounce so many things that I was ingesting with the goal of fueling my body. I didn’t see how I could expect my body to keep running for another 75 years when I was relying on propylene glycol, high fructose corn syrup and castoreum to power myself though each day. I quickly came to accept that this 30 day challenge was evolving into a permanent change in lifestyle. One food question quickly led to the next. What are factory farms? What’s the big deal about GMO’s? What’s in our water? Each morning I’d set out with a new question about the world only to return home that night with five more questions that had spawned from the original one that I’d set out to answer. I was shocked, disgusted, outraged by what I was finding. How are people doing this to our food right in front of our eyes? What else are these people up to? Who are these people?

The past year has been one of many questions for me. My entire world has been turned upside down and I want to scream from the roofs and talk about it, but for now I refrain. As a society we are currently content living the rat race and playing their game, so I’m using this time to focus on myself. To better myself and to grow myself, to push and twist myself and figure out who I really am and what I’m here to accomplish. I try to live as a lighthouse, being the change that I want to see in the world while keeping unsolicited thoughts to myself. A goal which is much easier said than done.

Going vegan for 30 days completely changed my perspective of the world. Questioning our food has shown me that things are seldom as they are presented and that our world is filled with many hidden ingredients and agendas. I’ve been taught of the importance of standing guard at the door to my mind, my body and my soul and I’m learning to push society out of the way and take over control as the driver to my life. In short, going vegan led me to taking the red pill.

I love you, see you soon :)

• Chelsea