The Value In Vulnerability

Whoever said vulnerability showed weakness and powerlessness couldn’t have got it more wrong.

Being vulnerable takes courage and bravery to open up and be your own authentic self.

I have always felt a sense of embarrassment about my struggles with ED and depression.

I’d pushed people away and I wasn’t always truthful about my past and I continued to deny that I had/have struggles.

I used to feel that I shouldn’t talk about it to others and felt like my struggles would make people want to run and hide from me. I can now see that the only person running away was me.

Since moving from Sydney four months ago I have met a great group of friends and have also learnt that my fear of being vulnerable showed that I wouldn’t allow people to like me for who I really am. Instead of letting go and accepting my past and the person whom I am today, I was prepared to hold up a guard for my protection and for a decent amount of time.

Allowing myself to be completely vulnerable isn’t something I had thought of doing.

I saw the stigma behind it and wanted no part in it.

I would stick to the rules and ask for advice whenever possible to make sure I didn’t say anything inappropriate or put a foot in the wrong place.

As I have mentioned, this year is about finding my authentic self. Throughout this year I have made huge progress in finding and living in my serenity, but the fear of being vulnerable and being 100% honest in regard to my words is something I now see is what needs to be taken care of.

For the past fortnight I have been an open book. Vulnerable.

People have asked me questions and I haven’t sugar coated any answers.

I haven’t allowed myself to feel embarrassed or apologetic about my past or how I choose to live my life.

I have thrown out the book of rules that contain all the dos and don’ts in what you should do or say in certain situations and relationships. I have taken the time to dig deep and ask what I really want or think I should do, without any social pressure or other influences.

With this decision came a lot more self respect and love towards myself.

It feels as if a weight has come off my shoulders by saying to the universe “This is who I am and I’m not afraid to be me”.

This is the message I encourage all of you say to the universe from today onwards.

Vulnerability doesn’t deserve the stigma. It deserves the recognition of empowerment and self respect.

As always, I would love to hear your thoughts in on this topic in the comments below 🙂

Be kind to yourself,

Lisa x

Finding Serenity in My Sundays

When I first started this blog, I promised myself that I would be 100% honest throughout my recovery and my journey of finding my own authentic life. I would include everything; the good, the bad and the embarrassing.

You may not be aware that I am a compulsive stress-head and have suffered from anxiety my whole life.

Panic attacks are nothing new to me. Sometimes there doesn’t have to be a reason for me to be filled with anxiety and fear. Often when I have full blown panic attacks, my mind and past events are usually the cause.

My panic attacks often result in my hyperventilating on the floor with all of my muscles cramping up. This is unbelievably painful and the pain from the attack can linger for days. This also makes a constant reminder of why I panicked in the first place.

So that girl on the floor, looking like a fish out of water, that probably was me.

I am proud to tell you that I have now gone two and a half months without a full blown panic attack (high five to that!)

Some days are worse than others but this is my journey of finding my serenity and learning from the challenges that come my way.

Finding my serenity when my anxiety is going through the roof is one of the hardest things I have had to work on.

When I saw a therapist for advice, some of the exercises that were given to me sounded great in theory, but when I was the middle of an attack, they didn’t often help. The exercises that were given to me were better for an everyday practice.

Halfway through last year, I was at the gym when a panic attack started to occur. I tried everything I could to stop it before it resulted in me being on the floor.

So there I was starting to hyperventilate whilst talking to myself out loud saying “I am calm, I am safe”. While I was trying to convince myself that I was calm and safe, the person next to me was wishing they had chosen another machine on the other side of the room.

I can’t exactly tell you how I ended up on the gym’s shower floor hugging my knees with cold water pouring down onto me, but it happened. When I finally realised I was freezing, was when I realised where I was and that I wasn’t in pain. My anxiety didn’t escalate into an attack.

Though I have never told anyone this story before (feel honoured peeps!) it’s something that often comes to mind when I’m having a stressful day.

I may have ended up on the shower floor and had to go home looking like a drowned rat, but the moral to the story is that, the impossible became possible. I won against my attack (I was able to stop it) and this gave me hope that I can once and for all overcome my life-long challenge.

I was willing to fight my battles and that day I chose the outcome.

I have worked on my serenity every single day since the episode at the gym. I have worked hard to not only stop anxiety in its tracks, but to also prevent it and allow myself to be free. Everyone deserves to be free, and that includes me.

Since working on my serenity, my anxiety doesn’t come out of the blue anymore. I can’t tell you how much of a difference this has made in my life.

Sundays are the one day per week on which I try not to have any plan. The day is filled with inspiration and motivation for the coming week. It is something that I have had to prioritise over other social events because a day of getting back to reality and focusing on my wellbeing is extremely beneficial.

Because I have been doing this for a long time now and feel it is something I will always do, I want to be able to share my Sundays with you.

Each Sunday I will write a post under the title of: Finding Serenity in My Sundays.

It will be filled with inspiration, motivation and tips to help you find serenity for the week ahead.

I’d love to know your thoughts on this in the comments below.

Lisa x

A Vegan’s Reputation

When I changed to a vegan lifestyle I wasn’t confident telling people about my decision. In fact, I dreaded the thought of having to explain to someone that I’m vegan because of the assumptions that went with the word “vegan”.

Now I can’t be more comfortable telling others and given the opportunity I love to explain to people why I choose to live this way!
I’ve taken a great interest in seeing their facial expressions change when having to explain why I’m the only one not tucking into the cheese platter on the table.

A surprisingly large number of people seem offended, even outraged that I have chosen this lifestyle and try to convince me that I have been brain washed by some type of cult.

Most people look utterly confused, which explains why someone asked me why I still take an interest in men if I just said I was vegan. And very few welcome the idea and accept it’s a lifestyle that serves and benefits me as well as the environment.

There are so many bizarre assumptions towards veganism that give the word a bad rep. It disappoints me to think that this is one of the reasons why I didn’t go vegan earlier and that there are many people who are discouraged and decide to turn down veganism because of social pressure from these untrue claims.

I asked a number of people who follow a vegan lifestyle to share with me their experiences when telling people that they’re vegan. Although I’m not surprised, it still appalled me when I was told great friendships had been lost when they decided to change to a cruelty free lifestyle. The reaction of others being utterly offended by a vegan lifestyle is definitely not uncommon.

While I’ve had many crazy assumptions thrown at me, the most common one seems to be the thought that a vegans’ purpose and duty is to try and convince others to follow this lifestyle; this can be done by talking to strangers and even door knocking.

This could not be further from the truth. I don’t doubt that there are people actively promoting and bringing awareness to veganism but with my experience I have never met a vegan that pressures others to “convert”. The majority of the vegan community I have met have been the most welcoming and accepting people I have spoken to.

I can’t help but wondering why omnivores aren’t given the same assumptions and reputation of trying to convert others to follow their choice in lifestyle? Although they don’t door knock I have certainly been ambushed by a table of opinions on many occasions.

Through all of these assumptions and misled claims I have learnt not take them personally or be hurt by what others say about my lifestyle because veganism feels authentic to me and this is what my journey is all about; finding my authentic self.

I don’t need to argue or keep explaining why I believe my choices are valid because regardless of who’s right and whose wrong I feel connected and at peace with myself which says more than any amount of words.

Veganism is not a “dirty” word; it is an honorable and courageous word that brings connection between you and the world we all live in.

This is a decision I have made for myself, I don’t mind if others aren’t going to follow my choice of lifestyle and I certainly won’t force anyone to “convert”; though I do love to educate others and show them how delicious a raw vegan lifestyle can be!

Yesterday I made these little beauties for my omnivore friends and family who respect and accept my lifestyle.

This recipe is from Chocolate Covered Katie and I managed to quickly take a photo of mine while the rest were being eaten.

Now if these Oreo’s don’t clear up the thought of a boring diet of cold tofu and sprouts I don’t know what will because these are nothing less than amazing!

I did find them quite rich so I recommend using a little less cacao if you are not a hard core cacao junkie.

As always I would love to know your thoughts and your experiences when telling people about your lifestyle.

Lisa

Authentic’s the word

While most people start their year off with a New Year resolution, I start each year off with a word.

Last year my word was “Learn”. I learnt as much as I could about myself and threw myself into anything so I could find out what I like and what I felt served me without any social or media influence involved.

This year it felt natural to have “Authentic” as my chosen word so I can put all of my hard work and lessons I had learnt from the previous year to start focussing on me and what felt authentic.

Choosing to become Vegan was the first decision that I made that felt natural and clear to me.
Ever since I was young I wanted to eat vegetarian not only because I didn’t like the taste of meat but also because I felt strongly about animals not being on our dinner plates and with a beef cattle farm out the back from our home I found it daunting to think of the cattle being served for our meals.

Although we didn’t own the cattle, I would still name them and feed them Dad’s grass clippings after he had mowed the lawn and liked to think of the cattle as if they were my own.

Unfortunately being a child I didn’t have much choice in what I ate and learnt to accept the misleading information I was given about needing meat to be healthy.

Because of my health and nutrition obsession I knew this wasn’t true and living a plant-based diet can give you all of your nutritional needs but there was also another reason why I didn’t go vegan earlier: social pressure.

People would say “It’s a cult”, “Vegans get osteoporosis”, “Who would ever want to date a vegan?!” “How do you expect to have a social life?” So many comments were thrown my way each and every time I’d say I’d like to become a vegan, which would then leave me in fear and not pursue what I wanted to do.

Advertising/media and your social group have a HUGE influence on people’s dietary decisions. They create fear of what others will think so I felt relieved when this year being my “authentic” year as I simply could not listen to anything other than what felt natural to me.

When I first announced I had chosen to become vegan, I said it with confidence and before my meat-loving friends and family could get a word in to rain on my parade I asked them to respect my decision and if they couldn’t understand my decision, head towards Google and research animal farming and what really goes into animal based food and the effects it can have on mental & physical health.

Of course no-one did because they all didn’t want to come to terms with what they are eating so the only way to prove to them that I would eat more than just Tofu and Sprouts would be to show them.

When friends and family saw my huge variety of yummy plant-based meals they admitted they were surprised.
That wasn’t the turning point that made them believe my new lifestyle was valid. The turning point was my mood, my skin, my energy after changing my diet!

There is so much negativity that people feel towards veganism and have been lead to believe untrue claims & views about what it is all about.

I must admit that I used to be uncertain about what I felt veganism was to me. I thought it was very black and white in what I could and could not do.
Although veganism is about eliminating all animal based products there are so many reasons why people choose to become vegan. They will have their own personal views on what it means to them.
When I first become vegan I mainly did it for health reasons but within a short time after studying and researching about the lifestyle I felt I was doing it equally for animals.

It wasn’t until I went to go to a new organic, raw vegan cafe that I stopped at my front door before leaving and started to judge myself towards others who would be there.
I was wearing Mascara that was cruelty free but not vegan; I was wearing leather shoes that I bought before my change of lifestyle and all of a sudden my ego kicked in and said I was failing.
Surely I could not class myself as vegan if I still owned these products and surely I couldn’t walk into a cafe I admired with leather shoes.

I had only just discovered this new and exciting lifestyle and felt I had to live up to a certain standard straight away and if I didn’t follow every rule I therefore would have failed.

Veganism is a personal journey. It evolves over time like any other relationship.
I learnt to accept that I can’t know everything within the first week & that I had to be understanding and not compare myself to someone to has been vegan for 30 + years.

I have now been vegan for months and although I have a clearer sense of what veganism means to me I am excited to see what I will learn and how my views will evolve in the future.

Starting a blog is something I always wanted to do and I plan to share healthy delicious plant-based recipes, talk about important topics such as body image, social media and give you tools on how to release blocks in your life that will help you to live your own authentic life.

I am a firm believer that your food and lifestyle choices can heal your life and with my own personal experience & through my studies I will always be honest and reliable to give you tools and knowledge that I truly believe will work to serve you.

I would love to know your “moment” when you knew changing to a vegan lifestyle was right for you and also what held you back from going Vegan in the past?