Ever wrestled with feelings of anger and frustration while adopting a vegan lifestyle? You're not alone. This episode reveals the emotional journey that accompanies the transition to veganism with a little help from our special guest, Katie Galli, the visionary owner of Healthification. Katie shares her personal insights on how she replaced her frustration with a compassionate approach towards veganism and the deep connections she's formed with animals on her journey. She also talks about how she managed to maintain relationships with non-vegan friends and family.
Does the thought of leading with love and compassion in your vegan advocacy tug at your heartstrings? We believe it does, and that's exactly what we discuss in the second part of the episode. Anger and frustration are natural emotions during this transition, but they can hinder you from spreading the vegan message effectively. So, let's stop shaming and preaching, and start promoting love, understanding, and effective communication instead. We’ll also talk about maintaining healthy relationships with non-vegans and offering tips to create a conscious community led by love. Get ready for a profound conversation that aims to alter the narrative around veganism.
Ever wrestled with feelings of anger and frustration while adopting a vegan lifestyle? You're not alone. This episode reveals the emotional journey that accompanies the transition to veganism with a little help from our special guest, Katie Galli, the visionary owner of Healthification. Katie shares her personal insights on how she replaced her frustration with a compassionate approach towards veganism and the deep connections she's formed with animals on her journey. She also talks about how she managed to maintain relationships with non-vegan friends and family.
Does the thought of leading with love and compassion in your vegan advocacy tug at your heartstrings? We believe it does, and that's exactly what we discuss in the second part of the episode. Anger and frustration are natural emotions during this transition, but they can hinder you from spreading the vegan message effectively. So, let's stop shaming and preaching, and start promoting love, understanding, and effective communication instead. We’ll also talk about maintaining healthy relationships with non-vegans and offering tips to create a conscious community led by love. Get ready for a profound conversation that aims to alter the narrative around veganism.
Actually, I'm an angry vegan in my heart because, as I said, it is just so horrific what we do and we're surrounded by it non-stop, living in a non-vegan world. However, as we'll get to, being that angry vegan costs you so very much so far as your own joy and happiness and effectiveness and relationships.
Speaker 2:
Welcome to the Plant-Based Curious podcast, a place to explore and discover the plant-based and vegan lifestyle. Each week, we'll talk about our own stories and real discoveries, alongside our experts and experienced guests, about changing behaviors, whole food, living, nutrition and the amazing facts and positive curiosities about veganism. We're here for you as a guide and a place to gather resources, but with the simple click of our subscribe button, you're allowing yourself a little time and good energy to listen, laugh and indulge in the lifestyle you may love. Please welcome your host, a certified holistic coach and plant-based lifestyle believer, diane Randall.
Speaker 3:
Hello and welcome. Today's episode is all about an important topic how to not be an angry vegan and how love is easier than hate. Joining us is a special guest, katie Galli, owner of Healthification, who will share her journey and insights on promoting a compassionate vegan lifestyle. Welcome.
Speaker 1:
Katie. Thank you so much, Diane. It's my pleasure to be here with you.
Speaker 3:
I am happy to be here with you. When I actually saw the topic that we were going back and forth about on email, it just reminded me of 20 years ago when I became a plant-based first. But I was around a lot of angry vegans and I just couldn't understand why are these people so upset? I knew why they were upset, but the passion I saw was incredible because for me, I was plant-based before, I was vegan and I know people come in through different portals. I'm so happy that you're here to share your insights with us around this topic. Let's start by talking about the angry vegan phase. Many of us have experienced a frustration and anger while transitioning to a plant-based lifestyle. Can you share your thoughts on why this happens and how can we address it?
Speaker 1:
Absolutely. It happens because what we do to animals is so absolutely horrific and heart-breaking and unnecessary. I was, and could still be, prone to being the stereotypical angry vegan. Actually, I'm an angry vegan in my heart because, as I said, it is just so horrific what we do and we're surrounded by it non-stop living in a non-vegan world. However, as we'll get to, being that, angry vegan costs you so very much so far as your own joy and happiness and effectiveness and relationships with loved ones. I know we'll get to all of that, diane, but I do want to share, before we start, that it is a constant work in progress for me.
Speaker 1:
I talk about why I stopped being an angry vegan because it's pretty catchy and people resonate with it. However, there are steps that I take every single day that I'll share that I need to take so that I don't fall back into the natural angry Kate that I was for, I'd say, the first five years of being vegan. I've only been vegan seven and a half years. I was vegetarian 23 years prior to that, so no meat for 30 years. And again, one of the things that makes us so angry is when you realise you've been lied to To travel back. I became vegetarian as a 16-year-old because I didn't want animals to die for my food choices, and so I was an ethical vegetarian.
Speaker 1:
I now know that's an oxymoron and animals were still dying Right. So when I found that out, of course I was angry that I'd been lied to, and of course I understand that so many other vegans out there are angry.
Speaker 3:
Yes, they are angry and I knew. I always knew why. It's been 20 years for me, amazing. And then the veganism came a few years later. But I understood what was behind it, but the anger and the judgment was so horrific I'm going to use that word and I saw it. I didn't know what to think at first. I just knew that I didn't like it because I felt that type of in-your-face behavior was not going to change anybody. It's like any other thing religion or any other thing you feel passionate about and you're just trying to ram it down somebody's story. I knew that was not going to work and, like you said, I had to find my footing as well in how I communicated and how I would touch the subject, because it really upset people, not only the angry vegan, but it really upset people about the veganism, because we all have our reasons why we do what we do, right 100%.
Speaker 1:
And I think if you live in the little vegan bubble and you're surrounded by other vegans and you do a lot of activism, then the cruelty that the rest of the world inflicts on animals, it's just so in-your-face how unnecessary that is However the opposite.
Speaker 1:
Like my situation, I did the vegan activism. However, most of my clients as a personal trainer and health coach still ate animals and although I would obviously always design the vegan eating strategies for them, they'd replace out the protein with the animal flesh. And absolutely all my close relationships, bar one bar my dear mum everyone in those family and friendship relationships none of them were vegans. So Right, if you're not lucky enough, I guess, to live in a little vegan bubble, you actually have to learn how to interact, as you say, diane, effectively with all those people that you do love, who generally are compassionate. However, they just haven't caught on to the vegan lifestyle yet.
Speaker 3:
They and I call it, they're not conscious.
Speaker 3:
You know what I mean.
Speaker 3:
There's to me, there's a whole another level of consciousness that you get to for at least that was my experience to understand, not just seeing the animal slaughter, but that, like me, I got a deep connection, yeah, and that's how I see myself in that animal.
Speaker 3:
So that is my reason that I can say 100% I'll never eat another animal because of that close connection. And, like I said, initially I was just trying to be healthy. You know, I was just trying to become plant based for my health and I didn't even know or understand the other side of eating animals. I knew it was a part of being plant based, but I didn't know what until later. But being out in the world because I'm a consultant and I travel around and I am in all parts of the country, I might have lunch with hunters, all kinds of people so that has helped me to learn how to just be a model, just eat what I eat, and I've really been able to impact more people by sharing information if they're interested, but just by being a role model and advocating in a very quiet way.
Speaker 1:
Saying that, the word calm came to mind, which is not my natural state. I am naturally that excitable, passionate in your face, vegan, and you can be all of that. However, as you say, without the judgment and what happened for me, I guess there were many parts to it, but after having so many conversations on my podcast with amazing activists and authors and doctors and all of that, I've noticed the people that seem to be most effective and certainly most happy were the ones that led with more love and passion. It was in my face. It was the brutal truth. It wasn't natural to be so calm and compassionate. However, if we want a vegan world and I do we need to do what's most effective, not what feels like bright in the moment all the time.
Speaker 3:
So, speaking of effective, how did you take that shift towards love and compassion?
Speaker 1:
I have a bit of an ABC for our listeners out there who may be thinking am I that angry vegan? Actually, if you are, you know you know that person and you're potentially wanting to change and not know whether you can change or not because, as we've highlighted, the situation is so dire and we're surrounded by it all the time. The A is for awareness, and the awareness is all about future pacing, thinking to yourself If nothing changes, what is this costing me in my life, in my happiness, in my relationships? What is this costing me right now and how is it going to look if nothing changes over the next 12 months, the next 24 months? I was seeing my relationships to grade. It really was having a huge negative impact on my life and I realized that.
Speaker 1:
I was going to need to be the one that changed. It wasn't going to come from the other people as much as I wanted it to.
Speaker 3:
Are you thought it would?
Speaker 1:
I hoped it would Diane.
Speaker 3:
I'm delusionally optimistic.
Speaker 1:
I hoped it would and it didn't. So the B is all about brainstorming. So you've got an awareness with that A, that that it's costing you too much. B is about brainstorming. What can I stop doing and what can I start doing to make a change? So, sadly for me, some of the things I needed to stop doing I actually stopped going to the activism that I was doing. Now I have different forms of activism, but seeing those brutal images in your face on the streets and having conversations with sometimes offensive and angry non-vegans, I didn't need to do that. I didn't need to keep seeing those horrific images in my social media feeds. So we curated the feeds. I also stopped having the conversations that we all know, those conversations that once you start them, you're like this isn't going to go well. I stopped starting those conversations with the people who weren't open-minded and open-hearted.
Speaker 3:
You said it open-minded and open-hearted. As long as I've been vegan and I'll just start with my family I have shared so much. They know deeply about being plant-based. But here's the thing they haven't changed They'll go to a vegan restaurant. They have opened up just enough to know what it means to be vegan. It must be such a whole different level of consciousness to become vegan because my family, who I love, and they love me they're still not vegan as much as they're open to who I am and what I do. I have one sister that will cook a plant-based vegan meal, no problem, but she's not vegan. But you know what I love? That they're open as much as they're open, and I let it go with that.
Speaker 1:
You have to, and it's not admitting defeat, which I originally saw it as. Did you More so.
Speaker 1:
I did, I did, I did. I did Delusionally optimistic, I know admitted that the relationships were important enough for me to keep and that I was going to have to change if I wanted to keep those relationships. So the C in why not so simple ABC is a commitment. So you have the awareness. You've done the brainstorming, what you need to stop doing and actually I didn't share what you need to start Doing, apologies. You need to start filling your social media feeds with those really positive and powering happy videos like and farm animal sanctuaries and the dodo and all those beautiful Videos that are out there if we hunt for them. You need to start sharing your beautiful, abundant plant based meals on social media and start cooking those meals. Be a love bun. So brainstorm all the things you can start doing that Positive and energy giving, and don't get judgment reflected back at you.
Speaker 3:
Yeah, oh, the judgment.
Speaker 1:
And then that see that I bounced to that simply a commitment to make these changes, and part of that commitment is announcing it, and part of that is why I quite freely say why I stopped being an angry vegan. Because you can, can that people will call you on it when you're starting to be a little bit angry or angsty again. They'll be like hang on a moment, kate, aren't you no longer the angry vegan and you're like mm. Okay, yeah, you're right.
Speaker 3:
Well, it's so beautiful that you're sharing your transformation and that you also have mechanisms inside of you now that when you go down that path, you remind yourself of where you are, and I think that's beautiful. So, if someone's listening today and they're angry and frustrated, what's the first? I mean, you just told us the three things, but tomorrow, how do they get their mind in a place to practice your three strategies?
Speaker 1:
I think and again, it's a constant commitment, the same as anything in the gym or with your whole food, plant based eating. It's not really an overnight epiphany, it's a constant commitment to those actions. I am a huge fan of planning my day to come the night before. So far as business and exercise and any new habit, be it an actual action related habit or be it a thought related habit, I actually write those down in my daily plan as well. My daily plan has got like the meditation it's got the references, points for success and what I'm grateful for, and all of this in any new habit I'm looking to create. I'm actually going to write it down so that I'm reminded every single day until it does become more unconscious and more natural, which it will become. I guess that's the first step having some sort of a plan.
Speaker 1:
I'm also a huge fan of seeking out mentors, so people to model. So look to the vegans that you want to be like, and I'll say one for me who came around this time was the amazing chef, the bet. Oh my goodness, like what an open hearted, like certain and no nonsense and passionate. She's every bit the passionate vegan. However, she does lead with love and I think she's the first one that said to me that love is easier than hate, and I almost teared up when she said it in our interview because it resonated so truly.
Speaker 3:
How beautiful is that? Well, I'll tell you my experience with chef by bet. Yes, a few years ago I was flying to California every for about two years for a master's degree, and I'd fly in LAX. I get off the plane and I'd go to this little restaurant called the stuff I eat, which is her restaurant restaurant.
Speaker 3:
Yeah, yeah, I didn't know her from anyone, but I tell you, what's helped me to deepen my love for food is the delicious vegan and plant based meals that that she would make. And it was just exciting to say, oh, I'm going to go to that little restaurant and get some food, not even knowing that it was her restaurant. So I started following her on social media and even now Last year, I went to the restaurant to get some food. Yeah, whenever I'm I find LAX especially if I got time, I will go to her restaurant. She's a beautiful lady. She really is. She is. I love the work that she does. So you're right, it's good. I have probably three mentors online that I follow. These women are awesome and the beautiful thing is who says you can't be awesome? Looking at 72.
Speaker 1:
So true, 100%, and I do want to. I do want to say actually that all the angry vegans and animal rights activists out there, I love you so much, I have so much respect for you Like no hate on them. They are amazing. They are Mad respect and I think we actually do need them in the world. I just needed at that period of time. I was going to break, due to many personal reasons as well, If I continued on with that level of sadness and anger and frustration and maybe what happens?
Speaker 3:
anger for some people becomes more passion. I mean, I've been around angry vegans but I can see the passion. But over time and you need time some of my friends have really mellowed out. They're still as passionate. It is from a place of love and, yes, they will get passionate. They will About what they believe in. But I hear you, it's about surrounding yourselves with people who are good role models that lead from love, that lead from kindness, and I think it's OK to hear and know what exactly is going on. You need some of those people that are in your face when they're talking to the people that are literally for harming animals. So there's a place for all of us right, 100 percent.
Speaker 1:
Yes, we need every type of activist to appeal to every type of non-vegan because, as a little 16 year old who had just turned vegetarian for ethical reasons, if I had bumped into one of those activists on the street, I would have been vegan overnight rather than vegetarian for 23 years there. So we need them.
Speaker 3:
So talk more about your journey. Being that 16 years old and who was vegetarian.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, I was a stereotypical. I could never be vegetarian. I'd meet at least twice a day, sometimes three times a day. I loved it. I was that girl until I wasn't that girl and it probably wasn't an overnight epiphany. There were probably lots of points leading up to it. I remember I grew up in New Zealand and I remember driving, skiing and it would be a three hour drive and we'd pass trucks full of sheep on their way to slaughter and you could smell and feel the fear or you could see were little bits of fur and nose sticking out as they were crammed into these huge, colossal trucks and you could just feel that something was devastatingly wrong. But I didn't really have any facts until I spoke to a girl at school when I was 16 and she was vegetarian and super passionate and I almost made that decision then, I think a few weeks later.
Speaker 1:
It was a particular meal. It was an incredibly rich smoked trout and fish row soup that we had at family friends house. But at that age you have to eat everything to be polite and I hated fish. I loved meat that I hated fish. I ate that meal. It was repulsive. We had a long car ride home.
Speaker 1:
I projectile, vomited, and I decided right then and there that what I chose to eat, what I chose to put into my body, would be aligned with my values and beliefs, and it wouldn't be about being polite or pleasing other people. I've never been much of a people pleaser and so that's when I became vegetarian and, as I said, that lasted, sadly, 23 years. I got into fitness, I guess a decade or so after that, as a way to transform my own body and confidence, and I was that high protein, low carbohydrate, vegetarian trainer, demolishing 21 egg whites a day, so sorry. And that went on for about a decade until I watched Cowspiracy, and it was Cowspiracy for me. It showed me that we've all been lied to. It showed me that if I truly didn't want to inflict unnecessary harm on animals, I needed to be vegan, and I basically made that change overnight. I took my free range organic eggs into work and gave them away to clients, and that was it and best decision.
Speaker 3:
Wow, that is so amazing. So, as a personal trainer and health coach, what practical tips can you offer the listeners to building a healthy, plant based lifestyle? We talk about different things all the time, but I'd love to hear your thoughts on that.
Speaker 1:
The plant based lifestyle specifically, I would say it is so important to get really clear on your why and to build huge emotional intensity into that why? Because with any big lifestyle change, whether it's plant based or anything really there are going to be struggle, street times. So you need to be really clear on how important this is to you, what it's going to mean when you make this change to your ideal life, to the life of everyone you love. Just build massive emotional intensity into that so that when it does get a little bit inconvenient, when you're at it, like restaurant where it's all about the burgers and fries or peer pressure, whatever it may be you've got that huge compelling why to fall back on.
Speaker 1:
I would say, equally important to that, I always recommend that my clients align that why, that goal, that passion, with their most important values and beliefs. So your values are those states and emotions that drive you. Perhaps it's about integrity or freedom or love or compassion, whatever it is to you, there's no right or wrong. Draw an alignment between how achieving that goal every single day, taking the actions that allows you to achieve that goal, is in alignment with those values and with your beliefs, because it basically eliminates the decision making process. You're just going to take the right action when it's aligned with your most important values and beliefs.
Speaker 3:
Oh, it's beautiful insight. Thank you so much so. I hear you recently published a book called the plant positive journal. Tell us more about it and how it can benefit listeners.
Speaker 1:
Thank you, diane. This is a little venture of the heart and it's basically a step by step guide to mastering your time and your mind while you adopt a healthy plant Face lifestyle. So it's for the existing vegan who isn't yet healthy with their lifestyle, because we all know that we can put self care to the bottom of the list and we can be a drunk food vegan, and that's great for the animals, but not for us. And it's also for the plant based curious. So the people out there that are maybe a little bit overwhelmed or fearful of everything involved.
Speaker 1:
I basically outline the most important steps you need to take to adopt this lifestyle and to stick with it sustainably. But beyond all that, it's just a stunning, beautiful daily planner. So the idea is that it's my little vegan Trojan horse. I want it to infiltrate the non-vegan majority. I want people to actually buy it and gift it. Lots of people are gifting it just because it's gorgeous and it helps you plan your day and week to come. And then, bit by bit, they see the delicious vegan recipes and the mindset hacks and the self care and, bit by bit, they adopt, zero pressure, at their own pace, a healthy, plant based lifestyle.
Speaker 3:
Oh, that is so beautiful. I can't wait to get my copy, and I also would post it in my plant based curious community that I have online, because this sounds like something that would help anyone that's looking to practice becoming more plant based and or vegan, so thank you for that.
Speaker 1:
I will 100% post you a copy. It is flying all around the world, which is exciting, and because also international postage is a barrier for some people, there's actually a PDF version as well available for immediate downloads Awesome. Because I, just as I said, I want it to infiltrate the non-vegan majority. I want it everywhere. I prefer the print version just because it's stunning, but anyway, that's everything. Everything I do, including the journal, is available by a strongbodygreenplanetcom.
Speaker 3:
Oh, wow, that is so beautiful. So is there one more thing you'd like to say to the audience before we end our conversation?
Speaker 1:
Do you know, one of my most important go-to's personally is to back yourself 100%. I know we've come out of uncertain times. Well, the past few years have felt uncertain and I think the most joyful, effective mindset is, rather than seeking to have certainty in circumstances and in the people around you, I would advocate to our listeners to instead seek to have certainty in you, to back yourself 100%, to be able to handle whatever is dealt to you, whether that's your ability to adopt this healthy vegan lifestyle or whether it's like something more urgent and dire. Just back yourself.
Speaker 3:
Oh, that is some beautiful advice. Thank you, katie, for sharing your experiences and insights on how not to be an angry vegan and promote love in our plant-based and vegan advocacy To our listeners. Remember that leading with love and compassion can be a powerful force in spreading the message of veganism. If you want to explore more, check out Katie's the Plant Positive Journal. I'll have her website information in the podcast description, which you'll be able to seek out for yourselves. Thank you all for tuning in to the Plant-Based, curious Podcast. Stay curious, stay compassionate and join us for our next exciting episode.
