Have you ever had an experience in which you honestly felt you weren’t fully responsible for making the decision or the choice to engage in a set of circumstances or an event – it just sort of slipped up on you? This line of thinking is not my normal approach with regards to taking full responsibility for everything in our lives. However, I’m willing to entertain such a thing because I felt something similar regarding my “choice” of becoming a vegetarian in 2008.

Prior to this last year, I had always been a meat eater. That’s not a fact I’m proud of, but it’s something I’m willing to admit. Though I was raised in a household where my mom was a vegetarian, I still consumed meat. Even after embarking on the path of becoming more consciously aware and respectful of all living things, I continued to consume meat.

The contradiction in that last sentence should have been obvious to me at some point, but it wasn’t. Just like so many of the issues I’ve had to face in becoming more self-actualized, my “taste” for meat (as a young adult) was motivated by my own issues of low self-esteem.

As a teenager, I was constantly teased for being painfully thin. This situation only compounded an already burgeoning state of insecurity. By age 18, I began a very serious bodybuilding and weight training hobby, with the hopes of shedding my old appearance. I had grown to hate the body I saw in the mirror and was willing to do almost anything to permanently alter or change it, even if it meant hurting myself in the process. My motto was: “I can’t do anything about my face, but I can certainly do something to fix my body” – somewhat empowering, yet simultaneously self defeating, wouldn’t you say?

Because of my strong desire to outgrow my old body, I began devouring any and all bodybuilding literature, videos, conversations in the gym, etc. Everything pointed in the same direction with regards to a muscle building diet: animal protein and more animal protein. I submersed myself in the lifestyle and lost sight of the consequences of my actions. While this post isn’t about body image (that’s coming up in a future entry), it’s important to point out how easy it is to make unconscious decisions when we’re suffering emotionally. The dietary habits I formed during that decade of self-destructive bodybuilding had become ingrained. Throughout my late twenties and early thirties I continued to eat meat.

However, in 2008, this practice came to a screeching halt. While I’ve been completely aware of the vegan and vegetarian lifestyle for years, my personal change had nothing to do with intentionally emulating these admirable actions (at least it didn’t feel that way). I don’t actually know how to explain the manner in which I became a vegetarian. This takes me back to my statement in the opening paragraph: I didn’t feel fully responsible for making the decision.

I woke up one day, and it was as if my taste buds for meat had been removed. It began with beef in March of last year and worked its way down the list of the other animals (e.g. chicken and fish) I was consuming. Honestly, I attribute this change to absolutely following the wind of my soul, whether I was aware of it or not.

Based on my current path, becoming a vegetarian was the next logical step in my development and evolution. It appears “something” knew that better than I did. Feel free to call it whatever you like: a subconscious motivation, a conscious choice that I chose to overlook, or some form of soulful intervention; all I know is that I’m currently far more satisfied with my food choices, by no longer being responsible for contributing to the slaughter of animals. My dietary intake still includes large amounts of protein, but they now come in the form of protein powders, dairy and soy based products only.

I’m not here to judge anyone’s choices when it comes to eating or not eating meat. Just as I had to go through my own experience of waking up, so will others and I respect that.

However, in closing this post, I will leave you with this concept: if an animal is killed in a violent manner (name a slaughterhouse in which that’s not the case) and a person chooses to eat its meat – that same animal’s molecules are melding with the molecules of the individual; this includes everything the animal felt, coursing through its veins, at the moment of death.

We compound the poisoning of our own vibrational state, by first killing and then eating that which has been violently killed. Yet, if we’re already in a place of psychologically poisoning ourselves on a daily basis, what other actions would be fitting to take, if not those which mirror our own internal turmoil? I’m not defending the killing or carnivorous action; only understanding the lack of awareness in why it’s committed, because I used to be there.

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