Vegan mental health

Taking care of yourself is really important, you cannot take care of the animals if you do not take care of yourself. I see a lot of activists burning out and not having the impact they could because they are so visibly tired.

Some simple recommendations:

1.When interacting with nonvegans keep in mind that they actually have to want to listen to you, if they don't just plant a seed in their mind and move on. Keep your message simple, you don't want to surround yourself or give your energy to people who might change in 5 years. No, you want to change large groups of people and try the message on tons of different locations, online and offline.

2. Simply take care of your body and emotions, put positive thoughts inside your head. The more you give to yourself the more you will be able to give to others. Create win-win situations with your environment instead of I win you lose which is the very reason why people still exploit the animals.

3. Understand nonvegans, think about how you were when you were a nonvegan. This also applies to areas beyond veganism, any change. Most likely you have lots of areas in life which you want to change as well because we are all humans and not Gods. Empathise and show love because regardless if someone goes vegan you will have a sound mind afterwards and learn something from every experience. Instead of viewing interactions with nonvegans as draining you can reframe it and view them as refreshing. Love is a thing that is abundant and cannot be taken away from you once you truly understand how it works. The more you understand something the harder it is to hate it.

4. Read books that are designed to elevate your mood. Read vegan books, contact the authors, chat, show love, write them a thank you letter, drop a review, build a sense of community with vegans instead of nonvegans. Literally stop spending so much time on nonvegans! Everyone is supposed to be happy and do things which empower them, don’t dedicate all the energy to draining, nonvegan media. There’s so much media that’s designed to keep your mood down! Really track what you are reading or watching.

5. Thank this world, thank the ground you stand on, thank for all the struggles you had. Every struggle is an opportunity of healing, nobody was called strong without facing a challenge. Own your mistakes, people with no regrets are not honest with themselves because the society we live in is clearly not a happy one or a fulfilling, meaningful one. This is why we have to create our own rules, meaning and narrative. Carnists love to spin it, but you are already vegan so you know a ton about how their version of the word “love” is often not love for all.