irritable vegans/vegetarians

[svrn]

I love how these people usually talk so much about love and being new age and all that, yet they are almost always extremely irritable people that will explode at you for nothing.

I feel so bad that they have to live this way as opposed to the mental stability I get from a high fat diet.

[Dorothy]

It's true that the low - fat ones often seem to have that quality based on what I saw at the raw vegan forums. Not all of them though. There were exceptions. But that very thing in particular did make me question.

[cherimoya_kid]

I didn't find the low-fat diet made me irritable, so much.  It really created a lot of fear/dread, though.

[wodgina]

Freelee always looks to be on the verge of tears.

[Ioanna]

yeah, i'm a bit of a basket case when i don't get enough fat    i lose focus and motivation, and everything is sooooo overwhelming.  once i eat a little bit of fat i'm back on top of my world again.  sleep deprivation is very similar for me.

[goodsamaritan]

Im starting to think that the humans who conquered other humans were the humans who lacked meat and fat.  So these humans were the aggressive humans.

The happy humans with lots of good food got conquered easily.

I see so much contentment and happiness within the raw paleo diet sphere.

[Dorothy]

Freelee always looks to be on the verge of tears.

But in her before pictures if we are to be fair she looks even more unhappy. At least the sugar gives her sadness some energy.

[Dorothy]

yeah, i'm a bit of a basket case when i don't get enough fat    i lose focus and motivation, and everything is sooooo overwhelming.  once i eat a little bit of fat i'm back on top of my world again.  sleep deprivation is very similar for me.

It's funny you say this ionna because when I had to not sleep for that half a year I found that animal fats were the only thing that helped to make up for it. It's how my mind became opened to the idea of raw paleo. Under that kind of stress  there was no way to get enough fat from plant sources to give what my brain needed under that much stress. It made me wonder what that kind of fat could do for me under more normal circumstances.

[jessica]

i think being in that situation is excessively stressful on the system and puts you in constant flight or flight, so even if you do feel you have more "energy" chances are its anxiety and that if you do choose to over use that energy you will be totally depleting your system
most of the raw vegans i have known are just very easily offended and passive aggressive and kind of awkward

[Ioanna]

interesting jessica, i am quite anxious all the time!, and i try to keep it all bottled in so people think i am laid back and chill  ... but i'm so not!!  i have a  lot of anxious energy (during the week really, i'm fine on the weekends/non-work days) and need to workout somehow (that kind of energy is easy to exhaust fortunately) in the evening on those days in order to be able to fall asleep easily at night.

the work-week is like a roller coaster for me 

[Ioanna]

dorothy, that is interesting about paralleling what i wrote.  it has been said to consider sleep as a nutrient!... i guess it's a fatty one 

[Dorothy]

dorothy, that is interesting about paralleling what i wrote.  it has been said to consider sleep as a nutrient!... i guess it's a fatty one 

Totally fatty! hee hee. Fatty food, sleep, comforters and warm tea on a cold day all give me a similar feeling when I think of them.

[CitrusHigh]

Same Ioanna, calm on the surface, freaking out underneath!

I blame the 'rentals, both stress cases but don't really get it, and everything was a major ordeal growing up. Nothing too small to freak out over!

Now reading Bruce Lipton's work really makes you feel like you never had a chance! You just get whatever your parents were already fucked up on and then some.

Fortunately as conscious creatures we can take measures to break the cycle. For me that was awareness, cannabis, meditation, time in nature or...all of the above!

But being able to command a quiet mind at will is huge and also knowing there's only love at the heart of the whole shebang helps too!

[Ioanna]

Now reading Bruce Lipton's work really makes you feel like you never had a chance! You just get whatever your parents were already fucked up on and then some.

lol, thoth, that actually makes me feel like i am doing okay!, right on plan?

Fortunately as conscious creatures we can take measures to break the cycle. For me that was awareness, cannabis, meditation, time in nature or...all of the above!

working on those, have added forgiveness/acceptance to the list. i don't look at them as parents anymore. they're just people. no expectations. i wish i did this a long time ago!!!, but i just couldn't get passed the idea of who i wanted them to be and who they actually were. i've let that go. but, yes, i am so ready to break that cycle!

But being able to command a quiet mind at will is huge and also knowing there's only love at the heart of the whole shebang helps too!

hopefully being mindful is a start. that's about where i am.

[jessica]

ioanna, do you enjoy your job? is it indoors? sitting down? i used to get really extreme anxiety at work and what helped was to sun bathe on breaks.  i was lucky enough that we had a huge field behind work and i would strip down and lay down and do some deep breathing:)  but that anxious energy is a killer, especially if you constantly act on it, i know how it feels to have to exercise to fall asleep, even aside from having a long active day, and i think its best to really notice how you feel when you exercise, there is a fine line there, if you feel totally worn out and depleted after its probably not the best thing to do all the time, or perhaps something less physical, or shorter would work out.  i think the body becomes accustomed to being worn out instead of calmed down after a while.  i have come to the point where i was basically running on that energy, and i do mean doing trail runs, long bicycle rides, sprinting, unable to sit down, in addition to doing long hours of hard manual labor, and my body pretty much shut down metabolically, so no energy for me anymore because i didnt realize that i was running myself into the dirt, wish someone would have just sat me down, or tied me down, and made me relax....my parents were def. the same, not going to blame it all on them but def. learned some really fucked up ways to look at life and cope with things, always trying to learn better

[CitrusHigh]

Yeah, to be clear, it's not about blaming your parents, it's about understanding why you behave the way you do. For the first 5-6 years of life you are basically a hypnotized sponge. Absorbing every little nuance of behaviour going on around you. So typically that means your parents behviour, but if you were raised by an uncle or grandparents or a foster family, it would be their behaviour, as well as other behaviour you are repeatedly exposed to like daycare workers, school teachers, church peeps (yuck!)

They form our subconscious and then that becomes our modus operandi until we consciously change it. If you don't believe me, go hang out with anyone and their parents, no matter the age, 1 to 100, you WILL see the commonalities if you pay attention. Both in posture, expression and speech. It's creepy, but that is the way mammals, and really most animals, learn. It's programmed in.

I advocate for personal responsibility first and foremost, but you are hardly a conscious being (of course neither are most adults in this society!) at the time you absorb all of this stuff. I still find myself performing behaviours and thought processes of my parents, which I have been consciously working to break myself of for yearsssss!

My parents taught me to be poor, to think poor, they taught me to feel shame and guilt because I was born a wretched sinner, they are tedious, unthinking people. They also have a lot of good qualities and I've kept those, my mom's spacey love of floating around like a butterfly totally detached from reality, my dad's love of nature and altruism. But the soul killing qualities have got to go! It's what has kept the both of them from being healthy, balanced people. My mom and dad are both hoarders, I was for the longest time, but I didn't get really healthy until I detached from all of the material stuff, and now I live to minimize that junk because I know that happiness and fulfillment come from within purely.

A good way to catch this behaviour is to enlist the help of someone who knows both your parents and you well and that you spend a good deal of time with. My uncles and aunts who are my best friends tell me, unsolicited in this case (but that is where the idea came from), you're just like your father, or they'll identify a specific behaviour that I'm performing right then and there and say "just like your mom" So then I can scrutinize that behaviour (which I was hitherto unaware of) and decide if it's something I want to keep or if it needs to go go go!

It's not about blame, it is however about balance and awareness.

[Dorothy]

... and then ... when you think you have it all clear and you are totally your own person... invite your parents to come live with you in your own home and take care of them. There was never a workshop or therapy designed that could have taught me more about myself or how to clear the patterns because without testing, you might think they are gone. I've met lots of people that seem like they have surpassed and say they have, but put them with their parents for a few minutes and they regress. The first year or two my Mom came to live with me I got deeply depressed. It took every tool in my toolbox every day but it really was a great gift she gave me. I chose her and she gave me truly what I needed. Maybe not what I wanted, but what I needed to evolve. The lessons are of the deepest kind. My brother told me that she was gone a year ago last week - but I couldn't believe it because it feels like just a couple of months. The processing is still profound.   

[CitrusHigh]

That's a really great point Dorothy! I don't know that it's essential, BUT if you're really interested in working on yourself I can think of NO better way! lol If you survive it, I imagine you'd come out the other side with equanimity to spare!

But I would think that it's important that they come live with you and not the other way around. Because if you're more conscious than they are, which is going to be the case most times now as the newer generations wake up and have greater access to real truth, then you need to be making the rules and calling the shots.

And double what Ioanna said, they're really not your 'parents' unless you've locked them in to that role, they're just people, no better or worse than you, just more or less conscious. Next incarnation they could be your servants, or your jailer or your librarian, twin sibling or whatever.

It is huge enough of a task (though easy with right thought and will, the apprehension of which is what takes the most time if you were taught otherwise) to break the cycle, let alone try to live with them as adults. I'm friends with my parents now, but that doesn't mean I approve of the extremely unhealthy way they live or have any desire to subject myself to the nasty energies they call in and exude. Wasn't 18 years enough? lol!

[Dorothy]

Ha ha Thoth - yes -  NOT essential and definitely it has to be parents coming to you on your own turf.

ionna - when my Mom came to live with me one of the most beneficial things I did was to stop calling her Mom and start calling her by her first name. I had to stop almost all my expectations in terms of role. Instead I used behavior modification techniques in order to make every day life work - but I wasn't going to change the basics. The only basics I could change were inside me. I had to let go of the idea of her being fundamentally any different than she was. I was however successful with extreme repetition to get her to talk to me the way that I needed her to in a few important ways. Just a few.

Funny how now I know that she had been suffering from Parkinson's disease since I was a young and was misdiagnosed. She also was extremely off balance in many ways physically. Over time changing her diet helped to change her just like it does so many.

It might help some here to think of their parents in terms of their diet and their health as well. No one can get outside the confines of what they physical bodies/brains will allow.

[Ioanna]

dorothy, i got that idea of thinking from something you posted a while back. but it didn't actually sink in until last week when i really meditated on it. it really is a new perspective!  i keep it inside though, i would hurt my mom if i stopped calling her 'mom'.

[Ioanna]

jessica, i started your advise today!  i do love what i do, but the work environment is very uncomfortable for me.  i'm always indoors with days where i'm mostly standing and then days where i'm mostly sitting. the day goes by so fast on the standing days and forever slow on sitting days! 

but with the weather getting so nice, i'm going to get outside for a few breaks during the day, that will slow things down i think!  there's not really anywhere to go, but i'll find my 'spot'

[Dorothy]

dorothy, i got that idea of thinking from something you posted a while back. but it didn't actually sink in until last week when i really meditated on it. it really is a new perspective!  i keep it inside though, i would hurt my mom if i stopped calling her 'mom'.

My Mom didn't like it at all. But because she was living with me I explained many times in a loving voice and demanor that it was because we were in a new relationship as "roommates" and she could pick a new name for me too if she wanted. Of course she didn't want to. The thing was the whole had changed. It would be harder without that. The big issue was that I understood how vitally important it was for me to do what I had to do - and that what was really best in the long run for her too. I needed  to be able to get over myself for her sake as well as mine and if a word or name helped - it didn't matter if she didn't like it. She didn't much like changing her diet either - but those were how living with us was going to be able to work out. Words perhaps have more power with me than other people. I mean, it's just a word, but for me the sound held too many associations. If she freaked out totally at me calling her by her first name then I would have just called her by her nickname we gave her or made up another loving nickname or called her every loving nickname in creation. I'm can be pretty stubborn and persistent.

That's touching to me that I said something that helped you! Warm fuzzy feelings.

[bachcole]

I was not vegan or vegetarian, but I have noticed that I am much less irritable after 9 weeks of paleo.

[Dorothy]

I was not vegan or vegetarian, but I have noticed that I am much less irritable after 9 weeks of paleo.

What were you eating before bachcole?

Back to the subject - I would like to add here that we call coffee "angry juice" in our house. I can't believe how many raw foodists still drink coffee - and a raw vegan on coffee has GOT to be dangerous without much to ground out that adrenal energy. Doesn't matter what I eat - if coffee is involved - better to escape any room I'm hangin' in.

[bachcole]

I was a "health food" eater influenced somewhat by Weston Price and my wife's cooking.  So going hardcore low carb and plenty of fat was very healthy for me.  You can't imagine how peaceful it is around here now.