Calling back for my intuition.

I started this blog almost a year ago with the beginning of my advent into veganism. That foray was inspired much by A. Silverstone’s book “the kind diet”, bought mostly for the pretty photos for a few dollars at a closeout sale at Borders. (www.thekindlife.com). Veganism began one Sunday after a day in the garden, completely unexpectedly and as almost of a joke; just a fun way to pass the time that day.

It lasted two months, which by some standards would be relatively nothing, but for an unanticipated and beforehand unimaginable reality for me, was a real thing. Much of what I did then I carry over into my current life, by eating the same foods and reading the same book and having the same thought processes about what is good for my body and my life in the world.

What is most interesting to me is not just the change in behaviors and mental processes I experienced, and not even how sudden the shift seemed to occur, but rather, how devoted I was to that change, and how much those new behaviors meant to me both now and then, with so little thought of them beforehand. 

I didn’t plan for veganism. I didn’t even think about veganism until my first day of it. And on my first day of it, I didn’t even anticipate it being something I would want to do for any serious amount of time. How was I able to so quickly and easily perceive it as so valuable to me?

My intuition tells me it was just my intuition. Since my intuition has been the only thing I’ve been able to consistently rely on in my life, I have few rational options but to trust that as true; that I experienced something that would be so good for me in the long-term that I knew immediately once engaged in it not to give it up. Time has shown the evidence, a year later and still vegan in heart and mostly in body, that this is probably true.

I think about these questions more generally not just in terms of veganism but in terms of other changes in my life. Facing shifts in professions, geography, money, friendships, love, and, general attitude, I have been considering a lot not just my decisions but the process itself of making decisions and bringing on life changes.

I will be starting in less than three months’ time a completely new profession. I will be living on a different coast. I will be challenging the way I consider what is important work and what is important to love. These are not necessarily difficult things to take on, but they are alarming to me as shifts that are happening seemingly without much prior knowledge or insight. I have been considering for the past several weeks any of the ways I could get more information about all of these new areas that I’m about to go into. And in every way, that has been my default and natural way of being and acting in the world. My spontaneous but fortunate foray into a vegan diet was an anomaly for me (along with only a few other decisions in my life: attending Vassar and going to Spain, the both of which along with veganism were some of the best decisions I’ve ever made for myself), which is why I have been trying to learn more about how I was able to act in those ways and to trust in myself so steadily.
These reflections help me realize that despite how strong I know my intuition to be, I have had tendencies to not trust it completely, feeling the need to augment it with information and lived experience. This has proven to in no way improve my decisions, and by the last several weeks has in every way shown to make my decision-making process more arduous and less personally gratifying.

I think it’s time I quite simply not just listened to my heart more, but trusted it. Fortunate thoughts, for one to be going from science to teaching, from Philadelphia to San Francisco, from lonely independence to a loving and true partnership.