Most people know they could feel healthier, be more attractive, live a happier existence or even save their own lives―if only they made a few lifestyle changes.
But change is hard.
We like what we like, whether it's ideas about what passes for relaxation or what makes a good meal.
So, what makes a person decide to change?
For a guy I chatted with in the gym, it was simply time. For another, embarrassment was the trigger―His daughter posted an unflattering picture of him on social media. For yet another―she had her wake up call looking into the eyes of a killer...
That was my moment.
You see, though my brothers and I grew up with a cop for a dad, crime always seemed to bust its way in.
Day-one of what would become a six-week long murder trial, the guy accused killing my brother, a creep from our neighborhood, entered the courtroom, guards flanking each side of him. He, freshly groomed and wearing a tweed blazer, looked more successful and sane than he ever had―the complete opposite persona he wore while we were growing up.
He immediately caught me in his sights and his façade fell away, like an ill-fitting Halloween mask and his jaw hardened theatrically, and his eyes narrowed into slits, as he glared sharp and long. My jaw dropped, my intestines liquefied, my face stung. I caught myself on the edge of the pew, but I knew I couldn’t lash out or put the creep in his place, not because my family and press would have witnessed, but because I wouldn't have dared. Not only was I female but I was a biracial, pint-sized human, who had survived by smiling sweetly and remaining silent.
Though I wished I’d said or did SOMETHING, all I did was continue to exist at the margins―the same convenient female I was raised to be. In my mind, I let the creep win. I had backed down and turned away, which in that moment and for years following―I hated myself for.
Wincing against the stare of the (accused) killer, I slumped under a fluorescent glare, squirmed on a hard pew and began to wonder: DID I have to stand stupidly where I'd been left and continue to let life blow me away?
Against all odds, in the most unlikely of places, there started to burn the tiniest spark of possibility―though it would take years to extinguish the wildfire that had been childhood.
So, that was my moment―though it would take many ah-has and oh-never-minds, before I’d develop the agency to actually change my responses and choices that would add up to the kind of life I liked, they eventually I did. After years of good counsel, hypnosis, meditation, yoga and, oh yeah, I got a bachelor's degree, I soon fashioned myself into a what-the-hell, let’s-give-it-a-whirl kind of girl; a wild green soulful―experimenter!
Which is exactly what this website is―an experiment, with a touch of rebellion, in order to buck the status quo, to choose greener food, and with soulful practices create new habits―which for us, have always become stories about love.
Thank you for reading and welcome! Together we can be healthier, happier and love deeper!
Kathryn, one wild green soul. Thank you for joining me!
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