The Beginning

Welcome to Soul Searching Vegan!

Let me start off with saying how excited I am right now to begin this journey, or more, share my journey with you. As excited as I am, I'm equally as nervous to actually speak of my ups and down, and confess my struggles and attempt to highlight my successes. In a way, I've gotten as far as I have by continually shying away from talking about my battles and hardships, and almost pretending they never happen or don't exists. Sound familiar?

I wanted to start writing about my hardships (and my success, I need to stop being so hard on myself) in hopes of pushing my soul searching to the next level. I want to finally put all my doubts to rest. I want to truly have passion for my food, love for exercise, and respect for my body. All these things are in the beginning stages, and I know the searching for happiness will be a success.

So a little about me, my name is Chelsea (Hi!) and I have recently transitioned into veganism from vegetarianism in an attempts to have a more holistic and compassionate life. I'm hoping it is a way for me to heal from the inside out. I am currently working on my master's degree in Kinesiology and am stepping down from my graduate assistant position that I had for the past year and a half. I'm also planning my wedding to a wonderful man, in process of moving back to KC, applying for jobs, all while trying to take care of me. Needless to say, it is a great time to start a blog.

I have two other loves in my life (other than my future hubby) Gelato and Simpson. Unconditional love at its finest. Unfortunately my hubby-in-waiting and my robust grey love (Gelato) are both back home in KC awaiting my return, while Simpson and I prepare for our journey east.

Besides my love for both two legged and four legged creatures, I have an intangible love for exercise. Exercise had always been my escape from the world, from feeling and emotions and any unwanted calories I'd ingested, but now I am learning to appreciate exercise for all its glory. Most of me loves exercise for all the right reasons, but still a smidge bit of me loves it for all the wrong. But in time I'm confident I'll find inner peace with it.

Along with the search for inner peace with exercise, I'm also working on a more compassionate way with food, both physically and mentally. Like I said I have recently transitioned into veganism to lead a more "cruel free" lifestyle, but also I am trying to find the strength to love and appreciate food for all the wonderfulness that it is. For the longest time I have had a strong fear and misunderstanding about food. To me, it has always been the enemy, causing self-loathing and feelings of regret. It has been an endless cycle of "starting over". I try to start the day off on a good note and "be good", but by the end of the day I would feel unexplainable fear of all the food I'd eaten for the day and telling myself I'd do better the next day only to start the cycle again. But now I am breaking the cycle and refusing to let fear and anxiety rule my days.

So here we go, let the soul searching begin.