When you’re met with defence
So, you’ve been doing your best to advocate for animals by trying to convince the people in your life not to eat or use them.
You tell them about animal sentience and about their suffering. You give them all the facts and figures about the impacts of animal industries on the environment and on human health.
You point out the ways in which their current choices are wrong and you produce lots of evidence to prove it.
And they respond as if they have been attacked. They become defensive and start scrambling for evidence (valid or not) to contradict yours -- “But studies have shown - plants have feelings too!”
They dig their heels in and they start to dislike you just a little.
Their experience of you: Pushy, self-righteous, aggressive, negative. (And you used to be so nice before you were brainwashed by that vegan mob!)
Your experience of them: Disappointing, infuriating, heartless. (How can someone you’ve always known to be a beautiful caring human, be so callous, so cold, so wilfully ignorant?) You feel shattered and distraught. These people are your family, your friends. How can you even stand to be around them anymore?
Your effectiveness as a vegan advocate at this point: Less than zero. Why on earth would they want to be like you? You’re clearly an emotional mess and probably part of a cult.
The trust and connection between you is diminished.
I’ve been there. And I bet you have too. Maybe you’re there right now? If so, give this approach a try…
Give up being right and get curious.
Don’t tell, ask.
When veganism or animals come up, ask them what they think.
Ask them how they know the things they believe to be true.
Ask them what would make them stop eating animals.
The key here is: No-one likes to be convinced to change. They want to arrive at the decision for themselves. All we need to do is ask the right questions.
We can be right or we can be effective – which do we prefer?
But wait, there’s more to it…
We know that many non-vegans feel negatively towards us because our mere presence (let alone what we say) brings to mind the conflict between their values and their actions relating to animals. Being out of alignment with their values makes them feel icky, so they don’t want to be reminded of it. To make things worse, they also assume that because we are in alignment with our values, while they clearly are not, we are judging them as morally inferior.
And let’s own it. As hard as we try, with some people, we sometimes slip into a bit of judgement.
The feeling that judgement generates in us, is contempt.
And because our feelings drive our actions, our tone, our attitude and our energy will betray us.
The exact same words and actions land very differently when driven by a feeling of contempt versus a more benign feeling such as empathy. – yes, even if we are just asking questions!
People pick up on our contempt and it induces them to feel shame.
And shame feels so awful that it triggers people to go into a survival response. It shuts down their brain’s ability to take in and process complex information. So what they give us is either fight, flight, freeze or fawn.
Many will argue (fight), or try to escape (flight) by changing the subject or physically leaving our presence.
Some will stonewall (freeze) – where they go blank and non-responsive while we talk at them. And others may attempt to appease us (fawn) by agreeing with everything we say – even though they have no intention of changing.
These last two responses can be harder to recognise if we’ve got on our soap box and forgotten to ask questions. So returning to questions is essential. If we do, it will become obvious in an instant if we’re dealing with a stonewaller or an appeaser. A stonewaller will remain frozen and an appeaser will clutch at straws to appease our judgement “I only eat free-range chicken now.”
Before we say anything else, we need to shift how we feel toward empathy – for the non-vegan and for their experience. This will allow them to start feeling safe again and their brain to start working at a higher level.
And the way we shift ourselves into empathy is to change our thoughts about them. By reminding ourselves that they are currently in distress. That shame feels terrible and they are doing their best to cope. That they need us to be on their side before they can engage in meaningful conversation again.
A simple but effective verbal tool to get us feeling like we’re on the same side is to simply use the word “we” instead of “me” or “you.” For example saying “the animals we eat” instead of “the animals you eat” – even if you haven’t eaten animals in years – makes a massive difference. It stops sounding judgy and turns the contempt level right down.
You may not have noticed it, but I’ve been using the same device throughout this article – take a look at the top half versus the bottom. Notice where I switched to using “we,” where I could have said “you”? How does this change the tone for you? Do you feel more like we’re in this together? We actually are, because I totally need this advice every bit as much as you do!
Now let’s go out and try it…