Detangle by Kinjal

Detangle with Shreya Ghodawat

• Buzzsprout • Season 5 • Episode 7

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What if the fastest way to move people on climate isn’t another chart, but a story that makes them feel? We sit down with sustainability strategist and climate advocate Shreya Ghodawat to trace how empathy, identity, and everyday choices can shift the future; starting inside each of us.

Shreya’s journey begins with animals as neighbours and monsoon floods as a seasonal reality, then pivots on a single lecture that reframed dairy as marketing rather than nutrition. That insight sent her into deep research and on-the-ground visits that exposed industry practices many of us never see. From there, we dig into the psychology: why statistics can numb us, how relatable visuals and rescue stories cut through, and how local impacts-heat, pollution, drought-turn distant warnings into urgent, personal stakes.

We explore sustainability as an inner shift that naturally reshapes what we buy and wear. Think bamboo over polyester, cruelty-free beauty, organic or reusable period care, and a return to local seasonal food that’s better for our bodies and communities. Shreya breaks down defensiveness around change; how culture, identity, and cognitive dissonance fuel resistance, and offers a gentler path forward rooted in empathy, not shame. The frame flips from sacrifice to abundance: stepping away from leather and ghee doesn’t erase joy; it opens room for pride in pineapple or mushroom leather and plant-forward comfort foods we’ve loved for generations.

Parents and educators will find practical ideas for raising empathy without fear: trade zoos for parks, choose ethical wildlife experiences, and use immersive tools that show animals in their habitats. We also talk about using social media with discernment, curating for learning and connection while resisting trends that prey on insecurity, and building a mental first aid box of loved ones, nature, movement, and yes, the occasional joyful vegan dessert.

If you’ve felt eco-anxious, this conversation offers agency. If you’ve felt judged, it offers grace. Subscribe, share with someone who’s on the fence, and leave a review with the one change you’re ready to make this week. Let’s move from numbers to stories; and from stories to action.

Follow on Instagram @detangle_by_kinjal

SPEAKER_01:

Welcome to Detangle, where we untangle the complexities of life one conversation at a time. I'm your host, Dr. Kinjalgur, a psychologist and a writer. Today I'm joined by Shriya Godavat. Shriya is a sustainability strategist, a climate advocate, and a podcaster herself. But more than titles, what really stands out to me about her work is how deeply personal her approach to sustainability is. Shriya speaks about the environment, animals, and conscious living in a way that feels emotional, reflective, and really rooted in everyday life. In this conversation, we're going to explore sustainability through a psychological lens, how our choices shape our minds, how empathy is built, and how caring for the planet can also be a way of caring for ourselves. Thank you so much for joining me on this podcast, Shreya. Welcome to Retangle. Thank you so much for having me. I'm so excited to have this conversation with you. Well, let's dive right in. To begin with, I'd love to go back to the start. What was your personal turning point emotionally, psychologically? You're so young. What nudged you towards sustainability and conscious living?

SPEAKER_00:

Wow. Um, I don't think there was one particular moment. I think it all snowballed. Uh, my turning point probably started much earlier than I realized. I grew up in a really small town in India, um, on the outskirts of Kolhapur. But I grew up surrounded by animals in nature. Animals, you know, were not this abstract idea. They were just part of everyday life, whether, you know, it's cows, dogs, birds, donkeys, monkeys, peacocks. I saw them, you know, I saw them around in my surrounding. We lived alongside them. You notice their moods, their presence. Uh, the only way you find a way to protect something is once you respect it and you have that affinity towards it. And I think that's what um made me an environmentalist even before I knew what that word meant. Um, when you grow up that close to nature, you don't see nature as commodity, you don't see animals as commodity, you just you know see them as part of who you are. So that kind of care always um stayed with me. And growing up in Kolhapur, I think there's um there was this infamous thing that used to happen almost every monsoon season, which is the floods. And you can see pictures online that most of the towns around the districts around used to be underwater, submerged underwater. Houses were covered, there were crocodiles in people's houses. Um, it was just a regular phenomena that everyone would just accept as normal. And the reason it stayed with me is because I had to cross a bridge, an overwater bridge to go to school, and every monsoon season, that bridge was completely submerged underwater. And I didn't know back then that, you know, this is what climate change meant, that these are the um extreme impacts of weather events that we talk about now. Uh, but I just knew there was a sense of, you know, something is not right. Like, why is nature reacting this way? And it wasn't until much, much later when I was studying um sociology in university, uh, I was very drawn to social injustice movements. I was always really drawn to, you know, how to fix what's what's wrong, including whether it's feminism, um, any any social justice movement that's ever happened. I was always very drawn to it. So I was studying sociology, and um there was this lecture on food systems, and my professor was talking about how um a lot of what we eat today is based on marketing and propaganda and what industries wanted to sell us as healthy. Obviously, now we've started questioning and saying, let's read nutrition labels, you know, let's understand consumers have taken that. But back in the day, we were just uh eating and consuming whatever was sold to us, whatever, you know, TV ads sold to us. So she um this professor reframed everything for me when she said that milk is the biggest scam advertise uh advertising scam that you know there is. And I was like, What do you mean? She said, think about it. Cows, cows don't give milk, they produce milk because they're mothers, and that milk is meant for calves, and humans are the only species in the world that drink milk of another species. You won't see a cat drink milk from a dog, you don't see a giraffe drink milk from an elephant. So she's like, the fact that we do that, it was sold to us. Um and that was that turning point that made me question everything. I couldn't stop researching. I uh visited over 80 Gosh Alas when I came back to India. I read so many books, I saw so many documentaries. And once I understood how the dairy industry functions, um, I've seen the separation of calves, I've seen the exploitation, I was like, that's it. Like I'm gen, I was raised vegetarian, but what I'm doing is not ethical. And that's how I think my journey began. Um, it it was it was inevitable.

SPEAKER_01:

Wow. It also reminds me of a moment when my babies were really, really tiny. And I had spoken to their pediatrician and asked them, asked him, uh, you know, what is the minimum amount of milk they should consume to be healthy babies? And he had told me there is no minimum. I can give you a maximum because this is really bad for them. And that changed my perspective also. I said, Oh, we've just been raised, you know, being told that milk is good, but there is a side of milk which is not natural at all for our consumption.

SPEAKER_00:

Exactly. And we're not, you know, we're not told this that we only need milk um when we were when we were young, when we were babies. After that, we actually grow uh lactose intolerant to milk, which is why, you know, I mean it shows up as swelling, bloating, acne, um, sensitivity, redness. We don't call that lactose intolerant, but it is forms of lactose intolerant to any other milk than a mother's milk. So you're so right about that.

SPEAKER_01:

True. It also reminds me of something I read recently. Uh, we I do a lot of work in the field of people trying to find their passion and you know, trying to do something to change the world. And there was a beautiful podcast in which they discussed that the world already has a to-do list. There are things we really need to fix, start with that. And what you're saying, what you saw around yourself as you grew up, that was your local to-do list. These things needed to be taken care of. These were the red flags, they needed to be noticed. And I think if we all start noticing this just around us, we all have our work cut out. You know, we all have things to do.

SPEAKER_00:

Absolutely. And it's that, I think, is just being more intentional and being more mindful of where you are, what you see, what you've been told, and just maybe questioning it and seeing if there's a better way of doing it.

SPEAKER_01:

So it also brings me to the fact that whenever we talk about sustainability, it's often framed as data, numbers, urgency, fear. But I think you bring a lot of positive emotion into it. So tell me, what do you think the role of emotion is in sustainability?

SPEAKER_00:

I think it's everything. There's such coldness attached to the way we talk about climate change, the way we talk about sustainability. And it doesn't move people. We're hardwired for stories. I think we're hardwired for feelings. Which is why I think when um we talk about atrocities and it's discussed in numbers, you could talk about millions of people dying, but sometimes the impact that one person's story has, that hey, you know, you know, she was a student and she was these many years old, and these were her dreams and aspirations, that makes you stop and wonder. That makes you form that connection with that person that, oh my God, you know, she was just someone like me who lost her life to this um, you know, disaster war, whatever that might be. So there's that connection. I think it's the same in the animal rights movement that one pig's story, maybe one pig was saved from a rescue farm. Um, we kill millions of pigs every year for food. But you know, if there's that one rescue story that stands out to you, I think that'll lead to a diet shift faster than you know me just throwing statistics your way. Um, the most amount of impact that you would have is me um showing you a visual of a polar bear that's tired that's starving, floating on ice, versus me telling you that 13% of Arctic ice is uh melting. True. You know, it's it's that we we relate to stories, we relate to visuals. Um there is that psychic numbing. It's the I think there's this concept of psychic numbing that happens when numbers um grow bigger and bigger. We stop processing it because we it's detached to us, it's something that we can't relate to. So when someone compares it to, hey, you know, we're burning Amazon the size of California, we're burning, you know, eating this burger is equivalent to taking like 400 showers, you almost need data that is relatable in your head. Exactly. That, you know, um uh makes you relate to the problem, and that's when you know how to take action. Because if something feels too big for you and too disconnect for disconnect it from you, you're not gonna act on it. And um the same thing happens with me. I got into this climate space because I relate to what was happening in my neighborhood. It was immediate. It's not a future thing, it's happening in my town, in my city, where I grew up right now. It's not gonna happen 10 years later, we're seeing the impacts of air pollution, we're seeing the impacts of heat waves, droughts right now. And you know summer's gonna come, it's gonna be hotter than ever. These are facts that we live with. At least in the global south, this is our lived reality. So we have to relate it to livelihoods, we have to relate it to um problems in our neighborhood and in our vicinity and to people who are close to us. That's how I think you change behavior, that's how you get people to care and act. If you talk about it as something that's distance is gonna happen in the future and it's happening in the Arctic and it's 20 years away, no one's gonna want to act.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, people feel we're not impacted immediately. There was such a beautiful line which had come up during the wildfires recently. That a wildfire, something we saw in the news at one point, then they came in our mobile phones as reels, and now we are the ones shooting them. So it's getting real, it's getting closer. We can feel the heat.

SPEAKER_00:

Absolutely, and that's you know, that's scary. But um I I also don't want fear to paralyze people because there's so much to be done and there's so much beautiful work happening in this space that I also don't want that fear um to make us lose hope saying it's too late because it's it's really not. Right.

SPEAKER_01:

So, what you're basically saying is that sustainability is more a psychological shift than a lifestyle shift.

SPEAKER_00:

Absolutely. I think it's a bit of both because when you think about it from a psychological point of view, something inside you has to shift first. That's when your outside reality matches to it. You have to almost view the world differently. And there's that lens that happened with me when I went vegan, and um there was that um eye-opening moment that I told you about them like, oh, cows are not milk-making machines, they're mothers. Uh, I started seeing every animal product the same way. So now when I look at a silk sari, it's not um it's not something that's beautiful to me because I know that it takes hundreds and thousands of silkworms that are boiled alive to make that piece of fabric. So when I um I'm buying something and I, you know, see that there's silk in it, I'll I'll all I'll immediately put it down. When I see wool, I've been to wool factories and wool farms um in New Zealand. So I know how where wool comes from and how it's made. So when you start seeing things um the way they in terms of how they're made and who's harmed behind it and who's not harmed behind it, I think you start questioning uh your consumption pattern. So it's that almost a psychological internal shift that happens first that reflects on what you choose to buy and who you choose to be. And that questioning, I think that's the most intentional way of living. Because as we grow up, we just do what we're told to do. You know, we never question it. Why am I using this? Why am I wearing it? Why am I eating it? But when that shift happens internally, that hey, I'm gonna be more mindful, I'm gonna be more conscious, and I want to be more sustainable because obviously it also feels good to my body. What am I putting in? The clothes that we wear, right? I didn't know polyester gym wear was so bad for women's health that it's affecting our hormones. We sweat in it, we wear these, you know, cheap polyester clothing, we wear fast fashion brands, but minus the human rights cost of it, it's also like a very deep personal health cost for us. So when you start living in that better, living in a better way, even for yourself, begins with that, you know, self-love that hey, sustainability, I'm not just doing this because it's good for the environment, it's actually good for me. So when it starts feeling good, I think that psychological shift starts reflecting into a lifestyle shift and it becomes a way of living that's so beautiful. It doesn't take anything away, it just adds more to your life.

SPEAKER_01:

Super. I also think that there's been a lot of um, you know, there's a very strong relationship that we've had with animals in terms of dominance, entitlement, disconnection. But from what you say, I feel like if people get more sustainable in their daily choices, it'll expand their capacity to feel for animals and even get more empathetic.

SPEAKER_00:

100%. I think what makes us human is empathy. Every time, uh I think that's how we were taught as kids as well. Like, imagine how someone would feel if we hurt someone we were always told. You know, how would that be where you put yourself in someone else's shoes? That's the basis of empathy. And that's what we have to do with animals. Sure, they can't speak, but it's not like they don't convey what we're doing to them. Animals will always scream. You can hear them cry, you can hear them whelp. And those are, you know, most of the factory farming footages that you see, they will scream for mercy. It's just that we we don't listen to those uh to those sounds. Uh, but it's just about understanding that how would we feel if we were in that position, if we were caged our whole lives, if you know if we were bred as food on someone's plate for 10 minutes. And I think about that um in the dairy industry, especially because cows are pregnant exactly as long as human mothers are. Cows are pregnant for nine months, human mothers are pregnant for nine months, they go through the same process. So imagine if your baby was taken away the second your baby was born because someone else had to, you know, steal your milk. Um, so when you empathize in that way, I think you realize that, hey, no, you know, I don't want to live this way because I wouldn't want that done to me or my children. And that's that's the basis of connection. I think that's the basis of love.

SPEAKER_01:

And I think it's our biggest power, no, the power of choice. We can always make a better choice.

SPEAKER_00:

And as humans, you know, we that's what sets us apart. That we can make better choices, that you know, we can learn, we have access to knowledge and we can feel. But uh, I think love about everything else, love above everything else, and we need to bring more emotions into this movement, whether it's it's joy and it's peace and it's um, you know, hope, but love and empathy are the heart of it for sure.

SPEAKER_01:

But don't you feel a lot of people resist these conversations defensively? I mean, I've tried getting into these myself. I'm an animal rights not activist, I would say, but at least I live my life in a more aware way. I don't use any animal product as far as I can help it. But there's a lot of resistance, there's a lot of defense in these conversations. What do you think is driving it? Is it habit, fear, guilt, or just availability of these products in the market?

SPEAKER_00:

It's uh it's definitely not um fear of what's available, what's not, and I think that defense is justified. Because when we question how we've been consuming and using animal products, it makes you question your entire history, your culture, your conditioning, how you were raised. That's an attack. That's an attack, and it if it's making you re-question and rethink everything, it's very uncomfortable for a lot of people. And I've been through that. As I I told you, I was raised vegetarian, I come from a gen family, but we've always bought leather, we've always, you know, worn silk clothing at weddings. We never questioned it. So when I started questioning it, it was uncomfortable for a lot of people around me that hey, you know, why are you making us change our lifestyle the way that we were raised? We did it in the past, we've always done it this way. You're shaking that sense of comfort, and in any movement, that's going to be uncomfortable. That's going to be uneasy. That's gonna make us want or put our walls up saying, but I don't want to change anything about the way that I've been raised. I don't want to question this and I don't want to make put myself through that inconvenience to change everything that I've been feeling. And I I did a deep dive on this. I really wanted to understand why people get defensive uh, you know, when you talk about veganism, but it it has a lot to do with guilt, identity, culture, and psychology. Um, because you're also questioning that cognitive dissonance that hey, I'm a kind person, I'm a good person, I love animals, but at the same time, you're telling them that the choices that you're making is actually humming and killing animals. And that's a that's a dissonance that not a lot of people want to sit with.

unknown:

Correct.

SPEAKER_00:

So it's almost us holding up a mirror saying that, you know, hey, this is wrong. Um maybe there's better there's a better way of doing it. Maybe you know there's a better way of showing them the truth, maybe there's a better way of, you know, bringing them into the movement. But um it's it's habits and ideologies that we've inherited. And so when you expose those systems, it feels like an attack on our entire reality itself. That did everything, I believe, was a lie. I mean it is, but do we want to go down that path where we question it? It's it's a it's a beautiful light at the end of the tunnel when you do cross that tunnel and when you do come out of it on the better side, but you have to be willing to go on that journey. So I think that's why a lot of people um get defensive. They're not protecting the ideology, they're actually just um protecting their identity.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, and this can be a major identity crisis. I mean, imagine believing that you're a kind person and then realizing that you know the absence of compassion is actually not allowing you to be a kind person. It can be quite earth-shattering.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, absolutely. And I think uh if we find a way to work around that, we might be able to push further than we have so far. It's just about understanding people, and it's about putting, again, that empathy, putting yourself in those shoes saying, hey, I wasn't always like this. I did unsustainable things, I did uh I use animal products. So, what was the journey like for me? And how would I want someone to talk to me? And that's not by attack, it's not by shaming them, um, placing guilt on them, it's not by putting them down. If you can relate to them and level with them, I think we might be able to um come further than we have.

SPEAKER_01:

True. Let me ask you something purely psychological now. There are two different kinds of people. Let me just make two clear uh groups. Uh, youngsters who feel climate anxiety versus those who feel that they are empowered enough to act. What do you notice about the mental health of these people? Is any one group doing better than the other?

SPEAKER_00:

I wouldn't say there's one group doing better than the other, but of course I understand there's someone, you know, who's young and someone who's at the forefront of this movement. It's a lot of information to sit with. There's a lot of heaviness, there's a lot of um data, numbers, grief to sit with and deal with. Um, and sometimes it feels like this is our future at stake, and whatever is happening, a lot of it also feels outside of our control because there's world leaders that are making this decision on our behalf, and we have no say in it. So we see this destruction happen in in real time. And sometimes you feel like what you're doing is not enough, but at on the other side of it, it's like, what choice do we have? We have to keep fighting, we have to keep um doing whatever we can in our capacity with the voices that we have to um to protect what we love, whatever little of it we can. But there is that, and there is um there's also this term, right? Eco anxiety. We do have a lot of eco-anxiety as Gen Zs, as millennials um uh growing up. Maybe people who are older than us have a lot more power, have a lot more say in global policies and global um actions that countries are taking, but um our our voices are not unheard, and they're most definitely not unimportant to these conversations. So there are there are, of course, two groups of people, but you need everyone. I know there are a lot of older people who also care, who've paved the way. Um, they have been the torchbearers of this movement, and you also see a lot of action ground up, which gives me a lot of hope. I've been to a lot of cops, um, conference of parties, which is the biggest climate conference by uh United Nations, that happens every yeah. And the most intense energy that you feel, the most infection energy that you feel is outside of the rooms where people are protesting, where people, you know, you know, young people get together, and there's um there's those conversations that are happening. That community gives me so much more energy than any discussion that's happening in the boardroom, even though that's what's gonna shape the agenda. But um there's a lot of passion, and there's a there's a lot of um hope, um, a lot of energy and all the soul that people put into this movement, and it it um The the only word I can come up with is infectious. It really inspires you to do more and do better.

SPEAKER_01:

I hear you. I mean, I completely hear you because what happens inside and outside is equally important. Because the ones who are inside, you know, making the policy are also listening. They also have their ears to the ground. They also know what's happening outside. And unless that noise is made, it will never be heard.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. Maybe they don't they don't listen as much as they need to. But uh we just have to be louder because we've been trying so hard to have a concrete um plan on ending fossil fuels, um, ending the support to fossil fuels. But um I hope we get there sooner than later. Fingers crossed.

unknown:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

I also feel that uh this world, I mean, this world of social media, media, uh hyper-awareness has put us in a state of emotional dysregulation. The world is feeling so overwhelming. But do you think making even small sustainable choices, you know, like what we eat, what we buy, like you said, all our choices, this can give us some sense of agency.

SPEAKER_00:

That's exactly what it is. And we make hundred different choices every day, right? We make so many different choices every day. There is a sense of agency, and it's in what you buy, what you consume, what you eat, what you spend time on. Um, your attention is currency, your money is currency, uh, your lifestyle is currency. Everything is a vote for the kind of world that you want to live in every single day. You decide what you want to ship. And I think as consumers, we underestimate how much power we have. You buy from an ethical brand, a woman-owned brand that pays its workers fairly. And when you support a brand like that, you're saying that, hey, I want you to exist and I want you to grow. When you divert that money from a fast-fashioned brand where you know the CEO is making billions and trillions, and the wage gap between him and his um a worker working in his garment factory is so huge. Um, but when you're supporting the right brand, you're giving them, you're encouraging that to grow and you're putting more of that out in the world. That's why I mentioned mindfulness and intentionality. When you question that, hey, I'm gonna buy from a vegan, cruelty-free uh beauty brand, I'm going to support a sustainable fashion brand, I'm going to buy my um salads or herbs or microgreens from a local farmer. I'm, you know, gonna try to eat as much farm to table as possible. And in India, we have the privilege of doing that. I'm gonna eat local seasonal fruits. I'm not gonna eat imported fruits. I'm gonna, you know, find out exactly what's being grown in this month of January, February, what is local to us, what is seasonal to us, what is, you know, native um to where we grew up. And I'm gonna just, you know, consume more of that. That's power. And those are choices we can make really easily. And that agency, as you mentioned, does give us that um sense of control. And that's the joy, that's the joy of making these life, uh, you know, these lifestyle changes, that you you get to make the best decisions as to what is good for me. And it's also good for your health. It's not just it's sustainable because, oh, you know, it's eco-friendly and I'm doing something for the planet. No, everything that is sustainable, that is eco-friendly, that is um uh when that is done being more mindfully and intentionally, it's also good for you. Switching to um, as I told you, from polyester clothing to like bamboo clothing is good for your body. Switching to a non-toxic switching from a toxic period pad that are so many chemicals to a bamboo, to a bag degradable one, an organic cotton one, um, a reusable one, that's also better for your period hygiene. Um, so there's so many different choices that we can make on a daily basis where we know these choices just impact more than the planet. They will change, they will rewire your entire system first. And maybe that's the most selfish reason to be sustainable is because it's good for you. Just start there.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, and even then, sustainability so often gets framed as sacrifice, doesn't it? I mean, a lot of people say, Oh, you've given up leather. But we need to reframe this psychologically so people feel that this is abundance and alignment, this is self-care, like you said, this is not loss.

SPEAKER_00:

100%. And I I couldn't agree more because you know, people put that as, oh, I can't, I can't use leather and I can't drink milk and I can't do that. But I'm like, anything that you have to give up makes space for so many other beautiful things to fall in. But that identity alignment that happens, that I'm not a person who will buy something in the name of luxury that's actually abuse and exploitation and comes from the soul of another being. And I I love that. The fact that I don't buy from luxury brands anymore and I don't need um status symbols to make me feel like I'm enough. That was an identity shift that I had to come to terms with. I would rather never step into those stores again than be someone walking around carrying um a calf skin bag that I know was made from a three-month-old calf. Um I'm not, you know, I'm not okay with that anymore. That's not who I am anymore. So there's never been about sacrifice for me because I'm like, that's a that's a Shreya that I have let go of. That's, you know, a Shreya that existed 15 years ago who didn't know better. And I'm not gonna um put her down because, you know, she was just acting out of um acting based on whatever information she was gathering from her environment. But now that I've done the research and I know exactly where that bag came from, and I know that I I don't want to harm a calf on my behalf, I'm gonna wear a pineapple skin bag, I'm gonna wear a mushroom, a bag made of mushroom leather, I'm gonna wear a bag made from banana leather. There's so many alternatives, even cotton, denim, metal. There's um endless options for you to wear um cruelty-free and feel proud of doing that. So when you attach that sense of pride that, hey, I'm finally aligning my ethics and my values into my lifestyle choices, I think you start being really proud of those choices. And that reflects, that doesn't feel like sacrifice, it will feel like joy.

SPEAKER_01:

True. I think it's also very important that we cultivate this empathy in the next generation. But tell me, do you have any ideas? How can parents, educators, or anybody who's responsible for a younger person help build empathy for the planet, but without using fear and shame?

SPEAKER_00:

I think the first thing I would say is actually just go spend more time in nature, go on hikes, go on, you know, trips where nature's at the forefront, center, hero of those trips because you understand what your what you want to protect and what is at stake. Imagine a holiday without the ocean, without the beach, without the mountains, you know, without the greenery. We travel to places to see nature. We travel to places to see animals, right? In and the best way of doing that is in their own habitat. So the the deeper connection that children have with nature, with the outside world, the um faster and the deeper their connection will be to protecting it. And the biggest disconnect that I see now is that we spend so much time in cities, we spend so much time disconnected um from this world that also makes us feel better. Imagine bird song. Like I grew up listening to birds singing outside. Now people say that it's it's psychological, it's it's a therapeutic tool. Like, yeah, but I never thought of it as therapy.

SPEAKER_01:

We just woke up listening to bird songs. It was morning for us.

SPEAKER_00:

Exactly, it was morning for us, and now um living in Bombay, I don't get that anymore. But we have bird song in our Spotify playlist and all of that, these artificial roses um embodying that. But um, now we know bird song was therapy. You know that sunlight is really good for you, you know that walking barefoot on grass is really good for you. Now we call that grounding and we call it all of these things, but you know water is healing, you know, sunlight is healing, you know animals are healing. That is why we're not separate from nature, and when you realize that and when you want to rebuild that bond and intersect and integrate yourself in nature as not someone who's separate from it, but someone who's one with it, you will find that connection and you will find that desire, that empathy to want to protect it. Super. So I think my number one tip would be take your children out to parks, not to zoos, not where animals are caved, not where animals are enslaved, because you don't want to teach them that that is a form of entertainment, that you know they need to be behind bars for you to learn something about them. But uh use ethical tools, go on ethical safaris, or use even AR, VR, AI to just teach them about animals and how beautiful they are. I think just start there.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, that's a great starting point. Thank you for that one. Uh Shriya, I see you're using a lot of social media to get your word across to a critical number of people. Tell me, how do you balance using digital platforms for advocacy? I mean, I'm sure you get a lot of rate cycles or eco-guilt, but how can we all start using social media to get this message across more effectively?

SPEAKER_00:

I realize that social media is such an impactful and powerful tool because that's where people are at. You've got to reach people where they're at. So you could be talking across different platforms, but if everyone's spending a lot more time on their phones, I realized that to bring about awareness, to talk more about these issues, I had to I had to bring the content to uh you know where people were actually seeing it. So it's been um it's been an incredible journey. I was really camera shy. I didn't think I could ever create content, but when I moved back and I realized there were so many questions around sustainability, around veganism, I knew I had to do something. Um now obviously that you you see that sense of comfort, familiarity with the tools, with the with the apps and with social media platforms and stuff, and I wouldn't have it any other way. But it takes um a lot of I think self-discipline to not engage. Um with hate comments, it takes a lot of self-discipline to not go down the rabbit hole where you're yourself constantly consuming content. So if it means if it's better for your mental health to follow the right accounts, to be really mindful in terms of who you're following, what you're following, um, how's that making you feel? Is it helping you? Is it giving you information? Is it make making you a better person? Or um is someone just putting something up to make you feel like you're not enough, like you're inadequate? And I think I started filtering all that out that I'm not here to buy more, I'm not here to consume more, I'm not here to follow uh mini trends that happen with the whole, you know, Labubu thing and all these like small consumption trends that you saw. I'm like, this does not, there's no way I'm participating in this just because it looks cool now. You're just amassing products and um it's gonna go out of trend sooner than it came. So, you know, stuff like that. You just have to be mindful of that. Can I can I just stand out from this? Do I need it? What is it? Why is it trying to um what insecurity is it trying to bring up? And am I still who I am without that product? So I think just a lot of um self-reflection that's needed when you're on social media, that everyone's putting up their best version, you don't know anything about their lives, a lot of it could be a complete lie. So just be discerning that what you have is enough. Social media has just made us feel like everyone is living a better life than you are, and that's not true. So, you know, just use that platform the way it's meant to. Form connections, reach out to the right people, let it amplify your work, let it help you in um any good that you're trying to do. So use it what it's meant to, which is connection, um, which is finding like-minded people, which is finding in the right information, and you know, just get an overview and just tap out. That's it.

SPEAKER_01:

Fabulous. I love the word discerning here. I think all of us just need to be a little more discerning and we should be a little safer online with that. Um, let me change the pace here, Shriya. Let's get into a rapid fire segment. I want you to answer real quick, no second thoughts, alright? Okay. Your favorite book.

SPEAKER_00:

Oh, um, what I'm reading right now, it's called Total Fashion Ethics by um Emma Hackinson. Okay, your favorite movie character. Umcha. There's this big uh there's this movie called Okcha. I would I'm not gonna say more, just go watch it. It's beautiful. Oh, lovely. I should look this one out. Your biggest pet peeves. Uh oh, um, I would say closed-mindedness when um someone's just not open to hearing um another opinion. Fair.

SPEAKER_01:

The one thing that you believed in but no longer do.

SPEAKER_00:

Uh the dairy industry. That believing that being vegetarian was being ethical, once you know what happens, um you will no longer believe that being vegetarian is ethical. You will want to be vegan. Okay, your most prized possession. Uh oh my god. Uh, because of the work that I do, I would say my phone, but that sounds like a really super answer. But it's where I work, it's where I upload my content, it's how I record, it's how I do everything. So um, probably that.

SPEAKER_01:

Okay. Well, let me take you to the next segment, which is my favorite. It's a question I asked, I asked all my guests, and I think it's the answers that I've been collecting through this question is what makes me feel very, very happy. Oh, we all know of a physical first aid box, the one that we keep for our uh, you know, daily issues when we have some cuts and bruises, painkillers, band-aids, etc., what we put in it. But if you were to keep a mental first aid box for those days when you know you need a little emotional pick-me-up and just a little taking care of, what would you keep in your personal mental first aid box?

SPEAKER_00:

People that people who love you in a way that just makes you feel seen. There's no filters, there's no um censoring, there's no second guessing it, you know, just people who make you feel loved. I think that's number one. Um, my friends have done way more therapy for me than my actual therapist, so I think that um walks in nature, as I said, just any uh proximity you have to to nature, to animals, um, it will heal you. Um exercise, any like any if I could put exercising, just movement. It could be dancing, it could be swimming, it could be pilates, it would be aerial yoga, anything. Just move um and it'll make your it'll it'll help lift your mood up in any situation. Um, I think these three, just dogs, dogs, cute animal videos, um, walking nature, and people that you love. That's all you need.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, true. I think that's a very generic first aid box which can work for almost anyone. It's beautiful.

SPEAKER_00:

I would also put a vegan dessert in there. So it like it always helps. Like just that I I dive into this cube of vegan and sugar-free pistachio gelato from minus 30, and I think that also cures my sorrows faster than anything else.

SPEAKER_01:

So also that we always need that one little thing which doesn't demand anything, just gives. Okay, Stringa, before we come to an end of the conversation, I always leave the floor open to my guest. Is there any question you want to ask me as a psychologist?

SPEAKER_00:

Oh, um, I think that probably the same question that you asked me in terms of why do people get defensive when all vegans are trying to do um is save animals. It's the only social justice movement where the victims can't speak up for themselves. If you look at any social justice movement, whether um feminism, women's rights, um, women could still, you know, protest. Um when we did, when there was Black Lives Matter um movement, um there were people who are representative of that movement. Um, same with LGBTQ rights. But animal rights is the only movement where the victims can't speak for themselves, which is why like our word, our work becomes so difficult. Um, and we find different ways of doing it, but there's almost this wall that goes up the second you tell people, uh, this the second you start talking about dairy, especially in India. And I get it, I get the culture, I get the identity um aspect of it. How do we do better as people who care about animals to get other people to start caring about them the way that we do?

SPEAKER_01:

I think a lot of data which is available for us to consume is also creating an issue in this sense. I have seen so many videos talking about how all this is a conspiracy theory. How being vegan is just about showing off that you're different. You know, simple things, but when they're attacked in such a strong manner online, people who want to stay happily in their zone of consuming animal products then feel very comforted that, oh yeah, these people are just talking about some things which don't matter, they just want to be different, they just want to show that they are better than the rest of us. So this kind of content needs to be curtailed, this kind of content needs to be questioned, and we need to tell people that it's alright for whatever choices you're making, but we being vegan or taking care of animals or at least not harming them is natural. This is not the unnatural thing. So, what has technically happened is everything else has been touted as natural, right? Whatever we've been doing all this time, yeah, like you said, even advertising. We thought bonwita was healthy when we were growing up. I mean, we were told to drink bonbita because it made you feel better, healthier, stronger, taller, whatever. So that's the same kind of advertisement which is going on and on and on now because now you have milk and then you have fortified milk, and then you have cow's milk, and then you have buffalo's milk, and then this, you know, gear cow's milk, and everything is better than the one that you had last. So you need to tell people that this kind of advertising has to come with a caveat. I think everything which is animal-based should have a red dot on it. We don't just need to put a red dot on uh products which are meat, but we can put a red dot on milk products also. Visually, we're not doing enough. And I think as a species, we are very, very visual. So when somebody sees a milk product and says, Oh, this is green, now green means a green flag. A red is technically the red flag, is what we have been accustomed to. So when you see green everywhere, you feel it's good, it's you know, it's healthy, it's good, it's something I need to do for myself. And then, of course, the eight-old uh saying, I don't say if it didn't harm us then, why will it harm us now? Yeah, and then I've seen people per you know kind of perpetrate videos which say that if you don't kill the cows, they're going to overrun humans. And so it's important, it's important to cull them, but you're breeding them, so you have to stop breeding them. Let nature take its course, right? Let them live the natural life that they are meant to live. Let them die of a natural death, even by a predator, is okay. You don't need to save a cow from a leopard, but you need to save a cow from a human. So these are not the stories that are coming out, which is why people get defensive, saying everything we've done till now was so natural. People think they're more grounded and they're more real if they're consuming all the things that their grandparents did. So that naturally was a million.

SPEAKER_00:

I mean, that was inherently plant-based. That was uh very much a plant for our diet. Um, and that's what's happened because even the industrialization of milk happened post-colonization. Um they needed yogurt, cheese, um, leather, and that's how you know the entire industry was set up the way it was, because we operated very differently. Um, in our uh uh in our history, in our you know, the way that it was that we were culturally, we were quite sustainable because if you told our grandmothers about zero waste, circular economy, not having disposable uh stuff, you know, that's how they lived. They didn't need anyone to teach them sustainability. So, same thing with plant forward diets that we used to have a lot of millets, we used to have a lot of plant forward foods. Um, and it's changed now. So it's all literally like going back to how we used to consume.

SPEAKER_01:

And these stories are the ones that need to take center stage. That we're not doing something fantastical, we're doing something normal.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, and that's what I realized like going vegan, that it your you can have your idli and dosas minus the ghi, you can have your bhil, panipuri, you can have rajma, chaval, you can have all of these things that are vegan. All your sabzis, roties, you know, minus the the cream and the dairy that we add to it now, they were plant based. They were predominantly plant based. So I think just bringing that and our relationship with animals was also uh there are books about it, you know, that religion centered around how there's life and God in every living being. So I think just um that's what it's about, and that's what veganism is. It's not a new concept. It was a truest definition of Shakahari, because it's anything that comes from a plant. That was Shakahari. So it's just about re-embracing that and knowing that we were always the kind of people that were respectful, caring, um, of animals, and we just need to bring that back. That's it.

SPEAKER_01:

Super. I think one of the most important takeaways for me in this conversation is that we're not doing something which is completely out of the blue. We're not doing something which has never been done before. We are just simply doing something which we've been doing for generations. We took a little break from it. We went wayward. We just need to come back to what we were doing earlier. And I also love the fact that there's, you know, there's a speed with which you speak. I think the generation that you come from is actually in a hurry to kind of correct the things that the previous generations have been messing up with. So I notice a lot of my podcasts are heard on 2x speed. You know, a lot of my listeners will say, Oh, I'm going to put this on 2x and then just finish it. But I'm sure this is going to be one podcast where people don't need to listen on 2x speed because you have been speaking with an intensity and a fervor, which is, you know, it's urgent. It's just do it. Like change it now. Don't wait for tomorrow to change something. And I love that. I love the urgency that comes in, you know, with this simple thing, like small changes, but do it now. Don't wait to do it tomorrow, or then it will be too late. Right now, I think we still have you know the time and space to make the correct changes. So thank you so much, Shriya, for being on the show, for bringing in so much insight and for doing all that you do for the environment, all the very best and more power to you.

SPEAKER_00:

Thank you so much for having me, and thank you so much for giving spaces to conversations like this because that is how um the movement grows, that is how awareness grows, and that is how you know we become kinder, more empathetic people. And like you said, it's not about learning something new or doing something new, it's just remembering. It's it's only about remembering and going back to who we used to be in the best way possible, with with more awareness, with more um intentionality and mindfulness. That um those are, I think, three words that kept coming back for me throughout this conversation. Um, and we don't have that much time, but more than us, the animals don't have that much time as we're speaking, um, they are losing their lives. So everything that we do, it is, you know, for them at the end of the day. They don't deserve to have their entire lifetime um served up as a 10-minute meal. So if we can find that connection to them, I think that's the only thing that I would urge people to do. We have it in us, we are part of nature, they are us, and we'd want to be treated the way um um we would want to treat them the way we'd want to be treated. So once we find that empathy and we find that love for them, there is no going back. So I I know we have it in our hearts. It's it's just about finding it.

SPEAKER_01:

Absolutely. And let's all do it together. Thank you so much once again, and wishing you all the best. You too. Thank you so much.

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