Ella Magers, MSW:

Hey, Colleen, I’m so happy you’re here.

Colleen Patrick Goudreau:

Thank you so much. It’s so good to see you again. It’s

Ella Magers, MSW:

So great to see you too. And I have one really deep question that I want to kick things off with.

Colleen Patrick Goudreau:

Okay.

Ella Magers, MSW:

Have you done karaoke yet?

Colleen Patrick Goudreau:

Oh my God,

Ella Magers, MSW:

So

Colleen Patrick Goudreau:

Funny. I didn’t remember that we talked about that. That would’ve been your last question or something like that, I think, right?

Ella Magers, MSW:

Yeah. So I was just listening. I was like, okay, I don’t want to repeat everything that we did on my last podcast on this episode. So I wanted to go back and kind of review. And at the end we did a little lightning round, and one of the questions was bucket about bucket lists. And you were like, I don’t really have anything. I don’t really do bucket lists, but I’ve never done karaoke. And I was like, I haven’t either. And then we were like, let’s do it, but it can’t be recorded. And that was like there were stipulations already in place and all of this stuff. So Have you done it yet?

Colleen Patrick Goudreau:

No, I haven’t. I feel like I’m getting closer. Yeah. I feel like it keeps coming up because this has been kind of the thing that truly afraid to do. I mean, I dance in public and I sing in public and I sing with Gladys Knight and the Pip. I mean, I’ll sing with a accompaniment, but there’s something about doing it on my own. So we have some good friends and we just went hiking with them yesterday and we were talking about karaoke and how they’ve been doing with some mutual friends. And so I feel like we’re kind of inching closer to it. So ask me again in a year and maybe I’ll have done it by then.

Ella Magers, MSW:

Okay, fair enough. What

Colleen Patrick Goudreau:

About you?

Ella Magers, MSW:

No. Okay. Nope. And I’m like the same way as you. I do Muay Thai. I mean, I’m sparring and getting punched in the face and kicked, and I’m totally not afraid of any of that. And for some reason I’ve got this blockage and getting up on stage and singing up there on my by myself just, it scares the shit out of me.

Colleen Patrick Goudreau:

Yeah, there’s something about that. So

Ella Magers, MSW:

Interesting.

Colleen Patrick Goudreau:

It is some kind of vulnerability that’s not a vulnerability in the other things. Yeah.

Ella Magers, MSW:

Okay. Well, by the next podcast maybe. Well, speaking of just living our best lives and overcoming fears, and I’m curious to know what holistic health and wellness means to you. I use those kind of interchangeably, holistic health, holistic wellness, but I’m curious what that means to you personally.

Colleen Patrick Goudreau:

Yeah, good question. So I guess I would say I didn’t expect this question. So when I think about that, the first thing that comes to mind is that we are integrated human beings. We are not separate from our bodies, we’re not separate from our minds. We’re not separate from our spiritual selves. And so for me, it’s about integrating all of the things that make us thrive and make us well. And so for me, it is about tending to my mental and my spiritual and my emotional and my physical self, all one. So to me, you can’t have one without the other. There is no one without the other. And I do practice that without calling it a holistic wellness, without calling it holistic anything. It’s just to me as a human being who all of those has all of those layers. I can’t work out one without the other. So yeah, I think that’s how I live my life, and that’s what I would say.

Ella Magers, MSW:

And I’m curious what, at this point, I was just listening to your podcast, which I love, and you were just talking about the 50 ways you live a happy and meaningful life. So that’s a lot of ways that you incorporate what still challenges you at this point on your path?

Colleen Patrick Goudreau:

Oh gosh. Wow. Wow. You’re going deep. Yeah, fast. Gosh. So the areas where I feel, I mean, I was doing a meditation this morning, and then I was also watching something from a spiritual teacher talking about happiness. So kind of funny that you’re asking that. And he talked about three ways to be happy in your day kind of thing. And one of, well, it wasn’t just daily, it was just happiness overall, not pleasure, but happiness. And one of the things he said was forgiveness. And I’m good with forgiveness for other people, there’s self-forgiveness. I haven’t done specifically, if you want to get really honest, is around my mom and the relationship we had when she was alive. And there’s still lingering things that I don’t even know are there. All of a sudden something will trigger it, and I know it’s from a place of where I haven’t forgiven myself.

So those kinds of things, when I talk about ways that I live a meaningful life or aspire to live a meaningful life or a joyful life, et cetera, it’s because I’m practicing as well. And these are real for me. I haven’t mastered any of these. It’s about the journey. And so for me, that’s one that definitely trips me up and all the other stuff, being human, probably not taking things personally is my goddaughter just turned 35 and she asked me, if your 35 year old self, what you could say to your 35 year old self, what would you say? And I would say that it has nothing to do with me ever. Whatever it is, is not about me. And so that can play out in my relationship with my husband. He’s in a mood. So I immediately take on the mood or I immediately think it’s me, those kinds of things where we’re challenged, especially in relationship, and we should be because that makes us hopefully more self-aware and better. So probably those are the two biggest ones that I’m going to keep on working on.

Ella Magers, MSW:

And I ask, and I appreciate you jumping into being so vulnerable right off the bat with my, going from the karaoke question to a truly pretty deep question there. But it’s just interesting because you’ve got this amazing brand, joyful Vegan, this, and you shine this light and you’re so genuine and authentic and honest and just, you know, inspire so many people in all of that. And I appreciate that so much. And one of the challenges that I’ve really had in the last few years, and really my whole life, I’m struggling with depression and anxiety has been around that joyful piece. And I’m curious what you see as the difference between joy and happiness.

Colleen Patrick Goudreau:

I had a feeling you were going to ask that because when I said pleasure to distinguish that from happiness, I immediately of course thought of joy. And I think one might say there’s a difference between obviously pleasure and happiness, and is happiness and joy the same? I think for me, the difference between happiness and joy, and it’s not just about one is fleeting and the other is more constant because I think that’s what someone would say about happiness versus pleasure. I think for me, part of joy I think comes with a sense of wonder. So I think it’s not just about feeling good, I think it’s about feeling awe and feeling wonder and being open and being surprised and being open to being surprised. So I think, and I don’t think I’ve ever articulated that, but I do think it’s that wonder piece that grounds happiness and creates the joy.

There’s a lightness, there’s an effortlessness to joy that, and I don’t really use the word happy a lot, maybe in the context of I’ll say to my husband, are you happy at work? Are we having a reaction to something? Is maybe when I would use happy, but joy is an orientation to living to the world that I think makes it the difference for me. And that’s why that really resonates with me. That word really resonates with me. I think it’s really powerful. So yeah, thank you for asking that. I think that’s a really important distinction. And it’s definitely the way I lead my life, and it is effortless. It doesn’t mean that I don’t have anxiety. It doesn’t mean I don’t have depression. It doesn’t mean I don’t have challenges, but orienting to the world with a sense of wonder and openness really grounds my joy.

Ella Magers, MSW:

No, I love that. I love that. And I think your description of wonder kind of aligns with my sense of learning to really approach the world with curiosity of being very open and curious instead of judging. And if we lead with that curiosity, we can create this just sense of wonder, like you were saying. I like

Colleen Patrick Goudreau:

That. Yeah, that that’s right. And that curiosity is easy to cultivate when it’s nature, when it’s an animal, when it’s something more inanimate with whatever, when it comes to the curiosity around other beings, people, human beings I should say, I think that’s where we can really be challenged, especially when they’re human beings who think differently and look differently and act differently and vote differently and live differently and eat differently and all the things. So having that curiosity about who are you and what led you to be who you are and what can I learn from you, that that’s the real challenge, I think, for all of us. And I think that’s where those real shifts take place. Those are powerful shifts that take place, and that’s where I think the non-judgment can, there’s room for non-judgment when we really authentically, genuinely have curiosity about other people.

Ella Magers, MSW:

Yes. And one thing I’ve learned, and tell me what you think about this is now when I meet another human or interact with another human, and if they say something that really pisses me off and it triggers me, I’m very quick now to go right to, oh, that’s triggering me. This is not about the other person. What in me is causing me to be triggered? So seeing that other person as a teacher and finding some gratitude in that can be really helpful.

Colleen Patrick Goudreau:

Absolutely. And I love that because that same curiosity that we can then bring to another person, we can bring to our own reactions or actions. There’s a practice or a recommendation in kind of mindfulness practice where when there’s something that happens to us instead of reacting, saying, oh, that’s interesting, what’s that? But stopping enough to do that, that’s difficult for, I think most of us stopping long enough to recognizing I am reacting and looking at it objectively and saying, oh, that’s interesting. There’s a thing happening there. Those are the things that I think come with the practice and the cultivation and the time and the years it comes eventually, but we have to, it doesn’t come very naturally. I think it’s definitely something we have to cultivate.

Ella Magers, MSW:

Absolutely. And from what I understand, what’s driven you for a long, long time is less about leading a happy life and more about leading a meaningful life, right? So can you share about your journey as related to creating meaning and purpose for yourself in your life?

Colleen Patrick Goudreau:

Yeah, I have always, and I hesitate to say this because I’ve also cultivated a lot. This isn’t just because it came naturally, but I’ve always been inclined toward wonder and meaning and purpose. And ever since I was young, I can remember when I was very, very young, kind of the reactions I was having to things, things being other people, to art, to film, to the world, to nature, to animals. And so I’ve always been tapped into, I want to live a purposeful life. I want to make sure that my actions have meaning and that I can live and leave this world a better place. Or at least not having made it a worse place, it’s like Lisa can do. So it’s really grateful for that. I feel like there’s an intensity that comes with that because there’s a pressure that you put on yourself for that, but there’s also an awareness that, so there’s a principle in stoicism and many other practices called memento mori.

Remember that you’re going to die. I’ve always been aware that this life is very short and very precious and that I’m going to die. And I’ve always been aware of it with my family. I remember I used to be really afraid to leave my mom. I was afraid she was going to die. I always wanted to say, I love you before I went to sleep, because I was afraid if she didn’t wake up or I didn’t wake up, she wouldn’t know or I didn’t know. And so I always had that kind of real awareness of the preciousness of this life. And I had my own journey. And there was a lot of messiness when I was younger. And still, I didn’t have regret now for that. But when I was trying to get myself together when I was young, it was out of, you got to live this life. You got to do something meaningful. And so that’s just been driving me my whole life. And I go with my gut and I’ve always trusted my gut. And when I don’t trust my gut, when I listen to fear, it’s always gotten me in trouble when I want to control. It’s always gotten me into trouble. And there’s a difference between control and empowerment. I mean, there’s kind of differences there, but wanting to control outcome always get into trouble still. Do you have an example? Oh yeah. Oh yeah.

Yes, yes. Look, I in relationship with my husband, I mean, he’s the most patient, tolerant, kind, compassionate support of husband. And I’m a handful. I’m a handful. And how are you? A handful. Oh, I’m such a handful. Oh gosh, that’s a whole other, that’s its own podcast series because I’m very opinionated and I have quite an impact when I show up. And he is someone who’s always been very just amenable and open and receptive to what I bring. Not everybody wants to hear opinions all the time, and he is incredible. So in that way, in the way, when we struggle, when we have our challenges, and we have had them, of course, one of the things he said to me that was really impactful was, it’s such a kind way of saying this to me, asking me for what he needs is know your impact.

Impact. When I express an opinion or basically tell him what to do or just lead a conversation with my opinion first before creating a space for exploration, those kinds of things that’s about controlling and about wanting to have my way and about wanting it to have the outcome that I want. And so he doesn’t say, stop doing that. He just says, know your impact. And that’s an incredibly kind way to say it. Now that’s an example in our relationship, but of course in the world, I can be unaware of my impact. So those are the ways that I have gotten into trouble. So in terms of wanting to make sure that everything’s purposeful, I mean, David’s been vegan for almost as long as I have. Not because of me, but because he was moved by the same things I was moved by. But he was open to hearing that.

But I went to him with it. He does zero waste as much as possible. He will contact me from a store and say, I know you wanted cauliflower, but it’s in plastic. Do you still want it? I mean, this doesn’t have to do all of these things. And so that’s all out of his being amazing and open. But it’s coming from this place of me constantly steering toward trying to do the right thing. And it’s an incredible way to live. I can’t live any other way, but it can be really, could be hard on other people. It could be be pressure. It could. And it’s hard on me because I put so much pressure on myself to be perfect. But on the flip side, on the positive side, I derive so much pleasure from the things that I do that I just know are the right thing to do.

No one else is looking. I could do whatever I want anytime no one else knows but me. And that counts for a lot. I’m doing what I do, and I try to live purposefully because I know and because I’m paying attention. And that is what my hope is for anybody, is to want to act from a place of integrity and act from a place of consciousness, be so much easier to not be so much easier to just do the wrong thing and less annoying and more convenient. I mean, I’m thinking of we gray watered our plumbing. We have rain tanks, we gray watered our plumbing, we have irrigation set up that’s through the municipal city water. But I get so much pleasure from watering my plants with water that was from our shower this morning, or from water that was from rain last season. It would be so much easier to just turn on the irrigation.

And sometimes, oh, it’s got to, it’d be just so much easier to let that happen. But I do. I do it because it’s the right thing, but I also do really enjoy it. And I do derive pleasure from it. And I said to David last week, because he’s the one who has to create all the fix the pumps and the attachment doesn’t work. And he’s the one who’s doing that. And I said, I know, but isn’t it? I say fun. He’s like, you don’t know the meaning of fun. Isn’t it fun? It’s a hand water and stand there for you. Don’t understand what fun means. That’s fun to me because me, it’s meaningful. But he said, no, I’m not the person to ask. I don’t find, that’s not where I get my meaning. And you do. And it was just, again, one of those moments of, yeah, and I’m good with that. I do get pleasure from this. So that does drive me living meaningfully, living purposefully living consciously, living compassionately. It drives me and it does give me joy.

Ella Magers, MSW:

Wow. There’s so many places I want to go with all that. That is so good. That is so good. So for our audience who has not heard the other episode though, I’m putting the link in the show notes, and I encourage you all to go and listen to our first interview together. But can you kind of summarize where this came from, where this passion and just this compassion came from where it started? Can you give us a little summary of that?

Colleen Patrick Goudreau:

Well, I think it’s in all of us. And I think some of us, I don’t know. I mean, I’m thinking of thinking the compassion has always been there. And I think the compassion is in most of us. I think we are typically empathetic, compassionate people. And some of us manifest that in different ways. And some of us manifested differently than others. I do think the exception or the sadist. So I do think we are compassionate beings, period, stop. And I’d love talking about compassion. I think it’s one of the most misunderstood human traits. But again, my empathy and the depth of that empathy was always very strong since I was young and toward people and toward other animals. So that’s always been there. And I was a handful for my parents too, and my mom especially because I was emotional and em empathic and would feel very deeply and very strongly when anybody was suffering.

And that requires you to kind of stop and have to change things and do things differently because you might have to go to an animal or rescue someone or just even tend to my crying and my emotion, and they couldn’t understand why it was so strong. And I have always been someone who’s been like that. I don’t think you have to be like that in order to not want to hurt anybody. And I don’t think you have to be that strong or that emotional to be compassionate. But that was who I have always been. And so I’ve always gone with it. My husband will tell you that he would follow my heart wherever it takes us because I do go with that. And for the most part, it’s worked out the control stuff that I was talking about before. That’s kind of more mental, that’s not even emotional, that’s more of the fear and the control, the fear of losing control. So the emotional stuff has led me to where I am and I’m really happy about that. But yeah, that sense of compassion has always been part of my makeup.

Ella Magers, MSW:

And when you say you go with your gut, like that intuition, do you connect that with your heart? Are those two kind of interchangeable or how do you see that?

Colleen Patrick Goudreau:

Yeah, I do. I see it my core. It’s my voice, it’s my wisdom. And that’s in my heart, that’s in my gut. I mean, the heart I think is really where it is. We say gut. I don’t know why because kind of gross to think about, but right, yeah. That’s the core where our answers lie and let’s call it our heart. That’s when I go, when I say I go with my gut, I go with my heart. I go with what my inner voice is telling me. And it always knows, always knows if we can stop the noise and listen and ask and trust ourselves mean when I do any of this kind of work with groups or with people one-on-one. And I’ve said this for years, Ella, I’ve said for decades that what I’ve been doing in my work, this is not false modesty. I really do believe that I’m not telling anybody anything they don’t know. I really believe we all know this deep in our hearts. And what I’m doing hopefully is kind of amplifying it and removing the muck so that we can hear it. Because I really think it’s in all of us. We just have to ask and stop and and listen to what our hearts are telling us.

Ella Magers, MSW:

You mentioned about compassion being misunderstood possibly in our society. What did you mean by that?

Colleen Patrick Goudreau:

Oh, compassion is so interesting. I just feel like people feel like compassion is either something that only saints can attain or pansy and touchy feely and isn’t strong and doesn’t reflect justice and righteousness. And I think all of that is wrong. And I say that because I’ve seen it again and again. What I know to be compassion, what I understand compassion to be is different than kindness. So again, these semantics, kindness I think can be a bit nice, being nice being kind. Those are different. Compassion is the ability to feel what somebody else is feeling. You’re literally with feelings. What compassion means with feeling. You’re feeling someone else’s feelings. There’s sympathy there, there’s empathy there, but it’s also based on action. And it’s also based on strength and power. So I say it’s misunderstood because I think especially when it comes to, we’ll kind of go back to forgiveness a little bit when it comes to bad behavior, illegal behavior, violent behavior, whatever.

If we indicate in any way that we have compassion for someone who is in any way violent or unkind or whatever, that by virtue of having compassion for them, that we’re condoning that behavior. And it is the worst thing we could do. Because what we then do is what do we say when we hear about people who are committing violence against humans or non-humans, what do we say? They don’t deserve compassion. So the very thing that’s missing, the thing that compels someone to be violent or to hurt someone else is because that compassion is missing. And the very thing that’s missing, we say, I’m going to withhold it. I’m not going to share it with them. They don’t deserve my compassion. So we basically continue to create a world that lacks compassion or at least has a deficiency compassion. What we need more than anything is compassion.

Now, the hinge is that it doesn’t mean you’re condoning the violence. It means that you are transcending that violence with compassion. The compassion is the power that would transcend the violence. So that’s a little bit of what I mean when I say that we really misunderstand it and the times I have gotten into the most trouble on the internet, whatever, because it’s not the real world. But truly, and I think in the real world this does happen, is when I have in any way indicated compassion for someone who other people think don’t deserve it, as if I’m saying that what they’re doing is okay, and it’s anything, but

Ella Magers, MSW:

This is huge. I mean, this is huge in so many arenas, but particularly won’t because we’re in the vegan movement. But for vegans particularly, who have turned the corner, see the light, and then now have such hate toward other people that are still eating meat and supporting that community. So is that something you talk about? I haven’t attended the effective Communication Workshop. Is that something that you cover in that?

Colleen Patrick Goudreau:

I talk about it in a few different places. I talk about it in the Joyful Vegan in the book, and I’m just about to sign a contract with a publisher for my next book, which is called A Year in Compassion. And I certainly address it there, and I will continue to address it because it just needs to be said. And it’s the vegan community. It’s all of it. It’s all of us. It’s anyone who’s different. There’s curiosity. You mentioned before, if we’re lacking curiosity for someone else, we’re lacking a connection. We’re lacking a sympathy, just constantly thinking that we’re separate, which I think is again the problem. And so we just forget what we struggle with. We forget that everybody’s just trying to get on with their day and just trying to get through this life. And so that’s one of the reasons in the vegan world, I’m so adamant about people remembering their stories because you are no different than that person, and that person is no different than you.

We just have different details in our story. So yeah, it’s in this community. When we see it in politics, I mean, obviously, and it’s worse, and I don’t like saying it’s worse than ever because everyone we’re so tempted to say that because a lot of things that are better than ever. But in this case, in terms of the siloing of information, that is really dangerous because we are literally afraid to sit down with someone who disagrees with us. We’re literally afraid to sit down or hear someone else’s viewpoint because we considered an assault on our senses. No, the only way you’re going to become really strong and really secure in your viewpoints is to have them challenged so that you can shore them up or maybe wiggle them out a little bit, maybe tack on some new perspectives, but so afraid to sit down with someone who votes differently than we do, who eats differently than we do.

Because in all these ways we say no, that by virtue of them being, they are creating harm. And I don’t want to perpetuate that. Now, that doesn’t mean you have to be friends with people who offend you or who hurt you. That’s not what we’re saying at all. You should not, and you should be safe, and you should protect yourself and all of those things. And where we can be open to another perspective and quite literally wish for only good for people who you think are wrong or suffering that doesn’t just help them. If it even does, it’s for you. So there’s all over. It’s every community. It’s not just the vegan community. It’s not just the animal protection community. We do this. This is what we do. We’re tribalistic, that happens. It’s fine. And there was a time when we were tribalistic and we still tolerated people who were different than we were. And I think we could do a lot better in terms of embracing diversity of thought. We talk about diversity, but I don’t think we are great at embracing diversity of thought. And we take it as if it’s going to be a threat to our own value systems. When, if anything, it would potentially make you stronger and make your value systems even richer.

Ella Magers, MSW:

Do you get a lot of people with different viewpoints that take the time and energy to actually reach out to you and challenge you? Does that happen a lot?

Colleen Patrick Goudreau:

No. The difference, what I hear, what I’m proud of is knowing that I have a diverse group of listeners and readers. And when I say that, I mean every walk of life just in terms of diversity, in terms of age, in terms of political orientation, in terms of sexual orientation, in terms of gender, in terms of where they are on the journey, on the journey of compassion, vegan journey, what have you. So I do hear from them, and I’m really proud of that. And they know it’s a safe place. I’m not, there isn’t just one perspective that I’m open to all. I don’t care why you come. I just want to give you what you need. No, where I get challenged is not by the people who think differently. I get challenged by the people who think I should be thinking the way the person who’s challenging me thinks. And that’s usually from another vegan. That’s where most of the challenges are coming from is, and they’re not often. And if you want to come to me and offer a different perspective that I am missing, please do that with kindness and assertiveness. But when it’s judgment and when it’s just righteousness, you’re not interested in hearing any other perspective. So I’m not really interested in engaging in any way.

Ella Magers, MSW:

Yes. It’s like where do we put our time and energy, and who do we give that time and energy too? And if it’s somebody who’s just coming at you with no intention of hearing back then, what’s the point? Right. Yeah. I get that. I want to talk a little bit about your vegan trips because I’m so excited about travel and I know I want to talk. Okay. First of all, what can you give us a little summary of your trips and what makes them so unique and special?

Colleen Patrick Goudreau:

So these are trips for those who aren’t familiar. So these are trips that I, so I’ve always loved to travel, so I don’t remember if we talked about this in the first episode, but I was just a little, yeah, I was a travel editor right after grad school, so I’ve always been drawn to travel. I’ve always been drawn to other cultures and countries. So this is really another manifestation of what I already love and what I want to spend my time doing, and obviously fits into my work because I very much believe that being vegan is about being joyful and about experiencing abundance. If we just did this and we were martyrs and we all felt miserable all the time, who would keep going? I’m like, some people would, but we don’t. It feels so good to live according to our values that I want to make sure that the world knows that and that other people can experience that.

And so that’s why I’ve always, food has always been a part of my work, obviously, because I want you to know that there’s no deprivation and that there’s only flavor and it’s incredible and all that of that. And same thing when it comes to travel. There’s a lot we can do, and there’s a lot we can do to stand up and speak for ourselves when we are traveling or we’re in a restaurant even wherever we live. But many of us have experienced going away somewhere and paying the same amount of money that everybody else is paying and getting less than and experiencing deprivation, not because there’s not availability out there, but because there’s a small mindedness around cuisine, especially by chefs who’ve been trained in meat, dairy, and eggs, and the animal fat. That makes sense. But we’ve just taken good enough we’ve, we’ve been given good enough, and we’re like, that’s okay. And it’s so sweet because we’re so driven by this ethic that we are willing to say, I had lettuce and it was fine. I had some salt on it, but at least I ate. Totally.

Ella Magers, MSW:

Been there so many times.

Colleen Patrick Goudreau:

Totally. And we all have been. And we really do feel like we’re so grateful when there’s just something that we can eat. And that’s wonderful and it’s beautiful, and there’s always going to be circumstances where we’re just going to get good enough. And when it comes to going to places to experience another culture and to travel and to spend the money that you’re going to spend on the trip at the accommodations in the restaurants, on the plane, I want it to be as meaningful and abundant as possible. So I started doing the trips back in 2014 with a travel company, and we did southern Italy a couple trips to Southern Italy. The travel company I was working with were not the right fit for me, and so I kind of backed away. And in the meantime, a couple people who had come on that trip, both trips, actually, they were friends by then.

They were podcast listeners who became vegan from the podcast and Bridey the female of the two. She and I, she had started volunteering for me, and she became a friend. And so they came on the first trip in 2014, and I wasn’t really going to continue doing the trips because it wasn’t the right fit. But I gave a ton of notes and I said, let’s make some changes for the next one. And bride. And Seb came on the second one as well. And by then I was clear that they hadn’t made the changes. Nothing had changed, and I wasn’t going to continue doing this. My brand was at stake, my reputation was at stake. My name was at stake, and I felt really vulnerable. But Seb, who had had a background in tour leading both Brighty and Seb had started planting seeds. We could do this, we could do this, and we could make this really good.

And I was at that point kind of like, eh, I’m good. I don’t want to do this. Well, we started traveling together, the four of us. We’ve been to 17 countries together, and as we started traveling together, Seb just kept planting these seeds and kept saying, this could be a trip. That could be a trip we could do. We went to Rwanda and Botswana and Zimbabwe and South Africa and Provence and all these places, and he kept saying, this could be trips. And I was like, no, no, no, no, I don’t want to do it. I didn’t want to do it because I didn’t want to take the risk again. And finally he said, let me put a trip to Thailand together for you. And he said, you sell it, run it. And it was incredible. It was everything I want for people to experience travel.

And he knew. He just knew my brand really well. He just knows it really well. He also wants that same luxury travel of that we all want to experience and feel spoiled and not be exposed to animal exploitation and have the best food we can possibly have, and veganize things in places that it’s harder to have plant-based foods in. So Thailand obviously is pretty easy in the sense that it’s Asia, very vegetable and tofu driven, coconut milk, et cetera. But that was the beginning of it. And so we’ve now done, I don’t even know, a dozen trips together. Covid obviously messed everything up, and they actually formally created their own travel company, which is called World Vegan Travel. And now, because basically they started this because of what we were doing together. I choose which trips I want to do. They’re called Joyful Vegan Trips.

When they run trips without me, I want them to run as many trips without me as possible so that they can thrive. They’re world vegan travel trips. But when I’m on the trip and I’m selling the trip to my audience, they’re joyful vegan trips, and they are incredible. We love spoiling everybody. We want to show them the best of the countries we’re in. We want the food to be incredible. We just don’t want them to have to think about anything or worry about anything. And I mean, we even go to the lengths of sometimes the hotels might have a, I don’t know, a deer head on the wall, and we’ve had hotels take that down so that we can just relax and be away from just kind of the cruelties that we face every day. So yeah, it’s pretty incredible. And I love to travel, and I love to host. So my job is the host. I’m basically hosting a party every day on these trips. And I love it. And I love to see, I mean, there’s so many emotions that happen on these trips, Ella. There’s so much transformation that happens. There’s so many connections that happen, these friendships that we see formed, which are incredible. So they’re just magical in so many ways.

Ella Magers, MSW:

How many people are usually on the trips? Yeah, average, it depend.

Colleen Patrick Goudreau:

Depends, depends. We don’t usually go more than 24, depends on the trip. But for instance, Tuscany, we stay in our own vegan villa, and it just fits 16 people. So that trip is no bigger than 16 people, not including the four of us who were hosting it, but around 20 would be the average.

Ella Magers, MSW:

Oh, so sounds like a breath of fresh air. Wow. So yeah, I’ve got to get on one of these trips. And I heard France. That is an interesting one in terms of the cuisine, because I do not think of France as being vegan friendly at all.

Colleen Patrick Goudreau:

It’s not because it’s not,

Ella Magers, MSW:

Right, okay. It’s

Colleen Patrick Goudreau:

Not. You go to Paris and Paris, when we were in Paris, I don’t know, back in 20, even 15, we were hard pressed to find really good food. Again, you’re going to find something, but you can find really good cuisine, and you’re going to find, are you going to find French cuisine, right? Plant-based difficult. Paris is now a mecca, and it’s fantastic. And I loved having seen so many changes in a short period of time. But you leave France, just like you leave San Francisco Bay Area, you’re in a rural area. You are in the countryside. You’re in places that, because there are more rural towns, you’re going to have animals and you’re going to have a lot more animal products. And that’s the case where wherever we go, but France especially. And so doing the French countryside, which starts in Paris, but then we go into the lair valleys and the Dian Valleys, and then we do Al’s ass, which is in east, the eastern part of France that borders Germany.

It used to be part of Germany, went back and forth. So this Alation cuisine is incredibly animal product heavy. And especially in the wintertime. These are Christmas trips, so they’re like magical lights and Christmas markets, and they’re super fun that way. But we find the chefs and we find the restaurants who are willing and excited to work with us to make the cuisine suitable and fabulous for vegans. So we like those challenges, and I feel like that’s what makes the trips unique as well. And there’s always an animal protection aspect wherever we can. We go to animal sanctuaries and meet activists around the world, and it’s so important for people to connect. I mean, sadly, the same issues wherever we go, because it’s pretty universal. Cruelty is, but so is compassion, and there’s amazing people wherever we go. And then of course, you go to a place like Rwanda, and there are activists. We actually do have a lunch with activists who are in Kigali, but more than that we’re, we’re basically seeing the mountain gorillas and seeing the chimpanzees, and it’s mind blowing and life altering, and yeah, they’re really awesome.

Ella Magers, MSW:

Sounds amazing. Oh, so tell us where we can find all the information, your book and these trips, and well, your new book, wait, that’s a little ways off, but I’m so excited about that.

Colleen Patrick Goudreau:

Aw, thanks. Yeah, it’s all@joyfulvegan.com. All of it’s a joyful vegan.com. Every bit.

Ella Magers, MSW:

Colleen, thank you so much. I am just admire you and respect you so very much for everything that you’re doing on the planet and just the human that you are.

Colleen Patrick Goudreau:

Dito Ella, you’re so generous and beautiful and compassionate, and I just appreciate you so much. Thank you for having me on again.

Ella Magers, MSW:

Yes, my pleasure.