🦃 A Gentle Thanksgiving Begins with a Gentle Choice

By Pria Acharya

As Thanksgiving approaches, I find myself reflecting on the stories we inherit — and the ones we choose to carry forward.

Holidays are powerful.

They hold memory, identity, and emotion.

They remind us where we come from and what we’ve been taught to celebrate.

But mindfulness gives us the gift of pausing long enough to ask:

Do my traditions align with my values?

And if not — can I lovingly reimagine them?

For me, that question opened a door I didn’t expect.

🧡 Conditioning, Tradition, and the Stories We Don’t Question

Growing up, I saw how deeply food and identity are intertwined.

For many families, Thanksgiving is the same way — a ritual held together by memory rather than awareness.

In Go Vegan, Mindfully, I write about the tension embedded in this holiday:

**“The annual Thanksgiving holiday presents a deeply ingrained tradition involving the mass commodification and killing of animals.

Approximately 46 million turkeys are killed annually in the U.S. for Thanksgiving alone. The modern table often features a dead bird as a symbol of abundance, stripped of any conscious connection to the taking of a life.”**

It can be uncomfortable to sit with this, especially when turkey has been framed as the centerpiece of gratitude.

But discomfort is not a dead end —

it’s a doorway into clarity.

Mindfulness teaches us that awareness is not meant to shame us;

it’s meant to free us.

🦃 A Thanksgiving of Compassion

Turkeys are deeply social, emotionally complex beings who form bonds, remember faces, and comfort one another.

Yet each year, they’re reduced to commodities for a single meal.

In another section of the book, I write:

**“Thanksgiving, a holiday associated with gratitude and abundance, stands in stark contrast to the reality of mass animal slaughter.

Turkeys are intelligent, social, emotionally complex beings — yet each year they are reduced to commodities for a single meal.”**

This paradox is hard to ignore once we truly see it.

But instead of closing our hearts, it can open them.

Compassion doesn’t diminish the holiday — it deepens it.

Gratitude becomes more honest.

Abundance becomes more sacred.

Tradition becomes something we live with intention, not by default.

🌱 Reimagining Tradition with Mindfulness

When we pause — really pause — and ask:

“Is this food aligned with who I want to be?”

“What am I participating in?”

“Does this feel like gratitude?”

—we begin to realize that veganism is not a rejection of tradition, but a reinvention of it.

As I wrote:

**“Roast turkey at Thanksgiving becomes woven into the fabric of identity and tradition. Removing animal products from this tapestry can feel unsettling, even threatening — as though a link to the past is being severed.

But veganism isn’t a rejection of tradition; it can be a creative reinvention.”**

Mindfulness helps us gently unlearn what we’ve been conditioned to accept.

It invites us to choose from awareness, not habit.

A gentle holiday begins with a gentle choice.

💛 This Thanksgiving

Whatever your table looks like —

whether it’s filled with plant-based dishes or a blend of new and old traditions —

may your holiday be rooted in:

• Awareness

• Compassion

• Presence

• Alignment

• And a sense of care that extends beyond ourselves

May gratitude expand outward — towards the planet, the animals, and all beings who share this earth with us.

Wishing you a peaceful, heart-centered Thanksgiving.

🌱 Pria Acharya

Author of Go Vegan, Mindfully

📘 If this reflection resonates…

My book explores these themes in depth — mindfulness, conditioning, compassion, and the real barriers we face when aligning our values with our choices.

Go Vegan, Mindfully: Barriers, Breakthroughs, and Vitality

📗 Amazon:

✍️ Signed copies (U.S.): square.link/u/a49Bow7X

May it support you through the holidays, traditions, transitions, and the quiet transformations happening inside you.