We encourage you to watch the full video. Below is the edited transcript of the video above:
Ocean Robbins: I’m Ocean Robbins, and I’m here today with my dad, John Robbins, to share something very personal. We’re sharing this because we think you’ll want to know how my dad is dealing with a very challenging situation. And because we hope that both his struggles and his insights may be of use to you in your life, too.
For those of you who don’t know, my dad is the author of nine bestsellers that have collectively sold more than three million copies and been translated into 31 languages. His books, which include The Food Revolution, and the classic Diet for a New America, have helped to ignite the modern health food movement. He’s president and cofounder, along with me, of the nearly one million member Food Revolution Network.
From the time I was born, my dad and I have had a very special bond. Throughout my life, he’s been one of my greatest heroes and dearest friends. He’s also been a living example to me and to millions of others of the power we have to make the most of whatever cards life deals us.
What a lot of people don’t know is that my dad has done all this against some pretty difficult odds.
You see, he had polio as a child, at the age of five. The polio paralyzed his legs. And after a while, the feeling and movement began slowly to return. But the process of regaining use of his legs was slow, and it was limited.
When he entered adulthood, the prognosis was that he would never walk normally. And yet, against all odds, in a process we’ll describe in a few minutes, he went on to become a marathon runner, a mountain climber, and a triathlete.
Developing Post-Polio Syndrome (PPS)
Ocean Robbins: I’ve had the great pleasure of sharing many of these adventures with my dad. I’m still frankly in awe of what he accomplished, considering the prognosis he’d been up against. I’ve also been deeply inspired by how remarkably youthful he’s been for his age.
But now, I’ve got some sober news to report. There is a condition, called post-polio syndrome, or PPS, that very often afflicts people who’ve had polio in their childhoods. With PPS, the polio symptoms that people suffered when they were young can return later in life, almost always 15–40 years after the original polio. PPS is considered an unrelenting, irreversible condition that impacts mobility, sleep, breathing, and mental clarity.
And it saddens me greatly to tell you that, starting in 2019, more than 65 years after his polio, my dad began to develop the early symptoms of post-polio syndrome.
So we’ve decided to share with you today what’s been happening, what it means, how my dad is working with it, and what this might mean for the rest of us. To me, the soul work he’s been doing as he navigates this painful process is profound. I know I’m learning a lot from it.
So with that as an introduction, I would like now to welcome my dad and my dear, dear friend, John Robbins, to join you and me in this deeply personal and meaningful conversation.
John Robbins: Well, thank you, Ocean. Your love means the world to me, and being your dad has been one of the greatest privileges of my life. I’m feeling grateful that we can be here together, now, in this moment, as we have been in so many wonderful moments over the years.
Ocean Robbins: Me too.
Poliovirus Then and Now
John Robbins: I’ll be sharing news with you that is vulnerable for me, and for some of you may be surprising or even shocking. In fact, this is, by far, the most vulnerable thing I’ve ever shared in public. Please know that I do this with a wide-open heart — in the hope that something about my journey will support you on yours.
Ocean Robbins: I see and just have huge appreciation for the vulnerability of what you, and we, will be sharing here.
And I know that a lot of folks watching might not know much about polio because it’s been nearly eradicated over the last 65 years. But back in 1952, when my dad came down with it, polio was one of the most feared diseases on the planet. In those years, polio was killing thousands of American children every summer and paralyzing tens of thousands more. Worldwide, the numbers were in the millions.
We can celebrate that rates of polio have dropped phenomenally around the world since then. In recent years, there have been only a few hundred cases per year of wild polio in the entire world — almost entirely in Pakistan and Afghanistan.
I know the memories must be difficult for you, but can you tell us about your own childhood polio experience?
John Robbins: Yes, I can.
John Robbins’ Polio Story
John Robbins: I got polio when I was five, in 1952. My case was mild compared to what a lot of other kids experienced. I was never in an iron lung. But I did completely lose all use of my legs, and the doctors told my parents that they didn’t know if I would ever walk again.
Eventually, I regained some mobility, but my left leg stopped growing for a long time. And throughout my adolescence, I walked with a painful limp.
It was a tough way to grow up, but a lot of children who got polio had it worse.
In school, when sports teams were being chosen, nobody wanted me on their team because I had so much trouble walking. The pictures we have of me from my youth that show me standing always show me putting very little weight on my left leg. Sometimes I would lean on a bigger kid just in order to stand.
When I was 18, I still couldn’t put much weight on my left leg, and I needed to have three-inch lifts put in all of my left shoes in order to walk at all. At that time, doctors told me that I would never walk normally.
Using Diet and Lifestyle to Heal
John Robbins: But then, something truly wonderful happened for me. In early 1967, I met and fell deeply in love with a wonderful woman, Deo, Ocean’s mom. And I’ve had the spectacular good fortune to be married to Deo for the last 57 years.
Ocean Robbins: I wasn’t born yet at that point, obviously, but I know what happened next.
My dad’s never been the kind of person who takes a medical diagnosis as a destiny. Almost immediately after he and my mom met, they both dramatically changed their diets and lifestyles. They became whole foods, plant-based eaters before the phrase even existed. They started practicing yoga for several hours per day. And although my dad could never do the standing poses, he became remarkably adept at some of the other poses.
He went on to become a yoga teacher and even a teacher of yoga teachers. And, he began to work with the traumas that were so evident in his body.
Can you tell us what happened next?
John Robbins: Yes, I can. I’m happy to share what happened next because it’s a lovely story.
After five or six years of this new way of living, I began to see some unexpected results. My left leg (and the whole left side of my body) was becoming stronger. My body was coming into more alignment, and my posture was greatly improving. And I became able to stand with some weight on my left leg.
Eventually, I didn’t need lifts in my left shoes anymore. And my walking improved, and I found that I could actually jog a little bit. With all of this, my passion for understanding body mechanics led me to study various forms of bodywork, and I became a professional bodyworker. That, and teaching yoga, was how I supported our little family during those years before I became an author.
My left leg was still not as strong as the right leg, but eventually I became able to walk normally, and even to run.
Ocean Robbins: It’s true!
From Trouble Walking to Climbing Mountains
Ocean Robbins: Over the decades that followed, my dad enjoyed a level of health and athletic performance that honestly would have seemed unthinkable in his childhood.
In his sixties, he was still running and climbing mountains. When he was 60, he was featured on the cover of a magazine, where he was shown running as an example of what they called “the new old,” by which they meant aging with vigor and vitality.
I have so many wonderful memories of my dad and I doing athletic things together when I was growing up. We shared many joyful times playing basketball and Ultimate Frisbee, climbing mountains, backpacking — and we probably spent thousands of hours running distances together.
In fact, I ran my first marathon when I was ten, and my dad was right there running alongside me. Those are some of the happiest memories of my life.
Our favorite mountain to climb was Mt. Shasta. It’s over 14,000 feet high. My dad and I climbed to the peak of Mt. Shasta several times, always choosing the route that’s called, for good reason I think, Misery Hill. Once, we somehow managed to coax my mom into going with us, and though we had to help her a lot, she made it to the summit, too.
John Robbins: I remember that well. I had spent most of my childhood and adolescence unable to play sports or even to walk comfortably. So it’s been incredibly liberating and joyful for me to be able to have another kind of experience.
And it’s also been a privilege for me to have the opportunities that I’ve had to share my discoveries about what’s possible for the human body when we treat it right, when we feed it right, when we listen to it, and when we make the most of what we’ve got.
Ocean Robbins: I’m so grateful for that, too.
What Are the Symptoms of PPS?
Ocean Robbins: Now today, my dad’s life and work have played a seminal role in inspiring the modern food revolution movement. Most people don’t know that, in many ways, the choices he advocates are the very ones that transformed his life.
And yet, now we’re here with you today, in part, because of a new and distressing reality, which is that my dad has developed post-polio syndrome, or PPS. Although you may never have heard of post-polio syndrome, a significant percentage of the people who got polio and survived, and particularly those who worked extra hard to achieve things in spite of having been stricken with the disease, have suffered later in their lives from this condition.
So here’s what the medical literature says about PPS.
It affects between 25–40% of polio survivors. And unlike polio itself, PPS is not contagious. But PPS is serious. Parts of the body that regain movement after being paralyzed by the original polio can again become paralyzed. Brain fatigue is a very common symptom. There are often problems with concentration, attention, and memory, and difficulties with breathing and swallowing.
Sleep apnea is another very common symptom. Chronic stress, irritability, anxiety, insomnia, and depression are also typical symptoms in people with PPS. And according to Western medicine, the symptoms get worse over the years. There is no cure for PPS, and there’s actually no treatment for it.
Nearly all polio survivors who develop PPS do so within 15–40 years after their initial polio. But in my dad’s case, it was more than 65 years later.
One post-polio syndrome expert, who for decades ran a clinic for people with PPS, told us he knows of no other case in the medical record of PPS being delayed this long. He said that my dad’s healthy diet and lifestyle appear to be responsible for the fact that he lived for so many extra decades in excellent health.
How John Is Dealing with PPS Symptoms
Ocean Robbins: And now we get to what may be the hardest part of our conversation. Can you tell us what you’re experiencing?
John Robbins: Yes, I can.
So starting in 2019, I noticed PPS symptoms beginning to emerge in my body. And in the years since, they have intensified.
I now have a lot of trouble walking. I’m doing the best I can with it, including getting as much exercise as I possibly can — which actually is a challenge when your legs don’t work. I had forgotten how many types of exercise depend on having functional legs. But that has become very clear to me now.
Fortunately, my upper body doesn’t seem to be much affected at all by the PPS. So I now get nearly all my exercise using weights to strengthen and tone my upper body. And I love experiencing the strength, even the joy, that I feel when I challenge those of my muscles that still function well. It’s one of the ways I can still experience liveliness and vitality.
I believe in doing all I can with what I’ve got, which for me, now, means spending a lot of time in the gym. I’ve been surprised by the number of ways I can work out my upper body muscles while I’m sitting down.
And, of course, I’m also eating as cleanly as ever, maybe even cleaner. And I’m doing everything I can that might help me to retain as much quality of life as possible.
And I think, very importantly, that I’m listening, in every moment that I can, for what I can learn and what I can love on this journey with post-polio syndrome. In fact, when I start to feel depressed or start to feel sorry for myself, I will often make a list of what I’ve found beautiful today. Or I’ll bring to mind some of the things I love. Not just the things I like — that just wouldn’t be enough to shift my energy. But the things and the people I truly love.
Navigating Shame and Pain
Ocean Robbins: That’s very moving to me. Of course, my dad’s always been an example to me of doing the best you can with what you’ve got. And this is no exception.
Much of it is paying off. His upper body is in incredible shape. His blood pressure is 108 over 60. His cholesterol levels, A1c, and all the other metrics to assess the risk for heart disease, diabetes, and dementia, are considered exemplary. His x-rays, ultrasounds, and MRIs reveal no trace of arthritis anywhere in his 76-year-old body. And if upper body strength was all it took, he’d probably be dancing with the stars.
John Robbins: Yes, but PPS is part of my journey now, and I’m going to be honest with you: It is not a walk in the park. Pun intended.
This is especially difficult for me, personally. And at times I’ve felt ashamed that this is happening because I’ve spent most of my life standing for healthy choices that enable people to be far healthier as we age. But Brené Brown, who is an expert on shame, says that shame is fed by two things: and those are secrecy and silence. So thank you for allowing me to share with you now, and to break the chains of secrecy and silence.
Because I am gradually losing the use of my legs, there will be no more running marathons or climbing mountains for me. Instead, I’m now limited to occasional, slow, very short walks on mostly level surfaces. And I don’t know how much longer I’ll be able to do that. Already I’m experiencing almost constant pain in my legs; they tend to cramp at inopportune moments, and they’re constantly fatigued.
Another common symptom of PPS is brain fatigue. Although I have periods of the day when I still experience mental clarity — and I think this is one of them — these times don’t last nearly as long as they once did, and I now need to take frequent periods of rest.
My PPS is also causing me troubles with sleeping.
Finding Serenity and Gratitude
Ocean Robbins: This is all so sad, most of all for you, of course, but also for the many, many people who love you — including me.
John Robbins: Well, thank you, Ocean. Your love and your support in this journey mean the world to me.
Ocean Robbins: I know it might sound trite under the circumstances, but I want to say that I’m proud of how you’re working with all this.
While not many of us, obviously, have PPS, I think that most of us can relate to the feeling of doing our very best and still not getting all the outcomes that we want. Whether it’s in health, in parenting, in work, in finances, or in any other domain of life, we all face the reality that some things are in our control, and some things are not.
So now I want to ask you to tell us: What, if anything, are you learning from this? Are you finding any pathways to make anything positive out of the suffering?
John Robbins: Well, I’ve always believed that how we respond to the inevitable challenges that come into our lives is part of what shapes us as human beings. I don’t think our joys arise because our lives are free from grief. I think our joys often arise from how we care for ourselves and each other in the midst of the things that break our hearts.
I find myself returning again and again, as a touchstone, to the serenity prayer, in which we ask for the serenity to accept the things we cannot change, and we ask for the courage to change the things that we can — and we ask for the wisdom to know the difference.
For me, working out and clean eating and cultivating an attitude of gratitude are examples of how I’m trying to change the things that I can. But each of us is living in a vulnerable human body. And many of us are facing the inevitable aging process. So, while it can be very difficult, sometimes we all really do need to find the serenity to accept the things that we cannot change.
Ocean Robbins: That’s so true.
Finding Joy in the Midst of Sorrow
Ocean Robbins: Ok, so if you don’t mind, I’d like to take this a little more personal. Can you tell us how that’s going for you?
John Robbins: Well, I won’t pretend that PPS hasn’t been very challenging for me. I’m not a stranger to doing hard things. But in the last few years, I have needed to call on every inner resource I could find to carry on in a body that, in some ways, is very fit and healthy but in other ways is falling apart. And my goal in this is to find as much joy as I can, even with my PPS.
Now, some people might question my sanity for speaking of joy in the same breath as PPS. Many of us think that joy — and grief — are opposites, and that happiness is the absence of things like heartbreak and pain and sorrow. But I’ve come to see that is not the truth. I’ve come to see that happiness and joy are the result of how we care for each other and ourselves in and through the heartbreaks and the grief we will all know in our lives.
Maybe we’re here not just to change the world, but also to love the world. Not just to change ourselves, but also to love ourselves — with all of our goodness and all that’s shattered, with all of our coherence and all our contradictions, with all our beauty and all our brokenness.
Maybe we’re here not just to change the world, but also to love the world. Not just to change ourselves, but also to love ourselves — with all of our goodness and all that’s shattered, with all of our coherence and all our contradictions, with all our beauty and all our brokenness.
Maybe we’re here to do all that we can with what we’ve got, to work our butts off for a better world, and at the same time also to love the world, as it is, and ourselves, as we are.
Health Outcomes Can Be Multifaceted
Ocean Robbins: Yes. I know a lot of people who feel like they’re doing everything right, and life keeps dealing them more than their share of crap.
John Robbins: Well, that’s certainly true.
Lifestyle choices, which include things like not smoking and eating an optimal diet and getting plenty of exercise, and (if you can afford it) eating organic, and trying to minimize your exposure to toxic chemicals, and having meaningful relationships — all of that is important, all of that really matters.
And, at the same time, try as we might, almost all of us are still exposed to pollution and other toxic realities, including, by the way, toxic people, on a constant basis.
And we all live now with the growing reality of climate chaos, with the breakdown of social trust, and with the realities of war and mass migrations. We have an economy that favors the ultrarich while siphoning money away from nearly everyone else. And each of us has experienced traumas in our personal lives that have taken a toll. For some of us, that toll has been devastating.
Ocean Robbins: Yes. There are so many things that can make life really tough. It’s true, and it’s really important, that personal lifestyle choices help, often a lot. And at the same time, of course, there are also factors beyond any of our control.
Avoiding Victim Blaming
John Robbins: Yes. It’s empowering to focus on those things in our individual lives that we can control. But we don’t need more victim-blaming in the wellness world.
I had a close friend, Claire Townsend, who lived a remarkably healthy life. She ate an organic, whole foods, plant-based diet. She never smoked and had a successful and creative career as a documentary filmmaker and an author. She was a beautiful woman with a beautiful spirit who was beloved by many. And yet, Claire died of breast cancer at the age of 43.
Healthy eating and a healthy lifestyle can and often do work wonders in people’s lives. But they cannot cure or prevent everything. Some people eat as healthily as they can, don’t smoke, get plenty of exercise, have healthy relationships — but they still can’t lose the weight they want to lose, or they still get terminal cancer like my friend Claire did.
When we try to do everything right and we still get sick, we may feel confused or angry or bitter. We may blame ourselves; we may feel ashamed. And we may think we must have done something wrong — we must have been negligent or lazy or stupid. It could be that none of that is even remotely true. But we may feel it anyway.
Ocean Robbins: Yes. I’ve got a friend who came down with cancer, and one of his friends asked him why he got it — as if it was somehow his fault.
Now, it’s possible he may have made choices along the way that made his cancer more likely to develop. But honestly, to me, the question felt cruel. What’s your take on that?
John Robbins: My take is we need to cut ourselves, and each other, a lot more slack.
My experience with post-polio syndrome is showing me two things. One is how hugely important it is for us to do everything we can to live healthy lives. And the other is how hugely important it is to have compassion for the things we can’t heal. In every life there will be pain we can’t avoid and that we must seek the serenity to accept.
There is a poet, his name is Ross Gay, who said that the only people who — maybe — get to live free of heartbreak or sorrow are people who have no relationships, love nothing, are sociopaths, or maybe they’re enlightened. I don’t know about you, but I don’t check any of those boxes.
Love and Connection
Ocean Robbins: I don’t either. So can you tell us, what, for you, is making the pain more bearable?
John Robbins: For me, and I suspect for a lot of us, the thing that makes the pains of life more bearable is the presence of love and connection. And that’s why I say that how we are with each other and ourselves when we are in pain may be the true source of our deepest happiness and joy.
And I can’t tell you how grateful I am for all my friends, and all my colleagues and allies, and for all of you who are listening to us now, with open hearts.
And I want to mention that I’m particularly grateful to those in my innermost circle: who are my darling wife, Deo; our beloved family member, Teresa; and, of course, you, Ocean.
A Father-Son Connection
Ocean Robbins: You know, you loved me a whole lot when I was completely vulnerable, so the opportunity to love you now, in your times of vulnerability, is truly precious to me. And I know it’s precious for all of us who love you.
Of course, I feel sad. I mean, I love you so much, and it’s hard for me to see you in pain and having to deal with this. I know it’s the way of nature that you will probably die decades before me, but it’s honestly hard for me to grasp that one day you won’t be here with me anymore.
And at the same time, this awareness of your humanity and of your mortality is giving me a lot of opportunities to reflect on what really matters the most in my life. And to feel how immensely blessed I’ve been, and how blessed I am, in the father department.
Throughout my life, my dad’s been a source of strength, wisdom, and support for me. I mean, one of my earliest memories is him carrying me in a backpack when I was very little, while he walked and sang to me in the Canadian wilderness.
Later on, he was my writing teacher, my public speaking coach… And for the last 12 years I’ve served as CEO of Food Revolution Network; and my dad, who is the president, has supported my leadership every step of the way.
A lot of people, when they contemplate the mortality of their loved ones, feel regret at all that hasn’t happened and maybe now never will happen. But I feel so blessed and so grateful for all that my dad and I have shared and do share. And so now, for me, every day we have to work together and to share stories and love and life together is so precious. And I don’t take one moment for granted.
Being your son, and now your colleague, is one of the great joys of my life.
John Robbins: Oh, thank you, Ocean. Thank you so much. Your love is a healing balm to my soul. And being your father has been one of the most wonderful things I’ve ever experienced.
And there’s something that your mom and I often say to each other about you. I think we said it the first time soon after you were born, but I’m pretty sure we’ve said it during every single one of the 50 years since then. What we each say is that we won the lottery when we got you.
Ocean Robbins: Oh, that’s so sweet! I’m kind of blushing over here.
Using Challenges to Grow in Compassion
Ocean Robbins: And I also want to ask: Is there anything else you want to say to our viewers about your journey with PPS?
John Robbins: I’ve been seeing how crucial it is that I learn to bring compassion to this journey.
At first, I felt a ton of resistance to the pain and restrictions that PPS brings. And I still have plenty of dark times when I want to cry out that it’s just not fair. But I’ve been so deeply touched by the compassion that many people have brought to me, that I decided to try to be one of the people who has compassion for me.
I’ve been learning, gradually, and in stages, to experience my disability and my inability to do things that I’ve loved to do, not as something to be ashamed of or something to hide, but as an opportunity to soften into aspects of my being that I had learned to push away.
This isn’t making me special. But it does seem to be making me more human. And I’m continually inspired by the many people I’ve known who’ve been evoked along their path of growth and meaning by some setback or loss, some illness, some anguish or heartbreak.
Maybe you know what I mean. Maybe you have known someone like that. Maybe you are someone like that. Maybe some of life’s heartbreaks have helped to shape you, too. Maybe you’ve found ways to use them to grow in wisdom or in faith or in compassion, or to come into more attunement with your life purpose.
Learning from Hardship
Ocean Robbins: I’m tearing up while you’re talking. What you’re saying is just so profound. I keep thinking that most of us see a crippling condition as a dire threat. Something we want to avoid at any cost. But it seems like, in some way, you’re actually finding value here — and bringing value to the rest of us from that.
John Robbins: Well, sometimes more than others.
Ocean Robbins: Yeah.
John Robbins: I’ve had my bouts of self-pity. I can do “poor me” with the best of them. But each time I wallow, I learn something. I learn how self-pity isolates me, how it entrenches me in my pain, and how it separates me from love and from connection.
I would not wish post-polio syndrome on anyone. But since it has become such a big part of my life now, I have a need to ask: Is there anything I can learn from this experience that might have value?
And when I do that, when I ask that question, it helps me to experience PPS as something that isn’t just cruel, destructive, and senseless.
Ocean Robbins: That reminds me of a man who was suffering from a fatal illness who said that he could not afford the luxury of a negative thought.
John Robbins: Well, I wouldn’t know anything about that because I have plenty of negative thoughts. But what I keep seeing is that when I get mired in negative thinking, when I get fixated on what I’ve lost, I feel increasingly despondent and depressed.
Giving Thanks for All Involved in the Food Revolution
John Robbins: But there is something else that I also keep seeing. And that is that when I focus on what I’m grateful for — and I do have a ton of things to be hugely grateful for, including this opportunity right now to talk with you all about things that really matter — then my spirits lift, and I feel more connected to my, and to our, humanity.
Ocean Robbins: You know, I’ve noticed this about you. Somehow, in the midst of everything you’re dealing with, you keep returning to gratitude.
John Robbins: Well, whenever I can, Ocean, whenever I can.
If we still have opportunities to make positive choices, if we can still contribute in some way to the happiness and to the well-being of others — well, to me that’s a form of grace. And I never want to forget that.
And really, I want to take a moment right now to give thanks. Because I have been blessed beyond measure in my life so far — to help to build and advance a movement. A movement of people who are saying enough is enough to a food system that tortures animals, destroys the environment, and systematically erodes human health.
It’s a movement of people who are advancing the food revolution and taking a stand for a world of more health, and a world of more compassion, and a world where we live with more respect for ourselves, each other, and the natural world.
I want to say how inspired I am by those of you who have chosen a healthier path. Maybe you’ve taken Food Revolution Network courses, or participated in our summits or in our WHOLE Life Club, or read my books, or in other ways tried to bring more beauty into your life and the lives of others.
And I want to say how inspired I am by all of you who have made the bold choice to be here with us right now, when you could be anywhere else.
Ocean Robbins: Yes.
Food Revolution Network’s Future
Ocean Robbins: Some of you might be wondering how all of this is going to impact our work at Food Revolution Network and the work that my dad and I do together.
I want you to know that we, and our entire team, are more passionate than ever to spread the word and to fulfill our mission of healthy, ethical, and sustainable food for all.
For many decades now, my dad’s life, his books, and our work with our team have been devoted to helping spread the food revolution.
We’ve seen extraordinary results. We now have nearly a million members. We’ve received literally hundreds of thousands of messages from people thanking us for our work and telling us about the remarkable results they’ve experienced. And we are so grateful to all the people who are choosing to join us and to be a part of this loving and beautiful community.
We’re continuing to create courses, summits, films, articles, newsletters, coaching certifications, and lots and lots of other resources to empower you to live the best and healthiest life possible.
And in the years to come, we’re going to continue our campaigns to get nutrition taught in medical schools, to put an end to factory farms, to get fruits and vegetables prescribed for patients and reimbursed by insurance companies, and to uplift nutrition and health in the most vulnerable and at-risk communities.
We’re working to maximize my dad’s involvement in our work while minimizing the amount of stress it puts on him. And his love and wisdom continue to guide our endeavors to the core. So hopefully, you’ll continue to see him in our summits and other programs for a good long time.
While we can’t know exactly what the future holds, what we do know is that Food Revolution Network is a mission much bigger than my dad, much bigger than me, much bigger than any one person. It’s a movement that is growing and gaining traction and saving lives and bringing healing in our world.
John Robbins: Yes. I love to do this work. And I plan to bring all that I can to it for as long as I can, because it turns my crank and it makes my heart smile.
And, of course, Ocean, doing it with you is one of the great joys of my life.
Ocean Robbins: For me, too, with you. So very much. I hope you know that.
John Robbins: Oh, Ocean, I do. I so do.
Continuing the Journey
Ocean Robbins: And now, I want to ask, do you have any final words for us today?
John Robbins: For all of you who are here now, whether you’ve been part of this movement for decades or this is our first time connecting, I can’t thank you enough for your presence, and for whatever ways you have been or will be part of the work to enhance the quality of life for all beings on this planet. All of you who are wanting there to be more love in our world, and are working in whatever ways you can for that, are an inspiration to me. And you have enabled me to keep on going even when I’ve felt disappointment and discouragement.
And for those of you who are struggling with chronic conditions that can’t be cured either by diet and lifestyle or by alternative or conventional medical treatments, I offer you my heart. I offer you my understanding. And I offer you my love.
None of us know how much more time we’ve got left in these bodies. But I know I intend to continue to do this work alongside you that some of us have been doing for months, others of us for years — and that I’ve been blessed to do throughout my adult life with Ocean and my family.
It has been an incredible journey, and I’ve had the good fortune and blessing to have been joined on it by so many of you over the years. I look forward to continuing to be partners with you in the near, and hopefully in the distant, future.
May all be fed. May all be healed. May all be loved.
Ocean Robbins: May all be fed. May all be healed. May all be loved.
Editor’s note: To learn more about John and Ocean’s work, click here.
Tell us in the comments:
- What’s in your heart, after watching this video?
- Have there been times in your own life when you had to accept things that you couldn’t change?
- What did you find helpful about John Robbins’ message?
