During her free time, punctuated by sessions on the phone with Basch, Sellani realized that she held a secret dream of becoming a vegan chef. She loved to cook, she was a vegan, and she loved animals. First she volunteered in the vegan community, creating recipes for an organization; then she enrolled in a culinary school focused on plant-based cooking. In April, she is coming out with a cookbook coauthored with her twin sister, The 40-Year-Old Vegan: 75 Recipes to Make You Cleaner, Leaner, and Greener in the Second Half of Life (Skyhorse Publishing). The amazing thing is that she never could have seen all this coming. "It was a total surprise," Sellani says of her transformation. And it all happened during a fairly short period of time working with Basch. "He cuts to the chase very quickly and helps you come to a place where you would have likely come to on your own, but maybe 10 years later. He's a catalyst and an accelerator." She also knows that she couldn't have done it without some periods of solitude and rumination. "Things bubble to the surface. You have to give yourself some silence to help things emerge in you, because you might not even know what they are."
It all begins with listening to the small voice within that says something is not quite right, and resisting the urge to shut that voice out. "I think it's one of the last great taboos, if you live in a privileged place like the Western world—saying that you're not really happy in your life," says Kempton. "We get caged, we build these lives that shut freedom out. But we can get out of that cage."
