I have a warrior hand. Both my hands ahand are  shaped in a combination of Fire and Earth.

I have more than a dozen deeply etched warrior lines moving across my palm.

The warrior is on earth to use her exceptional courage in the pursuit of changing the world.  The challenge, for many warriors, is the desire to change things outside of ourselves rather than applying that exceptional courage to serving ourselves.

This year I am applying some of my exceptional courage to treating my body like the beautiful vessel it’s meant to be.  To accomplish all the things I intend to in the next 50+ years of life, I intend to brave the challenges that my body brings to me. 

My body is a great tool, and admittedly I’ve been blessed with some mighty fine genes.  I have “success” as part of my life purpose and that means things can often come easily to me.  Which means I can be lazy.  In recent years the laziness has revolved around listening to and honoring my body.  I’ve never tolerated laziness in any other area of my life — always pushing myself to the next level intellectually and professionally.  I’ve worked tirelessly in the pursuit of creating effective communication skills and refused to step down in the face of relationship challenges.  But, when it came to pushing myself to eat healthier, workout more often or anything else, I’ve been a pushover.

This year I listen to my body and honor its requests.  I give myself the gift of self-awareness each and every year and I’m excited to move forward on my journey.  The journey to my body has been gestating for a while.

For me, when I re-awakened to the idea that I truly was a spiritual being I was stumped with what to do with my body.  In some instances I felt that I should live an ascetic lifestyle and live simply, denying the food and drink that I so enjoyed.   Other times I felt that I was constantly struggling to keep myself grounded because I was spending so much time in my head – in meditation and in contemplation.  The need to ground was sending me chasing after lots of  processed foods, as well as meats and calorie laden carbs.

But increasingly, I’ve been finding it harder to move ahead on my spiritual path.   For several months now I’ve been feeling the call to move away from meat in my diet.  Now, I LOVE meat, and always have, but this has been a deep inner urging.  My friends are meatatarians, vegans, vegetarians and flexitarians alike.  Some think the call to avoid meat is unAmerican (yes, they actually said that — although, I hope, in a  joking manner).  Others think it’s a great experiment, and the Overcooked-Meat-and-White-Potato man I live with is bemused at best.

So, I’ve decided to give it a go. From now until my birthday (February 1) I’m going to remove meat from my diet.  I will, however, eat fish, so I suppose you’d call this new way of eating a pescetarian lifestyle.

I don’t intend to specifically alter any of the other items in my diet, but will commit to listening to inner guidance and serve my body as directed.  I will continue with my daily walking and 2x weekly yoga practice and add any other activity as I see fit.

I promise to post updates (at least weekly) on the changes I feel and notice — mentally and physically – throughout the month.

For those of you who live meat-free I welcome your thoughts, your recipes, your tips and your insight – use the comment section. For those of you who may have been thinking of going meat-free – feel free to join me and keep me posted on your progress in the comments!