Full Blog:
Hi, my name is Cindy and I live in Springfield, VA with my husband and 3 boys (ages 23, 21 and 17-that is, when the older two are not away at school). I am one of the lucky seven women who will accompany Dr. Peeke on the Grand Canyon adventure. I met Dr. Peeke in November, 2000, about 8 months after her book Fight Fat after Forty hit the book stores. There are two comments that she made to me that day that will forever stick out in my mind. The first comment was that I see that you spend your day rescuing everyone. How true and I will speak to that in a moment. The second was when she said I am taking several of my patients to brisk walk the New York City Marathon about a year from now and I am putting you down. I had never even entertained the idea of doing a marathon and here I was being challenged to train for it. We jogged/walked the NYC Marathon in November, 2001. What an incredible experience, one that I do not think we could replicate since it was the first time New Yorkers had come out for anything positive since 9-11. Since then, I have attended 3 other Dr. Peeke Retreats, one in Aspen where we hiked Green Mountain and 2 trips to Red Mountain Spa where we hiked Zion and Bryce.
The comment that Dr. Peeke made to me about rescuing everyone is something that many of us women do daily. We put everyone else first and if there is a tiny bit of time left, we might do something for ourselves. Unfortunately, there usually isnt any time left and when we do this, we dont empower ourselves or those around us. I continue to struggle with this and have found that having a goal like the marathon or hiking the Grand Canyon, forces me to put myself first. I am very excited about participating in this hike, especially as I have never been to the Grand Canyon. I have found though that the actual activity is like the icing on the cake. It is in the journey where we learn so much about ourselves and find out that we are capable of doing things beyond our wildest imagination. And with the loving encouragement of Dr. Peeke, we know that we can accomplish anything.
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