I hauled my achy, tired body out of bed to get to the FitLabs at 6:15 AM so I could attempt to make myself stronger to walk the 60-70 miles to Santiago, Spain the end of this month. A few years ago I would have laughed at anyone who suggested I would work out almost everyday. My other goal for this endeavor was to fit into my walking clothes from last summer’s trip. I started this quest 19 days ago. Am I delusional??? I work hard at it; I really expected to drop the pounds easily, but have gained a pound! James at The FitLabs says not to worry, don’t think about the weight, just eat right and keep going. Easy for him to say but truly my heart sinks when I get on that scale.

The group I am taking this adventure with is being sponsored by Nurturing Lifestyles, Inc and led by Mary Padlak. Mary has been leading groups for years on these journeys where participants have an opportunity to connect more deeply with themselves and rediscover who they really are. Most of us have been very busy in our lives creating careers and achieving goals we set at some point in our lives. Now we realize that there is more to living and we might have overlooked some things.

So here I am on this journey looking inward to find out more about me, my relationship to the world and how I relate to others. Mary has asked us all to write down a list of intentions. These intentions may be what we want to create for ourselves, what we want to bring into our lives, how we want to be, who we want to be, etc. We have also been instructed to write a list of things we want to let go of. This might include behaviors that no longer serve us or material things no longer needed or relationships that are no longer appropriate for us.

All this deep thinking has made me hungry! I’m off to scavenge the fridge and feed the dogs.

Until next time,
Stephanie

Here are some more photos from last year’s trip.