2 minute read
How Austinites Choose To Move: Cindy Present
WATERSPORTS
Water is essential for everyone but especially Cindy Present. Cindy’s love for the water and watersports goes all the way back to her childhood growing up on the banks of Lake Austin. She grew up waterskiing and even participated in the sport at a competitive level. She also met her husband, Steve, through water skiing.
Today, Cindy still resides on the same property where she grew up and has added new watersports into the mix, such as stand-up paddle boarding and wake surfing. She is on the water everyday, whether it’s to commute to her job as the fitness and activities director at Lake Austin Spa Resort or simply to get her daily dose of “Blue Mind.”
Cindy has an understanding of the mental, emotional and physical impact that being on, in or near the water can have on personal wellness. She knows this from science and personal experience.
In 2015, Cindy’s friend, Kristin McLain, who was a Star Flight nurse, was killed in a rescue accident. Kristin also had a passion for the water, and the two would often paddle together after a stressful day on the job. After her death, Cindy, as well as others in their community, turned to the water and paddling for healing.
This sparked the early beginnings of the nonprofit Cindy and Steve now run, Operation Get Out — which provides and leads water-based experiences for individuals, youth, first responders and military that are dealing with stress, anxiety, bullying, illness, loss, grief and PTS.
Their goal through the organization is to teach others to use the water as a form of medicine that can help put them at ease, “unlock” pent-up emotions and stress, share with others and gain confidence in order to find the resilience to move forward in life.
“My legacy wish for Operation Get Out is to inspire individuals to realize and utilize water as medicine,” Cindy says. “If we can help instill a Blue Mind response in individuals who know they are positively mentally and emotionally impacted by being in, near, on or under the water, then when they are struggling, they will have this amazing, natural, readily available resource that can dramatically impact their lives if they will consciously and intentionally use it.”
