I am once again doing my bit to raise the awareness of mental health issues by embarking on a 7,000km motorcycle ride to the red centre of Australia. I participated in this ride last year with my Riding4aCause buddies and loved it because I met new people, got to ride my bike and found out first hand more about the illness known by many as ‘The Black Dog’.
I am a strong believer that we need to talk more about the things that truly matter in our lives. Men, in particular, seem to miss opportunities to share their thoughts and feelings on topics that are important – families, relationships, money, and how they’re coping with the many changes going on in society today.
In every conversation I have, I urge people to share their stories, to discuss what’s important in their lives with the ones that matter to them most and to let go of any fears they may have of opening up about their thoughts, feelings and emotions. There’s enough to worry about in this world and keeping things inside is not the way to live and stay healthy. It’s the self-same philosophy behind MyProactiveLife that’s truly changed my life over the past few years. I hope that in everything I do I continue to have a positive effect on people, no matter where they’re at in the journey of life.
What I expect from this year’s ride:
- To enjoy the ride and stress less than last time ’round.
- To affect each and every person I come into contact with through my blog, Facebook, Twitter, and ask them to begin sharing more of themselves with the people that matter in their lives.
- To connect with people on a deeper level to understand how they dealt with/are dealing with depression
- To raise awareness of depression (in particular, male depression) and help the Black Dog Institute continue their research into mental health disorders
To do this, however I need your help!
I want to raise OVER $2000 (and SMASH the amount that we (as Riding4aCause) raised in 2010) Donate here!- I want this message to go out to as many people as I can, so I’d like you to pass along my blog info to your friends, family and loved ones.
- Subscribe to my blog post feed over on the right —->
- Become a fan on Facebook with the Like button on the right or through this link: http://www.facebook.com/MyProactiveLife
I will again be blogging parts of the journey, along with videos and pictures just like we did for the Black Dog Ride in 2010.
- Here are some of the videos we took along the way: http://www.youtube.com/riding4acause
- You can read about our journey in 2010 through Riding4acause: http://www.riding4acause.org/rides/our-journey-blog/
- View some of the pictures here: http://picasaweb.google.com/AndrewBlanda (here’s a slideshow of some of the pics from the 2010 Black Dog Ride)