ARE you a man that is feeling anxious all the time? Someone who feels hollow or lonely? James Greenshields knows exactly how you feel and has been through a similar experience.
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Put Your Hand Up is coming to Horsham to help Wimmera men get more out of life from a day-long workshop.
Mr Greenshields is a former Australian Army commander who, after leading frontline soldiers in the Iraq campaign, returned home a changed man.
He had personal experiences with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder which influenced his life until he received a helping hand.
Put Your Hand Up will teach Wimmera men skills to deal with depression, anxiety and other emotionally debilitating conditions.
Mr Greenshields said that he thinks that the meaning and understanding of masculinity is changing.
“We need to look at the path forward, I grew up in a country area as well as been to the Wimmera,” he said.
“There is a lot of adversity in the Wimmera – it is a veteran community that could be severely threatened.”
Mr Greenshields said that taking the first step in suicide prevention is understanding exactly who you are as a person and this is what Put Your Hand Up aims to achieve.
“The results are speaking for themselves, when husbands leave the room it seems like wives are looking at their man for the first time in years,” he said.
“Some jobs that specifically farmers do is much bigger than some people realise, some farmers have to go out to the paddock and shoot a thousand sheep and dump them in a hole. That kind of thing doesn’t take long to make a man feel worthless.”
The workshop will aim primarily on helping men understand exactly who they are, with a lot of laughter.
The workshops will begin at 9.30am and registrations will be taken from 8.30am at the Greyhound Rooms at the Horsham Show Grounds on Sunday December 11.
It will run until 5pm.
Mr Greenshields said that the workshop will help you framework your life and take it where you want it to go.
“You will feel profound shifts inside yourself,” he said.
Entry fee is by donation.
More information is available online at putyourhandupaustralia.org.