Hello everyone, my name is Nathan Rawlings and I'll be attempting to traverse New Zealand from end to end in 90 days covering 1,800 miles on Bike, Packraft and on Foot! This journey will test me not only physically but mentally and emotionally as I travel through dense jungle forests, endless section of sandy beaches, windy gravel farm roads and as I peddle my bicycle to new heights!
I hope that you will find inspiration in following along on my journey. Not to long ago I couldn't put a day together without getting drunk or high. My life didn't always look this fun. In fact not to long ago, I was pretty much homeless living in an unheated garage in Colorado during winter, I didn't think there was a way to change, and I didn't think I wanted to live very much anymore, I was on a path to an earlier death, just like my biological father and his father. I needed to ask for help and I had to get honest with myself.
Four years ago at this time I was in rehab, at the bottom of my rope. At that rehab, I found the help I needed and began my journey of recovery. If your life is not what you want it to be, you need to look at your part in that and take action to start making changes. These don't happen overnight so it's best to get started. I can only speak from my experience, but it was my pride and ego that kept me from asking for help for so long. I ask you now as you read this, to think about how you feel about me? How does reading this make you feel about me? Do you want to ridicule me and make me feel less than or do you feel this feeling of empathy and connection to the struggle. For most people its the latter of the two, and that's because at one point in everyone's life there is struggle. I ask that you look past what people may think of you and instead think of yourself and reach out for help, because on the other side of the help is a much better quality of life.
These grand adventures that I'm now getting to experience, have been dreams of mine, some for decades like going to New Zealand. Before I sought help there was not chance that I could go after my dreams. So now that I've accepted that I struggle with addiction, I can move through life putting mental health first, and with that I can go after my dreams. In recent years have I've had some of the best experiences I've ever had, followed by some of the hardest. Which we know to be part of this eb and flow of life that we all experience. At least now I'm experiencing the life I had more imagined for myself. If your struggling I can relate to that and the feeling that go along with that. Reach out to someone in your life or an organization that can point you in the right direction. I believe you can do it and it will be scary but it will be the best thing you ever done!
To live is to struggle, I want my time here to be spent helping people to realize they don't have to suffer the same way I or others have for so long, as well as at the same time showcasing the power of the great outdoors and all it has to offer. Not only from a healing standpoint, but that of giving purpose and meaning to one's life. There are endless ways to find fulfillment through the outdoors. Whether you explore for personal reasons or for professional reasons, or if your like me and want to combine those two things and find an approach to life that creates a lifestyle that you can be proud of, and one that gives great passion, purpose and meaning to one's life.
Please join along on this journey of mine, which will be full of excitement, adventure, exploration of oneself, the landscape of New Zealand and the people who live there! If anything I've said here strikes a cord with you, please reach out and I'll be happy to tell you the steps I took to change my life!
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