week 8: reinventing the vision
this week on the little dream farm
At some point in the near future we’ll get back to regularly-scheduled Farm Note topics. For now, we’ve taken a slight detour and I’m using this forum to share some more personal things from me. If you’re just catching up, read the Week Six Farm Note and the Week Seven Farm Note for better context of today’s topic.
At the start of the year I made a vision board.
I collected lots of lovely images, printed some things out, typed some things up, gathered a bunch of odds and ends, and spent a winter afternoon tacking it all to a pretty little board to put on display as a visual roadmap for the year ahead.
Two weeks ago I pulled every last tack from that board and placed everything displayed in the trash.
It was agonizing looking at all these things I wanted to do but know I can’t (right now). Each time I glanced at the board I felt a greater sense of blame and shame for the current season I’m navigating.
As I looked at the pile of pretty little dreams sitting atop the trash I asked myself before closing the lid,
What if this season is requiring a different version of me? A different focus from me? A different direction for me? What if this season is pushing me towards some things? Pulling me to others?
And so I let go of all the ways I thought I was going to make/do/effort/action/control this year to go, and instead my heart is cracked wide open and I’m tapping into and listening to what this moment is trying so seemingly desperately to tell me.
I finally remembered…that I’ve forgotten…that I always used to say:
Our lives are always whispering to us…speaking to us in subtle ways. Except we’re not always listening, primarily because we’re too busy trying to control everything around us. Eventually, when we’ve gone on not listening long enough, our lives shout at us in not-so-subtle ways in order to help us course correct.
I’ve now been on the receiving end of the shouting.
Perhaps it’s time to reinvent the vision for this year.
This week I was off the farm and out of town all week in Georgia for work. And while I was worried about how I was going to manage pain and and navigate full days in the office in uniform, instead this week gave me a much needed reprieve.
Turns out, I was desperately needing a break from myself.
The pain in my back and neck and chest was minimized. It was 20-40 degrees warmer in Georgia than it was back here on the farm so I got a welcome break from the cold. I grabbed nourishing food to eat throughout the week. I walked in the mornings at the hotel gym. I was busy at the office throughout the day. And I had dinner at night with a close friend I’m currently working alongside on this project.
On the drive from the base back to the airport Friday afternoon, my perspective shifted:
The symptoms I’ve been feeling so ferociously alerted me that something was off. I’ve been able to rely on my knowledge and training about nutrition and wellness to improve not only my bloodwork but how I feel, too. This is a work in progress as I am having to learn so many things I didn’t know and have never navigated before…not to mention that managing the thyroid and autoimmune conditions are so difficult to begin with. This has given me such huge insight and compassion and empathy for those who suffer with chronic conditions.
The pain in my back got severe enough to take it seriously, fortunately before something much worse happened. I’ve likely had these disc issues for quite a while (thinking back to loading 300 bales of hay into the barn on my own and lugging thousands of dahlia tubers around last spring and fall) and had just been pressing on. Sadly, when I started feeling so bad from the thyroid symptoms, I stopped working out as often for about the last year…which made me weaker overall and more prone to injury. With a few months of dedicated strength training I should be feeling a whole lot better and stronger. Turns out this coach was in need of some of her own coaching.
My job ending so abruptly just before Christmas has been a blessing in disguise as the team I’m currently working with has been a wonderful change of pace, even if this contract will get cut short because of return-to-work policies. I have time now to figure out what is next, and while the work I’ve been doing the last several years was a reliable, sure thing, that isn’t the case right now. I’m feeling the nudge to bet on myself and take a leap.
There have been a few other really challenging, overwhelming, and stress-inducing things that I chose not to mention to you (things I really, actually don’t want to talk about) in the Week Six Farm Note, and I’m now talking to close friends and mentors to work through those things as best I can.
Something that’s felt like it’s been looming over me these last few weeks is what to do about the farm this year.
I’ve said before that as we’ve run up against dead end after dead end with conserving or restoring or actively farming this land or having someone else here to do it, that it started to make me question if the farm was trying to tell us something…like maybe it was time for us to step out of the way to make room for the next steward with a different vision than ours.
I’ve got to admit that there’ve been a few times when I was feeling especially bad at the start of the year that I wondered if my health was the last straw…the thing that would finally force us to move on from this little dream.
Chris can’t possibly continue to take on everything, especially when the growing season begins.
But I absolutely can’t keep going at the same pace and intensity of the last several years…doing things like slinging hay bales and lugging dahlia tuber boxes and pounding t-posts into the ground and days spent bent over in the garden are totally out of the question for this season.
This may very much just be me projecting my own feelings. So just like the questions I asked upon throwing my vision board for this year away, I’ve also been asking, What if the farm isn’t asking us for any of those things we think it needs? What if instead the farm is or has been trying to tell me something that I’ve not been receiving?
We’ve been talking about this lately and I’ve been making some calls for help and working on creative ways to steward and take care of the farm that also stewards and takes care of us.
I’ll plan to share those things with you as we put the pieces into place and I’m feeling really excited and inspired and comforted by the doors this has opened and the possibilities of what’s ahead.
I’m back home on the farm now and feeling more like myself, which is really saying a lot for how much and how long I’ve not felt that way.
Chris told me this weekend the days are getting longer by three minutes every day now…and in just two weeks time it’ll still be light out after 7 p.m.
I’m feeling renewed in my focus of getting stronger in mind, body, and spirit—for brighter days are just up ahead.
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Have you thought of inviting students from farming colleges to do internships/ get hands on experience to help you out? Just a thought
Thanks for another great note Sarah. Gosh, things have been/are tough. It sounds like there's a spark of light at the end of the tunnel now though (at least 3 minutes extra every day 😂). I was just reading about self compassion and how its important to keep exercising it regularly so it can be resiliently there when you particularly need to call on it. It made me think of your book and all the wise words you have shared with us here. That feels like a very strong and resilient foundation that you have built. Likewise with your fitness and nutrition. Even though it might feel like all that is swept away in difficult times, I think its reassuring to think that its still there, giving support. I hope you can feel the strength from within during these challenging days and give yourself some compassion too. For the days when that's too hard, don't forget the community here is rooting for you and you can call on that strength any time you need xxx