Resilience Boot Camp 2

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Week 3: Gratitude

Welcome to week three of Resilience Boot Camp with another bushel of inspiration from our women farmer community on ways to keep healthy in mind, body, and spirit during the abundance of peak summer. This week, we explore how an attitude of gratitude can impact our mental health.

Thanks for the positive feedback the past two weeks and your ideas for future editions. Keep connected through our Facebook group.

Lisa Kivirist, MOSES In Her Boots Coordinator

Thoughts on Gratitude
By Cynthie Christensen

Farmer, Therapist, & Nurse

1. Do it daily.

We mostly think about gratitude once a year when we're sitting down to the Thanksgiving meal and everybody has to go around the table and say what they're grateful for. Most of the time we say family or food or just something quick so that you can get to the turkey. But I would encourage people to actually have a daily gratitude practice. Begin to think during the day about moments that you're grateful for so that the end of the day, when you put your head on the pillow, you can recall three or four things that happened that day that you were really grateful for.

2. Write your 'done' list.

Focus on what you got done. Typically on the farm, there's way more to do than you have time for. It’s important at the end of the day to look at what you got done. When I feel overwhelmed, at the end of the day I’ll remind myself of the basics: Today I was a good daughter. I did something for my parents. I was a good sister today. I was a good mom. I try to just give myself credit for what I did do, because I probably was good at what I chose to do that day.

3. Curate mental health.

When people hear “mental health,” oftentimes they really hear “mental illness,” which is not the same thing. Mental health is someone engaged in life, who's happy to wake up in the morning and has things to do that they value during the day. They are connected with people. They know what they value. They have better physical health because of their better mental health. We're all one being. I'm a therapist and a psychiatric nurse and I think the brain is the most important thing in the body. When we can take care of our brains, we take care of our bodies better. We sleep better, we eat better, we're just better overall.

4. Connect.

With mental health, connection is one of the most important things. When we feel like we're the only one dealing with something, it's not good for our mental health. When I can connect with others who are having a shared experience, I feel like I'm not alone. In the past, our church communities have given us that structure through circles like women’s craft days. In our busy world today, we don't often take time for those things and perfectionism can play a reason why. You don't feel like your house is clean enough or having someone over will add more stress. Take out some of those barriers and simply connect.

Podcast:
Cynthie Christensen on Gratitude in Farming

Check out Cynthie’s full story this week on our Resilience Boot Camp podcast series as she shares how her childhood experiences, including the loss of the family farm, impacted her and inspired her role today as an advocate and educator in farmer mental health.

Listen to the podcast

Resilience Tips from the Field

Cynthie Christensen
MN Advisory Council on
Mental Health

“Embrace the simplicity. Gratitude is a shift in our perspective. You can do it every day, moment by moment. What we think is the most powerful thing. The voice we hear inside of our own head is the voice we listen to the most. If somebody tells us something positive and we don't believe it, we just negate that comment as irrelevant. Gratitude is something that you can begin to practice and shift that voice from what is going wrong to what is going right. I believe that there's always something that's going right in the midst of whatever.”

Erin Schneider
Hilltop Community Farm

“'Be grateful for what you have,' my mother would share as I dragged my feet toward the gardens to pick off the potato beetles. To pass the time, my sister and I would make up songs about ‘picking potato beetles.' Cultivating a culture of gratitude on our farm continues to take on different tunes. This time of year, I scout the orchard and shake off Japanese beetles. It’s hot, it’s frustrating, and I surrender. A few years back, I started to make singing an intentional practice at the front and back end of the season. I am no soprano and when singing harmonies, I fall flat. But you know what, it doesn’t matter as it’s the way you presence yourself from a place of gratitude that helps your heart grow and sing. Walking the land and singing, ‘thank you,' in whatever tune arises helps me re-establish my relationship to this place."

Alicia Razvi
Wooly Thyme Micro Farm

"Wake up early. Early enough to greet the sun on your own terms. Early enough to get at least five deep breaths, the kind where you hold them in your chest and you feel hopeful and strong, then let them out just as slowly without interruption. Early enough to enjoy your coffee, hot. Be outside without your work list handy. Listen to the wind rustle the leaves. Take in the colors around you. How blue is the sky? How yellow or pink or fiery orange are the wild flowers? Be grateful for the leaves and the birds and the bugs and the blue of the sky and the fiery orange of the wildflower. Don’t think about your pile of bills or your endless deliveries or your anxiety about whatever. Be only in the present. Gratitude and presence are powerful tools in our hard-working, rapidly changing world."

Recipe for Resilience:
Wheat Berry Salad

Each week, we share a change-of-taste recipe that blends healthy nutrition and seasonal vegetable abundance with a dash of simplicity. This week’s Wheat Berry Salad is from Molly Breslin of Breslin Farms in northern Illinois. This can be easily mixed with other grains like barley, quinoa, or rice and kept in the fridge for an easy meal. The mint adds a “mohito” twist.