From Stress to Strength: Why Survival is OK right now

Welcome to From Stress to Strength, a special podcast series by Farm Life Psych with Steph Schmidt, proudly supported by Ski for Life.

Join Steph Schmidt, a psychologist, farmer and mum as she explores strategies to help navigate the challenges (and the joys) of farming life.

In this first episode, Steph sets the scene for the season ahead—sharing why this podcast series was created, what’s been happening on farms across South Australia (and beyond), and why it’s okay to simply be surviving right now. With so many juggling relentless drought, financial pressure, and emotional fatigue, Steph introduces the powerful concept of “filling your silo”—a relatable and practical wellbeing metaphor for farming life.

💬 In this episode, you'll hear:

• A real-time check-in on the 2024 season and what farmers are facing
• Why running on empty might get the job done—but at what cost?
• A guided "silo check-in" to reflect on your current energy levels
• Practical strategies for noticing what’s draining or filling your tank
• A reminder that thriving isn’t the only goal—sometimes surviving is enough

Whether you’re in the paddock, the ute, or at home with the chaos of life, this short, honest episode will help you pause, reflect, and gently care for yourself.

📝 Take the 2-minute check-in survey:
Help us understand how this series is supporting you and your community. Your anonymous responses will guide future episodes and help evaluate the impact of the series.
👉 Complete the podcast check-in at www.stephschmidt.com.au/podcast

🌱 This series is proudly supported by Ski for Life, a grassroots organisation promoting mental health, wellbeing, and suicide prevention in rural communities across Australia.

👩‍💻 Connect with Steph:
Website: www.stephschmidt.com.au
Instagram/Facebook: @stephschmidt.farmlifepsych
LinkedIn: Steph Schmidt

📩 Want to share your reflections or ideas for upcoming episodes? Get in touch at steph@stephschmidt.com.au

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Possibly when it comes to being decent humans, running on empty doesn't work too well. Welcome to From Stress to Strength, a special series of the Farm Life Psych podcast. I'm Steph Schmidt, a psychologist, a farmer, a farm wife, and a mum of three delightful boys. And I know firsthand just how heavy things can feel on the land right now. This series is proudly supported by Speed for Life, an incredible organisation promoting mental health, well-being, and suicide prevention in rural communities. And I'll chat a little bit later about the grant I've received from them to deliver this podcast series. In this first episode, I wanted to take a moment to I guess just set the scene a little bit why this grant is really important to help me to deliver this podcast. I guess an update on the season we're in for me, for you. I've travelled a bit across South Australia at the moment, and I know we're definitely not alone in this. The pressure that we're under, and I guess why I feel and hope that this podcast series really is very needed right now. And as always, this series isn't only for you if you're in South Australia, it's for farmers, people in rural communities, how even if you're not on a farm or in a rural community, if you relate to these ideas, if you find it helpful, then I'm so happy to have you here for a listen. So let's jump in. So it has been a couple of months since I have recorded an episode. Part of why I am really glad to have the funding is because we are doing the same juggle as so many in the pressures that we're facing, I guess, financially on the farm, mean that I do have to be fairly brutal in the choices that I'm making in my work off farm around what brings in income and what doesn't, which is partly why the podcast has been on hold. So receiving this grant from Ski for Life allows me to bring this series out to you, and it's it's extra special, I guess, because Ski for Life, one of my local communities, is Borough, and it's where my kids go to school, it's where we do the local grocery shopping where we play footy. Um, and there are so many in the community. Ski for life is a really big part of what a lot of people do. We we don't head to the river ourselves, but there's lots of people that that head and do the the big actual ski fundraising for this awesome organization. So on that, I'm yeah, really honoured to have received some funding from them to deliver this podcast series. And in this series, it's when we first kind of putting it, I put it out there back at the start of this year. Gosh, I was hoping that this season would turn out differently than 2024. Um, but it really has continued to test us and stretch us, and and it's not over. Um, there has been small amounts of rain across the state, but not drought breaking by any means at all. Over the last couple of months, I have travelled, I've been up to Oroy, across to Lameroo, I have been down south a few weeks ago to Narakor and Lucendale, and really everywhere we are we are like, yes, some people's dry might be different to other people's dry, but for everyone, people are saying I've never seen it this dry before. I thought last year was tough, but this year is even tougher. Um, so if you're if you're struggling at the moment, if you are finding things incredibly tough, please know that you aren't alone. There is a huge amount of exhaustion, decision fatigue, frustration, probably even just continued overwhelm and all of those ongoing feelings going on everywhere. Um, and it's not just South Australia either. We know that these the drought is really hitting across into Victoria now, some parts of New South Wales, and then at the other extreme, they're the parts that are recovering from the ongoing impacts of the floods as well. And I've said this on the podcast before, or maybe even on my socials as well, is that even outside of these more big sea crises, there is just a general feeling of overwhelm, of too muchness kind of across the world at the moment. So I get it, I see it. I'm in it with you, and I guess part of what I share on the podcast is also to help myself to remember some of these things as well. For us personally, we are still, it's as I'm recording this, it's the middle of June, we're still chugging through seeding. Still a few of those ongoing questions whether we should be, whether we shouldn't be. A few tints of green are starting to come up in the paddocks, not a huge amount, but it's coming, and yeah, just hopefully more rain coming up soon. But yeah, whether you are trying to make those decisions on if you are sewing another paddock, by the time this comes to air, I reckon it'll be mid-beginning of July. So most people will have finished uh sewing, but those questions around how the feed's going, how much you feed out now, hoping that the the green feed will start to come through, or just kind of holding things together, it the impacts on our well-being every day. And sometimes the pressure doesn't come out when you're out in the paddock, it comes out when the kids hit that final nerve, or when I don't know, the car won't start properly, or just like the smallest thing, then all of a sudden, is the straw that breaks the camel's back, and that emotional fatigue that really takes in. So, yeah, I hope there will be some little reminders throughout this series on some strategies, some things that we can do to manage where we're at. Something that I've really reinforced, I guess, in the workshops I've been running lately is right now survival is okay. It's not necessarily the time where you need to be doing a well-being overhaul, it's not necessarily the time where you need to be aiming for thriving. If surviving, getting by day by day is what's actually getting you through day by day, then that's okay. There are times in life where all the balls line up and we might meet that kind of thriving goal, but there are other times where we're getting by, and where you are at is where you are at. What I've seen coming up for people in all of the workshops that I've been doing, in conversations across communities, is that people are really tired, not just physically, but that real emotional exhaustion, a decision fatigue, almost a decision paralysis at time, and that quiet voice that might come in at times of how much longer can I keep doing this? And that might be how much longer can we keep navigating the farm with these pressures? It might be those questions over the decisions you've made, and even just in those moments where you know that you can keep doing it, but your mind just goes, I can't keep doing it. There's a lot of that that shows up. But alongside that, I also see an immense amount of strengths that are showing up, and those strengths that are always there as well, that sometimes become invisible. So the way that we all do keep showing up for each other, whether it's for our kids, for our partners, for our mates, for our friends, for our communities, whether it's when you do remember to send a message to your partner, even though you're both quite exhausted, the parents who are finding time to get to footy or throw the footy in with their kids in the backyard, even after having a really tough day, or the farmers who are still out there showing up for seeding, getting out there, feeding sheep, even though they're exhausted by it. And again, I guess it comes back to that and idea that even when there is this immense challenge that we are facing, these pressures that we are facing, there are still those ands, there are still those tiny, tiny moments, and I think what I keep reinforcing even more is sometimes they are even tinier than we think they need to be. It might just be a quick catching the sunrise or the sunset, actually stopping and appreciating those tiny moments like when when your kids are playing for a few moments without fighting or sitting down to actually enjoy a warm cup of coffee or cup of tea. All of those little things that sometimes the more stressed we become, the f harder we find it to put that stuff in place. So, in this series, I wish it was a magic answer, silver bullet that had all the fixes that you need to be able to navigate the challenges that you face. It's not a magic wand, but I hope it will deliver something real, some short, practical, and honest episodes to support your mental health and well-being. That really will be the focus of it, the things that you can do each day to support your own mental health and well-being. There has been a lot of conversation, there always is a lot of conversation around how we support others, supporting like service providers to be the accidental counselors, supporting the farmers that they're working with. I think we often feel a bit out of our depth when we know everyone around us is struggling. But I guess one thing that I am super aware of at the moment is that everyone really is well, not everyone, that's probably a bit too generic, but many people are struggling in their own ways, and the emphasis on needing to support everyone else, I think sometimes takes the focus away from needing to actually take care of ourselves first. It comes back to the feel-your silo analogy that I've talked about a few times. If you've been in a workshop with me, you would have heard me share it. But ultimately, in farming, whether you're cropping or in livestock, you probably keep some silos of grain when you're cropping. You keep your silos of seed wheat ready for putting in next year's crop. If you're in livestock, you might keep some grain for feed, and you're always making sure that those field bins don't run empty, that those silos don't run empty. And it's looking that taking care of our own well-being is much the same. At times, do let our silos run to empty. Sometimes that happens accidentally, we lose touch with or we we kind of have so much going on that we run out of time to do those things that actually fill us up, and we can run on empty for a short amount of time. And I was thinking about this this morning after I had a not so great day yesterday trying to get stuff done with a couple of kids home sick but really not that sick with still a fair bit of energy. That we can do some stuff when we're running on empty, so I think like when it comes to the farm, we can get in there and do the jobs that needs to be done. We can jump in the cedar, we can go out and feed sheep, we can do some of those more mechanical kind of jobs when we're getting close to empty, we can keep on pushing through. But possibly when it comes to being decent humans, running on empty doesn't work too well. So I realised I probably had a really hard time yesterday at home with the kids because I also feeling a little bit under the weather myself was running close to empty, trying to push through and do extra. Um, and yeah, I probably wasn't the best version of being a human that I could be. So instead of I probably did spend a little bit of time dwelling on it and beating myself up for it, but what I also did was put myself to bed pretty soon after the kids went to sleep last night, had an early night, and got up this morning and went for a walk. It's something I've kind of missed for a little bit. So getting back and doing it was what I needed to do to fill my silos so that I could turn up as the mum I wanted to be today, so that I could show up as the person and as the human that I want to be. So I guess I understand where the conversations around how do we take care of others, how do we look out for those around us. I understand where that need for it is coming from, but I will continue to advocate, I will continue to push the message that you need to take care of yourself first. And yeah, just thinking about what are the smallest things that you can do each day to take care of yourself. Okay, so on that night, on that note of the the fill your silo analogy, and look, yes, I know I've shared this on the podcast before, but it's probably like six months ago, so even if you listen to that episode, we could all do with a reminder of it. The exercise that I want you to try out today is just checking in on yourself, checking in on your silo where it's sitting right now. Um, because we are operating on autopilot so much of the time, and often I think the more stressed we are, the more we do kick into autopilot, really as a protective strategy. It's what our brain, it's what our mind does to protect us. But sometimes we need to step out of that autopilot and step into noticing to really just notice where we're at right now. Um, so I invite you, like, and use the same skills that you already have. You already have these skills in noticing. If you are a farmer, you use these noticing skills every day when you go out and you check your crops and you look at how the soil's moisture is or what the weather's doing, or when you go and check on your livestock and what their condition are or what their condition is, you're using those noticing skills right there. If you're not actively out on the farm, you're probably also using those noticing skills. Um when you're at home, you are probably checking in on how the kids are travelling, or you even like things as simple as cooking, we pay attention to whether the pot's boiling over or not. So just bringing those same noticing skills to ourselves are sometimes easier said than done. And so one of the simplest ways that we can do this is just actually by pausing. And I invite you to try this out right now. If you're driving, you can still do this. Um we can do it anywhere, anytime. And so start by just bringing your attention to the feet on the ground. Just noticing that feeling of your feet in your shoes or your toes gently pressing down into the ground. And then just bring your attention to your body by doing a gentle scan through your body, noticing how it feels right now, notice what thoughts might be coming up in your mind, just noticing and observing what you notice. And as you lean into that notice, just checking in on how full is my silo right now, whatever you want to call it, your energy silo, your well-being silo, your resilience silo, whatever it is. Just checking in with yourself and really taking an honest reflection on where it's sitting right now, whether it's up high and pretty good, whether it's nice and full right now, somewhere in the middle, or actually whether it's it's down really low. Um just taking that time to notice and observe where it's sitting right now. You might kind of take your hands out and draw an imaginary line in front of you. You might even kind of just draw out a quick silo or a rectangle on a piece of paper in front of you and take that time to reflect on where where it's sitting. And then as you do that, I want you to check in on just what might be some of the things that have been draining your silo lately. Whether it's working extra late nights, whether it is spending too much time on that autopilot social media scroll, um, whether it's that ongoing decision fatigue, it might be being caught up in your mind about the weather uncertainty, just a few of and you don't need to name all of them, but just notice what are just a few of the things that have been draining your silo lately. And then think about what are the things that maybe you're already doing. So awesome, keep on doing them, or just one to two small things that you can do to fill up your silo, even just a little. So it might be as small as going for a five-minute walk in the paddock while you're waiting for the sheep carriers to arrive, um, playing a song that lifts your mood when you're driving in to pick the kids up, calling someone who you haven't spoken to for a while, and not necessarily for a big, deeper, meaningful conversation, but just to say hi and connect. It doesn't have to be the big stuff, just something little that tops you up. And maybe it might be finding a bit of a switch if you're tuning out with Netflix, it might be picking up a book instead. Um, yeah, just those those littlest things because we can't run on empty all of the time, and noticing where we're at is the very first step that we can take to assess where we are, to notice and observe it, also observing it non-judgmentally, so not beating yourself up for trying to run on an empty silo, but just notice where you're sitting, and you can ask yourself this and come back to this question. You might even come back to it kind of multiple times through the day, or you might start to bring it into the conversations with your partner or your family of just kind of how full is your silo today, and then the more you do this, the more you can start to notice okay, well, what are the things that have filled me up today? What are some of those things that are draining me, and how can I put more energy into the stuff that fills me up, and maybe less energy into those things that are draining me. I would love to hear from you on how that fill your silo analogy sits for you, what happens or how it helps, doesn't help, um, when you kind of stop and pause and notice how fill your silo is. So please get in touch, um, send me an email, connect on social media, on Instagram or Facebook or LinkedIn. I would love to have a chat. Um, so that's all for today's episode. In the coming episodes in this series, we'll be covering, I guess, just some snapshots and ideas of bite-sized practical tools to help you navigate the pressures of life on the land, aiming to keep them fairly brief as usual, so something you can listen to maybe while you're feeding out or on the tractor, shifting sheep or even getting tea ready at home. So covering topics like managing that mental load when it feels like everything's on your shoulders, how to find small moments of rest and recovery, how to navigate that constant decision making, whether it's the big or little decisions, how we strengthen our relationships, and also how we can find kind of purpose, connection, and hope even during those hard seasons. It's not about fixing everything, but about offering you some small, meaningful strategies to help you move from stress to strength one step at a time. Thank you so much again to Ski for Life for supporting this episode and this series. Really excited to bring you the rest of the series. Please let me know if there is something in particular that you would like me to cover. And as I said, connect with me on socials, send me an email, steph at stephschmidt.com.au, or you can find me on socials at stephschmidt.farmlife psych. And until next week, take care of you.