I’ll Meditate My Stress Away
By: Carrie Vollmer-Sanders
Tags: Farmers, Agriculture, Prayer, Family, Stress

I’ll Meditate My Stress Away

We farm in the Midwest, where Indiana, Ohio and Michigan all come together. It has been a cold and wet spring. Typically we get something planted in April, then it rains for a few weeks and we plant again in May, finishing up around Memorial Day.

This year we saw April come and go, and it was far to cold and wet. The soil warms up slower than the air temperature so you have to take it’s temperature, like you do with people. If soil temperatures are below 50 degrees the seeds won’t germinate and grow. It has to be dry enough too, my tell is the soil is able to support a pick-up truck driving across the field without getting any big dirt clods on the tires. If the soil is too wet, many things can attack our helpless little seeds. Cold and wet soils are not a fun place for them to hang out! Even worse times is when the call comes in that the planter tractor is stuck… yikes what a mess that turns into!

Our front yard had a “new pond” in it about weekly from April 15-June.

We saw May come and go. I’m not sure we had more than two days in a row without rain the entire month! In fact, Ethan, our oldest son cheered on a sunny afternoon, “some free vitamin D!” Usually when the weather is this poor and this many acres not planted, economics comes into play and prices go up. Except this year we have a funny little thing happening to the markets, trade disagreements between US and China, our largest soybean buyer. We export about a fifth of our soybeans and corn in this country. When those markets evaporate, we have less demand, and lower prices for our products. So even with the bad weather, the markets haven’t really responded the way we thought they might. Like the weather, trade disputes are out of our control.

I didn’t realize how stressed I was about not getting anything planted. We bought two farms last year, one was a farm that had been in my husbands family for 149 years. I did not want the 150th year to be the one that saw it barren. I wanted to celebrate the 150 year old farm with a great crop.

Yep, I was stressed. My stress tells are: my scalp gets dry spots, I get cold and can’t get warm, sometimes I get infections or flu, I’m tired but can’t sleep, my elbow and knee joints hurt, and I snap at my kids. Ugh. All of those things were happening to me.

I downloaded the Headspace app and started to listen to that to help me fall asleep. I went on walks and jogged a little, did yoga, did pilates reformer and I read my devotionals on the YouVersion Bible App. It did help calm me; I thought I was handling my stress. My stress tells weren’t going away.

On June 1, we had hail come through like five different times in one day! Hail is never helpful to plants that are growing. Our wheat that we planted in the fall was about 3 feet tall and the hail knocked off parts of the heads (the part that has the grain in it). I was trying to hide any concerns I had from Ryan, my husband, who I could tell was stressed out, too.

See the white dots, that is hail. I took a photo on the second storm, but it hailed several times that day!

It was June 3, it was the last week of school and we had not been in the field yet. The later you plant your crop, the lower the yield, which means less ability to pay the bills. I was laying in bed that morning and I had a little conversation with God. It is my check in time and it helps ground myself and lets me get a few things aired out. This morning I went straight to my list of questions about farming. I asked Him if we were going to get a crop in. He didn’t give me a yes or no answer. What I heard was, “Carrie, don’t worry. I’ve got this. It will be OK. You don’t need to worry.” I heard don’t worry twice and then it was reinforced that morning as both of my devotionals said the same thing. Wow! Talk about a message! Don’t worry, God is in charge.

That was a turning point for me. I started talking to others. I kept up my stress relieving practices and added to it being with other people and drinking more water. I’m not sure why, but my stress began to lessen.

We were able to plant Aunt Mary’s farm, the now 150 year-old family farm, that Friday afternoon. On Saturday, driving around the county checking to see if we had any more dry fields, it was so encouraging to see so many other farmers in the field. As the boys and I drove around, we waved at every tractor driver, we smiled so much you would think we had just won the Olympics, it was so exciting to know that others were able to plant a crop, too!

Saturday, June 8th we finished planting Aunt Mary’s. The plants you see growing is the rye cover crop. The cover crop is not harvested for any cash or feed value, we plant it in the fall to keep our soil covered during the winter and decrease chances for erosion.

It rained all day Sunday and again on Monday; we are probably finished planting this year. The latest we’ve ever planted. Some claim it is the wettest 12 month period on record since they started tracking precipitation in the 1800’s. I woke up this morning with some lagging stress affects, yep they don’t go away just because I stop worrying. But I felt refreshed for the first time in a long time. My sense of calm has reached past my brain and is beginning to impact the rest of me.

I’m glad God and I had our talk. I need to remember to not hide my worrying from Him nor from Ryan. My stress tells are evident — do you know your stress tells? I tried to do all sorts of things on my own. It wasn’t until I heard the reassurance to not worry, that I truly began to relax.

I’m trying to figure out a way to speed up the process of getting to the not worry for the next time I’m stressed. For now, the memory of my “talk” is so fresh I can’t forget. Maybe I need to capture those words on a card or a piece of wall art where I can read the message often. I will continue to use Headspace or Calm apps for the sleep stories, I’ll keep exercising for lots of reasons and I’ll read my devotionals. I work in a home office and I think being with others helped too. We are social creatures and when stressed out, it is not healthy to be alone.

Stress will always be present in our lives, but it is our job to be aware of it and process it in a way that helps us. People deal with stress differently. My hope for you is when you encounter overwhelming stress, you find a way to react that is healthy for you and those around you. For me, as a Christian, I need to talk with God. Dealing with stress on my own, didn’t seem to cut the mustard, I needed to pray to help get me through. I don’t think prayer alone is enough either though. We need to do our part to help ourselves. If exercise, devotionals or meditation/sleep apps aren’t enough for you, there are lots of other strategies to help with stress that can be healthy. Here are some positive actions people have mentioned to me: talking with others*, painting, cleaning, getting rid of clutter, keeping your hands busy like by washing dishes or folding clothes, eliminating the news from your morning routine, playing a board game with your family, listening to music, playing with your dog/cat, writing… Please share your suggestions!

*If you are in the US, and you want to talk to someone else, there is a farmer hotline that connects you with someone to talk with about the stress you are going through. https://farmcrisis.nfu.org/ has lots of resources including a phone line, 800.273.TALK.