Louisiana Farm Bureau Podcast

In this episode of the Louisiana Farm Bureau Podcast, Allie Shipley sits down with Courtney Gerace to talk about mental health in agriculture and the personal journey that led her to help launch Louisiana Farm Bureau’s new initiative, Cultivating Connection. Gerace shares her own experience with anxiety and depression, explains why farm life can intensify stress and isolation, and discusses how this effort hopes to connect people with resources and encourage honest conversations across rural Louisiana.

Creators and Guests

Host
Allie Shipley
Social Media Specialist at Louisiana Farm Bureau

What is Louisiana Farm Bureau Podcast?

Louisiana Farm Bureau is constantly working protect and promote Louisiana's farmers, ranchers, and rural residents. This podcast exists to share stories of those farmers with interviews about their farms and issues important to them. Here, we will also share about the work Farm Bureau is doing on their behalf on issues related to public policy from the parish level all the way to the halls of Congress in D.C.

Being a mom, being a wife, that was a whole everything I had ever prayed for.
And there came a day when I just couldn't do it anymore. And you add to that
the stress of the farm,
Hey everyone, I'm Allie Shipley. Welcome back to the Louisiana Farm Bureau podcast. May is National Mental Health Awareness Month, which is the perfect time to talk about this important topic and to introduce our next guest and initiatives she's been working really hard on. So I am honored to be sitting here with Miss Courtney Gerace, and we'll get into why this initiative's important and why you're the perfect person to be sitting here talking about it.
But before we jump into all of that launch, tell us a little bit about yourself.
Thank you. Yeah. So I'm Courtney Gerace,
first and foremost, I am a wife. I'm a mom to five kids. We farm. I also hold an executive directors role with the conservation association. Like, lots of things. I'm a quilter.
Go on and on. But
Thank you for having me because, the reason that I get to speak with you today is something that started out as a conversation with a friend of mine and quickly turned into, kind of a personal mission to make a difference. So, yeah, I'm very grateful to be able to sit here with you today.
We're glad that you're taking the time to sit with us. And we've kind of talked a little bit before the cameras are rolling that this is, a deeply personal topic. And so we appreciate you taking the time to sit here and talk about it. But I kind of want jump back a little bit. The first time I ever heard your name.
And this mental health initiative kind of mentioned in the same sentence was when, as if you weren't busy enough, you went stand before
the Louisiana Farm Bureau Federation Board and said, hey, I would like to send out a survey to our members and to our, audience about mental health and agriculture, as if, again, you weren't busy enough.
Can you kind of bring us me up to speed interviewers on what led you to go ask our board for that important information?
Sure. So there's actually started out, I think I mentioned this in a phone conversation with a friend, a very good friend of mine and I were talking one day, and, we share we share our struggle as we share kind of our, our personal, our stories. And, it's just going to be real. Like, we, we share on this, and she made the comment to me about wanting something, wanting to see something more at convention.
You know, and in this room, you know, and jumping straight into, you know, we have a breakout room with, licensed therapist. And it is it's kind of a leap. And we thought, well, you know, is anyone even going to walk behind that door? Is anyone going to feel like someone's watching? Or, you know, is this even going to be a thing?
How do we how do we even get this rolling? And she said, can you do something with this? I said, sure, and, you know, I'm very ambitious. And then someone says, hey, I need your help. You know, I'm I'm going to volunteer.
But it quickly turned from, yeah, I'll take this idea and run with it, too.
I got to do something.
I took it to, Amelia, because she and I also were. We also have a great relationship, and I can, you know, pick up the phone. She's someone I look up to very much, and. And I seek her advice on things. And I picked up the phone, and I started here on the executive board. I realize that we're in June, right on the cusp of our annual meeting, but what do you think about offering some kind of service?
You know, we offer all of these great member benefits, but what do we have for mental health, where we've raised all the awareness we're going to raise? What are we going to do? What what do we do now? And she said, this is great. I want to talk more about this. Let's get through convention. We'll circle back. Said great.
life got busy. We kind of we kind of fell off the the train for a minute. And right before the December board meeting, we picked up the conversation and she said, I want to get you on the agenda for our December board meeting. What do you think? And so she and I had been working on a survey, pulled in a couple resources through some, some meetings, and we put together something that we thought would really get us some answers on one, if our members were even interested in discussing mental health to if they were interested in reaching that topic, would they seek help if they know what was available?
What kind of resources could we put out here? What are our members looking for? And so in December, I stood in front of the board who never, you know, I know all of these people and never felt like such an intimidating horseshoe to stand in front of. And, I made my I made my ask. But it wasn't just the survey because it was,
It was much more personal than that.
I don't come from a farming background, but I've been married to a fourth generation farmer, and we've been together. We've been part of each other's lives for 20 years now.
But I am what someone who struggles with mental health looks like. I am a generational anxiety and anxiety induced depression sufferer. Being a mom, being a wife, that was a whole everything I had ever prayed for.
And there came a day when I just couldn't do it anymore. And you add to that the the stress of the farm, you know, the first the first farming check I ever wrote out had so many zeros behind it. I said, there's absolutely no way this fits in the box. And my husband said, yes, it does. You just have to write really small.
Yeah, I joke about, but it's it's a real thing. It's a, it's a real thing of of living in a fog and living like you can't breathe. And the smallest things, the smallest things can derail your entire day. The thought of getting out of bed and hear, you know, hearing my kids in the other room and having to get out of bed and just make breakfast, was it just became too much.
Fortunately for me. And I realized this is not everybody's story, but fortunately for me, I have a husband who is is patient and level and wanted to help. Even when I had this physical block on my words that I couldn't say what's wrong with me? Or I couldn't say I need help. You know, it's every part of me is yelling, ask for help!
And the words just won't come out because I know that that will make me feel better. And that's exactly what anxiety was not allowing me to do. And so, you know, finally, when this all when this all came out, I was able to, with the support of Nic, get to my doctor and tell my doctor all of this.
And even when words completely failed me, he could step in and say this, you know, this is what she says. This is what's going on. This is, you know, this is what this is kind of the the final straw that broke everything. And,
so I was able to start not only my path to feeling better, but kind of my journey of self-awareness, which is why the accepting kind of the, I'll call it this mission, accepting this mission quickly became something that I see as incredibly important, incredibly vital, and something that, only furthers my engagement and my love for this organization.
Because when we say that Farm Bureau is a family,
family has to be willing to air their, their, their laundry. Family has to be willing to stand up and say, I'm not okay, I need help, and I don't see help anywhere here. So what are we going to do about it? And so this survey was the first was kind of the launching point for what our membership needs and, and kind of my, my break in to saying, you all have known me on a professional level and as a, as a volunteer in this capacity.
But here's all of me, here's where, here's where I'm not okay, here's where I have faltered and here's where what you may see in front of you doesn't align with all of who I am. You know, on a day to day basis. And I'm, I'm broken and I struggle and, you know, some days I can't do anything, and some days the laundry piles up, and and it's okay.
And I don't want to. I don't want to keep this to myself. And anymore. I don't want anyone to think any differently of me. But I also don't want to pretend that I'm okay when I'm not. And there's a real freedom that comes with saying that. But it's also incredibly, incredibly terrifying. Because I don't I don't know what's going to change.
I don't know what, I don't know what perception of me is going to be different. I don't know how I'm going to be viewed.
Well, let me just cut you off there because I didn't know any of that until we sat down today. And I joked before the camera started that I didn't want to start this conversation until we were rolling, because I didn't want some of this to come out. I don't look at you any different. If anything, I admire that you're sitting here.
I'm a mom of far less kids, sitting with far less responsibilities and hats that I'm wearing. And, you know, I, I can't relate to the farm stress. I'm married to a medical resident, which comes with its own struggles. And it's it's hard to ask for help. And it's so empowering to sit here and to hear somebody say, I had to ask for that help.
And I'm so thankful that you got Nick, and I'm so thankful that you had that family in your corner and that you're you and Nick. And the camera might not know this, but a journal come up out of extreme faith and just thankful that you are using those gifts and that you said yes to that mission. I think that's such an important word to it.
I don't know what it's going to come, but I'm going to I'm going to try and I think you have done nothing. Thank you for sharing your story. It's powerful. No, I think I can speak for everybody in the Farm Bureau family that nobody views you differently. If anything, you've been stronger. And this is something that I think these survey results have hinted at is not unique in this space.
So can we kind of maybe jump to that. And again, I just I want to say thank you for sharing that story. I think it's such an important part of all of this. And this is kind of why this conversation is hard. We talk about this a lot in the PR space. It's hard to talk about mental health and raise awareness when nobody will talk about it.
So we can talk about these generics and we can use stock photos and we can use these generic stories. But until the real people who are really living these that many zeroes on those checks and feeling their real struggles of the taxes they like that are talking about it, then it's hard to put some stuff behind that. So,
I think we kind of learned you weren't alone in that survey as I was.
I've been fortunate enough to be on the back end of these calls and kind of see this process from that point on a little bit. And the survey results were pretty telling, am I correct? What what did you and your committee learn from that information?
Right. So, so the survey was sent out in December and we got responses fairly quickly. I was I was pleasantly surprised and I was optimistic. I truly I'm truly optimistic and overly ambitious about things. So I thought, we're going to send this out. It's going to be phenomenal. So when the and then the logical side of me thought, well, you know, people don't have to take this at all.
And so whenever we started to get responses here, I'd click on the the survey and then refresh to see if anyone else had submitted. But no, it's I mean, in all actuality, we got a really good sampling and, surprisingly overwhelmingly, I think we're at the point where
We just want it to be a conversation.
The problem comes in with actually seeking help. So, you know, if people are kind of struggling with where to go or where to find it or how to pay for it, that's a really big hindrance. And there's also I I'm not naive enough to think that this initiative and, this podcast episode is going to completely obliterate the stigma.
We're still going to be dealing with folks who don't maybe don't understand the industry, or maybe they do, but not everyone thinks the same, and you're still going to have that person. Unfortunately, you're still going to have this scenario where someone recognizes your vehicle and someone recognizes your vehicle at a therapist's office, and they talk to your landowner.
And that's a really bad feeling. That's really scary. I think my, my goal or my driving factor is to stop worrying about the what ifs and just make sure that you're okay because making a permanent decision that you can't undo. I think the reason that we're seeing so many farmers do it is, is one that it's completely a complete loss of hope.
And I, I have no I have no medical credentials that was not listed in the beginning of this episode, but just from just from observation and from personal experience. When you get to this feeling of complete hopelessness and
the thoughts that you're that are running through your head or telling you that everything you're doing is unsuccessful and that the burden you are causing by being here is lessened by you removing yourself from the equation.
Those aren't lies to the people that are hearing them. It's not selfish to the person that's hearing it. It feels like. And it it sounds in your head as if you were doing the best thing for your family or for the the farm that you leave behind. The thing that we have to try to overcome, the thing that we have to try to to be louder than is those voices, is that it doesn't matter how far in debt or how far in debt you are, or how many costly mistakes you think you've made, or that your estate plan is not quite in order.
You physically, mentally, emotionally are loved by a group of people and they need you to stay here in order to work through these problems and that you're not the cause of the problem. You're part of whatever the solution may be.
another thing that we've talked about in our committee is that when you farm, it's not just a job. You tie your entire identity to it. So it's not quite the same as if you, ran a grocery store or you have a car dealership or, and, you know, if you're the the town dry cleaner. And it's not to diminish those jobs in any way, it's that I've never heard someone else speak about what they do, the way farmers speak about what they do, or rancher speak about what they do.
You tie your entire life to what makes you money, and that's a really difficult thing to separate from. If it fails, it doesn't make you a failure. It made the specific operation a failure. And for whatever reason that may be, it's not your fault and your fault alone. Things happen. And I've read some wonderful stories about, you know, farmers in other states having this resiliency and bouncing back.
And that's the thing is, farmers are resilient and they're adaptable and they're persistent. And some of the hard, you know, most hardheaded people I've ever met, but it's what allows us to do what we do. It's also the thing that drags us down whenever what we needed or what we wanted or what we envisioned doesn't go through until we have a, I think, an obligation to help the individual separate from whatever that failure may be, regroup and keep going, because even if your farming operation goes under, your passion didn't die or it shouldn't die.
And the passion alone is what can help you rebuild and and see where where your worth is and where your strengths are and how you can apply that in a completely different direction. That's I think that's going to be the single most difficult part of this mission and this initiative. But it's evolving. Every time the committee hits, we, we realize that we need literature.
We realize that we need to put something tangible in front of people. But
our biggest goal is not to be pushy.
we want to put it out there. We want to have this kind of in front of people, but also let it be an afterthought. Let it let it just kind of be in the back of their minds and they may encounter a situation and, and realize, oh, I can visit from their website because I've, I've heard about this or I've, I've been talked to about this or I've had a conversation about this before.
And, the whole initiative is cultivating connection and not alone.
drives me in a direction of really leaning into this, this family, this farm girl family, and either finding out who your person is or realizing.
Whose person you are.
Either you have someone that you reach out to or, you know, bounce things off of constantly. You have that person where you can text or call any time of the day and say, today is not a good day, or you are the person who answers the text or the phone call or the door and says, I see it.
What's wrong?
this started out as me being really in the weeds of like, we've got to put a network of therapists together, we've got to do this, we've got to do that. In reality, what it's what it's evolving into and what it's becoming is we're just going to make this dialog and we're going to put this information out there, and we're going to let things happen naturally and develop that that network of resources where you can pick up the phone, you can call someone, or you can just say, I can't see you help.
And I think we're kind of joking, like you thought it was going to be this network therapist. Yeah, I think it's important. There's not really a roadmap like this is for people who are not to diminish anybody on this committee. But the people who are the mental health experts are often not people who grew up in rural America or have any idea of what farmers are facing or what those hardships are, and I don't I kind of want to jump back a little bit because I don't want I want whoever happens to stumble upon this podcast episode to either be able to get the help they need or to help recognize that somebody needs help.
So can you. Kind of as somebody who lives the farm life, who wasn't necessarily born into it and just thought, this is all normal? Talk about why life on the farm is a little more stressful, or why the stressors, what these unique stressors are on the farm that other people may not recognize. And why is farmer mental health its own topic, and not just the mental health of people who live on the farm?
Can you kind of maybe talk about what some of those things that you see in Nick or that you experience that are specific to life on the farm and being a farmer? Right. Well, the,
The biggest thing is, I mentioned it's, you know, it's easy to say it's hard to do. We we feel as if we are this farm, you know, am Nick's fourth generation. We don't want to be the last generation. And our kids are. This is such a this is such a a beautiful way to raise kids. You know, like, where the kids are homeschooled.
They've got their show animals. We've got a cattle. I mean, last week, Nick brought our oldest son out to the farm with him to plow out some ground. He's. He's 11. I wasn't doing that at 11. You know, I was I was, drawing a swimming pool on the driveway and wishing that I could make it real.
And, you know, riding my bike and and singing whatever Disney song was popular. And my son, you know, my daughter is my daughter is almost 13. She's pulling trailers like. Like, I'd never like, you know, like I didn't learn to do until I was dating Nick and turned loose on a tractor. You know, it's great. And there's three more coming up behind them.
They it's just this is everything I've. I prayed my life would become, And this is everything that grounds us and everything that that strengthens our faith. And this is everything that reminds us to let go of control. And I honestly can't picture us living any other way. So when things don't go well, when we have to roll over debt, when and it's not, it's not I.
I don't want to diminish anything, but it's not credit card debt. It is big numbers. We deal in large numbers. That's intimidating. And with the current economic situation, it's difficult. We I mean, and just to give you an example, we have land that we know needs to be leveled for drainage and we can't. So we know that that particular field is not going to yield as well as it could or should.
And we can't do anything about it this year because we just can't. Nick has spent more time on his computer this year than I ever, you know, in these last couple months than I ever remember him spending. Which is not altogether a bad thing because the farm isn't all tractors and fields. It's a lot of business decisions, a lot of recordkeeping, a lot of, you know, I do have, my biggest role is information to implementation.
I read everything, I read every bulletin that comes in. I read lots of emails, I subscribe. I have way more subscriptions than I should. My inbox is chaotic, but I read about all of the things that are coming. All of the the new things that the new, management practices or, you know, whatever it may be. And I bring it to him and we sit down and we decide, okay, what's it going to look like?
How can we implement it? Can we implement it? Is there a way to minimize our input here to get to maximize our yield or, are we just going to have to bite the bullet and spend the money? You know, I mean, I think finances are something that anybody across any field can relate to because it's I mean, it just it is what it is.
Everyone has bills to pay and and, you know, ends don't always meet.
this isn't bad business. I feel like.
Yeah, farming is just it's like it's amplified. It's like your normal life times ten.
Well, and I think a lot of the general public, just from somebody who manages our social media accounts, would see those comments coming in about the farm bill and commodity prices and pay offs. Farmers aren't deciding what they sell their product for. And I think that's the perception of we are just bad managers of lost money. It's not that it's anybody's listening who thinks that.
It's not that everybody is that it? Economics on this side of the world?
No, I got I got A's. I,
I mean, we're price takers. We don't set our prices. And the the the truth of it is we can spend we can spend months on Capitol Hill. But ultimately, you know, our our legislators are voting and we can we can persuade legislation. But once it once it's voted into favorable or not, then there's laws that are made.
There's rules that are made. And we only have so much influence. And so at the end of the day, our voices matter incredibly. But there are a portion of the entire process. And so, we can, you know, we can say we can tell our stories and we complete our cases. And at the end of the day, we still have to figure out how to work with what came down.
So, and to, like.
Across our out. Yeah.
Yeah, yeah. You know, we, we joked about, there was a tractor coming in as we were about to start filming, you know, like, can you just pause farming today?
We can.
I mean, the weather's great. It's it is what it is. You don't. This isn't none of none of farming. None of of production. Agriculture waits for anything. It doesn't matter that it's your anniversary or that it's, you know, that Christmas is coming. And if something's if something needs to be tended to, it's time sensitive. So it's,
I mean, yeah, that to me, Mother Nature is moody and we, we have to deal with it.
So we I feel like it's always control of is an uncontrollable. It's like we're not farmers are really not in control much because of the decisions they make. And then it's a lot of faith and a lot of hope. And again, sometimes that doesn't work out. Lately, the farm economy has not been kind. And the commodity world and I think I just wanted if anybody were discovering this and didn't know about that part of the world wanted them to kind of understand that background to this mental health struggle, because I think that's a big part of it.
is there anything else y'all learned in the surveys besides economic troubles that people were struggling with, or that was the cause of these mental health issues in
the agricultural?
You know, I mean, nothing new came out. It's it's stuff that we knew. And that's that was a again, one of the things that,
it sounds incredibly rude, but, you know, my goal for the board was we've talked enough about it. We know we know what it is. Correct. What are we going to do?
of course, it was presented much more interesting than that to the board.
But,
quite honestly, as terrifying as it was to stand in front of the group, but to stand in front of the board there, the receptiveness of the message, it was.
I think it was a moment, I won't soon forget because
what I anticipated or what I, what I built up in my head, I guess for from a reaction standpoint was not at all what I got. The room was deadly quiet. Every eye was on me. I couldn't see anything behind me, which was good.
But there were you two. I was in there, I think, hear.
I've never had a presentation like this. Where? Where no one was looking at anything else except for me. And it was absolutely terrifying. But it was also exactly the encouragement I needed to keep going. And when I finished and presented my ask, I was immediately met with, yes, send it out and here's your committed.
Get to work on it. Let us know what you need and for something for such a for such a heavy and and dark topic. There's something so beautiful about the way this is all working out and and just the way the pieces are falling into place. And honestly, I felt the same way about my own personal journey. And I and I, I hesitate to call it a battle with anxiety, because if I chose to wake up and fight this every day, I'd be measurable.
But if I allow myself to sit with it and and and be aware of what's happening or how I feel or what or what work and life situation I'm in at the moment, that is a whole lot easier than trying to fight and push through and say, I don't give two craps what I feel today. I have to do this, this and this.
If I can't function for my my kids or my my husband or our operation, it doesn't matter what my to do list is, if I have to take that day off, if I have to take that day to rest and regroup.
I never thought that I would have the conversations I have in my house, but I'm so glad that I do, because I see some of the same things that I struggled with in one of my kids,
And for that child benefit alone, it's worth everything that I go through to try to help that one start off on a in a better spot than I did, and then backtracking, talking to my parents about this.
It helps to have their support because they've also lived this situation. They've also seen how it plays out when you fight it, when you don't know where to go for help, or when you feel like you've come to a solution too late and you know it. It helps. It helps both of us in terms of the regrets and the shadow code of what is.
And it helps all of us. You know, my kids village, it helps all of us to prepare them for for what they may have coming down the line or what they may deal with an adult load, or what they may see get worse as they get older.
It also is really beautiful to have that open dialog that I can say to them, today is not a good day, and everybody just kind of resets
There's no chaos, there's no commotion, nobody's arguing. Nobody's, you know, nobody. Nobody needs me that day.
it's incredibly freeing. And if I, if I can experience that side of having, you know, struggling with mental health, I think everybody should be able to at least know if you don't feel like you're there, it's possible.
And it's an option, you know, like it's this is maybe this is their light.
So I was about to say, I'm so sorry that you've experienced that. I'm so glad you're able to have those conversations in your home. And I'm so thankful that you're telling that story to an even
larger audience in our boardroom and on this podcast to even a bigger audience, because
You did the hard part.
You shared your story, you took that step. So now your child and everybody listening knows it's okay, and it's okay if I feel that way. And I know what to do now because I listened to somebody who went through that same. And I think that's so important. And that's kind of the initiative of this cultivating connection. We kind of buried the name a little bit in this, and I'm really sorry, but cultivating connection is the new Louisiana Farm Bureau's mental health initiative, led by you and your committee.
Can you talk about where that name came from and what you're seeing this initiative do already, and kind of where you hope it goes in the future a little bit, but let's just kind of break down cultivating connection, what it looks like when you're going to see it. Because a lot of work went into the logo and things of that nature.
cultivating connection, with something that, just kind of spitballing with Nick, one reason I want I love alliteration, so, that's not it's not my nerdy.
Personality on that one today. So obviously you're all.
Well, thank you. I'm glad. Well, and I do want to say, like, you apologize that, you know, I'm sorry you had to go through that. And I guess another thing is, before we get into the initiative is, I'm not. I'm not sorry. There was a long time where it's like that. The the fog wouldn't clear, the the shadow wouldn't go away.
And I just kind of wondered why. Like, why can't I feel optimistic? Like, why don't I feel happy? Why don't I feel like I want to talk to anyone anymore? Why don't why do I feel like people don't want to be around me? And the reality was because I didn't. Because I wasn't okay, I wasn't I wasn't myself.
I wasn't positive anymore. I wasn't pleasant. And so I, you know, I'm learning, learning to deal with this, learning to be aware, you know, and I'm grateful. I'm grateful for it. It's it sounds incredibly insane to be grateful for something like this.
Benefit that and because that's such an important perspective coming through that fall is somebody that's in it, probably can't see it that way. And for you to look back and like, no, I'm glad that I did that. Yeah. It's such an important message.
Yeah, I, I feel like I'm so sorry you're hurting. I'm so sorry that you feel lost. Is is one thing, but I'm not sorry that I'm not sorry that this is my cross. I'm not sorry that that this is that this is the direction of my life. Or that this is my my primary struggle. Because, quite honestly, I like the person I am now much more than who I was 10 or 15 years ago.
So, but again, cultivating connection. I love alliteration, and I didn't want to do anything with roots because I think it wasn't. I think we've had a few things that have come across
our encounters before that have had roots or, you know, Bayou this or something with Louisiana, I wanted it to be relatable to farming, but not really Scream Farm.
Because quite honestly, I know that even among our Farm Bureau membership, not everybody's a producer, not everybody's a cattleman. And I don't want I don't want any initiative that we do to feel as if it caters to one area or not. And so, I just started thinking and cultivating came out and next you threw some words out, and, and we ultimately landed on Cultivating Connection.
And I said, oh, I really like it. And I liked it on the surface. And the longer I sat with it and when I brought it to the committee and said, you know what, this is really good because cultivating ties you to the farm. But it also is, general enough term like, you know, cultivate lots of things.
And then the, the connection part of it is one, we want to connect you, to connect anyone who may need it to resources, but
as I mentioned earlier, we want to encourage that interpersonal connection. We want we want that that farmer who has been sitting on his or her tractor for
ten hours a day, 14 hours a day for the last, you know, goodness knows how many days and feeling as if they're the only one who's crop looks this terrible.
They're the only one who has this pest pressure. They're the only one who his bank account looks like. It does. They're the only one who can't figure out X, Y, or Z to make a connection with someone. Because the reality is,
we don't know everybody's situation.
We don't know everybody's inner workings of their operation.
you're looking in windows. So if you stop looking in windows and you start
stepping in to visit and you make those connections and you realize I'm not so different or I'm not alone or it's not just me, thank God that matters.
So as much as I wanted to put together this, this, you know, impenetrable system, a network of, you know, you've got we've got therapists in all four corners of the state and,
you know, we've got this, we've got that. And that's not that's not what this initiative is. And I think that by that, by starting slow and putting one foot in front of the other and encouraging relationships to form, we're gonna see this grow into something that we can't even imagine right now.
And let's kind of it's obviously turned on its head. We've talked about this from the first talks. It's not these pretty pamphlets anymore. It's not that what do you hope? This is the very beginning of cultivating connections. We've kind of talked about this. We've got the name. What do you hope people have to look forward to when it comes to this
So right now we have this, we have, just a postcard. Very, not intimidating at all. And it just gives you some quick information, and a QR code to visit our webpage on our page on the Louisiana Farm Bureau Federation's website. We are working as a committee to develop kits that we can hopefully distribute to our parish farm bureaus.
So our parish farm bureau organizations, rather so that this can be something that can be laid out in conjunction with a field day or a parish event. And again, just not in not intrusive, not pushy, not intimidating, but just some, just some resources that you can have laid out on the table. And people can pick it up or they cannot.
And those resources would include things like signs to look for in yourself or someone else, you know, five steps, five things that you can do when you realize that someone is in need of help. The 908 hotline, which is not specific to agriculture, but it is the National Suicide Prevention Hotline. And so that is immediate.
You you dial that number, you get immediate help. And that that couple of seconds can be the difference between a decision made or not. You know, I also I also think it's important to give some, some tips, as is, you know, corny or cliche as it may sound, sometimes when you're so anxious, you forget to breathe.
And and for me, reading breathe makes a difference. You're like, oh, my shoulders have been in my ears for days. I can relax, I can take a breath. I can close my computer for five minutes and walk outside to check the mail. You know, those just those little those little reminders or having that little card in your in your console or in your backpack or, you know, on the floorboard of your tractor because that's where it landed.
I don't, I don't have, I don't have the notion that this is going to be the end all, be all or a cure all. I have the idea that this is going to be a small seed that gets planted, and that if it helps one person, if it's a reminder for one person, then this work is worth it.
But Courtney, I have no doubt that you sharing your story today and you saying yes to this mission is going to help far more than one person. So we're so thankful that you took the time to sit with us today to share your story in such a such a vulnerable place for the internet to see. I, I know that I can only imagine.
I don't know that it's hard. I can only imagine how hard that is. And but I can only say how appreciative we are and how powerful I think that is. Before we let you go today, is there anything that you want to leave anybody that's watching this today or those who watched this long? Is there anything that we haven't talked about that you want to make sure that they know?
Well, one, thank you for listening to me for this long. If you've made it to the end because I'm not sure there's anybody who wants to hear me use that speak for this long.
my biggest goal or my, my biggest ask is that if you or someone you love or know is struggling, that we just make, we just do we set aside any of the blocks that we we take that hard step that you take that hard step and you say, I can help you or I need help or, you know, you either you either be that person or you find the person that you need and
the the, the most difficult part of all of it is just preaching the topic. If you can do that, I feel like everything just kind of I feel like everything just kind of unfolds the way it's supposed to from there. And if you are, regardless of whether you have a strong faith life or not, or you are in production, agriculture or not or whatever it might be, it's someone.
Someone is there to help. Someone needs help. Just that human connection is the most important is the most important thing we have in life. And and the moment we lose that, or the moment we find that less than valuable is where we find ourselves in trouble. So it's as long as we we maintain the value of human connection and love and caring.
I think we're on a good path to making this not such an uncomfortable topic.
Well, thank you for putting yourself out there and being the first one on the state stage to help reach that really difficult topic. We really appreciate it, and I know so many other of our members do, and so many future members are going to be so thankful for that too. So thank you.
Thank
If you want to learn more about Louisiana Farm Bureau's mental health initiative, Cultivating Connections, we'll be sure to link all of that here in the show notes. That does it all for this episode of the Louisiana Farm Bureau Podcast.