I grew up believing that all I needed to survive was water and food. That as long as I had these things I was fine. How wrong I was! I was missing the third and most important key to being healthy which was the ability to have good quality rest. I was the person who could never sit still, always thinking and believing “I should be doing something”. I had a belief in my mind that told me in order to be successful in life I had to work my butt off for what at the time was very little return. If you have grown up in a farming family, I imagine you may have this very thought pattern.  

Us women in farming don’t just have to think about our farming businesses and keeping our partners happy though, do we? If you are like us you may have a few kids kicking around as well! Farming for a long time now has been an industry where a lot of work goes in, yet it feels like we are getting very little in return, because that extra money to employ someone to help or at least for you to go on holiday never seems to appear. I remember the time before I had Hayley where I was doing hours of work obsessively so at times. Particularly whilst I was at college, studying for my BSc Hons Degree in Rural Business Management. I would go to college 3days then work at home in a pub the rest of the time and fit college work somewhere in between, not forgetting of course the partying hard at the weekends. It is no wonder that come 25 and I was expecting Hayley my body said enough is enough.  

Since 2013 I have learnt the power of rest, and the ability to slow down my thinking in order for me to do more of the things I need and want to do. First and foremost I am a wife and a mother, this I know has to come at the top because everything I do directly effects Andrew and Hayley. Especially as we do home learning now. However I feel and believe I can be an awesome mum and have a successful businesses.  

I have been an ambassador for Tropic for the last 6 years which has given me the taste of an entrepreneurial life. I joined Tropic to make some money, because I felt like a lazy bum Hayley was 6 months old and it was looking like I wasn’t going back to farming anytime soon, with the state of my physical health. Little did I know at the time it was this income source that was going to pay for all of the treatment I needed for my poor body. It is safe to say the extra money has been invaluable. The thing was with Tropic I was not doing half of the work I was having to do in our farming enterprise, some might say I was being lazy which would be a lie. So I started to think about how I could make our farm more profitable, more productive and how I could cut the work load of my parents in half.  

Tropic is all about empowering women to become successful by taking time out for themselves. It is through the daily/weekly pampering sessions I found myself doing and still do that I learnt actually if I set aside time to rest and pamper myself I have been able to teach my brain to rest. Getting to the stage where I can have quiet moments in my head. I bet your thinking that is impossible! But trust me when I say it isn’t. I have been able to do this by studying my thoughts and feelings. We often feel the emotion first but we actually have a thought which causes the emotion. These thoughts can come from seemingly no where, but have been wired into your mind through things that happened to you as a child or young adult. They were designed to keep you safe back then, but now they run on automatic and they keep you stuck thinking and feeling that life sucks!  

These thoughts have played there purpose, they kept me safe I am still alive however they weren’t there to prepare me for parenthood, or the very fact that I have a burning desire inside of me to give Hayley everything that she could ever want, and that I didn’t always have. That’s my time especially whilst she is young, I guess this was another reason we opted for home learning because above anything I just enjoy spending time with her.  

The power we have to rewire our thoughts is a long kept secret that I believe everyone needs to hear not just us women in farming. You are just the lucky ones because you are hearing it first hand.