so
this week i want to talk about something that concerns us all and that is mental
health and in the last month the last few weeks there's been a lot of farmers around me that
kind of opened up about some of their issues that they're kind of dealing with now anxiety problems
obviously a lot of growers right now are pretty exhausted in their fields it's
been a long seasons for many and i think that kovid all of the effects are kind of kicking in
and we've had different personalities here in our quebec community come out with you know by
saying that they've been facing with you know deep anxiety problems and mental problems and
kind of the word is that we need to talk more about that about the fact that it's a
reality and that it's something that needs to be said addressed and better understood
and you know obviously i'm not a psychologist or i'm not trained to talk about mental issues
and give advice and that's not going to be the purpose of this of this video today
but you know i can really relate because i myself have had you know
pretty pretty stressful times and i've had issues i've had mental problems
uh mentally you know i don't know how you say it but met issues with my mental health and
yeah i think that i think that it's important to to acknowledge them and to talk about them
and i'm not gonna lay out my whole life story on youtube and and i think no one really should
these are these are personal things but if there's a few things that i you know can share or at least
point out to others is that you know there's there's signals that this is happening you know
you break a finger you break a leg you you know you you have problems with your lungs there's a
symptom it's really clear that there's a medical issue and you know there's a clear prescription
about how to heal you know if you broke your you break your arm okay it's going to be in a cast for
four months and that's it then you're you're you're going to be inactive for all these
months and that's just because the your arm is healing when we're dealing with anxiety or other
you know depression or flat out you know other mental issues it's not clear and it's not obvious
what the remedies are but you know for me where i was at
it was really simple it was i was dealing with the fact that i was creating for myself
pressure pressure to be somebody that would deliver maybe when i started fqt farm there
was a lot of pressure there to kind of come up with something that would be amazing
keep it together there's a lot of things that were moving with my family and me being there
and it was just and then i was still touring and giving lectures pretty much all over the world
and every time i do that it comes highly marketed and then i go i travel and then people are
expecting something out of me and i just wanted to help and deliver as much as i could all the time
and then there was the family and it was just at one point the traveling the pressure of delivering
all the time it just got to me and and i got to be really sick
and i would i would do these trips and i would travel and i was i would be like at 40
stamina and i would just keep on doing it because i was because i'm an achiever and
i wanted to you know i had high hopes and i wanted to get my mission done
you know i just at one point i just couldn't function anymore and it got to be too much for me
and the feeling that i can remember and and that that's my message today is i
wish i would have talked to people before that or even a bit afterward
i was kind of holding all these things together and i was really focused on that and
just at one point just like the pressure and everything that it meant to keep all of these
balls to juggle all these balls i just couldn't do it anymore and and i dropped a few balls
and and my body my body couldn't handle it anymore i just my mind was still go go go but my body was
you know i was sick and and that's you know there was a few events that again i don't want to share
these are private but
just i think covid for me was such a great thing because it it stopped all of my travels and
it gave me time to rest and really heal and anyway
i think that when i listen to others around me there's a lot of similarities you know perhaps
these farmers are not touring and teaching master classes or doing stuff like that but it doesn't
matter really it's it's the expectations that we're setting for ourselves and you know a lot
of the things are sometimes when we see others when we see instagram when we see okay perhaps
when we see jm on youtube and we're like okay my farm's not like his and and then there's there's
all this vicious cycle of just kind of comparing ourselves to others and setting expectations for
ourselves that might be too high or not realistic or or not who we are and that can be really tricky
and and so you know when i listen to these stories i feel very empathetic and i think
there's a lot of us out there that are struggling and that are not talking about it that are not
sharing the fact that it's boiling inside and then it's it's just too much pressure so if that's
something that you've felt or that you're feeling right now again i'm not going to give you advice
it's totally not my area of expertise but you know if this can relate to you
i think i think from what i experienced myself and and from what i understand from
hearing from others it's really important to at least talk to someone about it
perhaps not your wife and perhaps not a close friend perhaps somebody that's kind
of perhaps trained for that to just say hey you know i'm feeling a lot of pressure and i'm
spoiling inside and it's it's intense and i'm having a hard time doing what i need to do and
you know there's so much stuff out there about overachieving and you know mourning glory and
getting up in the morning at four before everybody else and getting things done and you know
i think we all need to acknowledge the fact that the bottom line is that we're all very
vulnerable and we're all fragile in a way and we all need to take care of one another
and we need to most importantly take care of ourselves you know you can't be a great papa
if you're not feeling well yourself you can't be an amazing market gardener if you're not
taking good care of yourself and you know you can't be the friend that you can be to others
if you're not being a friend to yourself and so um i kind of practiced a little bit of this so that
i wouldn't cry because i don't want to cry about that my issues are better i feel much better kovid
was such a great thing for me and not traveling as much and not having to live to the hype
for me that was all in my head and i just kind of cleaned that out and yeah i think i'm inviting
everyone to reach out if you're feeling that it's getting to be too much that the pressure
of farming of market gardening is is getting to you you know talk to a friend or talk to someone
and i think it's really okay to step back and to say okay i need i need a break and
if that's what you need it's remember the cast analogy it's like if your arm
is broken there's no need to kind of keep working with it it's going to grow crooked
and it's not never going to heal you need to take the time
to to heal and it's never about it's never about being weak it's just about being real
and
it's about being real so i don't know if some of this is interesting or helps or makes sense to
any of you guys listening but for me it's just something that i wanted to share and yeah we
all go life is a long journey and there's going to be different steps for me i've had a lot of highs
i've had a lot of super good achievements but i've had some downs and some of them have been really
painful and from what i understand i'm totally not the only one out there and so we're all human
and we really really need to take good care of one another and good care of ourselves so
i think that's my message and chopping wood for me has been such a great way to
just disconnect and reconnect with nature and nature is such a great way to connect
with who we are and who we ought to be nature is never wrong nature is perfect
nature is the temple where if you can we all have access to some nature take time to go in nature if
that that can help i said i wouldn't give advice but that would be one piece of advice so that's it
so that's it for this week i hope you liked the episode we're calling this channel digging
deeper because the goal is to talk about what's real and what's going on in my world but also
in the farming community as a whole and this week's episode really was that if you liked it
subscribe to the channel it gives us the signal that you guys are into it and that we should keep
on producing these if you want to learn more about my farming practice check out the work
that we do at the market gardeners master class enjoying the community of growers from all over
the world it's really really cool stuff growers magazine edition number three growers and co
is coming out next month make sure to check that out it's a bomb you guys will love it it's amazing
really into it i hope you're well i hope your spirit is good and i hope your heart is good
i'm good i'm wishing you all the best jm out till next week friends farm on
you