Latest / The Muster on Hokonui / The Muster- Katheryn Wright: Southland Rural Support Trust

Transcript

The Muster- Katheryn Wright: Southland Rural Support Trust · The Muster on Hokonui

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: How many times can I say I'm sorry?
• 0:04
  Speaker 2: How many times?
• 0:06
  Speaker 3: You can run and you can hide.
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: Welcome back to the muster.
• 0:12
  Speaker 3: Catherine Wright joins us next. She is a rural health advocate,
• 0:16
  Speaker 3: mental health advocate, and joins us in the Southland Rural
• 0:19
  Speaker 3: Support Trust spot for this afternoon, looking at the mindset
• 0:23
  Speaker 3: in wake of the weather that we've experienced over the
• 0:27
  Speaker 3: past couple of months, which is very much a rinse
• 0:29
  Speaker 3: and repeat of the spring of last year. And Catherine's
• 0:32
  Speaker 3: going to look at this with a bit of a
• 0:33
  Speaker 3: different tact today and all about what it means for
• 0:36
  Speaker 3: being the partner of somebody who's out there doing the
• 0:39
  Speaker 3: SOG every day and just looking after yourself.
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: Catherine, good afternoon. Good to catch up again. Hi, Andy.
• 0:45
  Speaker 2: Thanks for having me again.
• 0:48
  Speaker 3: And straight off the bat as well, I mean, when
• 0:50
  Speaker 3: your partner's out there or your husband, your wife, they're
• 0:53
  Speaker 3: out there, even the kids, and they're in this weather.
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: Day in, day out.
• 0:58
  Speaker 3: It doesn't just take a toll on the people out there,
• 1:00
  Speaker 3: but you're inside or you're there for the other half
• 1:04
  Speaker 3: effectively and trying to decipher what their day's been like.
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: And unfortunately, it can be a grind.
• 1:11
  Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely. And I think we have to acknowledge first
• 1:13
  Speaker 2: up that so many rural women are doing the same job.
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: Absolutely, yeah.
• 1:19
  Speaker 2: They're also doing that. But yeah, there are quite a few,
• 1:22
  Speaker 2: I guess, that still hold that more either traditional role
• 1:26
  Speaker 2: in the home or they might be working off-site, off-farm,
• 1:29
  Speaker 2: whatever it is. I think it's really important, and this
• 1:32
  Speaker 2: is something that we all need to remember, is that
• 1:35
  Speaker 2: you don't have to have all the answers. You don't
• 1:37
  Speaker 2: need to solve the problems yourself. But just having some
• 1:41
  Speaker 2: empathy and just saying, oh, that sounds like a complete
• 1:45
  Speaker 2: shit show. Am I allowed to say that?
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: Well, you just did.
• 1:48
  Speaker 2: But rather than saying, well, have you thought about this?
• 1:51
  Speaker 2: Or what if you do that? Or do you think
• 1:53
  Speaker 2: that it's time to leave the position or whatever? That
• 1:56
  Speaker 2: you would just have a bit of empathy and meet
• 1:58
  Speaker 2: them where they are, really.
• 2:00
  Speaker 3: I've had some good mates, and they've been a sounding
• 2:04
  Speaker 3: platform for a lot of other people who go there
• 2:06
  Speaker 3: and talk about what their issues are. But after a while,
• 2:09
  Speaker 3: they said, look, I never really gave.
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: Time for myself. It was always about listening to other people.
• 2:15
  Speaker 3: So how do you try and get a happy medium
• 2:17
  Speaker 3: when you're the sounding platform for a lot of individuals?
• 2:20
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and that's a real double-edged sword because actually being
• 2:24
  Speaker 2: a sounding board or helping others, we know from research
• 2:29
  Speaker 2: as well that it really does better our own mental health.
• 2:32
  Speaker 2: So the old saying is that if you can't do
• 2:35
  Speaker 2: anything to improve your own day, you can at least
• 2:37
  Speaker 2: improve somebody else's day. And that does have a slow-on effect.
• 2:42
  Speaker 2: I think we're really hard on ourselves, particularly rural people,
• 2:45
  Speaker 2: that we think that we have to have it all
• 2:47
  Speaker 2: figured out. We have to be the person who does
• 2:50
  Speaker 2: it all and is capable, especially from people looking from
• 2:54
  Speaker 2: the outside in. But we're just human. And if we,
• 2:59
  Speaker 2: I guess, can have, I talked about a bit of
• 3:01
  Speaker 2: empathy before for your partner, have a bit of compassion
• 3:04
  Speaker 2: and empathy for yourself. You know, you're doing your best.
• 3:08
  Speaker 2: You're doing what is often a really taxing physically and
• 3:12
  Speaker 2: mentally job. So what would you say to a friend
• 3:14
  Speaker 2: in that situation? Would you tell them to bugger off
• 3:18
  Speaker 2: and drink a cup of concrete? Or would you say,
• 3:21
  Speaker 2: you know, that sounds really hard. What can I do
• 3:23
  Speaker 2: to to help? What can I change here? What's in
• 3:26
  Speaker 2: your control, essentially?
• 3:27
  Speaker 3: Once upon a time, the concrete would have been the answer, though.
• 3:30
  Speaker 3: So it's something we talk about a lot, Catherine, these days.
• 3:34
  Speaker 3: If you're coming forward with a problem, then chances are
• 3:37
  Speaker 3: people will listen because it's a different era.
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: That's one good thing. Yeah, yeah.
• 3:42
  Speaker 2: And people are often surprised that when they do change
• 3:46
  Speaker 2: tech and when they do eventually open up or just
• 3:50
  Speaker 2: show that vulnerability which is a bit scary for some
• 3:53
  Speaker 2: people the reception is way better than they ever thought
• 3:57
  Speaker 2: and they wonder why they didn't do it before and
• 3:59
  Speaker 2: I'm guessing that everybody listening would be no different here.
• 4:03
  Speaker 3: Now you're doing a PhD around mental health effects on
• 4:06
  Speaker 3: young people in the agricultural industry how can you relate
• 4:09
  Speaker 3: this to what we're talking about at the moment?
• 4:12
  Speaker 2: So you're thinking of my Master's, Andy.
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: Master's, sorry, yes.
• 4:16
  Speaker 2: My PhD is on rural mental health and community connection
• 4:21
  Speaker 2: and land use change. And actually one of the biggest
• 4:24
  Speaker 2: findings that I had come up that I strangely didn't
• 4:28
  Speaker 2: foresee was actually the hidden labour that's involved in running
• 4:33
  Speaker 2: a community. Often this is by women, so it's often unrecognised,
• 4:38
  Speaker 2: it's unpaid work. We talk a lot about community resilience,
• 4:42
  Speaker 2: and resilience is such an overused word, but rural communities, oh,
• 4:47
  Speaker 2: we're so resilient, we do this, we do that, we
• 4:49
  Speaker 2: go through the wind event, we do go through the weather,
• 4:52
  Speaker 2: but we're only resilient because of our informal infrastructure, so
• 4:56
  Speaker 2: our volunteer base. We cannot be resilient without having a
• 5:02
  Speaker 2: dedicated pool of people that come back over and over again,
• 5:06
  Speaker 2: sometimes in multiple ways. They hold... Multiple roles, they run
• 5:11
  Speaker 2: school fundraisers, they organise events, they care for family members,
• 5:14
  Speaker 2: they drop meals off at the door. Yes, there are
• 5:16
  Speaker 2: all of the recognised volunteer roles, but there's so much
• 5:21
  Speaker 2: that gets under-recognised. And it is often by women.
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: Is resilience a word we need to remove from our vocabulary?
• 5:31
  Speaker 2: I think it's got a bad rap. I think that
• 5:35
  Speaker 2: the general sort of belief of the word is that
• 5:38
  Speaker 2: it's a bouncing back. But I prefer to use the
• 5:41
  Speaker 2: word recalibrate. So when something happens to us, we take
• 5:45
  Speaker 2: our learning of what happened and we apply it to
• 5:48
  Speaker 2: new situations. Yes, we do need to do some of
• 5:52
  Speaker 2: that to be able to take life's hits because life
• 5:55
  Speaker 2: is not easy. Life can be really tough for some people.
• 5:58
  Speaker 2: but it is definitely not going back to normal and
• 6:01
  Speaker 2: carrying on. It's taking what you know into the future
• 6:05
  Speaker 2: for future situations.
• 6:07
  Speaker 3: And just finally, I think it's a great time to
• 6:09
  Speaker 3: appreciate as well, Catherine, that to make time for yourself
• 6:12
  Speaker 3: to go out and do things.
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: We're always talking about farmers getting off farm.
• 6:16
  Speaker 3: It can be easier said than done, but no matter
• 6:18
  Speaker 3: who you are, you've got to take that opportunity to
• 6:20
  Speaker 3: break away and take a bit of time out.
• 6:22
  Speaker 2: Yep, just choose your times of year, choose your time
• 6:25
  Speaker 2: of week. It doesn't have to be at a certain
• 6:28
  Speaker 2: time Just do it when you can do it.
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: One of those things you've just got to make time for.
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: Good on you, Catherine. Always good to catch up.
• 6:34
  Speaker 2: Thanks, Andy.
• 6:37
  Speaker 3: Catherine Wright, Rural Riders is getting underway tomorrow night as well.
• 6:41
  Speaker 3: Go to the Rural Support Trust and find out what's
• 6:44
  Speaker 3: happening there on the socials. 0800 787 254 for a
• 6:47
  Speaker 3: confidential quote.
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: Catch up would be the better terminology. Max McCallum's up next.