Cultivating Mental Health and Social Connection

Cynthia

Hello everyone and welcome to episode nine of the Cultivate podcast. The podcast for leaders who want to cultivate healthier, happier, and more human workplaces and lives. And today I am absolutely delighted to be chatting with Kelly Barnes. Hello Kelly.

Kelly Barnes

Hello Cynthia. Thank you for having me.

Cynthia

Now Kelly is a passionate rural mental wellbeing and dynamic disability advocate with a love of animals. So we’ve got that in common. Kelly, especially her loyal working dogs and she grew up on her family farm in the south of England and worked on farms and for sharing sheds in the UK, New Zealand and Australia before settling permanently in Dunkeld Victoria in 2011. Due to ongoing challenges with chronic pain, she transitioned to work in an agribusiness roles including rural merchandise and completing training in agricultural health and medicine and healthy and sustainable agricultural communities, which fueled her passion for health and wellbeing in farming communities. Kelly was honored to be named the 2020 Victorian Agri Futures Rural Women’s Award winner with her concept of using working dogs to encourage social connection and as a support tool to improve mental wellbeing in farming communities. She continues to be amazed at how the humble working dog can open the space for so many important conversations and provide a constant source of support through challenging times. So welcome Kelly and really looking forward to our conversation today. Before we get rolling into the questions, I’d like to acknowledge that today I’m recording on the lands of the Wurundjeri people of the kulin nation and I pay my respects to elders past, present and emerging. And I extend my respect to any First Nations people we may have listening today. Kelly, welcome and hello and thank you so much for agreeing to be interviewed.

Kelly Barnes

Oh, it’s a pleasure. Cynthia. I’ve, I have become like a bit of a podcast monster I think since the Agri Futures award, so it’s always great to chat.

Cynthia

As we said in the intro, you are the winner of the 2020 Ag Agri Futures Rural Woman of the Year award and that project was around working dogs and mental health in the last couple of years though, since that a little bit’s changed. So can you tell me what you’re doing now and also what you love about what you’re doing now?

Kelly Barnes

Yeah, probably the one thing that hasn’t changed is I’ve still got loads of dogs and I still really love my dogs. So I guess when I pitched that project it was pre Covid, um, 2019 and I was working in rural merchandise, so this was kind of a little side hustle and a bit of an idea that kind of grew from my experience with my own dogs. And then since then I’ve actually transitioned to working in research and working in mental health research in particular. I think I underestimated probably the enormity of the last 12 months, but completely changing careers but getting into the mental health side of things. Um, and the research side of things like I’m really inquisitive and just naturally curious, so it’s really kind of filled my cup I suppose, working in that space. And then with my working doc school, since running the pilot, I’ve kind of had to put my dog school concept on the back burner a little bit, but the dog concept’s still there, so I’m very much kind of still working in on how I reshaped that dog school concept.

Kelly Barnes

I guess. I think my health for the last 12 months has probably not been as good as it was previously, so I’ve had to cut things down a little bit and do what I can do. And also in August I did have to say goodbye to the beloved Dougle who is my dog that kind of featured through the whole dog school theme and and he’s basically the kind of idea and driving force behind the whole project. So it’s been a, yeah, been a really big 12 months I think now reflecting back, but I, I probably didn’t realize how big at the start. And then I’ve actually got a young dog now that I’m hopefully going to train to become a therapy dog, so I’m just sort of exploring that side of it as well. But she’s turning one in, um, at the end of December, so she isn’t quite ready to get started training yet. So yeah, we’re just having fun at the moment I think and having a bit of time out.

Cynthia

So for those who maybe aren’t aware, can you just tell us a little bit about what drew you to the Agri Futures Rural Woman of the Year award? Like what, just really quickly, what the process is and then what your project was that you won for.

Kelly Barnes

So for me, my, my initial pitch was to run a working dog school designed around building social connections and getting farmers off farm and getting them to connect with their working dogs and kind of look at them as a therapy tool. So it was really an exploratory pilot project to see what would happen I guess.

Cynthia

And so what gave you that idea? Where did that come from?

Kelly Barnes

Just looking back. So in 2018 I did a digital storytelling workshop at the National Center. So they’re running a, a workshop about challenging times in your life. And I went in

Cynthia

Just a pause that that’s the National Center for Pharma Health, is it?

Kelly Barnes

Yeah. So I, yeah, I just said I would put my hand up, it was for young people and I was like, oh, if you can’t get anyone I’ll, you know I’ll do it. But Anne originally just went in to talk about being diagnosed with fibromyalgia, so chronic pain and through the process you had to bring all these pictures together and put a story together and I, it was just then that I kind of realized how much my dogs had helped in my journey. So I was looking through my phone and all my pictures were pictures of the dog or pictures of me and someone else’s dog or the selfies with me and everyone else’s dogs. So it just really kind of got me thinking. I was like, oh, you know, they’ve been such a huge part of my journey. And from there just that, I suppose that inquisitive nature just got me thinking about how other people could look at their working dogs in that way or how could you kind of use them. You’ve got therapy dogs that are used and well known for helping with mental health and things like that. So how do we tap into some of those benefits and, and I, I think make people aware of them cause they’re perhaps doing it already but not really thinking about what they’re doing.

Cynthia

So were you noticing just in your community, you’re in Dunkeld, you work at a rural merchandising store, how were you noticing farmers were sort of showing up and why this was such a need?

Kelly Barnes

We are pretty lucky here in that we always say God’s country, but we get pretty good rainfall where it’s never too extreme either way. But even then I think everyone still has their challenges and, and with markets and things like that, there’s always challenges in farming. But I guess just looking more broadly across the country for different seasons, different parts of the country, people are struggling with their mental health and then it is proven. So some of the research that’s come out, rural men especially, but rural people in general are two times more likely to struggle with mental illness and things like that. So, and we are not particularly isolated here, but even then you can see that you do spend all day working on your own. So I guess from my kind of previous experiences and, and then working with clients every day you can see how people do become really isolated. They spend a lot of time on their own, plus they’ve got all these other compounding challenges that really kind of make it hard to, to manage their mental health.

Cynthia

So you’re pitching the idea this working dog workshop as training for working better with your working dog, but then the underlying objective is actually to open up a safe space for people potentially to talk about mental health. So you’ve kind of got the, let’s not be too off putting by going mental health come along to a workshop, let’s talk about something really practical, get people to come with something that’s pretty safe. But then once they’re there they might have some different conversations. What did you notice when you ran your first working dog workshop? What happened?

Kelly Barnes

Yeah, so it was really interesting and I think I’d kind of taken a bit of inspiration from, I’ve been involved in running Lifetime U groups before and you see this kind of ongoing relationship and the first session everyone’s a bit awkward and a little bit standoffish. And so I really wanted to put this concept together that that gets them to build that relationship. I guess when you put something else in there, like you put in the kind of dog school doing like a doing thing, people are quite happy to go and do practical things and farmers especially are really, they are very practical so they just want to go and do something. You kind of see as the sessions went on. So we did six, so one per month, everyone got more comfortable with each other, but it was, it was also kind of tailored to do it in that coaching structure as well.

 

So trying to tailoring the sessions and having debriefs and having kind of talks about fear of failure and those kind of things. The dog school training concert lends itself so well to similarly to mental health. Like you’ve got to keep putting in the work, you’ve got to keep practicing you, it’s not a really quick fix. And so it just fits this kind of model really, really well without, and that pro wasn’t my attention at the start. But also giving people the space I think to get together and form friendships over time because we don’t all go in and love everyone in the room straight away with, you know, we can’t be quite standoffish and um, it takes a while to get to know each other. So yeah, lots of, a lot of different aspects that I think are really hard to put a measure on, but really, really important

Cynthia

And the power of connection as well where social animals ourselves and so it’s really important for people to keep those social connections going. And as you said, farming can be very isolated.

Kelly Barnes

Yeah and I think when you put a dog in the mix it just kind of breaks the ice. Everyone’s happy to talk about their dog. I’ve done it before. I like, I, you know, I recently said to my friend, ah, I think Mudgy who’s my brown retired renter dog that’s come and lived with me, I said, oh Mudgy really missing Dougle. And she’s like, oh, is Mudgy missing Dougle or are you like it? It just makes it so much easier. I’m like, no, no, definitely the dog if you’re feeling uncomfortable, you know, I’ll just take the dog outside for a walk. It just takes the pressure off. I think it’s such a, and that’s what I really want to explore, that magical power just by having the dog there that breaks down all these barriers.

Cynthia

Hmm. So true. Having now had a dog for about two years, my first dog, people just talk to me as I’m walking along the street, well they talk to Alfie because he’s so cute. But um, yeah, I’ve got so much more connection and my brother actually was, he took Alpha a walk as well and he said, I’ve lived here for 15 years and no one’s ever spoken to me. Now I’ve got Alfie, all these people have come up and said hello <laugh>. He said it’s amazing.

Kelly Barnes

Like I had all my farmers when I was announced there’s a winner and I, I probably really underestimated how responsive they’d be I guess. But they’re like, oh you know, like my dog’s great, I could take ’em everywhere. Or like they’d just have all these conversations with you about their dog or they’d bring their dog in every time they’d come in store or they’d get a new dog and they’d talk to you about it and, and it just really kind of breaks the ice and breaks down a conversation and then by, you know, from me being vulnerable and talking about my challenges, they’re like, oh yeah, you know, like it is pretty lonely on the farm. Like it is pretty isolating, like we’d open up this whole conversation but um, without the dog I think it would be really kind of awkward.

Cynthia

Oh that is amazing. So when you evaluated the program, what were the kind of outcomes that you found?

Kelly Barnes

So it was really interesting, like one that completely not surprising, everyone loved the dog training aspect so that obviously rated high, but a lot of people said, oh I hadn’t thought about my mental health, I hadn’t really thought about putting my health first. And it’s been really a really nice way to do it, a really nice way to approach that subject, like a really important conversation to start in a really nice way. They really liked the structure of the program. So instead of kind of going and learning all this information in one hit and then walking away not really sure what to do, it was very nice to, to be able to come back and have time to practice and then come back again and revisit things. And we talked about things that, you know, things that go well but also things that don’t. So having that accountability as well, there was four weeks between each session but you’d get to week three and go right, I need to do something like I’m, you know, so even if you’ve done nothing for three weeks at least then for one week you kind of really honed your skills.

 

So it’s just that kind of accountability and creating that really safe environment I think, which is often overlooked. Um, yeah, it’s nice like they created these little networks

Cynthia

And now I just want to touch, sort of take a little bit of a different direction cuz you talked about that you have chronic condition fibromyalgia, like it’s just interesting for people to understand what it’s like with chronic pain and how that impacts on on your life and you know, the decisions that you make, the, how you set up your life in order to be able to manage that and live a great life with a condition like that,

 

Kelly Barnes

It’s really nice to be able to share because it is one of the, you know, the invisible illnesses so to speak. So it’s not visual. I think I’ve been diagnosed since 2015, so seven years. There’s always something weird and wonderful that comes up every single day with it. There’s no cure, there’s no real definition or no exact diagnosis. I suppose the easiest way I understand it and explain it is basically my nervous systems kind of amp. So something like a pain response in a normal person. To me it would be like tenfold saying with, so things like perfume sense, noise, any of those kind of sensory things that kind of razz up your nervous system. My nervous system just goes into overdrive. So you’re kind of constant pain and it’s not like a joint pain but it’s, it’s a, it’s a weird kind of constant pain I suppose.

 

Like everything hurts and it changes depending on the weather so the weather pressure will affect me so the high pressure is better and then you get really bad fatigue. When I first got diagnosed I was sleeping on the weekends, I like I would sleep for two or three hours. It’s just this completely debilitating, you can’t do anything kind of fatigue. And recently like I’ve had a few weird and wonderful things so I’ve had a root canal done so root canal’s bad enough anyway, but the, it took me ages to work it out but the filler that they use my body was reacting to. So I had this kind of, I thought it was an ongoing infection after I’d had this root canal done months later and I was just exhausted for months and eventually I put like got the tooth taken out and it took ages to calm down but just having so much time you kind of have to look everything up yourself too because it’s so weird.

 

And I think that’s what it was. And I had the same thing happened to another tooth and I obviously kind of got onto it quicker this time and I was like, right, just take the tooth out and it calms down but no one knows what it is, there’s no infection, you’re taking antibiotics, it’s not going away and there’s all these weird underlying things happening. So when you find and you find there’s little, I guess these little pockets on the internet and other people have said the same and they’re like, yep, that’s what it is. Like have that. But for kind of modern medicine it’s really hard to understand, you know, I kind of imagine, I find it hard to understand like medical practitioners do. So then trying to explain it to an everyday person that’s never had anything like that is really, really hard.

It’s like if you’ve got the flu and you, you have that real fatigue and your body hurts, that’s what we feel like every day. And then managing, so like if I go and do too much, I’ll then flare up and I’ll be like that for a couple of weeks but it’s when you feel good you want to go and do all these things. So it’s really hard to kind of regulate that. The other big piece of it is that you kind of grieve the life you had for me. Like I was very physical, like I worked on a farm, I’d always been quite strong physical, worked in the shearing sheds and to go from that to having this chronic pain to then this fatigue and not being able to do stuff was really, really hard. Like you have to find a whole new kind of identity and you are always testing out your limits I guess, as to how much you can do.

 

Like I was only talking to someone about this the other day, but looking back at, so 2020 for me was a really not like, it sounds horrible but a really nice year for me in the sense that no one was doing anything so I didn’t have this kind of push and pull in a lot of chronic illness. People have said that you just, the world kind of slowed down. So we were seen I guess to a certain point because everyone was then living in our shoes and living you couldn’t go out, you could things And then as things have taken off again, I think 21 was so up and down that it, we sort of went off trying to do all these things again but then stopped, stuck. I definitely found that quite challenging and tiring I suppose. But yeah, really kind of fascinating insight at the start of covid with all the lockdowns that for us that kind of have to manage their, I guess social outlets and what you can and can’t do, it was almost like a big weight lifted off your shoulders and people got it the same with them like with mental health and isolation.

Cynthia

Yeah, that’s really profound. I really hear that grieving the life that you had expected in, in your mind before you develop this chronic illness. And I’m just wondering cuz a lot of my work is about how we cultivate and look after ourselves and many people aren’t great at it and I’d imagine that’s gotta be a huge priority for you really looking after yourself. What strategies have you developed?

 

Kelly Barnes

I’m very much in a work in progress still it’s really, really hard because you just have to try so many different things. It’s such a disconnect to like something you do four days ago might affect you then or it might affect you in a week’s time. Like it’s such a weirdly drawn out thing. The kind of wellbeing things that you know you should do don’t have that direct impact. Like you don’t instantly feel better so you know you should do them and you know, eventually they drop off you’ll feel worse, but they’re not very kind of hard and small little things. But the biggest things that helped me are like, I don’t drink anymore so you still love drinking. Like I can’t even stomach it, but it would like, their recovery would be horrid gluten. So the, all the good things of like gluten sugar, trying to reduce those uh, where you can and sleep sleep’s hard because you’ve got this, you don’t get that physical tiredness of like you go into a hard day’s work physically and you’re tired and you sleep well.

 

Whereas you’ve kind of got this semi fatigued body but you’re not like sleepy, tired and then your brain’s always going as well. So you’ve kind of got that and then you might get to bed and then you’ve, you know, you’ve got pain and so you don’t sleep as well as you think. So like say started taking melatonin that’s been good recently, which I wish I’d done years ago. Then you kind of get to this balance of like you, you don’t have any fun like what, you know, what are your kind of enjoyment things if you’re doing all these other bits and pieces to look after yourself, but where’s the balance? So you’ve got to try and kind of weigh up when you do go and do something, there is going to be kind of repercussions sometimes weighing up the physical versus mental. So you know, it’s perhaps going to pull you up physically for a few days but you need to get out and kind of fill your mental cup as well.

 

So you need to go and socialize, you need to do something. Say if I look back at 2021 with my dog school, those days were perhaps physically hard on me, but I loved what I was doing. You kind of make the sacrifice of feeling sore for the day because you know, mentally you are going to feel so much better and like it just fills your cup emotionally. Probably the biggest learning I’ve had is just really get to know yourself because it’s such an individual thing to work on. So really kind of do that self-reflection and self-development of who am I, like am introverted or extroverted, do I need to be quiet to restore, do I need to interact with people to restore and really kind of tune into those things, which I think sometimes we sort of overlook. We are often trying to do what other people are doing.

 

So I did really low carb for a while, which was really good for my body and my body loved it. But then I got this kind of tooth thing and I got really fatigued and so I was creaming the carbs and the, the sugar and quick fixes. So you kind of go, I’ve done all this, you know, I’ve been really good with my eating and then I’ve still got something else that’s happened, but now I just, I literally to get through life and turn up every day. I’m just eating whatever. So yeah, you go around in this vicious cycle,

Cynthia

How do you maintain your optimism and keep mentally up? I imagine you have your low patches as well. What sorts of things keep you optimistic?

 

Kelly Barnes

Um, that’s a really good question and you do definitely have your ups and downs I think like I know definitely like for me the whole award process was so uplifting for me, you know, then you kind of have the challenge of you’ve put yourself out there and you put yourself up on this kind of pedestal and, and how do you keep that momentum going? But I guess some of the feedback I had from sharing my story was really, really rewarding too. So you know, a lot of people would come and say, oh you know, I’ve got something like a chronic illness or you’ve made me feel really seen, you’ve made me feel really heard and it’s really helped me you sharing your story. So those kind of things really lift you up as well. And I think that’s what I like to remember when I’m getting a bit shitty about it all is that, you know, there’s other people out there in the same boat.

 

I guess that a big chunk of work that I’d done through that grieving process of losing your life, previous life that you had is I can either sit in this space of feeling sorry for myself, which absolutely at times I do a hundred percent or have just got to mentally flip this into it’s really shit. But what are the good things that have come out of it? So what’s the, like what can I see that’s the positive that’s come out of it? Because I think otherwise you are just going to sit in that really unhelpful space and like you’re always going to go back in there. There’s always times where I’m like, this is crap. I, you know, I wish I’d never had this, but I just focusing on those things of if I didn’t, what would I be doing? Definitely I would not have ever applied for an award. I wouldn’t have had the kind of the backing to do a a doc school about mental health. I’d struggled with my mental health, pre chronic pain, even though I work in the mental health space, I justify my mental illness side of things because of my chronic pain. But if I look back at it, I had struggled with my mental health way before I ever had chronic pain, but it’s so much easier to kind of package when you can put something else on it.

Cynthia

I suffer from anxiety and depression and I can remember saying to myself after I’d had my second episode of depression going, I am never going to let that happen to me again. I know. So I, I’m doing all this work on myself and that is never happening to me again. And then couple of years ago I found myself on my floor crying, lying there, hi, am I having a breakdown? I just, what’s going on? Why am I crying? I don’t understand what’s happening to me. And it was just like, I just had to accept then and let go that I actually have a mental health issues and I can do the work, which is going to help, but there are things beyond my control sometimes and that is okay and I’m not to blame for that.

 

Kelly Barnes

Yep. It’s really quite confronting. I think sometimes you’re like, oh you know, I even though I work in this space and I say it a lot like I work in this space, we are trying to break down the stigma, but I still find that there’s stigma. I still challenge myself with it. And um, recently like I’ve been, um, I, I was saying to you earlier, I’ve been looking into the kind of neurodivergence and A D H D and things like that and also with the chronic pain side of things and I’ve, I’ve just been thinking about the kind of chicken and egg. I’m like, it’s almost easier to label it as depression or anxiety. That’s quite clear cut. That’s quite easy. They give you medication that’s quite um, straightforward. But I’m kind of thinking now there’s all these underlying things that are like the cause and they’re the symptoms.

 

So your depression or anxiety is a symptom of, you know, having your brain wired slightly differently and thinking differently or you know, being in pain all the time and probably not realizing because you’ve just got used to it. It kind of makes you explore I guess other avenues and other things outside of just that straight depression anxiety box. You can do all the work and try and do all the right things that people are telling you to do and you’re still not, you still don’t feel amazing and then you start going, hang on, what else is happening? Or you know, is there something else happening behind the scenes that makes me feel like that or, and sometimes it is just you are going to have these ebbs and flows and when you accept those lows you kind of come out much quicker as well rather than trying to fight them on the way down.

Cynthia

Yeah, I totally agree.

 

Kelly Barnes

A lot of people that are very facts and want to fix things, mental illness or mental health and mental wellbeing in general is so hard because there’s no simple fix and no simple straightforward answer. And I think that really challenges a lot of people. Like I deliver managing stress and health workshops through the, the work I do as a priest and you can see it in people when you’re trying to explain like I can’t give you a clear answer as to why or what’s going to fix this person or what’s, you know, there is no clear logic answer. Whereas those people working, especially in farming, they’re quite practical kind of want answers and want solutions and there isn’t one I think for mental health, which is hard.

Cynthia

Yeah, absolutely. And so a lot of education is needed. And just one other thing, just that notion of invisible illness and I have um, someone in my family who has an invisible illness and it’s just so hard because at, if they had a broken leg or something or it had a heart attack, the attitude towards them from the workplace from other people would be totally different. But because it’s something they can’t, others can’t see or it’s actually quite complicated to understand. There’s a degree of people just don’t engage with it and it can lead I think the per the person to feel very invalidated. What’s your experience of that being and in your chats with other people who have similar invisible illnesses?

 

Kelly Barnes

Yeah, I think probably one of the biggest things, and I remember someone saying this to me recently, you’ve made me feel seen. So I’ve just completed a um, like a six month chronic illness coaching program with a awesome lady that really, really interesting lady. And it’s all about empowering people with chronic illness because you do, you kind of withdraw, you get tired of explaining the same things over and over again. It’s not easy to explain. And some things she said to us recently, her um, a previous employer of hers said, you know, we don’t need to retry the case every time. So, and you, you know, you have a flare up, we don’t need to go back into court and go through all the evidence. Like we just need to accept it. Which is really, really good because you can’t see it. You, you feel like you’ve got to overexplain all these things all the time.

 

I think because you end up kind of slightly unwell a lot too, so you feel like you’re trying to justify it and like you said, you, you know, if it’s a broken leg and a broken leg heals and fixes, whereas this doesn’t, so quite often people will say, oh, do you feel better now? And you’re like, well yes and no. Like I feel I’m not as sick as I was, but I still don’t feel amazing. Like it, it’s a really hard concept for people to understand. I guess if we did nothing every time we felt a bit unwell, we would never do anything in life because we’ve always got that kind of under levied underlying level of pain or fatigue or some symptoms somewhere, but where’s the line? So it’s, I think I used to get quite frustrated at other people, but now I’ve like, I’ve got to, I’ve got to educate them so they don’t know.

 

And if I think back to, and I always kind of thought, oh, you know, I don’t really know that I’m a leader, but that’s where I can kind of educate people because without me sharing what it’s like they don’t know. But I think you’re right too and where, where you kind of band together with other, um, I don’t know what we’d call them, but chronic illness kind of invisible people because it’s, you don’t have to explain yourself to them. So you find this little group of people and, and this coaching is the same and you just go, huh like, you know, I don’t have to make the 10 excuses or justifications for this. You get it. And that’s probably, I guess where I want to go a little bit is, you know, sharing my story is kind of trying to help other people see and make those connections and be more open about sharing their experience because you then find other people that are in the same boat that if you don’t share, you don’t ever come across those people as well. So, but very challenge.

 

Cynthia

Kelly, I love what you just said, so I just wanted, my little antenna went up when you said, I heard you say something about your leadership, think of yourself as a leader. So one of the things that I see a lot is people think I’m not a leader, that’s not me, I’m not a leader, but they totally are because everyone’s a leader in their lives at in some capacity. So I just want to understand for you, when did we, did you embrace this? I am a leader, and tell us a bit more about what impacted on you in your attitude and your mindset around that you, you are a leader with something to say.

 

Kelly Barnes

Uh, when did I think I was a leader? I don’t, I don’t know whether I ever will. I think I just got interested in the concept. This is my little kind of big picture, um, hundred thoughts an hour kind of thing. But thinking about leadership, I’m like, oh, leadership’s quite interesting. And I guess what I, I think I thought initially when I was getting into kind of going to do a leadership course was like, I’m going to become confident and I’m going to become that, you know, that person that stands at the front and like bosses ever around and kind of does all these things. And I was like, okay, maybe you know, if I go and do a leadership course I can learn those skills. Like I just loved learning about people, I’m really interested in psychology and I just got really into like personality styles and that, that kind of thing.

 

And um, as I’d gone through a couple of these different leadership courses, I’ve realized that leadership isn’t just about that person stood at the front. It’s not all about this one particular style. And I’d start exploring my own kind of personality style I guess. So I did a community leadership program, the leadership Great South Coast a couple of years ago. And one of the things people said in the feedback was, um, they said, oh, you’re really easy to talk to. And I was like, oh, well I didn’t never really noticed. I was quite shy when I was a kid and I was, you know, it kind of made me cringe and I like, I do like chatting, but they’re like, oh, it’s, you know, it’s really easy to talk to you. And it’s always stuck with me because then I’ve thought, well I don’t have to be this kind of loud person at the front of the room.

 

I can be that kind of quiet person that people can come up and talk to. And ever since then I’ve really kind of been quiet leadership, see everything comes back to dog, Cynthia, it all ties back in around like, one of my friends has got this dog that’s like, tries her little heart out, like absolutely tries her hardest, but the sheep don’t move from her and she just has no present. And I was like, oh, that’s me. I said like, I’d, I’ve been this, you know, working merchandise, I’ve talking about all these things and no one would listen and I’m like, ugh. Like I just don’t feel like I’m obviously going about it wrong, but you, you know, you try your little heart out and you just don’t have that impact on a certain group of people. You know, as we talked about it, I’m looking at the dogs and I’m like, yeah, you know, not every dog is like barking and shouting and pushing the sheep a hundred miles an hour.

 

Some of these quiet types on the edges just tucking everyone back in. And I’m still working into it, but I really love that quiet leadership and I think it’s something that people in those kind of personality styles don’t see themselves as a leader and they don’t recognize the impact that they’re having. Um, and they’re not encouraged. They’re not, I don’t think we embrace them as much as someone that you see standing out the front because they’re just doing their thing and not, you know, not really kind of making a big deal about what they’re doing either. But they’re the people that I’m really interested in at the moment because I think there’s so much value from them and they think slightly differently too. They’ve got some really, really good styles and ways of doing things and, and thoughts and opinions, but they just get kind of shot down or not listened to or ignored. So yeah, a bit of a le leadership’s an interesting one.

Cynthia

It is. And Kelly interestingly, I did a bit of research as part of my book and asked people what styles of leadership they wanted to cultivate, they wanted to see more of and which styles they wanted to see less of and eliminate. And that out the front, out the front do what I say, power over old school. People don’t want it anymore. They don’t like it, they want the nurturing leader, they want the, the leader that’s going to challenge them but actually mentor and coach and let them make mistakes. And exactly that type of leadership that you are talking about, which is power with, it’s like, I want to work with you so that you are awesome and not that sort of loud old school, particularly male stereotypical leader. And yet I still see a lot of that in rural, um, decision making bodies and in agri politics and in in actual just politics in general. It’s not fit for purpose anymore. So I love where you’re going with your definition of leadership because we need diversity, we need dive a diversity of styles, of voices of, to bring out the best in all sorts of people because we’re all different.

 

Kelly Barnes

Yeah, we are. And I think it’s really, um, when you are that quieter type, it’s really hard to see the, your value and for other people to see it. Like, you’ve really got to push that or like, yeah, we’ve got to kind of change our mindsets around that because you are missing so important stuff, but it’s just so easy to kind of gloss over those, those quieter styles I suppose.

Cynthia

Absolutely. I hear you. And so Kelly, that that leads us into a bit of a conversation then as we are nearing the end of the, of our session today. But interestingly, just some of the research that you are doing now with the National Center for Pharma Health, what, what kinds of things are you working on?

 

Kelly Barnes

So I, um, yeah, mostly work in the kind of mental health and wellbeing space, but very much I’m in that very much kind of preventative working at the sort of forefront I suppose I, and I think a lot of the research is going that way. So we’ve kind of done the, we’ve kind of looked at mental illness and had a bit of a dig in there. We’ve realized that there is a high prevalence, um, especially with the work we do with farmers, so rural communities. And now we’re really looking at that, how do we build resilience? How do we prevent mental illness where we can, I guess I work across a couple of different projects at the moment. One is the 11 projects across the state that are funded by agv and Smarter Safer Farms. So they’re all about building community resilience. So we bring those groups together once a month for a community practice.

 

So really getting them learn from each other. And I think that in itself is really nice. It’s, you know, they’re doing a project build resilience in their community, but we are then kind of bringing them together to build resilience within those project groups across the state and learn from each other. So it’s really that holistic approach. Cause I’m lucky at the moment. So, um, we have like a kind of research lunch once a month where we can throw ideas around and one of my pet projects that has been in my head since I first worked in rural merchandise in 2014 is this service provider. So what are, you know, what are we doing to look at the mental wellbeing of service providers? So agronomists, agri bankers, those kind of people that work with farmers every day. So I’ve been quite lucky to go through a bit of a research mentoring program in October, November.

 

And then I’m just exploring that concept and, and this is where I guess my big picture kind of thinking comes in with the research. Up until now we’ve been very focused on the farmers, but what about that extra layer that are working with the farmers daily that are very influential on those farmers, but also, you know, potentially impacted by the same challenges. So, so a lot of those I think are, I kind of work in that quite innovative space where we’re trying to find new ways and, and really kind of promote mental wellbeing for everyone as opposed to working in that really clinical mental health and mental illness space. And then one day, Cynthia, there will be a research project on my dogs. I just haven’t fully, fully finalized that one <laugh>, but that’s, yeah, that’s always in the back of my mind. I think

Cynthia

That is amazing. Absolutely amazing. I’m so excited about all those projects. I’m like, oh, I’ve gotta find out about them. I was just chatting with a service provider who worked in the flood, she runs a consulting firm agronomist, and uh, she just said her young staff were really struggling because they’re having to go out, they get out of the car and they’re, they’re dealing with people who are absolutely out of their minds stressed by the floods and they actually are having a lot of trouble dealing with it and for them themselves to stay resilient. And you can imagine every conversation they’re having with the farmers that they are going out to advise, you know what it’s like emotions are infectious so you can soak up people when people are stressed, you can soak up their stress. That’s one of the hazards I think of our work as coaches and people who work with people. So that being able, how do you, yeah, that being able to protect yourself and look after yourself for those service providers is huge.

 

Kelly Barnes

I think in that industry too, we’re so much about helping other people. It’s such a tight-knit, you know, in the community they’re at footy club training with them, they’re at C f A with them, there’s no break either. There’s no fine line. Yeah, there’s no line in the sand between clients and, um, inside and outside of work. And you know, those service providers have often got their own farm. They may have been flooded or, you know, having a drought themselves and it’s the first thing you want to say to them, them is like, you don’t have to take all this on like, and just be aware that you are literally like a sponge absorbing all this stuff right now. Because I don’t think they realize they’re so ingrain trying to help that they’re not looking and reflecting back on themselves. Like you just said, when you’re working with other people, you do absorb their, their stresses and their worries and how do you kind of put boundaries in and, and have protective layers to help that.

 

But yeah, it’s really challenging, but it’s quite rewarding and you can kind of almost see them recently. So part of the flood recovery project. So I, I don’t work on that kind of project, but I have been designing this webinar for service providers for that reason because they are dealing with a lot and it’s, it’s almost like right, we need to actually focus on them. So, um, that’s really rewarding. We got some really great feedback from the first one that we ran and it’s almost like you can see people just going, oh, it’s okay for me to struggle as well. It’s actually okay that I find it hard. Other people find it hard too, and then it, um, then it becomes a lot easier to deal with.

Cynthia

So Kelly, just in, in conclusion from our chat today, what is a question I should have asked you and I haven’t yet?

 

Kelly Barnes

Uh, Cynthia, I cannot believe you didn’t ask this. You did not ask me to to tell you about how many dogs I had and what the names were.

Cynthia

Kelly, how many dogs do you have and what are their names?

 

Kelly Barnes

Well, currently I have three that are mine and that’s, um, Mudgy, who’s my new surrogate adopted old dog. And then I have Jess, who’s a lovely little tiny black and tan dog who’s actually gone to, um, my friend’s place at the moment to do some work. And then I have Ashley, so Ashley’s my blonde Kelby who is 11 months old, so she’s nearly 12 months old and she’s, yeah, she’s going to be my therapy dog hopefully. And then sometimes, um, we also have, there’s a bit of a swap around here. My friend’s dog comes to stay and goes backwards and four, so, but yes, officially three.

Cynthia

Tell me why was Dougie so special? Oh, what did you love about Dougie?

Kelly Barnes

Doug’s a legend. I don’t think you, I don’t think I would ever get another dog like him. He is literally the dog of a lifetime and I think partly his personality but also his timing. So I, when I first came to Australia in 2007, 2008, I had a border colleague in England who I loved and I’d left, obviously had to leave behind and I really missed having my dog. And then, um, he was working over in WA and I was, you know, kind of backpacking working on farms and I got myself a kepi because that’s really practical, really useful when you’re traveling, but I just couldn’t be without this dog anyway, so I got Dougle and I hadn’t seen him, but he got shipped over, he was quite well bred dog got shipped over from New South Wales and I do remember looking at him the first time then almost like, you’re not really that attractive, like you’re this kind of wonky, eared, dark looking kepi.

 

I wanted this beautiful classic pricked black and tan, but he’s just been just an absolute legend. Like he’s, I don’t know, you couldn’t explain. He would work and he was fantastic working, but then he would switch off and he would, you know, he’d come traveling with us, me and my friend, and he’d be in, in the car and he’d come and jump in bed with us when we were staying somewhere. And, and I just remember the first time he did it laid down in bed like a kind of human being and I was like, oh, you are just a weird, you know, just a, a very different dog but just really nice natured. And then, you know, he ended up, he’d got run over and had a, a sort of fused joint in his leg and a few ailments and things. And then when I obviously got the chronic pain, him and I kind of bonded over that too, so we’d both, you know, he’d spend so much time sat with me on the couch and he was just really like, he’s been a bit of a, a shit sometimes too.

Like he used to, you know, chew things that he didn’t, he wasn’t meant to and you know, chew the seat belts in the car a few times when we were traveling and things like that. But he just had this awesome personality but also that real kind of comfort and companionship that I’d yeah, never really kind of thought too much about until him and he’d been ev you know, he’s been everywhere with us. He’s been across the Nullabor a few times and, and everyone just loved him. He just had such a kind nature and was just a very placid for Akel as well. I, there’s hundreds of thousands of pictures of him doing all sorts of weird and wonderful things, <laugh>. Yeah. And it got like, it, you know, it really does show when you lose them. And even now, like I, um, I’ve got other dogs around me, but I’m like, I still miss him.

 

Like you’re never going to kind of get over that connection that you have. But yeah, they’ll be different ones. But yeah, just really dog in a lifetime special kind of dog. But he’s now got this absolute amazing legacy of like a three minute video that a Agri Future’s made with him featuring everywhere and, you know, all this media, like he’s literally in all these media articles and things that they did through the ward and has a, you know, has a little dog school, mental health, health school, na pretty much designed for him. So yeah, it’s a really nice legacy.

Cynthia

That is wonderful. We’ll put the link to the video at the end of the podcast so people can go and check out this little wonderdog. I’m very sorry for your, your loss and how awesome that you’ve had that love in your life.

 

Kelly Barnes

And it’s, um, yeah, it’s a really interesting process. It’s actually really nice to be able to kind of openly grieve this, you know, the loss of him because everyone knew him and kind of got so attached through all the stories and things, things like that as well. So it’s, yeah, it’s really refreshing.

Cynthia

Beautiful. Well on that note, we will, um, bid you ado and thank you so much Kelly for agreeing to chat today on the Cultivate podcast. And everyone, what a fabulous example of a cultivating leader Kelly is, and I’ve loved our conversation today. So thank you Kelly.

 

Kelly Barnes

Oh, thanks for having me, Cynthia. It’s so great. It’s always nice to find another avid dog lover too.

Cynthia

<laugh> beautiful. I’ve got my little Alfie under my feet here having a little sleep. So that is it for today’s episode. If you’d like to keep the conversation going and connect with other like-minded people, please hop on over to the Cultivate podcast Facebook group. Just search for the Cultivate podcast where you can ask questions, share information, and carry on the conversation. You can also go to my website, www.cynthiaiani.com.au to listen to other episodes of the Cultivate podcast. Subscribe to my blog, check out my leadership team and coaching programs, and even by my book, cultivate How Neuroscience and Wellbeing Support Rural Leaders to Thrive. Thank you so much for tuning in. Remember to stay happy, healthy, and human, and I’ll look forward to our next conversation in the Cultivate podcast.