Ep. 74 - Surviving Cancer & The Power of Horses with Adelle Stewart
Adelle Stewart's story starts with a passion for horses and, despite the many trials and tribulations along the way, continues in the horse world. As the executive director for a Canadian non-profit centered around mental health in agriculture, Adelle's passion for helping people and animals also includes her luxury boutique boarding facility Prime Equine. A cowboy mounted shooter, a lover of good riding ponies, and a wilderness survivial expert, Adelle shares her journey with us, as well as her pivotal 2020 of handling cancer and a pandemic alone.
“Having people understand and embrace the power, after learning what I have gone through and lived through what I have gone through, is to have the power to live your best life without almost dying first.” ~ Adelle Stewart
From horses to agriculture, non-profits to overcoming extreme odds, Adelle Stewart is a fiercely independent woman who is the executive director for Canda’s Do More Ag, the author behind “From Nowhere but Down,” and the owner of Prime Equine. Adelle is a unique woman with an amazing backstory of overcoming adversity, bad relationships, failures and cancer.
The Do More Agriculture Foundation
“We have been in Canada for three years now, so we are still a young organization but growing at a rapid pace,” says Adelle. “We see ourselves as the voice of farmers, ranchers and producers …. in breaking down the stigma around mental health in agriculture.
Statistically, this demographic experience higher levels of stress, anxiety and depression than the general population so The Do More Ag Foundation works to provide resources and education at a grassroots level to increase the capacity for these primary producers to educate themselves and access these resources and, at the end of the day, change the stigma around mental health in agriculture and that it’s okay to ask for help. Agriculture is a tough and resilient conversation
AG STATE OF MIND podcast with Jason Medows
Role as the Executive Director
While traveling has been light in the past year de to the pandemic, Adelle would travel across Canada to speak on a National scale to different groups. From small towns to a huge amphitheater, Adelle has gotten to see it all and the amazing benefit is watching the conversations blossom around mental health.
“We have been at this for three years, we were an industry and nation that was ready to have that conversation,” says Adelle who is excited to get back to trade show season to get back to spreading that message and helping the organization grow.
What do the funding partners mean?
As a charity, The Do More Ag Foundation is a not-for-profit and the funding partners don’t just allow them to keep the lights on, but allow for community groups, resources, seed growers, cattle producers, and more. Extremely blessed, there is a variety of platforms they have launched which include workshops and even an upcoming webinar to help mental health professionals understand why agriculture is unique and what life is like on the farm or ranch.
Founding Partners of The Do More Agriculture Foundation
All four founding members are all still on the board of directors which is a great sign of their support. Two of the members come from Farm At Hand, an Ag tech company, Leslie and Kirk both come from multi-generational farms. Fun fact, Kirk also is a curler and was featured in The Men of Curling magazine!
Resources
The focus on the blog site is practical bite-sized takeaways of things that you can incorporate into your life, but also stigma breaking. As life continues to blossom, they look to even do more weekly blogs regarding winter blues, how to improve your mental health, and so it’s a healthy dose of takeaways/education and support.
Through the pandemic, the rest of the world has begun to understand how hard it can be to be so alone on the farm or ranch as many people experienced work from home life for the first time. The biggest thing that they are excited about is the opportunity to do more trade shows and continue to build that human connection.
Nowhere But Down
“Honestly, it would have been for almost ten years now, I have wanted to write a book and I always knew that I wanted it to be about my life, and I didn’t know where to start. I had always been a technical writer, that’s my background …. and a journaler as that was my therapy,” says Adelle about what helped her start write the book.
When going back to that “old chest of drawers” going back to it, Adelle describes that moment as the most terrible, joyful, sad, and horrifying part of her book. The entire first draft was written in 75 days, writing every day, and created a compact way of experiencing the past 18 years of her life but, putting it all together, allowed her to do so.
“My trauma from a child, losing the first love of my life, trauma as a child - there is no closure there,” says Adelle, who then talks a bit about her toxic marriage and then her second chance at love through her own naive devices and choices that she had thought she had done the work at - putting it all together allowed her to close that entire volume and to move forward from the resulting tragedy that came from 2020.
On April 16, 2020, the start of the COVID-19 lockdown were starting, and that was also the day that Adelle was diagnosed with Cervical Cancer. It meant that Adelle had to go through the entire experience alone or occasionally with her father who had experience with patience experiment.
“I honestly think that [the shame I had] tied back to the abuse as a child that I had suffered and the secrecy of my marriage failing. When you are living the highlight reel on social media, it’s so hard to admit that your life is not perfect and, in fact, is terrible,” says Adelle who actually kept the fact that she was fighting cancer secret for five months. “It was easier to lock myself away from people than to feel the pain.”
Adelle actually began writing before she even knew if she was cancer-free and finished her memoir a month after the official good news diagnosis. The people around her knew that she had cancer and that she was writing a book. Cancer shook her to her core and allowed her to clean up her eating, her lifestyle, her religion, and her emotional aspects.
“I knew that I would die if I didn’t take this thing by the horns,” says Adelle, who started reaching out to people and creating stronger connections with people. Now, with the book being live, she’s found strangers reaching out to her to have these tough conversations about the trials and tribulations that she has been there.
Adelle’s Suggestions for a Higher Quality of Life
Take out processed sugars.
“We are living in a great time to find fresh produce… farm to table … and all the things that we need to fuel our body … our body is our only place we have to live.”Develop true self-care.
Develop a morning ritual, find a way to ground yourself, and it can be just five minutes of eating better to make a great life change. Just do ONE THING until it’s easy. We really fear change, because we think change means taking something away - Adelle’s spend is to add five minutes of something until it becomes easy. Then suddenly those things that aren’t as healthy start to fall off on their own. “We don’t know how good we can feel because we have accepted living a mediocre life.”Don’t live life fearfully.
”I have always wanted to be perfect,” says Adelle, who says that one of the aspects that has held her back is the fear of being perfect as something new. Her pledge to herself is that, no matter how bad she does, she is going to go every mounted shooting competition she can because that’s where she will be happy and life is short.
Prime Equine
“It has grown into everything I thought it would be and more,” says Adelle about Prime Equine, her boutique boarding facility in Canada. A pasture full of horses from TMJ issues to Navicular issues to heaves, and more. Spending thousands of dollars to get all of them sound, Adelle found herself frustrated that she had three costly horses that were unrideable, and then she would watch boarders come in and enjoy their horses. That summer, she saw a little pony for sale named “Ticket.” Not in a place where she could do anything about it, it was that fall that she decided to look for a riding horse and, as luck would have it, a video of the pony for sale came up again.
What had happened is that she was sold as a kids’ pony and they had returned her to their sellers, brought her home on a three-day trial, and she hasn’t left since. Ticket is Adelle’s ticket to another chance at a horse life and Adelle is excited to pursue more outdoor adventures and the exciting event of cowboy mounted shooting!
