The path to mental health and emotional well-being started for Nebraska rancher Terryn Drieling in 2016 while moving cows. After she opened the gate and asked the first couple pairs to move through and they did, she sat horseback on top of the hill and watched as the rest of the cows picked up their calves and headed off in the direction of the fresh pasture.
“I was reflecting on the phrase, ‘good movement draws good movement’ because I was witnessing it,” says Drieling, who learned the concept during stockmanship schools in college. “Good movement is when we are aware of ourselves and aware of our cattle, and we communicate accordingly. It’s low stress for them and low stress for us. It’s good movement, and it draws good movement.”
Drieling, who grew up on a small feedyard, and her husband, Tom, live and work on a western Nebraska ranch with their three young children. She realized good movement applies to people too. As she reflects on the last decade, events in her life challenged her to make some changes and she’s passionate about helping others in agriculture understand the importance of emotional health.
During the pandemic, one of the ranch’s herdsman was unable to work, then quit.
“It was me and my husband taking care of two full herds of cows by ourselves with the help of a day worker,” Drieling says. “That was a lot. I look back at pictures of myself during that time, and I’m like, ‘how did I keep going?’”
After finally hiring another full-time herdsman, Drieling says that’s when the anxiety and stress hit her.
“It was really a protection, a fight or flight thing, that I was going through for several months of 2020 and when I finally had some safety, that’s when it all hit, and I realized, ‘Oh, I am not okay.’ I started diving more into inner work,” she says.
Then in 2023, Drieling’s dad passed away unexpectedly.
“My dad passing away so suddenly, and me being thrust into the deep end of healing is really what pushed me the rest of the way into sharing these ideas and shedding light on mental health and emotional well-being in agriculture,” Drieling says.
Through analogies from farming and ranching, Drieling shares examples of how the concept of drawing good movement applies to both animals and humans through her website and social media.
“What happens when you’re escalated with your cattle and how do they respond? I can relate that back to how people respond when we’re escalated. It’s similar to how cattle respond; they don’t want to be around you, or they get fighty,” Drieling says.
When it comes to better understanding ourselves and others, there are two things Drieling feels really strongly about.
“The first thing is, by not recognizing and acknowledging and using our emotions the way that they’re meant to be used, and shoving them down and getting back on that buckskin and powering through, we are literally killing ourselves,” she says. “The suicide rate in agriculture is high and as scary as it is to learn how to experience our emotions, because for so long, we’ve been taught to shove them down and power through, it’s scarier to me the rate at which we’re dying by suicide and/or being diagnosed with chronic illness.”
The importance of health hits close to home for Drieling as she was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2024.
“While I can’t prove it, I do believe that my tendency to shove down anger and emotions for all of my life provided the fertile soil for that cancer to grow in,” she says. “Emotions don’t go away when we don’t address them, and so it’s important for us to acknowledge them. Emotions are messengers. They’re meant to help us along the way. If we can acknowledge them, feel them, then use them how they’re meant to be used, we’re going to be so much farther ahead with our actual health.”
Secondly, Drieling sees a lot of chatter online about young people not wanting to come back to the farm or ranch and blaming the younger generation for not wanting to work or complaining they don’t have work ethic.
“From my observation, it’s not a lack of want to work or work ethic. It’s the lack of wanting to enter into that environment,” she says. “The question I think we need to ask ourselves is what has happened that’s making young people not want to come back to agriculture or come back to the family farms and ranches, then really do a gut check. If we’re honest with ourselves, I think it is the lack of emotional intelligence and how we communicate and treat each other. It’s important because it’s good for our physical health. And it’s important because if we want our relationships on our farms and ranches to sustain, we need to have that emotional intelligence.”
Focusing on good movement and self-awareness has helped Drieling and her husband communicate better with each other.
One of the most frequently asked questions she gets is, “how do I get my dad, husband, wife...on board with this?” and her answer is always, “you can’t do it for them.”
“If you want them to get on board with it, you have to start with you and your own work,” Drieling says. “Good movement draws good movement. If you want things to be different within a relationship, the best place to start is with yourself.”
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