Managing the ‘Dags’ in life: Lessons from crutching sheep
13 March 2024
An article by Steph Schmidt
As a farmer, I spend a lot of time in the sheds, especially during crutching season. If you're not familiar with crutching, it's the process of trimming a sheep's head and bottom area, including the "dags" or the sh*t bits. It's not the most pleasant task, but it's necessary to clean up the sheep before the main shearing season.
Working in the sheds can be messy and overwhelming, especially when you're surrounded by piles of wool with stains and dags. But as I've learned over the years, there are valuable lessons to be learned from this process that can be applied to managing the "dags" in our own lives.
Lesson 1: Dags happen - whether we like it or not
Just like we can't avoid the unpleasant parts of crutching, we can't avoid the uncomfortable or painful parts of life.
We may try to ignore or avoid them, but they will still be there.
The key is to acknowledge them and choose how much energy and attention we give them.
Do we stew in our negative thoughts and feelings, or do we quickly pull them out and put them to the side? It's a choice we have to make.
Lesson 2: Don't ignore the stain completely
When we notice that the stain is worse than usual during crutching, we take the time to assess and analyse what may have changed in the sheep's environment, feed source, and other factors. We make a change to improve the situation.
Similarly, when we experience negative emotions, we shouldn't ignore them completely. They give us vital information about what's not working for us.
Ignoring them won't help. Instead, we can use them to make positive changes in our lives.
When we're surrounded by piles of wool with stains and dags, it can be easy to get overwhelmed and focus only on the negative.
But if we zoom out, we can see that the dags are just a small part of the stain, and the stain is just a small part of the crutchings, which is a small part of a much bigger fleece.
Similarly, when we're going through tough times, it's important to zoom out and pay attention to what else is going on around us.
We can use the 5x5 rule to help us zoom out.
We can ask ourselves, "Will this matter in five minutes, five hours, five days, five months, or five years?"
This helps us put things in perspective and focus on what's truly important.
Additionally, we can actively notice the good in our lives. We remember what we pay attention to. So, at the end of the day, we can mentally walk through the events of the day and catch the good. This can be as simple as noticing the hug from our kids, the first sip of our coffee, or the sunset.
In conclusion, managing the "dags" in our own lives can be challenging, but we can learn valuable lessons from crutching sheep. We can choose how much energy and attention we give to the negative, use our emotions to make positive changes, zoom out to gain perspective, and actively notice the good in our lives.
