Learning to Stay
By Beth Robinette
I used to think regeneration was about fixing land. Moving cattle, building soil, restoring native grasses — and it is. That work matters. I still do it. But when I look back at the years I lost myself, at what nearly broke me, I see now: none of that matters if we don’t also regenerate ourselves. If we don’t treat ourselves as part of the land, too. We must tend ourselves with as much care as we pay to the landscapes we steward.
I’ve always been a deeply emotional person — big feelings, soft heart, high sensitivity — and I grew up in a culture that didn’t always know what to do with that. Talking about your feelings wasn’t exactly central to ranching life. I remember getting so overwhelmed as a kid that I’d burst into tears and couldn’t stop. My dad would gently coach me through deep breaths, trying his best. He loved me deeply — though those weren't words he said aloud — he just didn’t know how to meet me in those depths. So I learned to minimize. Mask. Put on a brave face. Make the best of it. That mostly worked — until it didn’t. Until those bottled-up feelings would surface in the middle of the corral, boiling over into a shouting match between me and my dad. Both of us hurting. Both of us hating the conflict.
After college, I moved home to the ranch with my husband. My stepchild came to live with us. We had — and still have — a close bond. But I was young, in over my head, and holding way too much. At 23, I was a full-time parent, full-time caregiver for my grandmother who had advanced Alzheimer’s, and emotional support for my husband as he grieved the early death of his father. I ended up taking custody of my sister-in-law’s son during her mental health struggles, which lasted a couple years. I was enrolled in graduate school, the most prestigious sustainability focused MBA program in the country at that time. A typical day? Wake up early. Get the kids ready. Help my grandma out of bed. Tend to what ranch work I could. Do homework. Lay in bed dissociating for a few hours. Pick up kids. Cook dinner. Go to class. Read bedtime stories. Tuck everyone in. Fold laundry. Cry. Sleep fitfully. Wake up earlier than I needed to and do it again. Even on days I felt like I hadn’t done much, I was exhausted beyond measure. I didn’t feel alive. I just felt responsible.
After my grandmother passed and my nephew returned to live with his mom, the absence of constant caretaking left a hollow space that I instinctively rushed to fill. That space became LINC Foods — a worker- and farmer-owned cooperative food hub I helped found. It gave me purpose, structure, and a chance to work toward something that aligned with my values: building a more just and localized food system capable of feeding communities at scale. The work was both daunting and rewarding. But my child, Audrey, began to have mental health struggles that became more and more alarming as they intensified. The world felt increasingly cruel and broken, such a far cry from my bucolic childhood on the ranch. I was trying to shield my family from it, while creating something hopeful with no gas in the tank. My child was in crisis. Eventually it came out that they had experienced sexual abuse by a family member, and the trauma of that haunted every part of our lives. There were suicide attempts, self-harm, terrifying nights of not knowing whether they were safe, whether I would find them in the morning. I was doing everything I could to protect and support them, to get them connected with resources, to advocate for their care — while also trying to hold my own pain, fear, and rage at bay. It is a particular kind of terror to love someone that much and be unsure whether your love can keep them alive. It’s a special kind of rage to know no system will hold accountable the one that hurt your baby.
Daily panic attacks became a part of my life. I would spend what little down time I had crying, hyperventilating, staring blankly at the wall. I remember one morning I went out to check cows before heading to work. A cross-fence had broken. I was trying to splice two pieces of hot wire together, and I just... couldn’t. My body stopped. I lay down on the ground next to the fence, sobbing, unable to move. I had to call my parents to come help. I couldn’t even tie a wire. My nervous system was so fried that the smallest thing unraveled me. And the truth I didn’t want to say out loud: I often wished I was dead. Not because I didn’t love my life, my family, or my work — but because the pain of staying alive inside that much responsibility, that much grief, was unbearable. The only thing that stopped me was how inconvenient it would be for everyone I loved.
Even in those darkest times, the land kept calling to me. I didn’t always answer. Sometimes I sat in the grass feeling numb. Sometimes I screamed into the wind. But there were also moments — fleeting but real — where the land held me. A sunset. A breeze in the basin wild rye. An osprey circling overhead. And in those moments, I felt the faintest whisper: you are still part of this. You still belong. Even on the worst days — when everything felt broken and unbearable — there were small moments that kept me tethered. A northern leopard frog in the marsh. A patch of camas and wild iris. Watching a calf take its first clumsy suck off the teat of its mother. The butterscotch smell of ponderosa sap in the hot sun. Those weren’t just pretty moments. They were lifelines. They reminded me I had a purpose. That I was made in service to this place. That my pain, while real, wasn’t the whole story. You might call it God. You might call it a sunset. All I know is that there was a voice — soft and clear — that said, "Stay."
Eventually, something had to give. Things with my husband hit a breaking point. He told me: you have to go to therapy. You have to take care of yourself. He could see what I couldn’t: that I had no self-preservation left. That I was breaking. And that I needed help. So I went. To therapy. To books. To practices. To years of figuring out how to be a whole person in a dangerous and sometimes nonsensical world. The phrase "you can't pour from an empty cup" felt contrived at first — but I had to admit, I was beyond empty. I didn’t even have a cup. My role as caretaker had eroded all my boundaries. I didn’t know how to rest. I sure as hell didn’t know how to recover. But slowly, I started to rebuild. I learned that empathy doesn’t mean losing yourself. That I could show up for people from a healed place, not a wounded one. That I could cultivate vitality — not as a luxury, but as an offering. As overflow.
And then came the fire. In 2023, a wildfire scorched 500 acres of our family ranch. For days, the ground smoldered. Spot fires flared up for weeks. Everything was black and brittle and horror-movie strange. We worked for a month fixing fence and beating back spot fires, trying to get ahead of it. The devastation was everywhere. No matter how much fence we built there always seemed to be more ahead. And then — people started showing up. A whole crew from Hunters of Color, who we’d hosted before, came to help. They rebuilt fence. They brought food. Most importantly, they brought love. I’ve never felt so held by community. I was overwhelmed by how many people loved this place — how many people loved us. I realized that the land didn’t just belong to my family. It belonged to the people who had been welcomed here, who had memories here, who were willing to fight for it. That’s when I knew: regeneration isn’t just ecological. It’s relational. And it’s mutual.
I don’t have a neat conclusion for you. Healing is slow. Regeneration is messy. I’m still learning how to rest. I'm still learning how to live with truths that seem too cruel to be real. Still learning how to stay. Still learning how to belong — to myself, to my people, to the land. What I know is this: you can’t heal land without healing people. And you can’t heal people without changing the systems that burn us out and leave us to do it all alone. So I’m trying to do less alone. Trying to do more in community. Trying to live like I belong here. Not just to the land, but to the whole of it. To the frogs. To the fence line. To my grief. To my joy. To my nervous system. To the people who show up with tools and sandwiches and time. To the life I still get to live. Maybe regeneration just means deciding to stay — and finding others who’ll stay with you. That’s the work I’m in now. And maybe you are too.
Beth Robinette
Savory Institute Accredited Professional
UVEhub.com | Restorative Practitioner | Circle Keeper