Angilina Taylor, executive director of HeadQuarters, discusses Mental Fitness at The Collective Snowmass on Wednesday. HeadQuarters and the Collective created a formal partnership to promote mental health last week.
Geoff Hanson/Aspen Daily News
The Collective Snowmass held an event presented by HeadQuarters, the Basalt-based mental health nonprofit on Wednesday called “Mental Fitness: Charting a well-balanced year.”
While HeadQuarters has done events at the Collective before, Wednesday’s event marked the first event since the two organizations announced a formal partnership last week.
“We are thrilled to announce our partnership with HeadQuarters, a dedicated nonprofit organization focused on promoting mental fitness and wellbeing in our community,” Sarah Sanders, director of events at The Collective Snowmass, said. “At the Collective, we believe in the power of connection and support, and through this collaboration, we’ll be partnering with HeadQuarters on monthly in-season events that focus on mental health and wellness free of charge. Together, we aim to create a positive impact and foster a culture of mental wellness for everyone.”
Wednesday’s event was attended by eight members of the community who came to participate in an interactive workshop on mental fitness that was led by HeadQuarters Executive Director Angilina Taylor.
Taylor explained that HeadQuarters uses the term mental fitness over mental health. The nonprofit, which was founded in 2016, looks at fitness as a discipline that must be maintained, much like physical fitness (which is a component of mental fitness).
“HeadQuarters is a mental fitness nonprofit,” Taylor said. “We engage, educate and empower people around mental fitness which is the purposeful practice of taking care of your mind, and through this we gain the skills and tools to create the resiliency to thrive.”
Wednesday’s event focused on the four quarters of mental fitness — social, emotional, physical and financial well-being.
“We refer to it as the wheel of life,” Taylor said. “The different spokes in the wheel are the social, emotional, physical, and financial. We use a scale of 1 to 10 for each spoke and identify which areas in the spokes are a little off kilter or out of balance and focus on those. And we develop tools for how to work on our well being.”
Taylor started the presentation with a meditation to ground the people in attendance and then divided the crowd up into two groups so they could have discussions after she spoke about the different disciplines.
She then launched into the first aspect of mental fitness: social. She pointed out that social isolation can be as detrimental to mental well-being as smoking two packs of cigarettes a day. She emphasized surrounding yourself with people that elevate you rather than bring you down. Taylor pointed out the importance of getting out and engaging in social interactions as isolation is a key component of depression.
Next Taylor discussed emotional health and emphasized the importance of developing tools to regulate your emotions so that when you’re feeling off balance you can bring yourself back to a state of well being. Taylor pointed out that it is important to recognize the things that trigger you so you can catch yourself before it happens.
Taylor then discussed the importance of physical health and the need to get enough sleep, exercise and have a healthy diet.
The last part of the evening focused on financial health. She said that 82% of Americans are stressed out because of money. Taylor emphasized the importance of delving into and examining your relationship with money.
Taylor finished the seminar by having the attendees set one specific attainable goal for the year.
Taylor then explained some of HeadQuarters resources that include one on one coaching and free and subsidized therapy to people who can’t afford it.
“We manage the mental health fund which provides different services on a sliding scale,” Taylor said. “We rarely have to turn anybody down. We’re definitely seeing a lot more requests for help with services. It’s for anybody who is uninsured, underinsured or finds themselves financially unable to afford therapy. You have to live in the Roaring Fork Valley, Colorado River corridor.”
HeadQuarters has a men’s peer support group and a woman’s peer support group. The groups are based in Basalt but HeadQuarters is hoping to expand the program into other areas like Glenwood Springs.
“They say people need a third space,” Taylor said. “You have your work, you have your home and what’s that third space that you go to where you find connection and belonging? That’s what our peer support groups and workshops are really aiming to do.”
HeadQuarters also offers online resources for people to get help and information regarding mental health services from detox centers to therapists in the area.
Taylor emphasized the need for private donations. “Funding in our region is 14-to-1 crisis over prevention,” she said. “We could definitely use donations to fund these programs.”
Taylor said the most important message that HeadQuarters tries to deliver is that mental fitness needs to be practiced in times of wellness rather than simply during illness.
“We should be practicing mental fitness all the time and being aware of it, and always being hyper vigilant of it. Just like we brush and floss our teeth every day, that’s the same thing we should be doing for our mental health. If you have a good mental fitness practice during times of wellness when you find yourself in times of illness you can tap into it much easier, and then get yourself back on track.”