7 minute read
FEATURED GATHERING
Exhibit Kickstarts Important Mental Health Conversations
By Caramie Petrowsky
If you’ve ever wished for a worry shredder, you’re in luck. You can find it in Fort Collins where it’s part of the Mental Health: Mind Matters exhibit on display at the Fort Collins Museum of Discovery through January 2, 2022.
“It’s the coolest thing. You get a piece of paper, write down your worries and then watch it all go away,” explains Laura Valdez, the executive director of the museum. “We run out of paper all the time. It’s a little thing, but it feels so liberating.”
For one mother and her young daughter who visited recently, the shredder made the biggest impact. “We returned to the
Museum of Discovery twice more just so we could shred more worries,” she wrote in a survey about the exhibit.
The all-ages special exhibit debuted
October 2020. Because of the restrictions in place at the time, Valdez knew that not everyone had a chance to experience it, which is why they brought it back.
“It’s not often you get a do-over to make a deeper impact,” she says. “The exhibit is hopeful. We’ve received such positive feedback from people of all ages and backgrounds; people feel seen.”
Along with the worry shredder, visitors can interact with hands-on experiences that help them understand mental illness in a deeper way. Listen as people share their personal experiences living with mental illness. Peer back in time to important moments in mental health history and hear how attitudes have changed over the years. Discover how activities like dancing, writing, and drawing can help people identify and express their emotions and, in turn, strengthen their mental health. You can even step into a living room to hear how a father’s depression affects the whole family, a powerful reminder of how mental illness impacts loved ones.
Visitors are invited to share their own stories on note cards, which serve as powerful reminders that everyone is carrying an invisible load.
With the idea that one conversation can make a difference, a section in the exhibit connects people with resources to help them improve their health, including conversation guides that provide a framework to continue talking beyond the exhibit, Valdez adds. Additionally, subject matter experts from SummitStone Health Partners, one of the exhibit’s many partners, are available to answer questions.
Additionally, the rest of the museum boasts activities for all ages, including sensory exhibits, scavenger hunts, a special “tot spot” for littles, a Tornado Tube and the area history display. The permanent Music & Sound Lab explores the physics of sound, the history of the Fort Collins music scene and some of the technology behind everything from Edison wax cylinders to iPods. + Presented in English, Spanish and French, see the Mind Matters exhibit Wednesdays through Sundays from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. through January 2, 2022. Tickets are available online at fcmod.org or at the door.
As the owner of SkyWrite Communications & Content, CARAMIE PETROWSKY crafts messages that resonate. She spent 12 years working as a journalist, including eight as the Vail Daily A&E Editor, before starting her own company, which focuses on strategic content creation and public relations.
Q + A
Spotlight
ELIZABETH GILBERT
INTERVIEW BY KIM FULLER
ELIZABETH GILBERT ON Wellness + Mindfulness
+ She is Coming to Denver on May 4, 2022
Unquestionably one of her generation’s most beloved voices, Elizabeth Gilbert is the author of the runaway bestseller Eat
Pray Love, which has sold more than 13 million copies worldwide. Her latest, City of Girls, a glittering coming-of-age epic stitched across the fabric of New York
City in the 1940s. In Gilbert’s bestselling nonfiction treatise on creativity, Big Magic:
Creative Living Beyond Fear, she explores the mysteries of how to lead a bold and inspired life. Gilbert’s novel The Signature of All Things is a sweeping story of botany, exploration and desire that spans much of the 19th century.
The city of Denver will be lucky enough to host Gilbert at the Paramount Theater at 7:30 p.m. on Wednesday, May 4, 2022. CO
YOGA + Life reached out to Gilbert for some of her insight on wellness and mindfulness in our modern era.
LIZ, WHAT ARE SOME WAYS YOU CREATE PERSONAL WELLNESS?
The primary way that I create personal wellness is through cultivating a friendly relationship with my own mind. For so much of my youth, I suffered from depression and anxiety, because I just didn’t know how to broker peace between myself and the various dark voices in my head telling me what a failure or loser I was. But I can honestly say that for the last 20 years, I’ve been on a steady mission to bring peace to this tired mind, and to encourage harmony and kindness between all its arguing voices. I do this through radical love and self-compassion, through the process of writing myself letters every day from unconditional love. These letters — extending mercy and sympathy to every part of myself, every single day — constitute the foundation of my spiritual practice. Without that unconditional love, I would be a real mess.
TELL US ABOUT YOUR YOGA PRACTICE AND HOW YOU INTEGRATE IT INTO YOUR LIFE.
My yoga practice shifts and changes over the years, just like I do. There was a period when I used to go to classes every day, and I’m especially grateful for the serious Iyengar training that I received long ago, which gave me a deep, foundational understanding of the workings of the body. But I’m less interested in maintaining that level of discipline anymore. I find that these days, I’m more likely to practice at home, by myself, and in a way that is not so rigid. I’ve given up at “winning” at yoga, if that makes sense. There are certain positions that I’m simply never going to be able to do, and that’s fine. I’m over 50 years old now, and I just want to live in peace with myself, and I definitely don’t want to hurt myself. So I just like to stretch and relax, and be kind to myself. If I’m feeling restless in the middle of my yoga practice, I’m liable to suddenly put on some music and start dancing, and just blow off the asanas … for me, at this point in my life, it’s about being responsive to what my body really needs in that moment — and sometimes, it needs to dance around the living room to Cardi B more than it needs to nail a perfect Tree Pose.
IN WHAT WAYS DO YOU CREATE
MINDFULNESS EVERY DAY?
Drawing in my journal has become an important daily practice for me. I find that when I am drawing, it steadies my breathing and puts me into the present moment. I don’t identify as a visual artist, but that’s probably why it’s so relaxing — because I don’t have any ego in the game, and I’m not trying to make the world’s most beautiful illustrations. I just find it incredibly soothing to noodle about and doodle about in my journal, and to scatter words throughout the drawings, as well. For many of us, creativity is medicine, but if (like me) you make your living based on your creativity, then that medicine can become burdened by the expectations of the marketplace. So I think it’s important to find other ways of expressing creativity that have nothing to do with your career or your vocation. For me, that’s drawing. I feel no pressure to be good at it, and the world never needs to see it; it just makes me feel soothed to play with shapes, colors and sketches.
WHAT ARE YOU LOOKING FORWARD TO IN THIS VISIT TO DENVER, AND WHAT IS COMING UP NEXT FOR YOU?
For me, after all these years on the road, the best thing about traveling is the chance to catch up with old friends. I’ve got dear old friends in Denver, and I’ll be wanting to go out to dinner with them, see pictures of their children and hear tales of their lives. I always say that, for me, “home” is not so much a physical location as it is a person — somebody who makes me feel like I can land in myself fully and feel completely relaxed. I’m happy to say, then, that I have a few good “homes” in Denver — and I can’t wait to see them! As for what is coming up next for me, I’m not exactly sure. I’ve got some book ideas starting to brew, but they will take time to make themselves known. This is a resting season, I think, more than anything else. + Tickets to see Elizabeth Gilbert at the Paramount Theatre at 7:30 p.m. on Wednesday, May 4, 2022 are on sale at
