On Sunday, Allie Wolfe will take the stage as part of the inaugural TEDxDurango event – a daylong series of talks and other performances that will be held at Fort Lewis College.
We don’t want to give away details of the planned talks, which are centered around the main theme of “Finding the Humor,” but Wolfe, an FLC student from Arkansas, said she’ll be talking about using creative methods for coping with mental illness.
“I’m 23, and I know that a lot of anxiety and depression and things like that are being diagnosed at a higher rate now with my generation, and part of that just might be awareness of it, but part of it is also that we are suffering more from anxiety,” she said. “ I think that often we get trapped in this box that if we’re not responding to therapy and this one specific medication, we feel like a lost cause.”
She said she definitely was feeling that way until she found a more creative method to deal with it, which audience members will hear about during her talk. “And it’s in addition to therapy and medication. Just being able to be creative and get outside of the box of traditional therapy was really helpful for me even in breaking the barrier to begin to be able to cope with my anxiety,” Wolfe said.
TEDx events are different than TED Talks: “In the spirit of ideas worth spreading, TEDx is a program of local, self-organized events that bring people together to share a TED-like experience,” according to its website. “At a TEDx event, TED Talks video and live speakers combine to spark deep discussion and connection. These local, self-organized events are branded TEDx, where x equals independently organized TED event. The TED Conference provides general guidance for the TEDx program, but individual TEDx events are self-organized. (Subject to certain rules and regulations.)”
For Ginger Jenks, another one of Sunday’s speakers, talking on stage during a TED Talk has been a dream of hers.
“I’ve been a TED.com fan for many years. It was actually on my goals list, my bucket list to do a TED talk some time,” she said. “I put it on my list in January, I saw the article in the Herald, and I was recovering from knee surgery and didn’t know if I had the energy to create the audition video, but I thought, ‘Well, I’ve got to take a shot.’”
It was a good choice that led to her being selected to speak. “Goals are kind of part of my business,” said Jenks, who owns Magellan Enterprises, a professional executive coaching and facilitation company.
Jenks said she will be speaking about “a topic I have a lot of passion around, half of it is my usual topic, and half of it is my passion.”
“I’m super excited, and sure, I’m always a little nervous because this is something deeply in my heart, and so I want it to have good impact, and I want to do it really well,” she said.
And for Wolfe, who is majoring in psychology but pursuing a career in political advocacy – and is also a stand-up comedian – TEDxDurango is a way to make tough topics accessible and less intimidating.
“I think that one thing, especially with the topic being ‘Find the Humor,’ it makes topics feel a lot more approachable and accessible to people because you don’t need a degree to be able to understand some of these TED talks, most of them, really,” Wolfe said. “That’s the purpose of TED talks – they are accessible. And so you can spread information about mental health and things like that on a platform that isn’t as scary and isn’t as intimidating as maybe going to a therapist.”
katie@durangoherald.com
If you go
What:
TEDxDurango
When:
9:30 a.m.-4:30 p.m. Sunday.
Where:
Roshong Recital Hall, Jones Hall 205, Fort Lewis College, 1000 Rim Drive.
More information:
Visit shorturl.at/gGIPV.
