Practical “life skills” are crucial skills that encourage balanced and healthy living. We prepare our students to live independently and instruct them on many things including but not limited to:
- Budgeting and money management
- Cooking
- Cleaning
- Self-care
- Physical health through nutrition and exercise
- Applying and interviewing for jobs
- Time Management and scheduling
- Many other aspects of etiquette and social protocol
Community Integration and Life Skills Training Program
Red Mountain is located in the beautiful hills of Sedona, Arizona. This optimal location affords a safe and natural atmosphere that lends itself to self-reflection and personal growth.
Our students stay in fully furnished apartments with single bedrooms and have 24/7 access to our highly trained, knowledgeable staff. Our user-friendly, community integrated campus is just steps away from coffee shops, restaurants, and world-class hiking and biking trails, including the iconic Bell Rock Trail.
Nutrition
Addiction, depression, and anxiety over prolonged periods of time can cause damage to our bodies. Some examples include gastrointestinal problems, muscle atrophy, and nutrient deficiencies from a lack of proper food sources. All of these, if gone unaddressed, have the potential to cause more severe and even deadly health issues.
Eating Healthy
Many studies have shown that nutrition is a key part of feeding the brain and reducing anxiety and depression symptoms. We educate our students on nutrition and health and coach them to do their own grocery shopping and cook their own meals.
Nutrition, when combined with therapy, exercise, supportive peer interaction, and mindfulness, work synergistically to help our students feel their best.
Healthy Relationships
Individuals in unhealthy relationships are often blind to the reality of the patterns and behaviors that define their relationships.
The renowned poet Robert Frost once wrote, “Good fences make good neighbors.” To put it in another way, healthy boundaries make healthy relationships. For a person struggling with mental health issues, a lack of a stable identity, and/or substance use issues, learning to foster connections that support their own growth marks the pathway to living a full life. At Red Mountain Sedona (RMS), our students and staff practice daily accountability to themselves and one another, thus setting the tone for creating these life-enhancing boundaries.
Why is setting boundaries so essential to living a good life?
At RMS, we have found that setting and living with boundaries requires hard work and personal investment. It is a life skill that many of our students lack prior to their arrival. The good news is that by the time our students graduate, they have come to know themselves, including their limits and their faults, and, more importantly, how to exercise healthy boundaries. RMS students participate in daily community group sessions, where they dive deeply into the topic of boundaries and their application for successful living.
Our goal at RMS is to build a supportive and positive peer culture where all members learn to develop and abide by strict rules that apply to the proper cultivation and nurturing of personal boundaries. This environment resembles that of a healthy family. Creating this powerful awareness helps our students to return home and function more effectively within their own family dynamic. With the addition of “family coaching” during their stay, the RMS student is also uniquely equipped to evolve a stronger sense of confidence that supports continued growth within the family system.
Healing is all about Reclaiming Freedom
Getting better after being in an unhealthy situation involves reclaiming two “lost freedoms.”
The first of these is the loss of the ability to be or become our best within a relationship. Any attempt to move away from or eliminate destructive behaviors creates instant friction and can draw harsh opposition. The other member(s) of the relationship may selfishly “fear loss” so they exert emotional or physical force to maintain the status quo. The person wanting to change often feels guilty and responsible for the discomfort, and then ceases their attempts to make an improvement. They feel trapped but are quickly comforted by continued use and other behaviors that maintain the status quo. At RMS, this freedom to become our best is the first to be reclaimed.
The second lost freedom involves having the choice to leave the relationship. People find their identity in relationships, even dysfunctional or unhealthy ones. If you are miserable, it’s always easier to be in the company of those who seem to understand the misery. The members of the relationship have formed identities that are defined by what they contribute to the situation, even if it is a negative contribution. Their fear of change causes discomfort, and energy is exerted to prevent change.
Finally, in codependent relationships, the negative mechanisms of support for one another are often connected with the continued abuse of drugs and alcohol, and/or other unhealthy behaviors such as isolating, avoiding, and hiding from genuine feelings. At RMS, this is the second freedom our students reclaim—the strength to leave these dysfunctional relationships.
Exercising this choice is usually the only way that our students can improve their health over the long term. We provide emotional support, as well as the brass-tacks relationship skills, to help our students do just that.
