Activity Two

Photovoice

Please take a photo on the topic of ‘learning’. What image captures (something of) what learning means to you? I’ll invite you to share it and say few words with the group on zoom. 

Activity Three

How Do You Know?

People living across an area of Europe referred to by nutritionists as ‘the Mediterranean’ have relatively low rates of heart disease in the population as compared to people living in other areas of Europe. The difference has been strongly linked to diet.  

This activity is in three parts. 

First part: What do you already know about the Mediterranean Diet in relation to heart health?

• What foods are linked with improved heart health? Are there specific nutrients within these foods that can explain their impact?     
• Are there any foods ‘missing’ from the Mediterranean diet whose absence also improves heart health?                                                                                                                                                                          
• Can you suggest a definition, “The Mediterranean Diet is …”

The activity is most useful if you do part one without knowing what is coming, just saying in case you were reading everything through and want to stop here   

Part two: Are there other factors, aside from nutrient intake, that could link the Mediterranean diet with improved heart health?

Is there anything else about the land, beliefs, culture, diet of people living in the Mediterranean that could be contributing to enhanced heart health as compared to non-Mediterranean countries?

• Can ‘the Mediterranean diet’ exist in a meaningful way outside of the Mediterranean?
• How does the popular public health message about a Mediterranean diet impact health justice?

This last part gets into analysis, or theory.

Can you name any of the ideologies/theories/concepts underpinning popular nutrition  messages about the Mediterranean diet. For instance, you might have noticed healthism.

I’ll invite you to type your answers to this last section in the chat in the zoom call.

This is an interesting read from UNESCO on the Mediterranean diet.

(PS. If you been in a Well Now group where I have taught this topic, can you notice any differences between how I taught it then, and here?)

Activity Four

Creative Self Timeline

Activity Five

Activity Six

Deep Connection 

Real, deep, significant learning has always been a letting go for me. I’ve let go of the beliefs about myself and the world and other people that got in the way of me knowing something. And then there it was, the new Truth. Just as it always had been. It was me who had changed, I had changed so that I was able to know myself and the world in new ways.

Anchoring ourselves to values is something that can help exploration. You might have considered this already in section one.

Something else that helps is drawing on, or cultivating, a sense of deep connection. This can be felt through attention to body awareness, that we can experience through  mindfulness practice, or creative expression. It can also be felt in relation to other humans. Perhaps less obviously, given our education, it can come through connection with the land and non-human nature, from that which is sacred to you, and through ancestral lineage. 

Maybe this list generates other ideas. It might seem a strange thing to be talking about! That’s because it has been made strange by the mindset we will be getting to grips with in this course –  a mindset of disconnect and disrespect.

For the moment, the feeling that one or more other Being has your back will support your learning whether this connection is via a study buddy, your faith, a local tree or whatever!

Activity Seven

Radical Body Love 

Deep work is Love’s Work. Or is it? What’s your take on this idea?

The transformational leader and activist Sonya Renee Taylor talks about radical self love as the route to collective liberation.

Sonya founded the digital organisation The Body Is Not An Apology and wrote a book by the same name. 

Activity Eight

To Summarise