Words for Wellbeing - Edition 11 - July 29, 2021

Welcome to Words for Wellbeing

Welcome to your fortnightly Wellbeing newsletter. You’ll find new information to enhance your health and wellness to keep you Fit4Life. These will include shining a spotlight on signature character strengths; top tips from the science of wellbeing; Conversations on the Couch with our Emmanuel family; and, loads more. We hope you enjoy them and we’re happy to take requests if there’s something in the wellbeing realm you’d love to learn more about.

A big welcome back to school after lockdown 5.0! We're getting better at it with practice! This week would've seen our year 7-10s enjoy Fit4Life Day and even though plans have changed, we're still sharing all of the wonderful speakers who'll now share their messages later in the year. We share information about our upcoming journalling club for Year 7s, resources from Canteen, some tips on healthy screen time from Headspace, an article from alumni Brigid Delaney on the pursuit of happiness and as usual, our Fit Bits.

To our entire Emmanuel Community please enjoy everything on offer in this edition of Words for Wellbeing.

Fit4Life @ Emmanuel College

At Emmanuel we work together to create a culture and an environment that values and promotes all aspects of health and wellbeing, where students are nurtured to develop the skills and capabilities they need to flourish and be Fit4Life

The Emmanuel College community flourishes out of the core shared values, Faith, Hope and Love, where the impact of the individual on the whole is acknowledged as being as important as the impact of the whole on the individual. As a learning community, the college recognises that positive health and wellbeing are integral to lifelong success and achievement and as such prioritises and promotes the development of individual and group capacity and capabilities key to wellbeing. The college understands wellbeing as the pursuit and experience of positive health across physical, mental, social, cognitive and spiritual domains that allows for the development and expression of capacity and capabilities that allow the individual and the community to flourish. It is a positive state in which every individual realises their own abilities and potential, can cope with the normal stresses of life, can work productively, gain a sense of purpose and contribute to their community. As a faith-based community, the college recognises the importance of spiritual health and wellbeing as a key protective factor and core strength in bringing people together, growing a sense of belonging, wonder and greater purpose.

The college approaches health and wellbeing through a growth mindset and fitness lens, bringing a focus to the agency of each individual and their capacity to continue developing, practicing and contributing to their own and others wellbeing. This strengths based focus is a celebration of every individual’s  capacity to flourish.

Fit4Life is an organising framework that demonstrates this focus on wellbeing as a key to success and supports a consistent approach across the community, developing shared language and understanding of key concepts, effective and sustainable implementation of individual programs, and the embedding of wellbeing as a priority into the culture of the community.

Under normal circumstances,  July 27th, is reserved for Fit4Life Day where our year 7 - 10 students reap the rewards of engaging with the following presenters and organisations. Instead, due to Covid restrictions, we've had to reschedule these incredible sessions to future dates. But, irrespective of that, we're sharing information about each of them this week anyway, because these are organisations and people you want to meet!

The Pat Cronin Foundation

Pat’s Story: A note from the Cronin Family

On Saturday the 16^th of April 2016, Pat went out to a local bar / café for a quiet night and he was punched from behind whilst assisting a mate. He was later taken to hospital and two days later we made the agonising decision to turn off his life support system.

Quietly spoken and gentle natured but with a fierce determination, Pat was enormously popular and had a deep love for his family and friends. His death has left a gaping hole in our lives and caused devastation amongst not only us but also his friends and the broader communities in which we have been involved.

We are determined that Pat’s life be honoured and that no other family should face the devastation we now face as a result of his senseless death.

The first intention of the Pat Cronin Foundation is to honour Pat and everything we do will focus on that.

The secondary intention of the Pat Cronin Foundation is to prevent coward punch attacks and we will do this through:

• Awareness
• Education and,
• Research.

Pat was a normal kid. We are just a normal family. We live in a normal suburb. If this can happen to us, it can happen to anyone

Be Wise. There Is No Excuse.

End The Coward Punch

– Robyn, Matt, Emma and Lucas Cronin

Project Rockit

PROJECT ROCKIT is Australia's youth-driven movement against bullying, hate and prejudice. Our organisation is founded on the vision of a world where kindness and respect thrive over bullying, hate and prejudice, and all young people are free to realise their potential.

PROJECT ROCKIT creates spaces where all young people have access to respect, acceptance, creative expression and real leadership skills. They send highly trained, passionate young presenters into schools to run workshops that empower students to lead positive change at school, online and beyond.

Launched in 2006 by sisters Rosie and Lucy Thomas, PROJECT ROCKIT has now reached half a million young people all over Australia.

After workshops, students will have:

• Explored actions to support their mental health online, including healthy relationships, mindful consumption, critical thinking, help-seeking behaviours
• Grown empathy for those targeted by online hate and skills to support peers through tough times
• Strategies to navigate harmful online experiences including image-based abuse, deceptive behaviour and (cyber)bullying

Ben Harkin aka Ben the Bandit

After being unexpectedly born without arms and given no explanation for it, Ben has resiliently conquered all obstacles that have been thrown at him. He has managed to get through school and graduate from university with a Commerce degree. Along the way he has achieved many accolades in a variety of sports including soccer, table tennis, athletics and even football as well as travelled and lived all over the world. 

A lot of young people look forward to finishing study in order explore the world. There are plenty of hassles and obstacles to be overcome in this pursuit. Saving enough money, booking, visas, packing and then all the other hurdles that come with being in a foreign land. Now imagine doing all this without arms. Ben has worked around his disability to explore the globe independently. He has visited 6 continents and an uncountable amount of countries for both pleasure and work, mostly by himself.

Ben tells of the struggles people with a disability have when it comes to living a normal life. From the perils of finding adequate employment to absurd and comedic ways people react to people who are different and how it can take its toll both physically and emotionally. He grew tired of being a disabled person living in a "lucky" country and found solitude and self-worth while living and working in developing nations. He spent almost 3 years living and working in Vietnam as well as some time in Malaysia and has experienced some amazing people, places and cultures. The stories he has will leave you with tears of laughter and despair.

It is hard to fathom the hurdles to be overcome by Ben while on his journey to be where he is today but it has all made him the strong and inspiring person that he is.

CanTeen: Resources to cope with cancer

We all know that cancer sucks, but with organisations like Canteen here to help us, we're able to cope a little easier. Wellbeing now stock some hard copies of a variety of booklets and resources from Canteen, and we're including downloadable links below.

But first, here are some words from canteen.org.au.

We get it. Just when life should be full of possibilities, cancer crashes into a young person’s world and shatters everything. Cancer pushes them back in to the nest, makes them grow up too fast and weighs them down with worries they’re not supposed to have yet.

Canteen is the game changer. We help young people cope with cancer in their family. Through Canteen, they learn to explore and deal with their feelings about cancer, connect with other young people in the same boat and if they’ve been diagnosed themselves, we also provide specialist, youth-specific treatment teams.

By feeling understood and supported, young people develop resilience and can rebuild the foundations that crumbled beneath them when cancer turned their life upside down. That’s how Canteen is the difference.

Canteen works by having young people at the centre of everything we do. We were set up by a group of young cancer patients in 1985 and still have young people affected by cancer guiding the organisation at every level. Combined with our leading edge research into the emotional and social impacts of cancer, it ensures that we truly understand how cancer is different in a young person’s world.

For more information or to get support, email us at support@canteen.org.au or call 1800 835 932. You can also connect with us on Facebook, Twitter or YouTube.

Canteen Resources

Walk & Talk with Wellbeing

Lockdown 5.0 has helped us evolve in the way we work when we're unable to attend school. In an effort to role model healthy behaviours to manage and maintain our wellbeing during lockdown, the Wellbeing team created a roster to walk and talk with one another (and a coffee) at least once or twice a week. The work got done, plans were created and being out in nature, breathing in fresh oxygen, our brains worked better than ever. Not only were we future planning our wellbeing programs, but we were also discussing the latest books we were reading, podcasts episodes we'd listened to and programs we were watching.

On one walk, I shared a podcast episode I'd listened to the night before. In it, Josh van Cuylenburg, brother of Hugh @ The Resilience Project, shared a raw memory of the moment his passionate dream to create music was squashed by cruel judgement of others. That moment changed the course of his life, as Josh chose to put himself in the background, supporting others to achieve their dreams, due to no longer believing in himself to pursue his own.

It's an incredible conversation to listen to and an important one. We should all keep in mind how important it is to be kind and respectful and to not impede the dreams of those around us. Afterall, we all deserve to dream.

Have a listen.

The secret to happiness in uncertain times? Give up pursuing it

By striving for a state of tranquility, rather than gratification, not only are you less likely to ruin your own day – you’ll be more pleasant to others too

by Emmanuel College Alumni, Brigid Delaney, @BrigidWD

More than a year into the pandemic, many of the usual paths to happiness are blocked. We can’t always rely on the externals for their dependable highs: travel, going to pubs, bars and parties, socialising with large groups of friends, seeing live music, theatre and festivals.

We can’t control the pandemic, obviously, or many of the government restrictions and border and travel closures that make life difficult. But we can review our successful old approaches, and if they’re no longer accessible, pick new things instead.

But these things would need to be pandemic-proof and within our control.

I have been reading a lot of Hellenic philosophy and came across a concept that produced an “a ha” moment: ataraxia. This concept speaks to the acute pain caused by uncertainty and a lack of autonomy, and offers a way forward. Instead of harnessing experiences – like parties or big trips – for happiness, ataraxia proposes a much more modest view.

If you are more tranquil, you will be less likely to react or combust.
Frequently described in Ancient Greek philosophy, ataraxia is a state that is characterised by freedom from distress and worry. It is a mindset that is experienced and cultivated internally.

Instead of chasing sugar highs, ataraxia suggests striving for a feeling of tranquility.

Ataraxia should act like a slow-release drug, accumulating over days and weeks. Ancient philosophers believed achieving ataraxia created an emotional homeostasis, where the effect wouldn’t just be a more stable base-level mood, but one that would hopefully flow out to the people around you.

If you are more tranquil, you will be less likely to react or combust. So not only do you not ruin your own day, you avoid ruining other people’s too. In a tranquil state you may even make better decisions.

Someone in a state of ataraxia is not gripped by passions – such as lust, envy or fear. All these emotions are often spurred by things outside of our control.

Could the revival of the Ancient Greek concept of ataraxia be the thing that makes us OK with the uncertainty and lack of control in pandemic times? And could the cultivation of ataraxia help us cope with the shocks that await us in the future?

The modern revival and popularity of Stoic philosophy would suggest so.

But how achievable is ataraxia – particularly for a modern person who is surrounded by distraction, marketing, social media and capitalism? For a person who is easily swayed by passions?

Ataraxia occurs in the absence of such passions – wanting things, getting them, then wanting more tends to create massive mood swings.

When you face all the inevitables in life, all the shadows that are going to fall ... ataraxia is dealing with these. AC Grayling

I ask British philosopher and author Prof AC Grayling for some suggestions. “Passion suggests something active to us,” he says. “But if you look at the etymology of the term, it’s passive – it’s something that happens to you – like love or anger or lust – that was visited on you by the gods.”

Unlike passion, you create ataraxia, for “peace of mind, inner calm, strength”, Grayling says. “So when you face all the inevitables in life, all the shadows that are going to fall across life – such as losing people we care about, suffering grief, failing, making mistakes, feeling guilty – ataraxia is dealing with these shadows and being prepared for them. Preparation is a daily thing. But ataraxia is also learning how to relax and to have fun and making the most of each day. That also causes you to flourish.”

Although the use of the word “ataraxia” has fallen out of favour, “it’s just another way of saying ‘I’ve got to get my shit together’”, says Grayling.

“When people say ‘I’ve got my shit together’ they mean ‘I’ve got my balance and harmony’ which is so crucial – we need it … at the moment … If you have things like lockdowns – particularly if you are in extended lockdowns – you have to find new levels, a new balance. And that takes a certain degree of psychological energy to ask ‘what would it take for me to get there?’”

In a widely shared Medium post, Steven Gambardella wrote: “Ataraxia is not a positively-defined state such as ‘happy’ or ‘excited’. It was believed by the Hellenistic philosophies to be a ‘resting’ state of serenity. It is nevertheless a desirable state of mind, one that (Greek philosopher) Pyrrho believed that human beings naturally possess but can easily lose. In the same way that when free of illness our bodies are in a state of homeostasis, ataraxia is simply the absence of perturbation.”

Speaking from his home in London, Gambardella expands on this. “In the modern world we are deeply unhappy because our understanding of happiness is incorrect. We think it will arise from doing something – from a positively designed state – drinking, having sex, shopping … This version of happiness is quite bound up with consumerism.”

One of the main things we can do to try and achieve ataraxia is avoid social media
Steven Gambardella

Instead, says Gambardella, ancient Greek philosophers, such as the Epicureans, Stoics and Sceptics “taught that happiness is not a positively defined state – it is a negatively defined word. It’s ‘without being phased’, or having any kind of strong feelings – and the Ancient Greeks were obsessed with it.”

The theory of ataraxia “emerged at a time of crisis … in the chaos and bloodshed that followed Alexander’s (the Great) death”.

It “is an objective for anybody seeking a sense of balance and calm, especially in times of uncertainty”.

Ataraxia is achieved by using reason to assess a situation rationally, to understand what you can control, and what you can’t control. What you cannot control is not worth worrying about.

Grayling says ataraxia can be achieved if you “have courage to face what is outside yourself, such as earthquakes, pandemics and natural disasters, old age and death. And if you have self mastery of your inner self.”

Techniques to achieve ataraxia also include “zooming out” – and seeing yourself and your problems as just small specks in a massive universe.

Says Gambardella: “You ‘run with the stars’ as (Roman emperor and Stoic) Marcus Aurelius puts it – either by distancing yourself from your emotions or breaking things down in a way that allows you to dissect your emotions to understand what … issue is really at stake, and to understand that your passions are running away.”

The full Aurelius quote is very beautiful: “Dwell on the beauty of life. Watch the stars, and see yourself running with them.”

By controlling our fears and desires (in other words, our passions), we come closer to achieving tranquility.

People have very shallow ideas about what happiness is AC Grayling

In practical terms, “one of the main things we can do to try and achieve ataraxia is avoid social media”, Gambardella says.

“Instagram can make people feel sad and lonely. It is the perfect anti-ataraxia phenomenon. Because you could never be followed by enough people, you could never have enough likes – it’s based on this idea of super abundance … and it’s filled with notifications that you should follow this complete stranger.”

But before we achieve ataraxia, first we need to discard the old positive notions of happiness as surplus.

“People have very shallow ideas about what happiness is,” Grayling says. “For example – being in love. One of the great cons in life is that being in love is what happiness is about. Then five or 10 years later you wake up and go ‘who the hell is this person?’ If you are achieving a heightened emotional state that you get at a party or in infatuation – that is not happiness.

“Happiness is a state and the state in question is where you, the individual, have a firm basis and place to do the work you need to do; the grief you need to go through; the people you need to encounter and the help you need to give people around you.”

Brigid Delaney is currently writing a book on Stoic philosophy to be published by Allen and Unwin

#SAYNOTOVAPING

https://www.healthpromotion.com.au/saynotovaping/

We're pleased to be sharing resources from Health Promotion regarding the health risks associated with vaping. 

Learning Diversity Fornightly Column

Inclusive Education: Essential for some, but good for ALL!

Year 7 Journalling Club

Year 7s, you are invited to be part of our first Journal Club!

It starts Tuesday August 24th from 3:45PM to 4:30PM in the library and will go for 4 weeks.  We will show you many different methods of journalling  including how to use things like video, art, writing and even music!

Snacks and materials will all be provided, so why not come along and give it a try. 

Please let Mrs Sinnott know by Monday August 9th if you are interested in joining - msinnott@emmanuel.vic.edu.au

Other year levels, stay tuned, because we'll soon be offering this to you as well.

Screen Time: Making Healthy Choices

Mindfulness @ Rice

Fit4Life, Wellbeing @ Emmanuel College

Your 2021 Fit4Life Wellbeing Team are, from left to right, Jodie Fleming (School Psychologist), Rachele Sloane (Wellbeing coordinator), Claire Wrigley (Assistant Principal Students Wellbeing), Tracey van Rooy (Student Wellbeing Intake Officer). You can look forward to meeting us all through the Conversations on the Couch in coming editions, or, in person anytime!

We have moved but we are still located on McAuley campus. You’ll now find us upstairs in the Convent, at the end of the Year 7 corridor, directly above the Heritage room.

Can’t follow my instructions? Here are some videos coming from The Stage, the front office, and from the Year 7 corridor. Simply click on the links for a speedy tour.

We also have spaces on Rice and Goold campuses. Teachers, parents and guardians and students are all able to refer students to us. If you'd like to catch up, simply email us at wellbeing@emmanuel.vic.edu.au

Fit Bits

Our weekly Fit Bits links are designed to energise, motivate and encourage us to take brain breaks and mindful moments throughout each day for our minds and our bodies.

Energisers:

Brain Breaks:

Mindful Moments:

Motivational Music:

We hope you’ve found something useful in this edition of Words for Wellbeing.

Our past editions of Words for Wellbeing contain useful reminders about how to cope with the changes that stage three lockdown brings. You’ll find all of our past editions online - just follow this link and enter Words for Wellbeing in the search bar: 

Stay tuned for our next edition of Words for Wellbeing!

In the meantime, if you need to contact Wellbeing, please email us at wellbeing@emmanuel.vic.edu.au to organise a catch up or just to check in or offer us any suggestions or feedback on our Words for Wellbeing.

Stay safe and well everyone.

Love from your Wellbeing Team