This course encourages the exploration of what constitutes wellness in multiple dimensions of the human experience. It is skills-based, meaning that we will explore and attempt to cultivate healthy habits to develop a personal wellness practice based on individual needs, interests and aspirations. This course is geared to exploration of what it means to be YOU— and all the great things we can put together to help you to be the best version of you possible: confident, capable and kind!
This course is largely individual/self-centered: It mostly focuses on what is happening “inside.” (Note, there is a companion course for cultivating wellness in community with others, which focuses more on wellness in social contexts, or “outside.”) We’ll use as our textbook How to Be Miserable: 40 Strategies You Already Use by Randy J. Paterson.
Each week will include some background learning (reading/audio/video) and wellness practices to be tried and reflected upon. We will use a variety of resources, and will use the text as a jumping off point for many of these topics.
Suggested Weekly Topics for Learning & Practice:
1. What is Wellness? What is it for? (Overview & Intention-Setting)
2. Who am I? Personality, Learning, Aptitudes & Motivational Temperament
3. Nervous System 101 — The Search for Balance
4. Your (Physical) Body — Healthy Movement Practices
5. Stress Management & Mindful Self-Care
6. Emotional Intelligence and Self-Kindness Practices
7. “Selfing” — Self-Image, Self-Talk, and Self-Cultivation
8. Communication 101 – Boundary Setting, Advocacy Skills & Non-Violent Communication
9. Time Management, Organization & Executive Function for the Teenage Brain
10. Paying Attention: Mindfulness & Other Forms of Awareness
11. Healthy Relationships with Technologies (particularly Social Media)
12. Healthy Relationships with Humans/Sexual Health/Consent
13. “Teen” Challenges — Navigating the Tougher Stuff (selected issues)
14. Doing/Being “Good” — The Ethics of Well Being & Being in Community
15. Putting it All Together: Finding Purpose and Passion on a Path to Wellness
Note that these topics are suggestions of a general nature: Each course is tailored to the individual student and we can add or eliminate topics based on student needs/interest. Several of these topics also lend themselves to deeper investigation and could easily be split into several sessions.
Course learning will be demonstrated via small activities/experiments, as well as through a learning/wellness journal, both of which will be ongoing.
