Week 6 Mini Pilot
Written by participant C2
Well we are now beginning phase 2, ‘Moving forwards’.
I was SO looking forward to seeing my lovely ‘muddy’ group today, especially as I had not seen some of them for a month!
Three of them were unfortunately unable to come, but the rest of us chatted with ease as usual on the minibus and met a ‘muddy’ friend at Craig-y-Nos Country Park, who commented how ‘it is never sunny here’ and yet the sun was in full beam for us. I was looking forward to it as I had never been before. I was taken aback by the steep mountainous scenery around us!
We sat outside on a bench near the car park while we gratefully received some fantastic kit! We did our regular ‘weather check’ and wellbeing scale on our feelings. We then chatted about ‘trying to raise the bar’ and inter connectedness. We were also given an introduction to energy plans and how to take charge of ourselves, not letting fear take control! We re-capped on ‘stepping out’ the first phase of ‘Muddy Care’.
When we had had a snack and drink, we wandered down to the duck pond and over a bridge above two streams that joined. It was very sunny and bright, but a little chilly. We stopped at a bench near beautiful autumnal trees and some of us took pics, some lay down too. We were sent a task via text on goal setting to start working on in the near future. We set off again and went off the pathway to try and find the secret garden. As I climbed over a large fallen branch, I noticed a pretty piece of soggy wood and took a few shots of it, as it had lovely patterns and colours. My appreciation of nature and ‘arty’ side coming out!
We next stopped by a little lake and sat to eat our picnic lunches. We learnt some more about health and wellbeing and the theory of the six Doctors. We discussed the role of physical wellbeing in relation to the ‘whole health cairn’ and about social health and wellbeing being the most important and where it sits in the ‘whole health cairn’. We then looked at where spiritual, emotional, environmental and mental wellbeing sit and how they have different orders of priority at different times.
We were told about a 1930’s Harvard study about Adult development, on a group of men, which is ongoing and finally included women from the 80’s! The overwhelming key point of learning from this study is, that good relationships keep us healthier and happier, period. I don’t think any of us were very surprised by it.
We talked about how we nourish our bodies and how important sleep, rest, diet and exercise are. We were helpfully advised to ‘listen to the little signs’ that our bodies give us, regarding our health, so as to hopefully prevent more illness. All great advice per usual! It really rang a bell with me and has been on my mind a lot since.
Next we were given a simple diet task, to aim to add one more fruit/veg to our daily intake.
After a walk back we went into the cafe and discussed various examples of resilience and were given a happiness activity task sheet, that gave us 5 options of daily tasks to do for a minimum of 21 days, to help improve happiness levels. I thought they were all good ‘tips and tricks’!
I love how we have all bonded so quickly and genuinely care about each other and try to support each other, not just on Sundays either, throughout the week. It is wonderful that even with our different illnesses, how we find quite a lot in common in references to our challenges and how we always seem to be able to make each other laugh! I can’t wait for next time. ‘Muddy’ hugs! X
