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Mindful Navigation of Nutrition Advice

14 January 2026

12.30pm - 2 pm (AEDT)

This event will be held online

We live in an age of endless information, where advice about food is abundant yet often confusing. Nutritional guidance changes rapidly, headlines contradict one another, and certainty is often presented louder than wisdom. In this environment, it can be easy to feel anxious, overwhelmed, or disconnected from our own inner knowing around food.

Social media has intensified this confusion. Short videos, influencer opinions, and algorithm-driven trends often reduce complex nutrition science into absolutes. These messages are designed to provoke reaction rather than reflection, and can quietly cultivate craving, aversion, and self-doubt. Without mindful discernment, it becomes easy to outsource our trust to voices that do not know our bodies, our context, or our lives.

This one-hour presentation offers a Buddhist-informed approach to nutrition rooted in mindfulness, discernment (paññā), and the Middle Way. Rather than chasing perfection or rigid food ideals, we explore how to meet food choices with clarity, balance, and compassion. Nutrition becomes not another source of stress, but an opportunity to practice awareness in daily life.

You will learn how to read food and supplement labels with mindful attention, how to make informed choices around fresh and processed foods and how to recognise marketing and health claims without fear or confusion. The emphasis is not on control, but on understanding, supporting choices that are grounded, flexible, and sustainable.

If you are feeling weary of conflicting advice, curious about cultivating a calmer relationship with food, or seeking a way to nourish both body and mind with greater clarity, this session is an invitation to pause and re-orient. You are warmly invited to attend, reflect, and continue the journey from information overload toward inner knowledge.

About the Presenter

This event is led by Lara Ryan, an accredited Nutritionist and Naturopath with extensive experience in integrative mental health and wellness. Lara’s background includes senior lecturing roles, clinical supervision, and a private practice supporting clients facing chronic health conditions, mental health challenges, and complex emotional needs. Known for her compassionate approach, Lara also writes about resilience, trauma, and self-compassion, offering insights into navigating life’s challenges with strength and hope.

Don’t miss this opportunity to learn from Lara’s wealth of experience.

Tickets are free, but bookings are essential. Please register here

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Dear NTI students,

Ebook Central will undergo a system update in December. The exact date when the update will occur is unknown as the update is scheduled around other work being completed by the Ebook Central support team.

During this update there is a chance that all books saved to your Bookshelf within Ebook Central may be lost. Instructions are provided below for any students who wish to export their bookshelves and annotations. If you do not use this feature, you do not need to do anything!

Export your Ebook Central Bookshelf

We recommend exporting this data as soon as possible to ensure that it is saved before the update takes place. An announcement will be posted when this update is complete. At that time instructions will be provided for how to re-upload your bookshelf/annotations back into Ebook Central.

If you have any questions please contact the Library at library@nantien.edu.au.

Regards,

NTI Library

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In Conversation with Associate Professor Jordan McKenzie and Dr Nadine Levy

Happiness and modernity: Buddhist and Western Perspectives

In conversation with Associate Professor Jordan McKenzie and Dr Nadine Levy

10 December 2025

12.30 - 2pm

Held Online and On Campus

This seminar will investigate happiness and the good life from two different perspectives: sociological analyses in critical happiness studies, and contemporary Buddhist perspectives. In a world that has never been more obsessed with happiness, the idea remains elusive and bewildering.

Social media is flooded with happiness influencers, self-help books that selectively apply findings from positive psychology are hugely popular, and economists in global comparative projects like the World Happiness Report attempt to quantitatively capture large-scale happiness shifts. And yet, happiness remains undefined, contradictory, and increasingly politicised. The speakers will explore the intersections, criticisms, and common ground in their respective fields by acting as interviewer and interviewee in conversation.

The purpose of the discussion is not to seek out conflicting perspectives with the hope of presenting the ‘true’ nature of happiness, but rather to reveal complementary ideas that can help to navigate the world of happiness advice. Key themes and topics include the good life, the “future”, mortality, and purpose.

About the Presenters

Associate Professor Jordan McKenzie completed his PhD at Flinders University and is now an Associate Professor in Sociology at the University of Wollongong. His research is largely informed by European social and critical theory, and these perspectives contribute to his current research in the sociology of emotion. In particular, Jordan's work critically engages with the normative dimensions of happiness and the good life in order to better understand how emotional experience reflects modernisation and social change. More recently, his work has focused on future-oriented emotions in perceptions of environmental disaster and apocalypse scenarios. His book Dystopian Emotions (2021) is a useful introduction to the field alongside Jordan’s articles and book chapters on prepping, climate anxiety, and dystopia.

Dr Nadine Levy (PhD, LLB (Hons), BA (Hons)) is the Head of Health and Social Wellbeing and Applied Mindfulness at the Nan Tien Institute. She teaches and researches in the areas
of mindfulness, compassion and social emotions. Her research examines the therapeutic effects of spiritual community and considered the intersection of mindfulness and
psychotherapeutic discourse. She is a Buddhist Insight Meditation Teacher having been trained by James Baraz from Spirit Rock (CA) and the Insight Meditation Institute (Sydney). She regularly leads retreats and workshops on Buddhist meditation and is a regular columnist for The Guardian.

Tickets are free; however, registrations are essential. You can register here

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