The Project for Mindfulness and Contemplation is encouraging St. Thomas community members to take one conscious breath a day through a new pilot program, One University – One Breath.
The typical human takes about 23,040 breaths per day. For most of us, just about all of those are unconscious breaths: We breathe automatically while we are thinking about and doing other things.
What would it mean to take a conscious breath? It would require us to pause and focus on what it feels like simply to breathe in and then out – to be present in the moment. That may change the ecosystem of the university; our relationships; our mutual work of thinking critical, acting wisely and working skillfully toward the common good.
PMC, in collaboration with the Wellness Center, the Center for the Common Good, the Office of Spirituality, and the Ashoka Changemaker Social Innovation Collaboratory, is sponsoring One University – One Breath, which will take place Oct. 16-Nov. 17.
The goal is both extremely modest and extremely ambitious. Taking one conscious breath takes only a few seconds—that is the modest part.
This one-month pilot is only the beginning of an ongoing campaign to raise the level of conscious awareness of everyone on campus: students, faculty, staff, administrators, trustees, the preschoolers at the Child Development Center and Selim Center seniors.
To practice taking a conscious breath, click here for a one-minute podcast.
