2nd Panther "Pause" Session

On December 8th, a Thursday, our team presented to members of the Panther "Pause" Sessions about Autopilot vs. Awareness. 

First, we presented an activity to the participants: our classic "Get off Autopilot activity." The gist of it was that we'd introduce commands to students (such as walk, or stop,) and then switch the definitions of the words. This forces the participants off of autopilot, and make them think about what they are doing instead of just following them blindly. 

Next, we led students through another activity: mindful eating.  

Students shared out that they noticed new things about their food that they had never noticed before - things like the actual taste of the food, or. Some people assume what their food tastes like, they anticipate the taste before they actually put it in their mouths. This is eating food on autopilot, and NOT getting the full extent of life. Being mindful about your eating can help you become less stressed, as well as living your life to the fullest. A statistic that was dropped in the beginning of the presentation was that nearly half of people's lives are spent on autopilot. To be exact: 46.9%. 

This is a lot of your life. Just by doing something simple, like mindful eating or just noticing more things around you, can let you experience life so much more. This lesson was one of the fundamental steps to becoming mindful.  

Our next session is on the 12th, where we will be collaborating with Attitudes in Reverse to be mindful with therapy dogs!