By Eve Barton
“There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.”
One of my favorite family traditions that I had growing up was camping around Christmas time! We would go up into the mountains and spend a few days hiking around in the snow and playing card games as a family. It felt so cozy to be surrounded by the tall evergreen trees and the snow covered mountains. My favorite part about our trips was at night. There was this dock close by that was used in the summer. It afforded a nice view of the wide river that connected all the mountains. At night, it was the perfect stargazing spot. Looking up you could watch the night sky spin. I loved laying down on the snowy dock and just watching the stars in the soft silence of the night. My eyes would dart around, trying to take in the vastness of the night sky. I felt myself seem to shrink and the world grow bigger. As I watched, I noticed my thoughts got quieter, my heart rate slowed, and I could feel my breaths. It felt like my body was connecting with the slow, methodic dance of the stars. This soothed my soul as I felt only the need to be in the moment. To just lay and drink it all in. Years later, I still love to look up at the stars. They always bring me a sense of peace and a bit of that vast feeling.
I’m sure there have been moments in your life where you’ve come across something that just seems so vast. This thing might be hard for your brain to comprehend it all. This may be an idea, or it may be something that you are experiencing in the moment such as looking up at the night sky. This feeling of encountering something that is perceptually or conceptually vast is called awe (Keltner and Haidt, 2003). Awe can often include a feeling of “diminishing self” (Stellar et al., 2018). This, I mentioned above when talking about how I seemed to shrink and the world seemed to grow bigger. These moments of awe can help expand your understanding of the world which can invite a spirit of curiosity and reverence into your life.
Now how can we experience awe? There are lots of situations in which we can experience awe! There have been researchers who have dedicated countless hours to understanding how we feel awe. They have collected experiences from all around the globe. In their book, Awe: The New Science of Everyday Wonder and How It Can Transform Your Life (Keltner, 2023), Keltner and Yang Bai detailed eight ways that we can feel awe in our lives. I will touch on just three in this post.
To start off, like my experience above, we can feel awe out in nature. You don’t have to do some extreme activity to feel this awe. This feeling can come just by sitting in a field of wild flowers or by going on a hike. These simple activities can be very beneficial in increasing awe and our overall sense of well-being. Some of these benefits include: reducing blood pressure, cortisol, inflammation; boosting dopamine and immune function in the body, helping concentration and reducing stress, and boosting performance on cognitive tests!
The most common way that people felt awe in their lives was through watching the good deeds/character of others (Keltner, 2023). This can be witnessing a courageous act or by hearing of a comeback story. These stories can inspire a sense of awe within us which can lead to developing a deeper sense of community with those around you (Piper et al., 2015). It’s like the way you feel after watching a feel-good movie where the underdogs win. You leave feeling a little bit more united with those around you and with a sense of togetherness that wasn’t there before.
Another way we can feel this sense of connectedness and awe is through something called “collective effervescence” (Émile Durkheim, 1912). In essence, this states that the collective movement of a group can help the individual feel connected to something bigger than themselves. Examples of this could be doing a cheer with thousands of other fans of your favorite sports team or doing a choreographed dance. This sense of connectedness to a greater whole, paves the way for the experience of awe in our lives.
We have talked a little bit about the places and situations in which we can feel awe. Now what are some practices that we can do in our lives to cultivate and bring this sense of awe in? Most of the situations that we talked about above include forgetting the self and connecting to the moment or to the people around you. This goes hand in hand with the practice of learning to linger and slow down. As we learn to rest in the beautiful moments that we find ourselves in, we create spaces where awe can creep in. We can let ourselves just be in the moment and find the awe in the spaces around us. You can do this as you are connecting with new people or if you find yourself in a new place.
Another way we can practice slowing down and lingering is in nature. When we remove ourselves from the fast pace of society and soak in the rhythm of nature, we can feel the overwhelming sensation of awe.
These are just a few of the practices that you can implement to feel more awe into your life and increase your overall well-being! As we strive to slow down, connect, and notice in our lives we will find awe in unexpected places!
Did you like what you learned here? Check out our INTERCONNECTEDNESS module on My Best Self 101!!!
“Without awe life becomes routine…try to be surprised by something every day. Try to surprise at least one person every day.”
References
Awe: The New Science of Everyday Wonder and How It Can Transform Your Life by Dacher Keltner.
Durkheim, E. (1912). The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life. New York: Free Press.
Keltner, D. J. & Haidt, J. (2003). Approaching awe, a moral, spiritual, and aesthetic emotion. Cognition and Emotion, 17(2), 297-314. https://doi.org/10.1080/02699930302297.
Kuo, M. (2015). How might contact with nature promote human health? Promising mechanisms and a possible central pathway. Frontiers in Psychology, 6, 1093. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2015.01093.
Piper, W. T., Saslow, L. R., & Saturn, S. R. (2015). Autonomic and prefrontal events during moral elevation. Biological Psychology, 108, 51-55. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biopsycho.2015.03.004.
Stellar, J. E., Gordon, A. M., Anderson, C. L., Piff, P. K., McNeil, G. D., & Keltner, D. (2018). Awe and humility. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 114(2), 258-269. https://doi.org/10.1037/pspi0000109.