Awakening Awe: Connecting to the Power of Feeling Amazed

As I gazed through the window, an autumn breeze gently touched the trees. After seconds, I found myself as if I were looking out from a snow globe. The color-changing leaves started to float softly in the sky as they handed themselves to the gentle hands of the wind and the rule of gravity. The hands of the wind carried the leaves until they landed safely on the still-green grass as if a mother held her baby with love and care. I felt mesmerized by the sense of wonder, the AWE moment. I felt my heart expanding as my sense of self diminished. I stopped, watched, wondered.

Embracing the beauty of the fall as the leaves transform into the magnificent tapestry of yellows, oranges, and reds suddenly turned into a beautiful moment of awe. Nature is a great teacher, and we learn from Mother Nature just by observing, feeling, sensing, listening, and being with it. I asked myself, “Do the leaves say goodbye to the branches they were holding on to as they depart for another phase of being?” and “How about the trees? Do they ever know that as they shed their leaves, they are letting go of what no longer serves them and making space to welcome another season?” I did not necessarily need answers to my questions, I just wondered and loved the moment of curiosity, deep wonder, and awe. I wondered about the possibilities rather than the answers, as I was washed in awe of nature’s transformation.

The world is full of magic things, patiently waiting for our senses to grow sharper.

― William Butler Yeats

What is Awe?

Awe is a complex emotion associated with beyond-word experiences that transcend our understanding of the world. Besides its complexity, awe feelings have the element of vastness. As we sense vastness, the activity in our brain’s default mode network where self-focus resides decreases. Our inner voice starts to go silent. This state is called “unselfing.” With the increased perception of vastness and the world that transcends our frame of reference, we feel small and turn our gaze outwards to other people, subjects, and ideas.

A diminished sense of self with awe experiences creates an unlimited space where we are free from the limitations of the mind space, ego, and mental chatter. Awe evokes creativity, curiosity, inspiration, and the desire to connect with something greater than us. Having and recalling awe experiences boosts our creativity, increases our energy, and heightens our will to connect and collaborate with others.

While awe is an intense and complex emotion with an effect of “unselfing,” it is also accompanied by some physical implications. The mind-blowing experiences of awe give us goosebumps, tingling sensations, and shivers down the spine. It is a thorough experience of feeling the feeling.

Benefits of Awe

Awe makes people feel happier and be more kind and generous.

Experiences of awe have a positive impact on physical, emotional, and social well-being. People experiencing awe have lower levels of blood pressure and; therefore, have lower stress and anxiety. Awe experiences improve our immune health and have an anti-inflammatory effect on our physiology. Our well-being improves as we experience and cultivate awe moments. Awe triggers openness, humility, compassion, and empathy and increases feelings of connection to and collaboration with others. Awe makes people feel happier and be more kind and generous. With awe experiences, we can be more prone to change because for a sustained desirable change we need more positive emotional attractors than negative ones. Awe improves critical thinking and creativity. During moments of awe, we often feel as if time has stopped. This improves our patience because awe expands our perception of time.

Where is Awe?

Experiences of awe are usually associated with nature and natural events. I experienced awe in the falling autumn leaves, many people find awe when they look up at the vast sky to watch the stars and the moon. Grand Canyon is an awe-inspiring geographical formation and is one of the locations I aspire to see. I am amazed by the pictures of the Northern Lights (aurora borealis). This natural dancing light show by Mother Earth is a must-see experience and is my bucket list item. Shooting stars remind me of the vastness of our universe and inspire awe.

Natural beauties are the sources of awe that evoke positive emotions. There are also awe experiences born out of fear (natural disasters) and grief (death). We try to find an explanation for what we see or experience, and we feel small with an urge to question, understand, and solve the mystery.

There is awe in the music we listen to and dance with, in the masterpiece of an artist, in a poem, in the marathon people run, in the stunning sequence of movements by an aerialist performer, in the birth of a child, in the metamorphosis of the butterfly….

Life is wondrous, and awe is everywhere.

The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and all science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead: his eyes are closed.

― Albert Einstein

In the busy circle of life, we often numb ourselves to the wonders of life and to the opportunities we can experience in awe. The question is, how can we open our eyes to live life to the fullest? What do we need to have in place to feel, sense, live our emotions, and awaken our essence? How can we stop living as dead? How can we relearn to see?

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.

― Albert Einstein

Cultivating Awe as an Everyday Experience

Awe is a luminous and radiant feeling of wonder and inspiration. When we are fully open and receptive to the world, when we are attuned, we can experience awe by what we see, hear, or feel. We do not need to see the Seven or Eight Wonders of the World to be awed. We can be in awe of everything and anything. We just need to cultivate our sense of awe and curate our own experiences for a joyful and abundant life.

It is a choice to embrace the beauty of any moment in life. Becoming awe-prone requires staying curious and distilling beauty and wonder everywhere. Even if we do not see it, we can embark on a journey of seeking awe by asking others if they have any breathtaking awe stories. Listening to and reading jaw-dropping and courageous stories has an awe effect. Reflecting and journaling on awe-inspiring experiences and recalling them is a good practice to cultivate awe. If you connect deeply with whatever inspires you, you will find awe. It can be music, dance, art, literature, or sports. Even a random act of kindness can have an awe-inspiring effect.

A nice meaningful quote from an admired and wise person can take me to places of thought that I have never visited before. This quote, for example, is a beautiful example of the awe moment I experienced when a very dear friend of mine gifted it to me.

Walk as if you are kissing the Earth with your feet.

― Thich Nhat Hanh

In everything we do, we need a touch of love, kindness, and awe. What a beautiful and charming way of expression! And gifting a quote! What a nice act of kindness! I was in awe.

Talking about walks, we all know about the countless health benefits of walking. What if we added a spark of wonder and awe to our short walks? Researchers talk about taking “Awe Walks.” We have the chance to center our attention to the details we can awe about while we are having a short 20–30-minute walk. Connecting with nature has healing power. If we take awe-seeking walks in nature to explore and trigger awe, we will arrive rejuvenated.

Trying something new in life is also another gateway to experience awe. When we are involved with or learn something new (a new hobby or skill) or, when we make a change (jobs, relocation), we go beyond our comfort zone and embrace uncertainty. This is similar to experiencing something vast, unfamiliar, and breathtaking. We cultivate wonder, possibility thinking, and resilience. This also helps us think outside the box.

Savoring Wonders…

In order to add flavor to our everyday life and mundane tasks, it is possible to approach life from a different angle and have a little shift of perspective and perception. Discovering the extraordinary in the ordinary needs a little bit of practice. It is possible to experience the world and awe-eliciting experiences with open eyes and an open heart.

The moment we decide to seek awe in life, the initial spark of curiosity or awareness, is like a starter in bread-making. It takes time for the sourdough starter to ferment and develop, and cultivating awe involves patience and the nurturing of wonder. Both starters initiate a transformative experience. Finally, just as we savor freshly baked bread, we savor the wonders of feeling amazed experiencing a more profound, enriched life connected to people in our lives and humanity as a whole.