I hope you are well and taking the time to care for yourself! One way you can do this is to start embracing “everyday awe” as part of your mindfulness practice.
Science increasingly views awe as a powerful positive force for our mental and emotional wellbeing.
“Experiencing awe produces a multitude of positive effects. It makes us calmer, kinder, more creative, and less likely to cheat. It reins in the ego and makes us feel more connected to the earth and to other creatures,” Eben Harrell writes in “The Power of Everyday Awe” in Harvard Business Review. The article is a review of Awe: The New Science of Everyday Wonder and How It Can Transform Your Life (2023), by Dacher Keltner, a psychologist at the University of California, Berkeley.
According to Google AI, “Awe is a complex emotion characterized by feelings of reverence, wonder, and sometimes even a slight sense of fear or dread, experienced in response to something vast, powerful, or inspiring that transcends our usual understanding of the world. It’s a unique emotion that can evoke a range of physical sensations, from goose bumps to a sense of being small and insignificant, yet also connected to something greater.”
Feeling awe is one of the wonderful benefits of practicing mindfulness. When we intentionally pause, breath deeply and take in the sights, sounds and wonders before us, we can’t help but feel connected to sense of peace that eludes us when we are caught up in worries or rumination. Awe can instantly switch off our restless “monkey brain” as it hits us over the head with the absurd grandeur and minutia of our universe. And it inspires creativity — naturally and wonderfully!
Feelings of awe, particularly those evoked in nature, inspire much of my poetry. Whether I am standing before an immense wilderness vista or marveling at the plumage of a tiny songbird in my garden, I love to pause and revel in the beauty around me, to take it in and let it fill me with wonder.
In a poetry workshop I attended, we were challenged to imagine ourselves as parts of the world around us. I used the backyard of our home in Sun Valley, Idaho, as the inspiration to imagine what it is like to be the river that captivates me in all seasons, and elk that roam the forested slopes.
The first year that we lived there, we arrived in September and there were herds of elk visiting my backyard. I never knew anything about elk, so it was fun to do a deep dive watching videos and reading articles to learn all about our new neighbors.
The screams I heard in the woods were elk during mating season. I then learned about how their antlers fall off their heads. All those years that I saw antlers used as decorations, I never realized that every single year male elks grow an enormous set of antlers. And each springtime, a paper like film forms from a drop in testosterone between the antler and the elk’s head causing the antlers to fall to the ground. If an elk loses one antler, it may have to knock the other against trees to balance its head!
Here’s my poem, which will be included in my upcoming book, “Gentle Currents: Poems of Pause & Peace.”
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