Living with Awe and Wonder

Wisdom begins in wonder

                   ~ Socrates

What do awe and wonder have to do with kindness? All my life, I have treasured memories of a few, dramatic moments when I felt awe and wonder, but I never connected those experiences to my interactions with other people. Recently, I read an article by Dacher Keltner that broadened my appreciation of the role that those experiences can play in our lives.

Keltner is a professor of psychology at The University of California, Berkeley, where he directs the Berkeley Social Interaction Lab. Studies conducted by the lab showed that participants experiencing awe seemed to be more inclined to help someone in need afterwards. They also reported feeling less entitled and self-important than the other study participants who had not experienced awe.

Awe contributes to feelings of connection with others, which leads to acts of kindness. Who knew?

So how do we get more awe in our lives?

When I think of awe and wonder, my first thoughts go to large, dramatic scenes of Nature – a star-lit night away from city lights, a waterfall, the view from a mountain top. Stopping to take in the beauty and magnificence before us takes us out of our busy, daily mind and transports us into an altered state.

Now that we can see so much more than ever before, thanks to telescopes that peer deep into the universe, we are treated to awe-inspiring shows of beauty from light years away. These also give us some perspective on our place in the universe.

The Pale Blue Dot

This image was taken, at Carl Sagan's suggestion, by Voyager 1 on 14 February 1990. As Sagan describes it, “Voyager 1 was about 6.4 billion kilometers (4 billion miles) away when it captured this portrait of our world. Caught in the center of scattered light rays (a result of taking the picture so close to the Sun).”

Sagan reflected, “There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known.”

For many of us, seeing how small our world is in relation to the universe in which it exists does not disempower us, but instills in us a sense of commitment to our home planet and to one another. Kindness can arise from awe.

Every Day Wonder

Wonder also arises from the small, ordinary things that we encounter every day, but often do not notice. When we stop to look at the details of our world, we see beauty right in front of us – so many reasons to be amazed at the miracles around us.

When my daughter, Christie, was a toddler, we went for walks up our street. She often stopped to look closely at details that I hardly noticed. I still have a picture in my mind of her expression of sheer delight as she looked at a flower blooming at the side of the road. She turned to me with a look of wonder and pointed to the flower. I hadn’t looked closely at it as I passed it on my early morning walks. As I took in the details – the colors shapes – I felt gratitude for such loveliness in my world, and I realized that I had not taken the time to stop and appreciate the beauty around me every day.

So many things in our lives inspire feelings of awe – lightning and thunder, the play of sun and shadow on a mountainside, a spider weaving her web, dew drops all over the garden, lady bugs, turtles, rabbits, bird songs, butterflies, different colored rocks in a stream bed, blossoming trees in the spring and falling leaves in autumn. The list is endless.

We can get so busy or distracted that we fail to notice, but we do live in an awesome world. Let’s stop more often and look at the wonders before us and let love and appreciation well up within us. Then, let’s take those feelings with us as we go through our day, and surely, we will be inclined to meet others with appreciation and kindness.

Credits:

An excerpt from Carl Sagan's book, Pale Blue Dot

Article by Dacher Keltner - Why Do We Feel Awe?

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We’re grateful that you are on this journey with us.

With love from our hearts to yours,

Pat and Larry