Tag: awe

Awe in Nature

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Awe is the feeling of being in the presence of something vast that transcends your current understanding of the world..” – Dacher Keltner

We were at our favorite beach this weekend and it had the intended restorative effect after being sick for a couple of weeks. I had no idea of the timing when I booked the AirBnB months ago, of course. Don’t you just love it when life works out?

When I was beachcombing with my kids, five-year-old Mr. D ran up to me to ask, “Can I keep this stick?”

I said, “But we already have collected a couple today.”

And he answered, “Yes, but this one is so interesting. It’s covered in stuff.”

I laughed and agreed it was unique.

The back of our car has a section for interesting sticks, shells, and rocks because there’s something to love about each. One stick is one half covered with bark and the other half bare. Another is flat. And by contrast, Mr. D also really likes the one that’s perfectly round.

Miss O does the same thing. It used to be with rocks until she filled her pockets up so much that her shorts would sag. Now its tiny sea shells.

But I go along with it because I’m a sap for connecting to nature in all its beautiful variations.

In his book, Awe: The New Science of Everyday Wonder and How It Can Transform Your Life, UC Berkley professor of psychology Dacher Keltner writes about the goodness that comes from the awe we can experience in nature:

“In fact, it’s hard to imagine a single thing you can do that is better for your body and mind than finding awe outdoors. Doing so leads to the reduced likelihood of cardiovascular disease, respiratory disease, diabetes, depression, anxiety, and cancer.”
– Dacher Keltner in Awe: The New Science of Everyday Wonder and How it Can Transform Your Life

When put that way, I guess we’ll stick (pun intended) with the restorative time on the beach collecting little bits of nature that help remind us of the awe all around. It works for me!

(featured photo is mine of our latest collection of sticks)

You can find me on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/wynneleon/ and Instagram @wynneleon

I co-host a author, creator and storytelling podcast with the amazing Vicki Atkinson. To tune in, search for Sharing the Heart of the Matter on Spotify, Apple, Amazon Music or Pocketcasts (and subscribe) or click here. Or the YouTube channel features videos of our interviews. Please subscribe!

My other projects include work as a CEO (Chief Encouragement Officer), speaking about collaboration and AI through the Chicago Writer’s Association, and my book about my journey to find what fueled my dad’s indelible spark and twinkle can be found on Amazon: Finding My Father’s Faith.

Awe Monsters

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“The clearest way into the Universe is through a forest wilderness.” – John Muir

I was backing out of the driveway the other night. Five-year-old Mr. D was in the back seat and we were on our way to pick up 9-year-old Miss O from a birthday party.

Mr. D exclaimed, “Mama, I saw the first star!”

Sure enough, out the back window was one really bright star. Mr. D’s excitement brought to mind a podcast series I’ve been listening to with Berkley professor Dacher Keltner on the 10 Percent Happier podcast.

Keltner is known for his courses on happiness. But his most recent book is about awe. He describes awe as part of the self-transcendent states, the emotions that help widen our perspective from inward and worried to the bigger picture. He writes:

“Awe is the emotion we experience when we encounter vast mysteries that we don’t understand. Why would I recommend that you find happiness in an emotion that is so fleeting and evanescent? A feeling so elusive that it resists simple description? That requires the unexpected, and moves us toward mystery and the unknown rather than what is certain and easy?

Because we can find awe anywhere.”

– Dacher Keltner in Awe: The New Science of Everyday Wonder and How It Can Transform Your Life

I’m lucky to live with a couple of awe monsters. They experience it and share it on a regular basis.

But in case no awe monsters are handy, Dacher Keltner has many other suggestions. Here are some that draw from nature: look up at the sky, listen to bird song, be mindful of something that strikes you and take a picture of it.

(featured photo is Miss O (age 6) and Mr. D (age 2) looking at a sunrise)

Endurance Versus Enjoyment

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“Believe you can and you’re halfway there.” – Theodore Roosevelt

This was originally published on 4/26/2023. Heads up – you may have already read this.

I was recently reminded of the time I did a long-distance bike trip on a bike with mountain biking tires. Here’s how that colossal misjudgment came to happen.

The first time I did a really intense workout to prepare for an upcoming mountain climb, my legs were shaking, I thought I’d pass out or throw up, possibly both, and instead I hung in there with the thought, “I can do anything for 20 minutes.”

And I could. So when it came to the next progression in the training, a fast, steep hike, I was equally as wobbly but thought, “I can do anything for a couple of hours.”

By the time it came to actually climb the mountain, I arrived with a 50-pound pack and the mantra, “I can do anything for two days.” I didn’t summit the mountain on that particular attempt but I did prove that I could endure for two days.

So when a friend invited me to do a long-distance bike ride down the California coast and my work schedule meant I could only be on the trip for two days. I thought, “No problem, I can do anything for two days.” It seemed to me that biking is very similar to mountain climbing – takes a lot of leg strength and more importantly, the same endurance muscle.

But I didn’t think long-distance biking was going to be the mainstay of my hobbies so when it came to shipping my bike to the starting point, for reasons of time and money, plus a little ignorance, I just sent my bike that had mountain bike tires. Not super heavy duty, grip the trail mountain biking tires but grippy enough to have a high amount on friction on a paved surface.

By lunch on the first day of the bike trip, my legs were completely gassed. I don’t think I’d experienced that level of fatigue even on the toughest mountain climb I’d done. I made it to the end of the day and then had to immerse myself in an ice bath to have any hope of getting my muscles flushed and restored to ride the second day.

But hey, I can do anything for two days and I made it.

Which is to say, it was a good lesson in endurance. Now when I look at a particular phase with my children that is getting my goat, I think “I can do anything for two years.”

But, and this is a big one for me, I’ve learned that enduring and enjoying are two different things.

On a recent Sunday morning, I was at home with my kids who are now 7 and 3 years old, and they were happily engaged with each other on a project. It left me with 20 minutes of discretionary free time and I was thrilled. As I actually took my time with some self-care, I marveled at the feeling of freedom and enjoyment I was experiencing.

That’s when it hit me. I thought “I can do anything for 20 minutes.” But that’s “anything” said with a sense of wonder and good fortune of an unexpected gift. That’s “anything” that acknowledges the enjoyment that comes with a little lessening of the strictures I tighten around myself. That’s “anything” that remembers that life is to be enjoyed and not just endured.

I’m so good at putting my head down and grinding out the miles to the end of the planned route each day. But it’s completely different training to raise my nostrils to the wind and my eyes to the scenery and notice each mile as it goes by. It’s a practice that is a lot less of a dramatic story tell but instead makes for a story worth telling.

So on Sunday, with a nod to the authors of The Power of Awe, I intentionally savored having unexpected moments to myself and micro-dosed some mindfulness full of gratitude and enjoyment and that made the experience even more impactful.

So I’m entering a new phase of training, one where I’m allowing myself the freedom and unscripted time so “I can do anything for 20 minutes.” I’d like to work up to “I can do anything for 2 days” but I’m taking my workouts slowly.

In Awe

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“Our life experiences will have resonances within our innermost being, so that we will feel the rapture of being alive.” – Joseph Campbell

I frequently divert and delay my family’s morning routine to take a look at the sunrise. This time of year, while it is often grey, there are also so many sunrises that we can witness together since the sun and my kids are getting up at about the same time, even if it means we are going to have to rush a bit to get to school. If you follow me on Instagram, you probably are tired of my sunrise pictures.

But I still persist because I’m not tired of sunrises and my kids are still willing to humor me. A book that just came out on January 3rd of this year is helping me to understand why it matters to me to witness this every day. Awe: The new Science of Everyday Wonder and How It Can Transform Your Life by UC Berkley psychology professor Dacher Keltner talks about the effect of awe in our lives:

“How does awe transform us? By quieting the nagging, self-critical, overbearing, status-conscious voice of our self, or ego, and empowering us to collaborate, to open our minds to wonders, and to see the deep patterns in life.”

Dacher Keltner, Awe: The New Science of Everyday Wonder and How It Can Transform Your Life

Whoa – I want more of that. In fact, if I had to give a reason why I meditate, write, and now podcast – I’d be hard pressed to describe it more perfectly than the quote above.

(I did just throw podcast in to the list above – because I’m launching the Sharing The Heart of the Matter podcast with Vicki Atkinson today. It’s a podcast where we want to focus on people sharing their heart stories – please listen and also if you have one to tell, let me know so we can record it.)

The definition of awe that Dacher Keltner gives is:

“Awe is the feeling of being in the presence of something vast that transcends your current understanding of the world.”

Dacher Keltner, Awe: The New Science of Everyday Wonder and How It Can Transform Your Life

When he collected personal narratives from people in twenty-six different countries in the world, he and his team distilled down “eight wonders of life, which include the strength, courage, and kindness of others; collective movement in actions like dance and sports; nature; music; art and visual design; mystical encounters; encountering life and death; and big ideas or epiphanies.”

I think of the awe I felt when I was pregnant with Miss O and was writing my book about my dad. He’d died suddenly in a bike accident just the day after I’d finalized my IVF plan to get pregnant. As I took the recordings that I’d made with him, and wrote the book about him that I told him I wanted to write (but thought it would be with him in attendance), I felt the swirl of birth and death every day. I danced in the love of my dad and the life that was within me for all of those nine months.

Then on the night after I finished every last line edit, I went into labor and gave birth to my daughter. In many ways, I gave birth to two things – the book Finding My Father’s Faith and the beautiful Miss O. All of this happened in a way that was far bigger than me. There is much that I can’t name or understand about that experience except to say that I wasn’t alone as I wrote. There were definitely three of us there – me, my dad, and my baby. I was in awe for sure. It’s a beautiful feeling – just like witnessing the sunrise every morning.

(featured photo is mine – the moon and the mountain)

The Whole Mountain

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“The invariable mark of wisdom is to see the miraculous in the common.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

Yesterday, I was driving near an elementary school when I saw two school busses. My heart felt a deep pang of missing my children. Which is funny because my kids don’t even take the school bus. But I was driving in New Jersey, not in Seattle and since this is my first trip on an airplane by myself in 7 years, I guess that my heart isn’t being picky about what triggers it.

I once heard some very sage advice about what to do when we’ve grown weary around the people we love most – back up so you can see the whole mountain. And it spoke to me because often when I’ve climbed mountains, I’ve found them to be a lot of sweaty, hard work. And yet every time I see one, especially Mt. Rainier my “home” mountain, I am struck speechless, even for just a second, by my awe.

Back up and see the whole mountain to me speaks of finding the edge where our familiarity begins. And also of being able to trace the contours of the well-worn path where we often go with our dear ones. It calls me to picture in my mind the beautiful wholeness of my loved ones faces and the expressions that I most love to see on them. And when I’ve backed up far enough, I feel the pang of my ache for my beloveds deep in my body and know where they reside in me.

I’ve had three nights away from my young children. No one has spit half-eaten food in my hand or used my clothing as a napkin (and boy, wouldn’t that be weird if that had happened on business trip?). I haven’t been called in to witness grand accomplishments of using the bathroom and I’ve been able to sleep, eat and work out without interruption.

It all sounds great except I’ve had to do all that without my heart which remains at home with my beautiful children. Like climbing a mountain, my life is a lot of sweaty, hard work. But wow, I’m so glad I backed up enough to be able to see how much I love it, them and this beautiful inspiration called life!

How do you restore your love when (or if) it ever feels a little worn thin?

(featured photo is sunset from the airplane)