119. Awe Effect: 6 Tools To Ignite The Power Of Awe

It's sort of that paradox where by understanding how vast everything outside of us is,

We begin to appreciate how vast everything that we are is.

Welcome to Spiritually Hungry.

How's your week going?

Awesome.

Awesome.

Today we're going to talk about a feeling that doesn't come up very often yet it's one of my favorites.

Have you ever been struck speechless so overwhelmed that you almost couldn't process what you were saying?

I love those moments.

I wish I wish they happened every day.

That's right.

Perhaps you were in the presence of great art at the Uffizi,

Stepped through the doors of a mighty soaring cathedral,

Peered down on the whole of Manhattan from the top of the Empire State Building,

Although I'd argue some people wouldn't think that was so inspiring,

Or stood in the shade of an immense sequoia tree.

It transcended everything else going on in your life.

You felt small in its presence,

But in a way that also made you feel part of something bigger.

That's the feeling of awe.

And in case you haven't figured it out yet,

That is our topic for today.

So what is awe?

Or as our youngest,

Abigail,

Last night when I was looking over my notes and thinking about what I want to talk about today,

She's reading over my shoulder and she said,

What is awe?

I thought that was really cute.

In Nature and Selected Essays,

Ralph Waldo Emerson described his experience of awe like this.

Standing on the bare ground,

My head bathed by the blithe air and uplifted into infinite space,

All mean egotism vanishes.

I am nothing.

I see all.

The currents of the universal being circulate through me.

I am part or parcel of God.

Awe transcends the moment and it transcends the self.

It can be inspired by the greatest of man's achievements in architect,

Art,

And philosophy,

And just as easily inspired by the common or the mundane.

Every single one of us is a baby.

I bet we inspired awe in our parents and families.

We did.

The changing of seasons in nature are a common inspiration of awe.

And have you ever went to bed in the summer and awoke to a crisp autumn morning?

Love those moments.

Awe is inspired by vastness,

But also by small things that remind us of the vastness of our surroundings.

The foundation of awe is that it integrates the self into larger forces connecting to something greater.

Instead of making us feel insignificant,

It makes us feel connected.

Such a big word,

Such a short word.

And I'm excited to unpack it.

Yes,

And the reason I think it's so important to speak about this and to think about it is that,

Well,

Many reasons,

But modern science has found that it is amongst the most powerful emotions for well-being.

There is a new book,

A relatively new book out called Awe by a psychology professor.

His name is Dacher Keltner,

And I think his- I mispronounced Dacher.

What did I say?

Dacher.

Okay.

Just your New York accent.

His definition of awe is- You just wanted to rhyme awe and Dacher.

Dacher.

Being in the presence of something vast that transcends your understanding of the world.

And I think that,

Again,

But more exciting than the general,

I think everybody who thinks about it,

Oh,

I would love to have an awe.

But the fact that science says of all the emotions that we feel,

It is maybe the most important one.

Well,

It's interesting because if you look,

I love looking at the origins of words because they change over time.

Their meaning becomes something else entirely.

So I don't want to go off on a tangent,

But the word disability,

Right?

What it means today,

I don't think that that's what it meant when it was created so long ago,

Which is why I don't define,

You know,

When I talk about ability,

I don't define that word,

Even though her school is really hell bent on calling it that.

I'm like,

Well,

The word has a different meaning.

So if you think about awe,

I think that it really was synonymous with fear when it first came about.

And I think that only changed in 1685.

And if you look at the,

In the dictionary.

Com,

It's defines awe as a feeling of reverential respect mixed with fear or wonder.

Does that make sense?

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And I think that actually it's a misunderstanding of the original text.

Well in the Zohar,

Right,

It says actually the fear of God,

Which is called the beginning.

The beginning of wisdom.

Well,

Again,

The word fear is I think a mistranslation.

The word awe is the one that should be used in its proper understanding.

So the definition in that regard should have all along been awe.

This sense of awe of what is greater than us.

One of the foundational teachings that Moses gave before he left this physical world,

He says the only thing that is asked of you is to have awe.

Now again,

Historically some people translated that as fear.

Fear and the fear of God.

But I think in the deepest sense what was always meant is this sense of awe that takes us outside of ourselves.

Of our physicality.

Outside of our physicality,

Of our ego,

To a connection to a much greater reality.

And towards that I think there's a lot of both scientific backing to this.

And I'd like to share just a little bit about what the scientific process,

The psychological process that is now clear by science that one goes through.

Well there's also a biological reaction too.

Do you want to start with that or do you want to go into- Either way.

Either way.

Biologically,

Which I think is interesting because so much of the diseases today,

I mean even flu,

Right?

Why is it so dangerous for people?

It's the inflammation that it causes in the body.

A lot of inflammation wreaks havoc in so many different ways in terms of disease and sickness.

So awe actually reduces our immune system's inflammation response and strengthens our bodies.

I thought that was pretty fascinating.

It activates the vagal nerves,

Clusters of neurons in the spinal cord that regulate a lot of important bodily functions.

It slows our heart rate.

It relieves digestion.

It deepens our breathing.

And it's funny because then you think like,

Oh,

For digestion I take this probiotic.

For deep breathing I meditate.

For all these things,

Right?

We're going to great lengths,

Maybe some great,

Some smaller to alleviate these symptoms.

But awe seems like a great magic cure.

And it's also been shown to calm down our nervous system,

Triggering the release of oxytocin,

The love hormone that promotes trust and bonding.

And another thing,

Talking about Dacker,

He found that people experiencing awe sign their names smaller.

Isn't that interesting?

And when promoted to write about their strengths,

Write far fewer than people who weren't experiencing awe.

So it's not surprising awe is humbling as well.

Right.

And I think it's maybe its most powerful effect.

So Aldous Huxley writes about awe.

He says that it is the,

That what it does,

And this is also again,

Science finds this to be true,

It diminishes the self-critic,

That critical voice that we have in our head.

So in his words,

Which I thought was a really cute,

Really,

Not cute,

But powerful quote.

So the sense of awe,

And every time we experience it,

It diminishes the interfering neurotic who in waking hours tries to run the show.

And the reason again,

Why I think it's so important and why if you go back to the ancient spiritual texts,

This is seen as the cornerstone of life is because what it does is it takes us outside of the body.

And one of the- The self,

The sense of self gets smaller,

The self in terms of ego.

Right.

Which includes body,

Ego.

One of the things I often think about,

And again,

This is borne out in so many of the ancient spiritual writings is that if you asked,

Even those of us who are spiritually awakened,

If you ask somebody,

Who,

What are you?

There's always the sense that this physical body that I inhabit is me.

And oh,

By the way,

It also has a soul.

Oh,

By the way,

It also has a mind,

Right?

But that is so limiting and false.

One of the most important purposes of life,

Of spiritual study,

Is to transcend the limitations of the body and the ego.

And I don't know that there's a more powerful tool that we must use than pushing ourselves to experience that sense of awe again,

Which means to experience the vastness of what is.

And therefore,

You take that internally to understand the vastness of what I am a part of.

That's why,

Again,

In the studies like this- Where I've come from.

No,

What I am.

What I am.

Okay,

But you have to define that for people,

Because when you say what I am,

The,

I know what you mean,

But I don't think that we often go to- I am much,

Well,

In the simplest- I'm much greater than what I'm presenting.

Much greater than this,

This body.

That's what people usually understand as- Themselves.

Exactly.

And it's so silly,

Right?

Because obviously,

Before we were born,

The body was not involved.

After a person dies,

Then the body's in the ground,

The body's no longer involved.

To confine our view of ourselves to the body is silly,

But we do it all the time.

And or to the ego,

And we do it all the time.

And therefore,

I think the most important process that awe allows us to do,

To go through,

Is to transcend the confines of the body and the ego.

And yes,

There is a humility that comes with that,

And there's sort of a diminishment of the ego self,

But you then gain a much more expansive view of yourself.

You transcend the body,

And therefore you are much greater than you previously thought of yourself.

Right,

You tap into those true parts of you,

And therefore what you do in the world is quite different.

But I think I really want to underscore this.

But I also think you need to unpack,

I mean,

We know this,

I just wonder,

You know,

You very quickly brushed over that,

Okay,

We have the soul first,

We don't have it,

But then we have a body,

Then when we leave,

We don't have a body again.

I think you need to unpack that just a little bit for listeners maybe who aren't so familiar with reincarnation or the levels of soul or where the soul journeys.

Because I've talked about it a bit from understanding about death in a way that I hadn't before once I saw my father and your mother leave this world.

Physically,

I saw them actually at the moment of death,

And it becomes quite clear that there is something vacating the body,

Right?

And that the soul goes on.

I saw what I had studied,

But I think for many people,

Right?

And so for me,

Death wasn't as painful because I saw the soul when it left the body as going to its next level of elevation,

Which it can't do while it's still in the body.

But I think just adding a little bit here would be helpful.

Well,

Yes,

I mean,

I think it's worth doing that,

But I would say that I think most of us,

Again,

Unfortunately,

Maybe we don't spend enough time thinking about it and meditating upon this truth,

Regardless of our beliefs about reincarnation,

Regardless of our,

I wouldn't say regardless of our beliefs about soul,

But that we are much greater than what the physical body holds.

And that what we take as being our whole life and what we take as being so important and serious is a small part of the soul's journey.

It's the one that we know we don't remember before and after while we're here.

So it makes it hard to stay in that state of awe or connect to that part of us.

I would,

True,

I completely agree with everything you said.

I would take it in a more practical view to say that even a person who's not spiritual would be silly to think of themselves as the confines of their body.

For instance,

Somebody who creates art,

Right?

Clearly their effect,

Which means them,

Their energy,

Their creation transcends their body,

Right?

My impact is not limited to the four feet that I occupy sitting here.

So philosophically,

In truth,

Clearly we are much more than the confines of the body.

Yes,

We can go deeper into the spiritual,

We can go deeper into souls,

We can go deeper into reincarnation.

You don't want to do that though.

No,

No,

No.

My point is I think sometimes,

You know,

It might have the danger of a person saying,

Well I'm not sure if I'm spiritual,

I'm not sure if I believe in reincarnation,

But what I'm saying is I often like to go to the most clear truth,

Right?

Even in this physical world it would be silly for an individual to think that they are the confines of their body.

Maybe just the fact that I can create things,

I can share things,

I can do things that are far beyond the confines of this body.

Therefore even just simply philosophically,

Clearly I'm greater than my body.

I think,

Yes,

You take that step further and my soul,

My energy,

My light,

Whatever word you want to call your true essence is clearly so far beyond.

And again,

I of course agree that with a greater understanding of reincarnation,

With a greater understanding of our soul that expands even further.

But for example,

What I found very inspiring is that Jane Goodall came to the conclusion that the chimpanzee feel awe and have a sense of spirituality grounded in a capacity of being amazed at things outside yourself.

Interesting,

How did she come to that conclusion?

Obviously by observing them for years upon years.

So now call it spirituality,

Call it just being amazed,

Right?

So I don't think it's possible for anybody to argue or to think,

Again,

That there isn't great power in transcending the confines of the body.

Even chimpanzees do it.

And it goes back to the ability to create moments of being amazed,

Awe,

Or using the word awe.

Because what it does is that it's one of the few things,

And I hope we're doing a good enough job in really explaining to our listeners why this is not just another beautiful,

Beautiful,

Interesting,

However you want to call it,

Concept.

But it's probably one of the most important things that we must do,

Which means find moments of awe,

In order to understand ourselves.

And it's sort of that paradox where by understanding how vast everything outside of us is,

We begin to appreciate how vast everything that we are is.

Well when you recognize that out in the world and you see the perfection of that moment,

That feeling,

That inspiration,

Then of course you go back to self,

Right?

And you introspect and you say,

Okay,

Well if that is possible,

Then what am I meant to do?

You know,

What is inside of me that can be that expansive?

I mean every time I'm inspired by nature or even a song or something I've studied,

I stop and say,

Okay,

Well,

You know,

How can I be more tapped into that frequency every day?

And that's why the studies show that people who experience more moments of awe are more generous,

They're more kind,

And they have a sense of their need to do more for the world.

Well,

I thought this was really interesting.

Dr.

Lisa Miller,

She's a clinical psychologist and a New York Times bestseller.

Her book is The Awakened Brain.

And she states that the most profound epidemic of our time is the suicide rates of young adults as the rate now rivals the rate of death by auto accidents.

And we've talked about suicide in the youth,

Especially lately.

And there's now research conclusively showing how no single factor is more neuroprotective to the brain against depression than what she calls natural spirituality.

And this spirituality involves a deep sense of awe.

She conducted research in which her and her colleagues looked at structural MRIs,

Viewing the architecture of the brain of people who sustain spiritual lives versus people with major depression,

And found those with sustained spiritual lives have broad and pervasive regions of cortical thickness,

Regions of perception,

Reflection,

And orientation.

There is an 87% overlap in these regions being not thick,

But thin with people with major depression.

What I thought was really interesting is that in those people who were depressed,

Once they started to seek out spirituality,

After a year,

The symptoms decreased and their brain started to change.

And she explains that every human being is born with a natural neuro seed of transcendent awareness.

We all have a spiritual brain and our spiritual nature can be realized through many paths,

Whether it's nature,

Art,

Music,

Religion,

Study,

It's just up to us to tap into it.

And I think that's such an important point.

And I do want to underscore what you just said.

Because people don't think about that.

Like,

Oh,

That person's naturally connected to art or spirituality or nature.

And that person's just depressed.

We can reverse many things.

And that maybe the most important purpose of spirituality slash those who go down a religious path is an awakening on a regular basis,

A sense of awe.

And therefore,

I would challenge all of our listeners,

Especially those of our listeners that view themselves as spiritual,

Especially those of our listeners who might view themselves as religious.

But ask how many times you feel awestruck.

Exactly.

In a day,

Hopefully a day,

Maybe a week,

Maybe a month.

And if not,

I would say there's something deeply wrong.

Again,

This is something one should be asking themselves and looking inside,

Because the rote,

And this is again something discussed in many ways in many of the writings of the great spiritual teachers,

That the rote following of any rule,

Practice,

Often not only does not have a positive benefit,

Can actually have a detrimental effect.

And if you switch your view of the purpose of your life,

Your spiritual life,

If you're on a religious path,

Your religious life,

To increasing your sense of awe,

Then that has to be the test.

That has to be the test.

Not have I done these things,

Did I pray,

Did I meditate,

Whatever those words are,

But am I feeling a greater sense of awe?

And I would say very clearly that there's something wrong with our lives and wrong with our spiritual practice.

If our experiencing of greater and greater moments of awe,

Now again,

We can talk a little bit about what that means,

But it could be in any experience,

But it has to be growing.

You cannot call,

I don't believe one can call themselves spiritual if their experiences of awe do not increase.

I'll share,

I actually wanted to ask you to share with us and our listeners,

With myself and our listeners,

A moment of awe that you recently experienced.

But for me,

Over the last few weeks,

We spent time in the English countryside,

Which is one of my favorite places to be,

And I remember waking up every single morning and watching the sunrise over this beautiful valley.

I was so appreciative of the fact that I was able to feel awe every single morning.

For me,

Again,

Not to build myself up,

But for me,

That's the test.

Because many people,

I'm sure,

See a sunrise and have no sense of awe at all.

Many people see a birth,

Oh,

For sure.

Many people see a birth or even a death and don't have a sense of awe.

I think this,

And again,

I hope we inspire within our listeners,

The understanding besides all the medical,

Physical benefits we spoke about before,

And again,

That book,

Awe by Dr.

Keltner,

One of us is saying it right or wrong,

Illustrates not only the physical benefits,

The social benefits,

Sociological benefits,

But I would say more important than that,

You begin to realize it is actually the entire purpose of life.

It's actually the purpose of our spiritual lives.

That has to become maybe one of the foremost questions you ask yourself.

What am I doing to experience awe?

Again,

Because what it does,

And again,

There's so much that can and should be said about this,

Is it actually puts you in the right place.

Understands your place in the world,

Your vastness,

The world's vastness,

And the proper perspective.

Exactly.

Exactly.

And what to pay attention to,

How to navigate your life.

I mean,

As you're talking about moments of awe,

I started to think about many,

And there are some that have actually taken my breath away,

Right?

And I wish I had those every day.

I guess that's my goal because,

And it's linked with appreciation,

But it's more than that.

It's something like,

Remember when we started spending a lot of time in Connecticut initially,

Especially during the pandemic,

And I'd wake up in the morning and half asleep,

Try and make coffee,

Starting my day.

Mornings are usually kind of methodical,

A little rushed,

But I kept getting distracted by the sky and the sunrise,

And to the point where it literally took my breath away,

And I couldn't do anything else.

I had to stand there until I felt like I could look away.

It's those moments,

Of course,

Giving birth to our children.

When you think that that was created in your body and you hold them outside of your body for the first time,

Words can't describe.

And I think that even my tendon healing,

I imagine,

And I've seen it through ultrasound,

All the ways that the tissue and the ligaments and tendons have come together to grow again and heal.

I'm in awe of a body,

Of my body,

And what we're able to do.

So I think it's really about living life in that understanding of everything.

Absolutely.

So maybe our listeners are now wondering,

Well,

Great,

How do I feel more awe day to day?

Dr.

Keltner actually suggests a few ways that we can cultivate more awe in our lives.

So one is pay attention to all the details of life around you,

How they are connected to something greater,

Right,

Which we just spoke about.

Focus on the moral beauty in others,

And I really like the way that's phrased.

Watch the simple kindness humans show each other every day,

Like helping an elderly person cross the street or letting a pregnant woman go ahead of you in the bathroom.

Take time to study the good work of people you admire,

Like great Kabbalists,

Stoics,

Gandhi.

I think often we're focusing on the wrongness in the world,

You know,

That person was rude or that person was ugly or did this and that,

But let's try to seek out those moral beauty moments.

Three,

Practice mindfulness.

Awe has a lot of the same neurophysiology as deep contemplation.

Interest,

Curiosity,

Awaken awe,

And when we're too distracted,

We can't access awe.

And that's really,

I mean,

I've taken that note for sure in the last month.

I think for me,

The last six months I've been very distracted by the pull of so many urgent things that are necessary to take care of.

You cannot exist for very long in that state.

You will not notice anything beautiful.

And four,

Choose the unfamiliar path.

Awe often comes from novelty,

Essentially trying new things and keeping openness to new things.

And I think that's been a real formula for happiness in my life,

But also in our relationship,

That idea of newness and searching for that.

Right.

And the idea,

To be clear with our listeners,

Although,

Like you said,

There are those moments that take your breath away,

But the studies have shown that even these moments,

Moments walking by a beautiful tree,

Like you said,

Walking in a city street and seeing and focusing on,

Right,

You have to take the time to focus on somebody doing a positive action.

And I think for me,

It all goes back to the understanding that without,

And this is why Moses I believe said as one of his last teachings,

This is the only thing you have to focus on.

How are you awakening a sense of awe in great ways,

In small ways,

On a consistent basis?

You will find that the more you focus on having these moments,

On experiencing these moments,

The more easier it becomes for you to have them.

Right.

Because you might wonder,

Right,

Is it possible to be in a state of awe?

Is it really human nature?

Yes and no.

Yes,

But first no,

Right?

We have to seek it.

And Dr.

Keltner actually challenged a group of people that are 75 years of age and up to go on weekly awe walks.

Their directions were to seek out,

To be open to the experience of awe.

What they found was that the participants who actively sought out moments of awe experienced more awe and not just on their weekly walks.

It became pervasive in every area of their lives.

So while our experiences of awe are relatively short-lived,

In the long-term,

Experiences of awe increase our capacity to experience more awe frequently.

And they actually- So basically awe leads to more awe.

Exactly.

And again,

Just going back to the,

It gives you the proper perspective of life and proper perspective.

So one of the studies,

And I don't remember offhand which one,

Found that when people were in just a regular nature walk,

For example,

They were experiencing more awe,

They had them take pictures.

And the more they felt awe,

Those who were in the category who felt more awe in their selfies,

They were framing themselves as much smaller and showing nature bigger.

That's so interesting.

Whereas people who were feeling less awe had more of themselves in the picture than nature.

So interesting.

It reminds me of the recent hike we did in Hudson Valley.

We were hardly in this,

But we kept doing,

Like we were in the corner,

Right?

And we kept filming everything we saw,

Waterfalls.

And I think it was,

I don't know,

Maybe a reminder to experience it more,

But it was just so beautiful you had to stop and just film it.

Absolutely.

And I think,

Again,

This is why,

Just to say it again,

It's so important because otherwise we lose sight of our place and we lose sight of our vastness.

So I'd like to again quote from Dr.

Keltner,

We believe,

And this is an article that he wrote in the New York Times a number of years ago,

We believe that awe deprivation,

Which is an interesting concept,

But it's true.

All of us to some degree or another,

Certainly our society is living in a awe deprivation,

Has had a hand in a broad societal shift that has been widely observed over the past 50 years.

People have become more individualistic,

More self-focused,

More materialistic,

And less connected to others.

To reverse this trend,

We suggest that people insist on experiencing more everyday awe.

To actively seek out what gives them goosebumps,

Be it in looking at trees,

Night skies,

Patterns of wind on water,

Or the nobility of others.

The young child who explores the world in a state of wonder,

The person who presses on against all odds,

All of us will be better for it.

And I think for all of us,

This needs to become not just another nice to have in our spiritual work,

But I would say it needs to become the focus.

The focus and the constant question.

And we all know how to find it if we give the time and the space to find it.

And if we don't,

We risk having a false sense of ourselves,

A false sense of our place in the world,

And therefore when you don't have the right view of yourself nor your place in this world,

There's no way you're going to wind up accomplishing,

Fulfilling what it is that you're so committed to this world to accomplish.

We should leave our listeners with this quote by Rachel Carlson.

She's the author of The Sense of Wonder.

If I had influence with the good fairy who is supposed to preside over the christening of all children,

I should ask that her gift to each child in the world be a sense of wonder so indestructible that it would last throughout life as an unfailing antidote against the boredom and disenchantments of later years,

The sterile preoccupation with things that are artificial,

The alienation from the sources of our strength.

Isn't that beautiful?

Beautiful.

Beautiful.

And I'll share my final quote from Albert Einstein.

He said,

He to whom this emotion is a stranger who can no longer pause to wonder and stand wrapped in awe is as good as dead.

His eyes are closed.

And again,

So- He just always knows it,

I've got to say.

Well he had a lot of time to wonder and be in awe.

And I think,

By the way,

What I hope we most inspire within our listeners is the understanding of how desperately we need awe.

Not a nice to have,

Not a nice addition,

But something that is essential not only to our physical happiness,

To our emotional well-being,

To our spiritual well-being,

But most importantly in order to be able to give us the right place within which we can accomplish the purpose for which our soul came into this world.

So I'd like to share a letter from one of our listeners,

And it's a good moment to remind all of our listeners to send your comments,

Questions,

Notes,

Stories to Monica and Michael at Kamal.

Com.

Monica and I are always inspired by reading them.

And I know and I hear back from our listeners that they are inspired by hearing your stories and what you have to share with all of us.

Dear Monica and Michael,

I was especially impacted by this recent episode.

Monica,

You brought up the movie Life as a House.

It brought back some memories.

My financial advisor invited his clients to see this movie at a full screen movie house because he himself was sick and dying.

And he wanted his clients slash friends to see it before he left this world.

It was his favorite movie,

One he had seen many times.

This man was not your run-of-the-mill advisors.

He was a good friend and went above and beyond the normal duties of such a role.

Anyway,

After the movie,

When we said goodbye to him,

He had tears running down his face.

I'm getting chills remembering and writing this.

It was the last time I saw him.

I spent many years living in the past,

And your podcast reinforced the need to stay in the present and look forward,

Which has been my mantra for a few years now.

I'm going to go back over the podcast to get all the points and will share with my friends.

Thank you for your uplifting message.

Thank you,

Marlon,

For sharing that with us.

Very beautiful.

And again,

A reminder to all of our listeners to send your stories,

Comments,

Questions to monicaandmichaelatkabala.

Com.

It inspires us,

It inspires our listeners.

And as always,

Of course,

Go to Apple Podcasts and write five-star reviews and share the podcast with everybody you know so that more and more people can be inspired by these messages.

Stay spiritually hungry and full of awe.