30 days of self-love: awe

What is awe?

Sharon Salzberg says it’s “the absence of self-preoccupation.”

Psychologist Dachner Keltner says, “Awe is the feeling of being in the presence of something vast that transcends your understanding of the world.”

Keltner has recently written a book called “Awe: The New Science of Everyday Wonder and How It Can Transform Your Life,” which is the focal point of this recent NYTimes article on how awe can improve your life. Turns out, there is a great science of awe to accompany the sense of it. Keltner recommends a few different practices to cultivate daily awe, which I recommend reading into deeper: pay attention, focus on the moral beauty of others, practice mindfulness, choose the unfamiliar path.

To me, awe is me getting out of the way. When that happens, I get to see that it is everywhere around me. I get to open my eyes and my heart with my full attention to the beautiful people I am among. It’s difficult for me to write about, to truly capture, the feeling in me when I think about the people in this world that I don’t even know that have moved me to awe with the miraculousness of their existence. From Thich Nhat Hahn to the couple I pass often when I walk who are always laughing together. It is a great wonder, to be here. Oh, maybe it’s trite, but I can’t help let tears come for what we still have.

The earth. The sky.

Each other.

I walked my dog this afternoon and was knocked out by the water, the sky, the sky in the water. How did we even get here?

I haven’t always had access to that sight though. I’ve spent a lot of my life preoccupied with myself. Stuck in circuitous narratives that never really got me anywhere, even when I moved to the other side of the world from where I started. Made a habit of running with a home in my head. Always standing in front of myself, in between me and other people, blocking my view of the sky. I didn’t do it on purpose. I didn’t know how to be any different.

I’ve described my ever-evolving healing journey in lots of ways. Through dance, movement, vision boards, hugs, unfurling, writing, singing, more dance. Actions too, like opening into relationship with people as my authentic self and accepting I am accepted as me. LOVED, even.

And when I read this by Kirk J. Schneider, a psychologist and psychotherapist, I thought YES. This, this right here, captures the awe in the recognition of growth, of what opens up when you can start to see the sky again.

“As clients overcome the blocks to that which deeply matters in their lives, they begin to develop new, more aligned paths. These paths may take the form of a new job, a project, or a relationship. But they may also grow beyond specific goals to encompass the freedom to embrace life itself – in all its stark possibility. This new relationship to life is often characterized by awe – the humility and wonder or sense of adventure toward all that exists. This adventure is the same that clients experience – albeit in embryonic form – from the beginning of therapy. From the start, in other words, clients learn to shift from abject terror to blossoming wonder – from humiliation to audacity – and this template, as it were, forms the basis for clients to experience awe: the maximal capacity to live.”

My wish, for Awe, for You – the maximal capacity to live.