This is AWEsome

Picture this: you’re on a nature walk. You’ve walked about a mile or so through the woods on a sunny summer day. It isn’t too hot because the trees are shading the sun yet allowing a subtle breeze through their leaves. You see an opening in the trees along the path, and as you walk through it a beautiful nature scene erupts. A field of wildflowers flowing in the breeze like waves under a sun that is starting to set. You watch as hummingbirds and dragonflies fly down and up to touch the blossoms and you whisper to yourself, “Wow”. This sensation described in this scenario is awe. It is two simultaneous perceptions of seeing something vast that you cannot seem to fit into your existing mental structures. It makes you feel small in a profound and pleasurable way. Awe is a sensation of clarity that, “…opens us up to changing our beliefs, allegiances, and behaviors” (Haidt, 2024, pg. 212).

            Dacher Keltner, a social psychologist who studies the sensation of awe collected thousands of stories from people and their ‘awe experiences’ and sorted them into the “eight wonders of life”. Jonathan Haidt, his colleague and author of the book The Anxious Generation, writes about these eight wonders and lists them as, “moral beauty, collective effervescence, nature, music, visual design, spiritual and religious awe, life and death, and epiphanies.” (2024, pg. 212). These are the eight most common scenarios where humans feel the wonderous sensation of awe.

            Awe usually comes from scenarios that we often don’t expect, but out of those eight wonders of life, we have the ability to submerge ourselves into a few of them just by being intentional about our daily observations. Even in the most urban of cities, where you could intentionally observe visual design, there is nature. Seeing the beauty and awe in nature is available to you all the time! So, go on a nature walk, free from distractions, and observe the awe that our planet naturally offers to us.

            To learn more about awe or being intentional about your perceptions, feel free to contact us at Olive Brach Counseling Associates! Our therapists offer many different services both in-person at our office (6819—167^th St. Tinley Park, IL 60477) and via telehealth. Call us today at 708-633-8000 to book an appointment!

Myleigh, undergrad intern, 2025

Olive Branch Counseling Associates, Inc.

Reference:

Haidt, J. (2024). The anxious generation: How the great rewiring of childhood is causing an

            epidemic of mental illness. Penguin Random House.