Re-Issue: Living In Awe and Wonder

What's happening everyone? It's Adam Rowe here from the Have A Weard podcast and I'm here to tell you about Lad Bucks from Lad Brooks. Now you might know Lad Brooks for the big sport and action But they've also packed their app with loads of top slots, casino games and bingo. You can rack up Lad Bucks as you play You can swap yours for free spins, event prize draws and even real cash in the Lad Bucks store. And here's some exciting super charged instant spins. Every saturday when you play you guarantee the prize There's no catch so download the Lad Brooks app and give Lad Bucks a wheel of free spin to get started 18 plus TNC's apply gambleaway.org Don't be gambling if you haven't read all the stuff about it Hello, we're Jane and Fee from the Off Air podcast and we're currently sponsored by Stripe and Stare Stripe and Stare knickers are some of the softest things I've ever worn made from breathable wood fibres They're perfect for women juggling a million things at once you want to be stylish and comfortable They've got ten shapes in sizes six to twenty two so there's a fit for everybody Plus their sleepwear is like sleeping in a cloud. Oprah and Vogue are obsessed for a reason Go to stripeandstare.com and use the code OFFERD20 for 20% off On big lives we take a single cultural icon people like Jane Fonda George Michael little Richard and we pull apart the story behind the image And we do this by digging through the BBC's vast archives Discovering forgotten interviews that change exactly how we see these giants of our culture. We're here for the messy the brilliant the human version of our heroes I'm Emmanuel Jochi and Kai Wright and this is big lives Listen to big lives wherever you get your podcasts Hi I'm Raj Punjabi head of identity content at HuffPost and I'm Noah Mickelson head of HuffPost personal Welcome to Am I Doing It Wrong the show that explores the all too human anxieties we have about trying to get our lives right So Raj how much wonder or awe would you say you have in your life? I have been described as a neurotic pixie. So I feel like I have a good amount. I'm generally I like to experience wonder and awe I recognize it, but it makes me feel really good and I'm wondering if I could have a little bit more What about you? Yeah, I was reading a magazine article about wonder studies or awe studies and I was like, what the hell is that? I had no idea there were scientists who are out there Studying what happens to our bodies when we experience awe. Yeah, I was like that is so cool I wonder if we can make that into an episode and here we are here. We are and I'm so excited. Well, we also got The guy who's basically seen as the founder of awe studies. His name is Dacker Keltner. He's been studying wonder and awe for over 20 years He's a professor of psychology at the University of California, Berkeley And he also was a consultant on the Pixar film inside out which we both love. Oh my god. I'm so geeked That's one of my favorite movies. So if anyone can teach us about wonder awe Why we need it and how to get more of it. It's gonna be Dacker. Let's do this Dacker we're so happy to have you here. Thanks for being a part of the show It's it's good to be with you guys. Let's start at the beginning. We always talk about origin stories on this podcast How does someone become a wonder researcher? What is your origin story? Yeah, I thought a lot about that in writing this book off for personal reasons You know having to do with the loss of my brother Uh, and it's very fitting because awe In many ways is an emotion About origin stories, you know, it prompts us to think deeply about big processes patterns in life including your own origin and and my Origin story in many ways is that I was born into a historical moment and in a place which was First Mexico and then Laurel Canyon in the late 60s And with parents my dad was a visual artist. My mom taught literature feminism In a time the late 60s where it was all awe. It was just like sexual identity was changing revolutionary politics, although they didn't change too much Free speech civil rights, you know sex drugs and rock and roll and and so I was a young kid just like Wow, you know life has so much awe in it. Um, and then And I'm you know just eternally grateful for how my parents parented me to Not worry about conventions and to be free and to get out into nature and the love art and you know And then you know, how did I become a wonder or awe scientist? Well, I was not very good at what my parents did Which was art and fiction and writing It just did but I was really good at math and science and you know and good at like statistics and so I realized that there was a science that began with Charles Darwin that could allow us to make progress in understanding something like awe and so You know when it came time in my academic career when I was about 45 and I had resources and Permanent job at Berkeley, you know, I was like I gotta understand this emotion. It is Like Einstein said, it's the beginning of almost everything that was meaningful to me and so I just needed to study it How do you define awe or wonder? Yeah, you know, Roger. It's I mean Uh science begins with definitions and terms and nomenclatures and emotions are You know in our bodies and in lower regions of the brain and they're like waves that come over us And they're hard to describe with language And awe is particularly hard to describe with language. In fact, a lot of people are like it's ineffable It's beyond words. You can't put rational symbolic thought to it and I disagree and so John Hyde and I in a paper in 2003 We read a lot of the work, you know religious approaches to awe and spiritual journaling and sociological anthropological approaches and we were like awe is an emotion you feel when you encounter vast mysteries, right? You you're walking along and you see a giant redwood tree or hear a loud sound or you hear the You see the large kindness of a human being so it's vast Most often and it's mysterious. It transcends your understanding of the world, right? It's like, how could that tree be 1700 years old? Or how could a guitar make such loud sounds? So awe is the feeling we have when we encounter vast mysteries I love that and like the word the term vastness too I'm kind of in awe of like him just hitting the nail on the head. Like I get it. Yeah, it feels like Built into that too is the idea of something bigger than yourself Fundamentally and you know, you know, there were a few words that I just kept coming back to in writing this book one And I'm glad you liked it. Raj is like mystery like yeah, vast mystery that kind of is this interesting realm of experience And what and what then we do is we try to get more precise and Kind of the core meaning of awe is you're a feeling that come over you Is being connected to something larger than yourself? You know You you go to a concert you were the big throbbing massive people and you're dancing and sweating and And then the music makes you suddenly feel awestruck and and you're like god, I'm part of This this whatever this is in this moment of musical reverence that is bigger than me Um And how important that is for human beings to be connected to things larger than ourselves And I love that it's it can come from anywhere, you know, I think about times when I'm walking down the street It's a regular day and I see a corgi and I'm like overwhelmed with cute aggression and I'm like, how did this happen? Yeah, completely Wait a minute. We can't let that one just go like so tell us more about the the feeling of being connected to Something faster than yourself. I mean, this is beautiful. I feel like I'm therapy I mean now that I'm trying to verbalize it's hard, but I'm really literally asking the universe How could something so beautiful so cute so amazing be put together in such a perfect way the little corgi butt Swiggling it's like small and big at the same time. It's happy to see me. It's running toward me I I there's nothing mechanical that could put that together Right something beyond me put that magic a little corgi together in my life And something we talked about in the dog episode that we just did too is this idea of animals Especially I think I often encounter wonder with animals because they seem so pure Innocent and there's just a goodness. There's no end to their goodness. It's vast. Yeah It is and and you know, I take an evolutionary perspective on these emotions. Thank you for the incredible example, roge in my 10,000 conversations about awe court. You're the first to feel awe about a corgi But you know Evolution design things that that astonish us. That's a central thesis in the evolution of beauty in mating rituals and birds and the like A lot of people with you know, those dogs have been shaped by natural selection to Astonish us and how cute they are. Yeah, it's like a baby's face and it's like I'll do anything for this corgi And they need you to do that And I will I love that Dacker, I'm wondering You are defining awe or wonder as a specific emotion, right? So it's not like You know a combination of joy and fear and these other things you're saying that awe or wonder is actually its own emotion, right? Yeah, and thank you for that question because we spent 10 12 15 years Just really making the case for that that is important because the for a couple of reasons one is, you know Just getting the phenomena differentiated There's a lot of thinking that kind of smushes awe together with fear You know the etymology of the word awe is fear and dread and respect And then beauty a lot of people have like tried like Emanuel Kant Edmund Burke grateful loss There's like how does awe differ from beauty? You know when you're awe struck by a forest versus you find it beautiful And we did a lot of work looking at classic elements of emotion like the vocalization of awe, right? So i'm going to count to three and I want to hear your best Sound of awe One two three Wow There we go. So around the world. That's what people do and and that is different from A vocalization of fear or beauty So you can look at awe in in um terms of subjective experience and I really encourage the listeners to consult allencowin.com Lot of really sophisticated work showing awe of the 20 emotions we might study is positive It feels good. It is different from fear and horror It's different subjectively from beauty, right? It's different. It's close to admiration and love. So it is this emotion of just being reverential Towards the vast parts of life we're part of And so it's a distinct emotion and why that's important is We now could think about its deep evolutionary origins. It's different from fear It doesn't have to do with predation so much And other things so so we did a lot of work to do that and feel confident in saying it's it's its own thing to understand Thank you for your service I want to learn on this episode how to feel more awe, but before that You've said that after researching awe in 26 countries. That's a soft flex very impressive. You identified eight wonders of life What are they? Yeah, and that's important because The last thing you want to do is make a bunch of claims about awe but just study people in california or the united states So we got these stories of awe from 26 different countries, you know in people's own words, you know, mexico, india, brazil, poland Really different countries and and it took us a long time to figure out like Where do I find awe and what we found and this aligns with a lot of philosophical literatures is what I call the eight wonders which is moral beauty Other people's kindness and courage, you know Collective movement you're in a yoga class together. You're dancing. You're at music. You're at a sporting event nature then music visual design spirituality And then the interesting ones are the the less intuitive ones which are big ideas People feel awe about big ideas like god We you know when I first read carl marx economic theory of consciousness. I was just like I can't believe it, you know This guy can explain thought patterns and class struggles. So I was awestruck by And then life and death, you know that the life cycle Makes us feel awe and that one's interesting, you know that It was interesting for me personally at the time and still that You know, we are awestruck by life and death and it propels us to try to understand This great mystery of life, you know, those are eight wonders. Yeah My dad passed away actually on sunday 17 years ago And I was in the room with him when he died and I watched Um, if you believe this, uh, I watched his spirit leave his body And it is probably like the singular most affecting moment of my life to see that And I would say that that was just pure awe There were other emotions at play But definitely to see that moment and and so I agree. I would imagine I've never experienced this but watching a baby being born Um, a human baby or an animal baby. All of that must also involve a lot of awe. Yeah, I'm sorry for your loss. Thanks. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, and and for me too You know, no, it was like when I saw my younger brother who I shared Almost every significant moment of all in my life with, you know Go I I'm a reductionist scientist who loves neurons and statistics and I was like I say I see his spirit. I sense a space he was going to. Yeah I felt something transcendent and and it fits worldwide people feel that they There's something totally transcendent about the leaving of a person And and it is a source of our great thinking too. So it propelled me in that direction Completely when you talk about these eight different wonders of life Is there one that you found in your research that is more affecting or that more people sort of feel like is more powerful than the other ones? Yeah, you know, we we don't know and I think one of the lessons that We glean from psychology is everybody is different individual differences are profound And in my own experience and we've got data on this there are people and cultures who are really nature places, you know, like You know, I go to the rock climbing gym and a lot of those people awe is about rock climbing and nature Uh, I hung around musicians You know to understand musical law and for them music's just mind blowing, you know, it's just always like every facet of it, um, you know, you get Around um spiritual people and it's it's spirit. So so, um, I think they all matter to people in different ways Which one is more powerful? I you know, if I had to put if I had to say Uh, I would say the first is moral beauty just Taking in the kindness and courage and over strength and overcoming that people are capable of Uh, just knocks people out and it's everywhere, right? We can always find that and then nature. I mean nature You know, there it's so profound what the Nate what nature does to your mind and body Um as I profile in the book through awe that I'd put that up there as well as the most powerful Yeah, there's there's a lot of mystery to nature too. I think whenever I'm like at the ocean my favorite place on earth I I'm like what it it's it's what is going on in here. There's so much of you Like tell me something. Yes, it's a mystery. I don't know so much about it. We do not. Yeah It's mind blowing and then you know, if you push You know emmer Ralph although emerson is a hero in this book american transcendentalism and he really felt that He said I want to be a naturalist as a young man and what he meant was I want to find the divine and spirit in nature like about 40 of amer people in the u.s And he went on to show just like you guys are suggesting like In our relationship to nature we discover deep truths about mind evolution life processes And and when my brother passed away And he and I used we grew up in the foothills of this era and a lot of time outdoors backpacked I just was I'd go out and like I just watch water for an hour You know like an ocean and it would teach me like oh There's cycles in life and this is one so You know it is powerful just to be open to what nature reveals to us And I think part of that is like grief sometimes involves a lot of talking for people whether you're uncomfortable or that's a part of your spirituality But the nature thing is like sometimes You need things other than words And symbols and patterns and metaphors and and you know and I think death like you said roger's one where it's like god Where did my brother go? Why do I still film around and if I just open my and it was it really you know I was all us when I was heading into the writing of the book because I was in such grief And and just being open to the emotion in nature and you know contemplation or music it just opened my mind to new ways of thinking about the world which I needed Let's take a quick break and we'll be right back What's happening everyone it's adam row here from the have a weird podcast And I'm here to tell you about lad books from lad brooks now You might know lad books for the big sport and action But they've also packed their app with loads of top slots casino games and bingo You can rack up lad books as you play you can swap yours for three spins event prize draws and even real cash In the lad book store and it's such an exciting super charged instant spins Every satay when you play you guarantee the prize. There's no catch So download the lad brooks app and give lad books a wheel Free spin to get started 18 plus t and c supply gambler wear dog Don't be gambling if you haven't read all the stuff about it There once was a woman who lived in a shoe a size too snug, but what could she do? But that's not where her story ends Thanks to a little help from her experience friends She got her score into much better shape and relocated to a box fresh new place With room to grow and a mortgage to suit Now she lives in a spacious four bedroom cowboy boot Better your experience credit score to help get mortgage ready Experience better your score better your story Hello, we're Jane and fee from the off-air podcast and we're currently sponsored by stripe and stare Stripe and stern knickers are some of the softest things I've ever worn made from breathable wood fibers They're perfect for women juggling a million things at once you want to be stylish and comfortable They've got 10 shapes in sizes 6 to 22. So there's a fit for everybody Plus their sleepwear is like sleeping in a cloud Oprah and vogue are obsessed for a reason go to stripe and stare dot com And use the code offered 20 for 20 off Welcome back to am I doing it wrong I Think it's interesting too like sometimes Raj and I talk about how we both consider ourselves kind of quote-unquote Woo-woo and on this show, you know that comes up once in a while And I think people could you know hear this conversation so far and think that that's what this is But you are actually are studying off from a scientific standpoint And we're going to get into it now But the idea that aw is actually good for you, but this is from a scientific standpoint What was your first? Scientific study of aw like tell us about that and how do you study? Aw scientifically and I do have to add to that like I am a little bit woo, but I love science so much And whenever people talk about studies, I'm like, well, was it peer reviewed like I am that kind of science trick also So please tell us yes I hear you and that really mattered and you know, I speak I teach Aw to a lot of skeptical audiences like medical doctors and federal judges And I always rely on the deep science and I will say right now, you know our Go to alan cowan dot com and our what are called? computational studies with new statistics to show that aw is its own emotion Our state of the art there and we had to invent statistics to do that research You know, and then the new neurophysiology of aw which we can get to is incredible Um Uh involving the inflammation process and the vagus nerve and the like our first study of aw And we had a lot of failures, you know, and we would like You know bring people in and show them Giant video screens of frat goals and that was and the the the technology breakdown. Oops. Sorry, you know hold on, you know Uh, and then um Our first real study was lawni sheota Uh, who's now a professor at Arizona State and I Uh, just had people we started to rely on the the world as our lab And not bring people into a small little room with no windows and show them a video clip but rather like Study people near big trees or at yosemite or we did research at the great wall of china and the first study i'm very proud of Involved dinosaurs and I was obsessed with dinosaurs since age five And we have on the berkeley campus a replica of the skeleton of a t-rex And it's awesome. So cool, you know, it's it's 12 feet tall. It's long, you know, it's just like you stand next to it You're like, oh, I know about that thing that thing eats everything and it now I see why And I kind of feel like what it'd be like to be chased by a t-rex, you know So we put people and we just like had them stand next to the t-rex and take it in Or they stood in the same place, but they looked down the hallway at an academic hallway And when you're just feeling aw at the t-rex It transforms your sense of self. You're like you you you move out of the individualism of our times to Man, I'm part of a collective. I share humanity with other people We're all human beings caring about the same thing. It brings out our higher collective self And and that was our first study and it taught us like If you want to study on like we've put people near tall trees big views sunsets Maria Monroe I stood to mine studied the eclipse, you know, which is coming up Get people where it really and now there's studies of people in mosh pits and concerts and of course psychedelics. So We've learned and that was our first study published. I think in 2009 I mean, that's a great segue because I really want to ask you what happens to us physically when we feel aw I can in in a woo-woo way Describe it only as like I feel like I'm glowing neon pink Like what I'm feeling aw tell me but tell me what's really happening. What's happening in our bodies So we have this measure of the glowing neon pink region of your brain and no, okay Um, we yeah, you know, it's amazing and and and it tells us So much about the evolution of the human nervous system, which is When you feel aw, right? You hear amazing music and you're tearing up. You're at a political rally and and the speaker Moves you with a vision of the future or you're taking in nature or you're thinking about a big idea that you love What happens one region of the brain is deactivated the default mode network and that is where all of the self Representational processes takes place. I'm thinking about myself my time my goals my strivings my checklist That quiets down during all your note the ego death, right? Then your vagus nerve is activated the big bundle of nerves starting in the top of your spinal cord Helps you look at people and vocalize slows your heart rate. It helps with digestion Opens up your body to things bigger than you Then you get the goosebumps. That's this amazing physiological reaction of little muscles contracting around your hair follicles suddenly You feel like there's electricity in your back and that's Primates show that when they merge with other primates to be strong together You might tear up which is a physiological response Part of the parasympathetic nervous system and then your inflammation is cooler It's part of your immune system that attacks diseases And we want it to be cooler and not always hot and all cools down the inflammation process So it's it's an amazing cascade of physiology that that we can find almost any day and very good for you It's a good thing. Can I bottle this and buy it? It makes me wonder then I guess about You know, so it's good for us. How can we get more on our lives then? What what have you devised or what have you seen that works that actually Does make people feel awe and can trigger all these beneficial? effects And you guys are really Pointing to how our science is evolving which is I think you know the new generation scientists that I partner collaborate with in you know my lab They're really they want to make the world better, you know, it's not just science to describe or find truth It's so like how do we deal with climate crisis or over consumerism or conspiracy theories or authoritarian politics? What do we do racism? And so a lot of scientists are really starting if they took the awe science And they said oh my god, it's good for you elevated vagal tone less inflammation Less depression less anxiety, etc. Which are all findings replicated peer review What I tell people is there are two things which is and their studies starting to come in The first is the awe mindset like you know give yourself a few minutes a day Or every other day slow down your schedule put away your devices start breathing deeply And open your mind to something larger than yourself. Right and it might be You know, I'm looking at images of my daughters, which made me think about the two decades. They've been alive I'm thinking about our conversation like wow Here are three human beings with different minds that are sharing ideas, right? I'm looking at an eggy pop poster from a show. I saw you know So slow it down breathe deep open your mind to something larger And then you can use that mindset In the eight wonders of life and there are studies now showing if I go outdoors and do my regular walk You guys walk regularly. Oh, yeah big walkers There is new research on listening to music for meaning All right, man. This piece of music really makes me cry. I'm gonna listen to it Think about what it means to me and why and that is as good for you As for pain chronic pain as pharmaceuticals Think about somebody moral beauty who inspired you just whoa, who was a inspirational person for you just dwell on that person for a minute or two So there are all these techniques that are coming that we're trying to Integrate into healthcare, right palliative care pain, etc And I think they're a next frontier of of health science, frankly Can we specifically talk about like the aw walk? And and the studies that have happened because I think I was reading a study and I'm sure if this is one that you did Or someone else did but there are basically two different groups And the control group just went on a walk and the other group was was tasked with noticing just one thing While they were on their walk and they found that the people who did that and had a moment of aw actually Well, I'm not sure you tell us what happened when that happened. Yeah, no, that's a great summary. Thank you You know, it was it was people who are 75 years older older So you're starting to get anxious and depressed about the end of life more body pain And the control condition once a week they went out on a walk Our aw walk condition they go out and we say, you know while you're out on your walk go someplace Where you might feel a little childlike wonder, you know And look around and look at the small things and look at the big things and and just follow that sense of mystery and wonder That's all we asked them to do and What we found Three really cool things one each week. They do this Over the eight weeks. They start to feel more and more aw right? So as we search for aw We find more of it, which I think is really important number two Our people 75 years old or older over time felt less pain and distress And you know chronic pain and pain when you're old is serious It just rattles your consciousness And here was a little technique that gave them some peace And the third one was back to the disappearance of the self, which is each week We had them take a picture of themselves And what we found is you know on the aw walk That they start to like move off to the side of the photo like this They kind of disappear and so what that tells us is their consciousness is They're not thinking about okay. There's my face and I get it perfectly situated in the photo They're more interested in the the vaster scene that they're part of And losing track of themselves and that's important right that's important to expand our attention to things outside of themselves Let's take a quick break and we'll be right back Hello, we're Jane and Fee from the off-air podcast and we're currently sponsored by Stripe and Stare Stripe and Stare knickers are some of the softest things I've ever worn made from breathable wood fibers They're perfect for women juggling a million things at once. You want to be stylish and comfortable They've got 10 shapes in sizes six to 22. So there's a fit for everybody Plus their sleepwear is like sleeping in a cloud Oprah and vogue are obsessed for a reason go to stripe instead.com and use the code offered 20 for 20% off Hello, it's ed gamble here from the off-menu podcast and james a caster here also Coincidentally from the off-menu podcast and the off-menu podcast is currently being brought to you by marriott bonvoy a world of over 30 Inspiring hotel brands marriott bonvoy tends great food into lasting memories bringing you closer to the flavors shared tables and moments that Linger long after the last bite whatever your passion explore over 30 hotel brands and thousands of experiences to bring it to life Explore marriott bonvoy's world of inspiring hotel brands Over 80 percent of enterprises are experimenting with generative ai but only 5 percent reach production with measurable business impact The challenge in enterprise customer experience isn't the models. It's scaling ai reliably across real customer touch points parloa solved this the ai agent management platform Companies use parloa to design test and deploy production grade ai agents that automate customer conversations and drive measurable cx outcomes Move from ai pilot to enterprise grade cx with parloa visit parloa.com Welcome back to am i doing it wrong One of the things that rajah and I have talked a lot about is that we both have we're lucky to have partners I think rajah and I are both naturally curious people and people who do look for awe in the world and we have partners rajah's partner kelvin my partner benji Who who are interested in the same thing and i think you're right? It's sort of like the more you look for it It's a muscle the more you condition yourself or the more you have people around you who are also looking for it I think the more you find it and the other thing that i'm hearing you say dak or two is that I think when we think about awe and wonder we think about it having to be these big things So like watching a baby be born or things, but it can also just be look at that daffodil That's the first daffodil that i've seen this year or yeah There are these chickens in brooklyn these people have chickens in their front yard And I happened upon them and I was like what are these chickens doing living in brooklyn and I was in awe And so I love this idea that It doesn't have to be something big we can find a moment of awe every time we leave our houses or We wander into a new room maybe yeah, you know what that's really also dachar make me think about Trying to keep people around you who have that kind of mindset like an adventurous mindset I I take that for granted. I think I have several people in my life who are like, oh my god It's raining like this storm is gorgeous And it's it I I pick up on that myself. Yeah Yeah, or you guys are saying such important, you know, fundamental reasons why I wrote this book, you know the You know, we stereotype awe is like all the time that I saw the barrier reef, you know, etc But really it's everywhere You know our data suggested in different countries two times a week So that means you can get up to three or four and enjoy its benefits easy easy and to your point rags You know that then begs the question or like I really think there are no data on this but I do believe that friendships Great sibling relations. Yeah parent child relations partner relations are grounded and shared all And and we haven't really thought about that and and your intuition points to I think a lot of necessary science and and understanding Dachar, what would you say if someone wants to have more awe in their life? Like what's the one thing they should do? I always think about my Advisor when I went to grad school for poetry. Her name is Sharon old. She's one of the most incredible She's big famous. She's I was so lucky to work with her And she once told me that the thing that poets do is they notice the world And then they're able to take what they notice and tie it to emotion And she was like again like just going back to just seeing a flower and thinking about how does that connect to my experience And that's what I would say if you if you ask me like how do we have more? Awe it literally is like going on an awa walk looking for just very small moments that we can actually think about as feeling meaningful or feeling vast But what would you say? What do you think any listener right now they want it's tuesday afternoon? They want more awe. What should they do? You know a lot of people are talking about this being An era of a crisis of meaning That we have lost sight of the bigger stories we're part of you know as we move away from religion And the culture is polarized and et cetera Um, and I think you got it, you know in your in your example. No, which is that at its core awe is about as jane goodall said being amazed at things That are outside and larger than yourself And and I love the word notice. I would say pause and look to the small and the vast So just approach life with that attitude of like I'm just going to be pausing and noticing And what I'm really looking for is how is my unique identity dacker keltoner Connected to vaster things right now, right and that's always true We're always shaped by evolution. We're always part of quantum physics. We're always part of a society We're always part of a culture. We always have a history. You know, we started with origins So be asking those questions about what are you related to that's larger than you and how do you serve it? And it'll get you to awe really fast, right? Suddenly you'd be like I got to listen to that piece of music that I that blew my mind when I was 12 and you listen to it You're like, I'm thinking of my friend and my childhood and what my parents are trying to teach me and next thing, you know You're having a moment of awe. So It's I think it's a mindset of the self in relation to what's fast. I have chills. Yeah, that's beautiful So good. Okay. When I think about social media, especially It reminds me that we are living in a time of great narcissism And shame and insecurity You've written that awe can be an antidote to that. How so? Yeah, that's a question It's been a theme of our time together, you know, no and roger like, um, you know, awe is this noticing As Sharon olds It was you were suggesting she said of like what are what is out there that is wonderful and that i'm part of? be it nature culture the like and Right now A lot of broad data summarized by gene twangy and others is like this is We're more self focused than I mean potentially at any time in human history Yeah, taking photos of the self and reporting on my day and following influencers and comparing myself to them and All this envy and shame and I'm glad you use that word I've like, oh, you know Look how handsome that guy is and I don't have that body, etc um, which we all do and And it is I think the data suggests part of the problem of our times that young people a lot of people feel depressed and Not kind of themselves and awe does the opposite awe is like it shuts down those parts of the brain So you're like, I didn't even know what I was wearing at that time or what my faith or my hair was messed up And it connects you to these large things out there, right that matter That we need to be part of And so yeah, I feel you know publishing this book You know, I was just struck by the cord. It struck like wow, you know, this is what high schoolers need This is what young people in college and beyond need, you know, this is what the workplace needs This is what doctors need to remind themselves of like man, we're saving lives. That is sacred, you know It is scientifically an antidote to self-focus. We know that robustly It gets us to think about what how related to large things and I hope we can Do a few things out in the world that that instantiate that Would you say decker then this is something that rajah and I talk about a lot. Um And I god, it gets me emotional just to even think about this but it we started this podcast in september And we have a lot of fun doing it and we do episodes about pooping and about buying airline tickets and a lot of stuff that just you know It in the grand scheme of things quote unquote doesn't matter and when there's so much that's going wrong in the world right now I think sometimes she and I think Well, how can we do a show about something like like awe or wonder when there are people dying in gaza? You know and that feels reductive in some ways to like boil it that far down But it is something that we think about we talk about it. Yeah And it sounds like what you're saying is that actually this is exactly why we need more more on wonder because it takes us out of ourselves And it makes us connected to something bigger than us and that's the energy that hopefully Could help remedy some of the hurt that's happening and and the cruelness and the terror that's happening That's really well said. Is that what you would you agree with that? I you know and I got bullish about that because I felt the same, you know, like why? Oz art and music and you know gardening or whatever. Man, we've got gaza Yeah, 30 000 dead and and climate crisis and polar and authoritarianism mass incarceration, which I care about but Empirically, we know awe makes people better stewards of the environment Consume less and it makes people less polarized. They're like, you know, I can actually find some common ground With this this guy in the defense industry or whatever. So that's science And then, you know, I in writing the book it was clear to me And this is now a very hot focus of scholarship that history changes really well for progress When we follow awe, you know, the the reaction of young people to gaza Was that had awe in it? It was like, oh, it's all come together what the lives of those people in the occupation Uh is like and and and I have to take action Charles Darwin when he was looking at nature, he's just like it was all Oz like god, it's I understand evolution in nature And how history moves. So I think a lot of our best innovations are Social change come out of awe And we need them right now. Um, you know the crisis in gaza and Environmental issues and the like and and awe does a lot of good work. It fast tracks us to solutions, which I think we need Man, dacker for president of the world I will vote for you Completely, but you don't know we need him. We need him in the lab. We need him Yeah, you can't be a noble office. We need you Yeah Dacker, thank you for this. Yeah, I feel like I had therapy too. I I really feel I need I need a nap I and we need an awa walk and then we need a nap. Yeah Then a burger I need to process that And I need to see that corgi Plug in about it Well, thank you knowing, roge. It's been an incredible conversation It's time for better and five these are your top five takeaways from this episode Number one awe is its own emotion. It's the feeling of experiencing a vastness or a connection to something bigger than yourself Number two Dacker has found when it comes to awe there are eight wonders of life And the ones that seem to be the most powerful are experiencing moral beauty and nature Number three studies have shown that experiencing awe can literally heal us It has psychological and physical benefits including lowering pain number four If you want more awe in your life try taking an aw walk Where you just spend a few minutes noticing the things around you And number five awe can be an antidote to narcissism and shame and it can help us feel more connected to each other Okay, no, uh, this is a strange question. But have you been doing awe wrong? I don't know because I've never really thought about doing awe right. I guess I never even thought it was a thing that I should be thinking about are you doing it now? I think I do it a lot And it does maybe it's my background as a poet. Maybe it's the way I was raised I spent a lot of time looking at the world around me and thinking How do how am I connected to that? What's going on there? What can I learn more about this thing? Um, and I do feel like it enriches my life. So I want more of it. What about you? Have you been doing awe wrong? You know what? I kind of didn't really know what it was. I was kind of conflating it with joy and happiness I still do it But I definitely want more especially now that I know that it can physically heal you like I'm trying to be a hot girl 98 years old So I want more one of the things I love about this episode too Is that you know the episodes where we do something really tangible like how to do your laundry better or how to buy plane tickets better Like those are great and I and I love those episodes too, but it's cool to think about a concept Or an emotion and how we do it better and I felt like dacker actually really gave us some Practical ways to experience awe. He's gonna help us find awe and wonder in doing our laundry Oh, I love it a combo a mashup Yeah Anyway, until next time as long as there are things to get wrong We're gonna be right here to help you doing better damn right Do you have something you think you're doing wrong? Email us at am i doing it wrong at huffpost.com and let us know Hello, it's emily dean from walking the dog here and this podcast is sponsored by the woodland trust Walking in the woods with my dog ray has become one of my favorite ways to clear my head There's something about being around trees that makes the whole world feel a bit more peaceful That's why I love the work of the woodland trust to protect and restore our precious woodlands And you can support that work in such a lovely personal way by dedicating a tree bench post or area of woodland to someone special From a suggested donation of just 20 pounds It's a thoughtful lasting gift that helps woods and wildlife thrive visit woodland trust.org.uk Slash walking the dog to start your dedication Bullteas and seas apply Daniel out of all your decisions lately choosing a vanty west coast first class is by far your best Peace and space to work. Oh and that's service. You don't have to find the coffee the coffee finds you Oh, what's that the smell of bacon and success daniel Success arrive ready with the vanty west coast first class Enjoy delicious freshly prepared food and drink and service to your seat Some journeys belong in first class book direct with the vanty west coast exclusions and limitations apply Hey guys, it's Beatrice tammy and Sharon from our podcast uncut and we're currently sponsored by the department for work and pensions Life's busy and admin gets forgotten But if your claiming benefits listen up if something changes you need to tell dwp Otherwise you could face a penalty That could be a partner moving in even if they keep their own place Or if a car doubles up as a taxi and family car You should only report work related costs or forgotten savings like premium bonds To find out if you need to report a change search tell dwp Tired of thee. I know it's here somewhere moment the new scan snap ix 2400 scanner means you'll never search for a receipt again Our simplest scan snap experience yet Just press the blue button and instantly convert documents into digital files You can find in seconds perfect for busy professionals who need organization without complexity with instant one touch scanning 45 pages per minute speed and automatic data extraction the ix 2400 saves your files exactly where you need them. No more missed expense claims or lost warranties Just peace of mind knowing everything important is safe and instantly accessible ready to stop wasting time hunting for paperwork Visit scan snap at dot com slash podcast and discover how simple document management can be scan snap The smarter way to work