Care is Awe
I've found awe in the sun spiking dusty, golden rays through a canopy of pine trees. I've felt it noticing the finest hairs on my son's cheeks.
Every Friday between now and the beginning of February, I’ll be sharing an excerpt from my third book, CARE: The radical art of taking time. This is in part to celebrate her release in the UK and North America, and in part to say thank you for being part of this wonderful corner of the internet throughout 2022.
This excerpt is from Chapter 3: Awe. One of my favourites and one of the topics I keep returning to over and over. I hope you find some nuggets here to take with you into the new year, and if you like what you see, you can purchase/pre-order a copy of Care here.
Much love,
Brooke
Just a reminder that Ben and I are taking some time offline, so I won’t be on hand to respond to comments until we get back in early February, but until then, take good care.
When I say 'awe' what do you picture?
Perhaps, like me, your mind's eye immediately conjures typically awe inspiring images of things such as vast snow-capped mountains or dolphins frolicking near the shore of a pristine beach or the view from the edge of the Grand Canyon. You know, Big Nature.
There's no doubt that Big, Nature is awe-inspiring. I count myself as very lucky to have seen some in my life and have felt the waves of awe sweep through me as a result. I've seen the Canadian Rockies rise from misty valleys; I've been in the surf when a pod of dolphins emerged to play in the waves nearby; I've stood motionless on the edge of the South Rim of the Grand Canyon one freezing January morning, fresh snow on the ground and ice on my eyelashes, watching the changing colours of the landscape as the sun rose.
But awe is much more complex than that and is a very tricky thing to define. According to the psychologists and scientists who study it at the University of California, Berkeley's Greater Good Science Centre, awe can be defined as “the feeling we get in the presence of something vast that challenges our understanding of the world.” It's often described using words such as amazement, surprise or transcendence, or even more simply by Professor Dacher Keltner, leading researcher at UC Berkeley, as something that “passes the goosebumps test”.
What those self-transcending, goosebump-providing experiences look like can vary wildly, and researchers believe that an awe-inspiring experience doesn't need to be big (or nature-based) in order to be powerful. It can be more intimate, more human, more commonplace and still fill you with awe.
To that end I've also found awe in the sun spiking dusty, golden rays through a canopy of pine trees. I've felt it noticing the finest hairs on my son's cheeks. I've been awed by my daughter reading out loud to me and the first cherry I ever ate off the tree in our front yard, warm and soft from the sun, tasting of summer and victory because l'd gotten to it before the birds.
Awe can be found in great and majestic places, both natural and man-made, and it can be found in the smallest of everyday details. Palaces and sandcastles. Packed theatres and quiet compassion.
Regardless of where you find it, the consensus is that awe can be an incredibly powerful force in our lives and, over the past twenty years, as the relatively new study of awe has grown steadily, scientists, researchers and psychologists have uncovered some impressive benefits to experiencing it, which include:
improved moods
higher levels of general life satisfaction
reduced stress levels
reduced inflammation
improved critical-thinking abilities
reduction in materialism
a shift in self-perception, relative to humanity and the
natural world
increased sense of humility
expansion in perception of time, making people feel like
they have more of it to enjoy
less impatience
higher likelihood of giving time, energy or attention to others
higher likelihood of wanting to cooperate with others
more generosity.
If you took that list of benefits and inverted each item to its opposite, you'd be describing many of the deficiencies of modern life. We live in a highly individualistic society, with widespread overconsumption, record levels of stress-related health problems (both physical and mental), high levels of discontentment, impatience and a sense that no matter what we do, we never have enough hours in the day.
In a culture where our worth is so often measured by the stuff we own, our physical appearance, our job title or income, the number of social-media followers we have or books we've sold, the sense of connection to something greater than ourselves that awe researchers describe feels thrillingly counter-cultural.
So how can awe offer us an antidote to some of the stressors of modern life? How can it help us create slow, powerful ripples of change in our own lives, our families, our communities?
Think for a moment what the flow-on effects of each of the above benefits might mean to you, your relationships, your work, the world you live in. Think of how each of them could impact your ability and desire to care more.
If experiencing awe delivers us an increase in generosity, for example, how might that impact my relationship with my husband? Maybe it means that I give a more genuine and specific offer of help one night when he's stressed, or maybe I listen more actively when he shares what's troubling him. Perhaps, in time, that means we see a gradual deepening of intimacy or a feeling of greater security in our relationship. That might then manifest in our tendency to care for each other in a new way or grow more trust or kindness or support. That in turn could flow out into our relationship with our kids, our extended family, and the work we do.
Or we can look at the sense of self-transcendence psychologists talk about when we experience awe. How might that blurring of the edges between myself and something greater impact me? Could it be that on the day I have an awe-inspiring experience, I view the strangers I cross paths with afterwards more as siblings in humanity rather than blips on my daily radar? And what might that change bring to me? Empathy or compassion in place of judgement or self-centring overreaction? A choice to see someone driving aggressively not as a personal affront (they're probably not trying to kill me) but as a response to something going on in their lives? And my choice to not respond with aggression or anger, as I may otherwise have done, could mean I arrive at my destination feeling calmer and more open to others, so I smile and make eye contact with the person who helps me at the library, which might send them on their own path of connection and kindness for the day.
Or, to think more broadly, consider this: Australia is a country of astounding natural beauty. From the red heart of Uluru to the ultramarine waters of Booderee National Park, the ancient forests of the Tarkine in Tasmania to some of the most diverse and unique wildlife in the world, there is no shortage of awe-inducing wonder in our country. Australia has also historically been one of the most generous countries in the world, ranking third in the Charities Aid Foundation report of charitable giving in 2015-16. Giving on average $12 billion a year, Australians were only out-generoused by Myanmar and the United States.
Given one of the by-products of experiencing more awe is a boost in generosity, I've often wondered if we, as a nation, are generous because we have so many opportunities for awe and, if so, why have we seen a reduction in generosity in recent years?
Our generous giving dropped by 10 per cent between 2016 and 2017 and, while there are a number of theories as to why that is, I can't help but wonder if we've lost some of our capacity for awe, robbing us of the sense of community, altruism, connection and cooperation that encourage us to give more generously.
Maybe it's because we spend so much time on our tech that we forget to look up, maybe its because we’re more disconnected from our communities than ever, maybe it's because Australians spend far more time on screens than we used to.
Is it possible that these shifts have taken the wind out of our generosity sails, leaving us more removed and less caring than before? Wouldn't it then follow that a prescription of more awe in our daily lives may begin to reverse some of these changes?
I started writing the first draft of this book against the backdrop of the devastating Black Summer bushfires, the worst bushfire season on record. Thirty-four people died, thousands of homes were destroyed, more than a billion animals were killed and over 12 million hectares of Australian bush and rainforest was burnt. In a word, it was catastrophic.
But even as the fires raged on, Australians mobilised to help in whatever way they could. Donations of food, clothes and bedding rolled into centres around the country, hundreds of millions of dollars were raised for volunteer firefighters who battled the fires for months on end, millions more were raised for the families and businesses that were directly affected. Comedian Celeste Barber rallied her fan base on Facebook and Instagram to raise more than $50 million – much of it from people who don't even live in Australia.
It was astounding and affirming and unifying to see such an outpouring of generosity in the face of such awe-inspiring devastation, and equally as affirming to see the global community come together in such incredible ways.
Perhaps the use of the word awe struck you as a little off in that last sentence. So much of what we think of when we discuss awe is positive or beautiful, and pairing awe with destruction and devastation can feel a little jarring.
But according to Professor Dacher Keltner, there are actually five different "flavours' of awe: beauty, achievement, virtue, the supernatural and, somewhat incongruently, threat.
Awe can promote both positive and negative feelings but it's interesting to note that even when the awe we feel is due to fear or threat, the benefits we experience remain the same.
How can we harness the community/nation/world-changing benefits of awe, without putting ourselves in the way of danger or journeying to the most far-flung corners of the world, in search of wondrous new experiences? What awe-inspiring things can you and I do in our everyday lives that might help us become more generous and community-minded? What can help us become humbler, more patient, less stressed and less materialistic?
Wonder
Awe has a sister and her name is wonder: she's the feeling of amazement and admiration you may encounter when experiencing something beautiful, remarkable or unfamiliar.
She's a glorious, joy filled thing, similar to awe in her capacity to shift our perspective, yet different in the way she makes us feel. While wonder often lives alongside curiosity and joy, awe can also bring us fear and respect. They're perfectly suited playmates, rounding out our experience of the world.
We often look for them only in the grandest of grand sites but wonder and awe can be found everywhere – including the small, ignored places and the experiences we take for granted.
So, keeping that in mind, and before we go off searching for these sisters at the Seven Wonders of the World, I want to start our awe experiment in the most familiar, most ignored and most taken-for-granted places – our own miraculous bodies.
If we're able to find moments and experiences of awe in our beautiful skin suits and all that happens inside them, we will never be without a reason for wonder. Even on the grimmest of days, the longest, loneliest of nights, you will have wonder and beauty and awe inside you – literally.
Your body
Your body is, without meaning to sound clichéd, an absolute miracle.
Did you know the average human body is made of approximately 37 trillion cells? To put that number into perspective, if you could count ten of those cells every second it would take you tens of thousands of years to finish counting them.
Then consider that the vast majority of those 37 trillion cells cooperate with each other for decades, collectively creating a single, conscious, intelligent organism. This single, conscious, intelligent organism is capable of love and compassion and laughter and optimism and art. Organisms just like us have travelled to space, invented solar panels, painted masterpieces, written life-altering books and led movements that changed the world.
What's more, every human – no matter our heritage, circumstance, strengths, weaknesses and achievements – is made of the same kinds of cells, doing the same jobs. Everyone has stem cells, muscle cells and bone cells. We are all, genetically speaking at least, more than 99.9 per cent identical.
Just think about that for a minute. Picture someone you love or admire and then consider the fact that you are 99.9 per cent genetically identical to them. How does that make you feel? It's quite an intimate feeling, isn't it?
Now, think about a random city in a country you've never visited before. Conjure a simple image of someone who lives there – a stranger you will never meet, whose life looks very different from yours, whose concerns and joys are not the same, who, from the outside at least, has very little in common with you. Now consider that you are also 99.9 per cent genetically identical to each other. For that matter, you and I are 99.9 per cent genetically identical.
Any time I consider this, I feel closer to people and am reminded that we're all human, we all inhabit the same planet. We're all a wild combination of trillions of cells and a soul, just moving through space and time, reacting to situations and making choices.
How does that idea make you feel? Connected? Overwhelmed? Fearful? If so, that, right there, is awe.
Now, take a moment to consider your breath. The constancy of it. Think about how it's the soundtrack of our lives, always with us. Mostly ignored, so familiar as to disappear from our awareness altogether, the very epitome of being taken for granted.
Now consider that as an average adult at rest you will breathe approximately sixteen times per minute, which means you'll take around 960 breaths every hour, 23,040 a day, or 8,409,600 each year. If you live to be 80 years old, you will take approximately 672,768,000 breaths over your lifetime.
In and out. Every day. Sleeping or awake. Delighted or morose. Healthy or unwell.
This simple act of breathing invokes both awe and fear when you think about how utterly vital and complex it is, and how little we pay attention to it.
When you draw a breath in through your mouth, the air is pulled down your trachea, where it funnels into two tubes called bronchi. One of these leads to the left lung, the other to the right. These bronchi then divide into successively smaller and smaller tubes, like the branches of a tree, getting finer as they reach down into your lungs. The smallest of these tubes are called bronchioles and are as thin as a single strand of hair. Each of your lungs has around 30,000 bronchioles, at the end of which you'll find tiny air sacs called alveoli. You have about 600 million alveoli in your lungs, each of which has incredibly thin cell walls (approximately 0.0001 centimetres) that allow the oxygen you breathe in to pass directly to your red blood cells and keep your body fuelled so it can continue to function.
This process happens every time you inhale. This process then reverses (CO2 – alveoli – bronchiole – bronchi – trachea – mouth) as you exhale. Sixteen times per minute. 23,000 times a day. More than 8 million times a year.
Take some time now to draw a deep breath down into your lungs and picture this process unfolding as you do so. Feel your chest expand and your belly push out as you picture the air going down your throat, all the way through your bronchi and bronchioles, until it reaches the alveoli and the oxygen hits your bloodstream. Then, as your chest drops and you exhale, picture the CO2, travelling back through the same pathways. Ridding your body of carbon dioxide as you breathe out.
Now, think for a moment about your heart – another amazingly complex part of your body that works without rest. Another process we're barely aware of unless something changes or goes wrong, yet whether we pay attention or not, it's there, keeping us alive.
Your incredible heart beats approximately 80 times per minute. 4800 times an hour, 115,000 times a day, 42 million times a year, or more than 3 billion times over the course of an average lifetime.
Next time you're lying with someone you love (it might be a person or animal, or even your own beautiful self), place your hand over their heart and lie still. Quietly bring your attention to the beating of their heart under your hand. Focus on the persistence and rhythm of this powerful marker of life, love, existence and a shared moment in time. Consider how grateful you are to that muscle, for pumping blood around their body, for keeping them alive, for allowing you to share space with them, to share love with them. It's a pretty incredible experience.
All of our bodies do these things. Some better than others, some for longer than others, but we all breathe, we all have heartbeats, we all rely on the same processes from the same 37 trillion cells, and we're all in the messiness and miracle of life together.
The reason I'm so enamoured with the quantifiable – the number of breaths and the frequency of heartbeats – is that putting a figure on them makes something that feels infinite seem precious.
If our breath and heartbeat offer a benefit other than keeping us alive, it's the reminder that every one of them counts. That my life and all the beauty and wonder and awe it brings me is not infinite. It will end one day. Every breath matters, every moment is important. Every pain and joy will pass.
If you take on board no other experiments from this chapter, I'd encourage you to spend one minute every day just thinking about the incredible creation that is your body. Set a reminder in your calendar every day for a week or do it every time you make a cup of tea. Notice how your perception changes and whether thinking about your body leads to a heightened awareness of the tiny, awe-inducing parts of your everyday life.
Child-like wonder
Think back to when you were a child, when joy and discovery and wonder were your reality rather than a bittersweet nostalgia. What do you remember?
I remember spending hours looking through the wrong end of binoculars, studying the up-close structure of everyday things: how the denim of my jeans looked like the indigo peaks and valleys of an alien planet; how a sprinkling of sand in my palm became a field of boulders and how the bark of trees became canyons and peaks.
These experiences of wonder are not lost to you as an adult. Using a basic schoolkids' microscope or by inverting a pair of binoculars, you can study a spoonful of soil from the garden or take a closer look at what sludgy creatures exist in the birdbath water.
You can also think like a child and unlock the awe and wonder of the world by simply asking questions and then being curious enough to search out the answers.
Why do bees make a buzzing sound?
How does a seed know when to grow?
What makes laughter contagious?
Where do our memories live?
Why is the sky blue?
None of this is about reverting to childish behaviours, dragging your feet or asking “Why?” so often that you drive your friends to distraction. It's about reclaiming wonder, finding awe in the tiniest of moments and choosing to take time in which to do it.
When you find yourself in the company of an inquisitive child, instead of viewing their constant questioning as an inconvenience, accept the invitation to join them in their wonder.
In our busy lives, what we stand to gain when we slow down and look a little closer, even for a few seconds, is worth the time it takes.
Tiny and vast
Consider now, for just a minute, the tiniest of tiny wonders that surround us. Those we can't even see. The molecules in a drop of water, the number of atoms in a breath of air, the unseen forces that help a seed to germinate.
Not only does nature not need to be big to be awe-inspiring, it doesn't even need to be visible.
Imagine a drop of water in the palm of your hand. Think of how insignificant it is, how you would wipe it on the leg of your pants without a second thought. Scientists estimate that this standard, everyday drop contains more than 1.5 sextillion molecules.
You might be surprised to learn that a sextillion is, in fact, a real number (I know I was) and that it is the equivalent of a billion trillions. If you start with a one and follow it with twenty-one zeroes, you have a sextillion.
To give some context to just how big a number that is, it would take Earth's current population of 7.5 billion people more than 28,000 years to collectively speak a sextillion words, and given that our population is the largest it ever has been, more than doubling in the last fifty years, it's safe to say that the entirety of the human race has not yet uttered its sextillionth word.
Put another way, if you stacked a sextillion people in a tower, one on top of the next, it would be 180,000 light years tall (taller than the diameter of our entire Milky Way galaxy). And yet, there are 1.5 sextillion molecules in a single drop of water, just resting in the palm of your hand.
Have you ever wondered which there is more of – grains of sand on all the beaches in the world, or stars in the universe?
A study run by the University of Hawaii set out to answer the first part of the question by calculating how many grains of sand are on all of Earth's beaches. Turns out there's a lot. Like, a mind-bending amount. Seven quintillion, five quadrillion grains of sand. That's a 75 followed by 17 zeroes. Also a lot is the number of stars in our Milky Way galaxy, which NASA estimates at around 100 billion.
If we then assume that the 10 billion other galaxies in the observable universe also have approximately 100 billion stars each, that means there are roughly a sextillion (one billion trillion) stars in the observable universe. Again, that's a one with twenty-one zeroes – a number much, much larger than the total number of grains of sand on Earth.
Next time you're on a beach, try to fathom this vastness. It's challenging to contemplate, particularly when you return to the drop of water we began with, with its 1.5 sextillion molecules.
When I realise that I can hold more molecules in my hand than there are stars in the universe, it strikes me that vastness can be seen up close just as much as it can be seen from far away, a fact I find simultaneously awe-inspiring and, quite frankly, terrifying.
It's the same feeling I get when I lie on the ground at night, watching the stars gradually make their way across the sky, the occasional shooting star crossing the dome of deepest blue. When I allow my mind to open up to the enormity and brain-twisting vastness of the infinite universe and our tiny, infinitesimal presence – only for a half second, as though I know any longer will expose me to ideas and truths that will melt my mind. When my head swims with the marvel and terror of it all, aware for a brief moment, as my stomach loops and drops and I find myself clinging to the ground in the half-formed fear that letting go would see me float up into the heavens, untethered.
That's awe.
If, like me, you find these thoughts overwhelming or even outright scary, it might help to keep this in mind: one very important distinction between awe and other related emotions such as inspiration or surprise is that it has the tendency to make us feel small. While our human egos may struggle with that, this is actually where the power of awe lies: it forces us to look beyond our own problems, our own part of the world and the events that impact us directly. Awe makes us see ourselves as a small piece of something much, much larger.
This self-diminishment makes us feel humbled, which in turn means that we are less likely to demonstrate selfish tendencies such as entitlement, arrogance and narcissism. Feeling humbled and connected also makes us want to reach out and engage with others – all of which, as we know, is important for our own wellbeing and the wellbeing of our families, friendship groups, neighbourhoods, communities, cities and countries.
10 ways to practise awe if you have…
Half a minute
Before you take a bite of your apple, take a moment to wonder where it came from, how long it took to grow, how it got from farm to supermarket to your hand
Place your fingers over the strongest pulse in your body and sit quietly as you pay attention to it
Pause outside for a moment one night and look up at the stars
Half an hour
Create an awe playlist full of music that inspires you or fills you with wonder
Grab a magnifying glass and spend time looking at things close-up – paper, grass, water, rocks
Lie next to someone you love and place your hand on their chest, feeling the beat of their heart
Visit a local cemetery and spend time thinking about the people buried there
Half a day or more
Visit a museum or gallery and marvel at the brainwork of others
Watch a documentary about a person, place or feat that inspires you
Go for a hike and instead of listening to music or a podcast, focus on the sensations of filling and emptying your lungs with every breath
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