WAWSOME: Why we need daily awe and wonder

In this episode, Victoria discusses the concept of awe and its effects on our well-being with writer Rumi Tsuchihashi. Together, they explore the way awe provides an essential human experience of being in the presence of something vast that transcends our understanding of the world. Rumi shares a simple practice for cultivating awe, by noticing and photographing something awe-inspiring for seven days, as a way to cultivate awe in everyday life. She shares some of her writing, which  emphasizes the importance of being open to new experiences and finding beauty in the small moments. Rumi also brings insights from the way her grandparents experienced daily awe and wonder, as well as the benefits of vocalizing and sharing these experiences with others. The two encourage listeners to seek out awe in their own lives and to embrace the beauty and wonder that surrounds them.

Thank you to Rumi Tsuchihashi at rumitsuchihashi.com.  Visit her website or find the beautiful writing you here in this episode on Amazon.com. 

And thank you to Aldar Kedem for the tunes...Ocean in Motion.

You can find The Naked Librarian's Guide to Your First Colonoscopy here. Thank you to our sponsor Mission Flow — marketing and automation for businesses on a mission. 

Read the transcript below:

Speaker 1 (00:00:00):

Have you ever wondered why you feel compelled to say words like Wow or awesome? Turns out these everyday words help us describe big, emotional and sensory experiences known as wonder and awe. Now, science is just now starting to really understand the effects of awe on our wellbeing, and there's a lot to learn. If you want more peace and calm, even happiness in your life, this conversation is meant for you.

(00:00:36):

There's so many things you can do for your health and wellbeing, yoga, walking, meditation, stretching, running, gardening, strength training, buying organic, a beach vacation. But what if I told you there's a simple practice that helps you feel more present and alive, more connected to the world, and all living things decreases. Stress increases happiness and fills you with the kind of love that brings you to happy tears. And you can do it anytime and any place, whether you're alone or with someone else, it's 100% free. And maybe the very best part requires no conscious effort. In fact, all you have to do is show up. What is this amazing, miraculous, wonderful thing I'm talking about? Sometimes we call it awe, and sometimes we call it wonder. The two experiences seem to exist on a continuum and understanding awe and its effects on our wellbeing is something science is just now starting to understand.

(00:01:32):

In Brene Brown's fabulous Atlas of the Heart and encyclopedia of emotions and experiences she uses researchers, oic, Weiner, and Johannes Wagman's helpful explanation of the difference between awe and wonder. Wonder inspires the wish to understand and awe inspires the wish to let shine, to acknowledge, and to unite. Hi, I'm Victoria Payne, a health and happiness nerd, and the creator and your host of the Naked Librarian. If you're new here, welcome. I am so glad you're here. You've picked a fantastic episode for your first naked librarian experience. In this episode, I'm going to bring in another definition of awe according to Docker Kelner, a psychologist and awe researcher, you're going to hear it again later in the episode, and that's intentional. This is one of those definitions that's worth writing down. Kelner says, awe is the feeling of being in the presence of something vast that transcends your understanding of the world.

(00:02:31):

And one of the coolest things about awe is according to keltner, awe can also come in the form of perceived vastness. Let that sink in. This is something we're going to be talking about and exploring in this episode. Now, here's some facts to know about awe. It calms your nervous system by activating your vagus nerve. It does to your brain something very similar to prayer, meditation, and pilgrimage. It deactivates, what's your default network, which is the place we do a lot of our overthinking, negative thoughts and old stories. It helps us understand our place and our connection to the world. Time in nature, movement, meditation even. And this is going to be a whole other episode, psychedelics in courage. Awe, some people are more wired to experience awe, which psychologists believe is a trait because they're more curious and comfortable with the unknown and with what language cannot describe.

(00:03:28):

But, and this is fabulous news, you can cultivate more on your life by being open to new experiences. And as you'll see in this episode, I believe that writing about our lives helps us experience more wonder and awe because we get to do a double take. We get to conjure up a forgotten moment and ask it to show us why we've remembered it after all these years. In other words, we get to look at our own lives with awe. That's why to better understand awe and how we can cultivate more of it in our lives. I've invited the beautiful writer, Rumi Su chichi, onto the podcast. Rumi's Work showcases the wonder and awe and the ordinary. And her books of tiny essays revealed the magic inside of the little memories and experiences, sometimes known only to us. Rumi is the author of, I Want to Remember This, recognizing Tiny Moments that Make Up a Life.

(00:04:21):

And I want this for you, mothering What Matters most. She's also the author of Where our Palms Touch and essay that was featured in the modern lump column of the New York Times. I know no better way to talk about awe than to talk to a writer who by birth or by practice captures life in the style of a written photograph. So come with me on this delightful journey and discover why Rumi and I think wa the combination of awe and wonder, just maybe the word of 2024, learn how awe invites us to make experiences. Our teachers in contrast to books or thoughts, hear the story of my own awe experience, which included more than jaw drops and flowing tears. But one more surprising and slightly embarrassing sensation. Learn rumi's, simple practice for exiting gloom and experiencing more awe in just seven days. Think of it as mental weight loss. If you want more peace, calm, joy, wonder, nature, goodness, connection, smiles, energy, reverence and magic in your life. Come a little closer, I've got just the conversation for you.

(00:05:39):

I am so excited for our conversation today. I've been thinking about this topic for weeks and because I am also really nerdy, I spent the last week specifically reading more about the science of awe and wonder, and I feel like, I don't know, maybe it's age and stage of life, but right now, this is something that I have have my awe glasses on and I'm paying more attention to it. So welcome to the conversation today. I feel like your work specifically peaks at the bits of awe and wonder and our everyday lives. And I'm really curious, is that something that's always been a part of how you've seen the world or did you surprise yourself in terms of what you ended up writing about?

Speaker 2 (00:06:54):

That's a good question. So the short answer is yes, but I didn't know it. I didn't know. I was looking at the world through the lens of awe and wonder seeking until I read Mary Oliver quote from her poem. Sometimes that goes, instructions for living a life, pay attention, be astonished, tell about it. As soon as I read that my life made sense that, oh, this is what I've been trying to do, didn't all the struggle of what am I supposed to be doing with my life and what is my purpose? And not that I've answered those questions all the way yet, but see reading that like, oh, this is what I've been doing. I've been paying attention, I've been astonished, and I've been trying to tell about it in a world that maybe loves the word wow, but also trivializes it after a while, there's a, okay, now let's get back to work.

Speaker 1 (00:08:13):

I can relate to that. I feel like I'm definitely guilty. I think earlier you said something accidentally, but I think we might need to make it something. I think you said wa

Speaker 2 (00:08:24):

Wa I know.

Speaker 1 (00:08:27):

And I thought, oh my gosh, that's amazing. Rumi, we could start a campaign. There could be T-shirts. More wa,

Speaker 2 (00:08:41):

More wa. I have never said that, and I think maybe that's what I've been trying to say all my life. Mor,

Speaker 1 (00:08:51):

I'm with you, Mor bring the, I can just imagine all kinds of great slogans that could be created. I think it's really cool how you connected hearing this has happened to me before too. You hear someone's words, in this case, wonderful Mary Oliver, and you realize, oh, that's it. And it helped you make sense of your life. And I think that's something that's really cool about awe in general is that sometimes instead of helping you make sense of your life, it just blows the doors off and makes you go, okay, not everything's going to make sense. So my job is to marvel and to see it. And I think something that I've been coming back to more is the feeling of I don't want to miss it. I don't want to miss my life because I am going, wow, okay, back to work. And I think that's one of the beautiful things about writing, and it's really great to talk to a writer about this because I feel like this is one of the luxuries that we get as writers is we see something and then we get to recreate it if we really photograph it in language.

(00:10:35):

And I think of your work that way, and you have these written photographs, sometimes these images that we get to see. And I wanted, before we get too far along, I found a definition of awe from Docker Kelner, and he is a psychologist at University of California Berkeley. You and I were talking about him before we started, and he's done so much research on awe. He has a book, awe, the New Science of Everyday Wonder and how it Can Transform Your Life. And I was just really drawn to the definition that he gives. He defines awe as the feeling of being in the presence of something vast that transcends your understanding of the world. And then he says, there's also this other thing which is perceived vastness. So there's the Grand Canyon, and then there's the thing your 2-year-old says, which is something you beautifully document mothering, and I want this for you. And I think that maybe it's one of the things that I've drawn to as a writer. When I was a little girl, my first experience was writing was poetry. I didn't really know I was writing poetry, I was just writing down things that I saw and experienced. But I think when you use your poet mind, I think everyone has one. It's the perceived vastness a lot of times that we're trying to get down in words, and it doesn't have to be a waterfall or something giant. It can be these little moments.

Speaker 2 (00:12:37):

Yes. Yeah, I didn't know I was writing poetry either. I didn't save very much of it, but the first time I saw my writing in print was for an elementary school newsletter and a poem that I'd written showed up on the front page. Maybe I knew it was going to come or it wasn't, but it was a Christmas poem and I grew up in a family where we celebrated Christmas ish, meaning it wasn't part of our family tradition or my parents moved to the states from Japan where there wasn't a family Christmas tradition. So we did the decorating, we kind of adopted it, but it was not really integrated into my culture, and I was so curious about what Christmas was and what it meant. And I yearned to feel the way Christmas looked on the outside when I looked at other families that I think I developed this eagle eye vision of taking in all the bits and how people interact and where they talk about it.

(00:14:00):

And then that translated into a poem that probably because I was so deeply attached to capturing the essence of it, and I was in awe of the way Christmas seemed to make people feel, and that turned into a poem. But I think it's that kind of yearning, looking at the definition of awe, of the vastness, the desire to be connected to something larger. I think I wrote that poem when I was about eight, and I think developmentally that's about the time when you are starting to move into a more organized grownup. There's expectations of you world and away from the sheer immersed and wonder early childhood. So that's an interesting demarcation.

Speaker 1 (00:15:04):

Yeah, I'm thinking a little bit about what I was like at eight or nine. That's probably also my entry into poetry. I think it's so beautiful the way you described wanting to feel connected to Christmas in a way that you could look around and see through the way the glitters and the lights and the candles, and you could tell there was something emotional to it that you wanted too. Hey, it's Victoria here and I've got a message for all the business owners out there. Does your business or organization have an important mission? Then you need to know about mission flow? Mission flow is an all-in-one sales and marketing platform for purpose-driven businesses. The mission flow platform is specifically designed to empower thought leaders, social entrepreneurs, local and family owned businesses and nonprofits to do more good with comprehensive marketing tools from web building to scheduling to email and SMS automation and the best part, mission flow. Clients get more than tools. They get access to an award-winning marketing strategist, professional copywriter, and amazing customer support team. If you're looking for a better way to market your mission and grow your business, visit get mission flow.com.

(00:16:29):

I think this almost two sides of the coin related to Oz really interesting because the perceived vastness makes it really accessible. You don't have to take a road trip to see all the wonders of the world or a flight, I suppose the wonders of the US by car, but I recently did see one of the great wonders of the world. I had never really put this on a bucket list. It was just really a coincidence that my husband had a consulting trip to Niagara Falls, New York, and it was in the winter. Wasn't necessarily really a great time to travel there, but of course I thought, well, this is, when else am I going to see this? I'm probably not going to plan a trip just to see Niagara Falls. My main experience with Niagara Falls was cartoons. I don't know if you remember the cartoons where someone would be in a wine barrel and they'd go over the side or maybe some old movie where somebody did that.

(00:17:41):

And so I didn't have a lot of expectation, but the strangest thing happened when I saw the falls, I started to cry. I was really overwhelmed by it. It was so, so beautiful. I don't even think as much as I love words, I could get it into words. I cried and then this is so strange and my husband's going to die that I am admitting this. I got really turned on from my head to my toe, felt like I could just, we could have gone. We could have left the fall as beautiful as they were. I'm like, where can we go and take care of this because, so I had all of these multiple sensations happening where I'm seeing with my eyes this beautiful thing. Tears are coming, I'm crying. I can't really talk. I'm sort of speechless, and then I am really horny.

(00:18:55):

It was just this multi-sensory thing that happened. I don't really get it, but I'm just here to testify that sometimes your awe experience can be really big. And by the way, if anyone has not seen Niagara Falls, you really should. Before I would've said, maybe I'll see that in my lifetime, maybe I won't. Now that I have seen it, I feel like everyone should plan a trip and go because it's really, it's hard for your mind to even get it because the waterfall appears to be at street level. And so here's a street and then there's this multiple falls too. I didn't expect that, that there's, it's not just one Niagara Falls. There's multiple falls. So I don't know what you're going to do with that story, Rumi, but I turn it over to you. Oh

Speaker 2 (00:19:57):

My gosh, I don't think that's being turned on as weird at all. I forget in what language the word orgasm is little death. I'd be Italian. That sounds about right, but I did not research that ahead of time, so we'll have to fact check it. But I do know that Orgasm and Little Death

Speaker 1 (00:20:25):

Quick edition here, so I looked it up and it's actually French and it's called Petite More, and it refers to a brief loss of weakening of consciousness and refers to the post orgasmic experience where one has a quote, little death. If you think of experiences as teachers, it makes sense that an orgasm would appear on the awe menu.

Speaker 2 (00:20:46):

When I think about that, it's surrendering the limitations of our body or sense of self that I begin here and end here to something so much bigger and that it's a kind of death. It asks us to give something over to be held in a bigger experience. I was talking to a friend about the experience of, well, we're going to take it from Niagara Falls to a piece of chocolate, but an incredibly delicious truffle, something rich and delicious. And she was telling me that even while she is enjoying the chocolate, she was resisting savoring it. And I said, well, yeah, to savor is to acknowledge that this too will end. You have to give yourself over to this experience that the boundaries of Eunice, you're dissolving into this experience and also consenting to knowing that it's a finite experience.

Speaker 1 (00:22:08):

And maybe that's the magic of the awe experience is that we can have this over and over again in life. We can, especially when we begin to really notice. And one of the things that I really love about life is giving language to experiences that maybe you've had and you've never thought to call it awe or to consider it as wonder. And so in thinking about these experiences of wonder, one of the things that you write about in both of your tiny essay collections, which I adore, is your experience as both a child and as a mom. And we get kind of both sides of that. I know that one of your essays was published in the New York Times series, modern Love, and I wanted to give our listeners a little taste of your writing. Could you read that for us?

Speaker 2 (00:23:27):

I'd be happy to. The editor at the New York Times gave the title where our Palms Touch, so here it is, 4-year-old Me doesn't want to stand besides Sat. Sat at this busy intersection in Victoria, British Columbia ever since my parents moved us from Tokyo. This grandpa my favorite OG Cian seems different. So I scooch away bit by bit, but then my right foot falls into the crosswalk. I come perilously close to oncoming traffic. Ian's hand quickly envelops mine. He doesn't yank yell or even gasp, he just holds on safe. Again. I look up Ian returns a soft gaze through his black broom glasses and soon a liquid tingle love. As I now know, it springs from where our palms touch.

Speaker 1 (00:24:31):

Oh wow. Oh, I'm doing it. I'm going to go with wa. I hear it in this piece. Something that I really appreciate about your work, which is this almost discarded moment in our life. No one's going to stand up and give a toast about it or it probably won't get included in your book jacket, and yet you give it meaning and life both in the memory and in the telling. What inspired this piece?

Speaker 2 (00:25:20):

That's such a good question. The first time I wrote about it, I think it was in response to an early memory or your earliest memory. And this is one that sprang from one I clearly recall. Even though it was so small and it wasn't eventful, no one else will recall this even if my grandpa were still alive. I doubt he'd remember this either. So it's something that lives just with me. I and what inspired it may have been years later when I was a mom and raising little kids toddlers and living inside the monotony that is parenting a toddler, the constant wiping of noses, putting on shoes, the feeding, the schedules, the most regimented. And if I couldn't zoom in closer to see what was beautiful about this moment, it all seemed like just a mind numbing waste of at time, what am I doing? I had to create meaning or else I am not sure that I would've survived those years. And it helped me see, it forced me to see that life has not made up of the highs that our society celebrates. The vast majority of our waking hours are all these tiny things. And if I wanted my life to feel meaningful, I had to go in there. So I think that desperate need to survive a difficult time in my adult life combined with combing of my own early memories that inspired this piece,

Speaker 1 (00:27:41):

That really resonates with me as a mom who's raised little kids and now they're older. My youngest is 15, and I feel like when I'm out and I see families out with little children, I see so much beauty and wonder and delicacy in the interactions. And I know that a lot of times that parent is living out what may be a grueling day, and I see the little shoes and the jackets and I get it now why? Strangers will tell you, don't blink. You'll miss it. It's a lot easier to be the observer than the one who's experiencing it. And yet I feel like what you're saying is you're helping draw attention to, we need to notice that our lives are made up of these little moments and especially when they're hard to find the meaning in what it is that we're doing. And there's so much poetry just in that practice.

(00:29:06):

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Speaker 3 (00:30:16):

Yeah,

Speaker 2 (00:30:17):

For sure. I didn't realize how much my grandparents showed up in my writing until other people started pointing it out and also telling me that some of my grandparents stories were their favorites. And after someone said that to me, I sat back and wondered why is that? And around age nine 10, our family, we'd been living in the states, so my parents and my two siblings, we moved back to Japan and moved in with my grandparents. So shortly after that Christmas poem, I was in Japan and spending time with my grandparents whose lives were coming towards the end was a slow ending. I noticed such a difference in quality between what they seemed to pay attention to, what my parents are paying attention to. They're both adults, but what they're focused on was different. And in hindsight, it was almost like as I was growing into this being a more adult self, my grandparents were finally at a stage where they could reclaim the beauty in the small things.

(00:31:42):

And so my memories with them, and also because they don't leave the house very much, was all very focused on the little things. The way my grandmother carefully peeled the closest thing in the states would be a pomelo, so a winter orange and how carefully she'd peel it and also peel the little ribs off of the flesh of the fruit, spend 15, 20 minutes getting it all pristine before she ate it. And I did not understand why she would take so much time, but it was a whole ritual. It was a reverence for the fruit and the joy of biting into it. And the minute that the citrus oil releases in the air was all really big deal to her. And it was interesting to watch as I was leaving the phase where I lived in that world, watching them sort of as their lives got a little smaller, expand into that awareness. So being a writer who's trying to capture these little moments, I think it keeps coming back to that because that was with my grandparents is where I first started. Noticing that kind of everyday awe, like oh, an orange, the way the oils fly in the air and that you can smell that on your fingers, all that stuff that seems little, but if you can't feel that, how else are you going to feel raw in your life?

Speaker 1 (00:33:21):

Yeah. Well, and I think, again, you're just really helping me think about how accessible is, and we know that there's so many health benefits. We're a culture who loves health hacks. I do. Well, I think some people don't care about them, but people like me love things like health hacks. But I feel like this is a wellbeing practice. The next time I peel an orange, I'm going to think about this. I am a weird citrus eater where I like all the piss. And when I was a little girl, my grandmother, I asked her if I could eat a grapefruit. I loved citrus fruit. This particular grandmother, I don't think she really knew this about me. And she was very cautious around wastefulness. And she said, well, are you going to eat the whole thing? And I said, yeah, yes, I will. And so she cut it for me and the way that you can eat it with a spoon, and she sliced it up and I ate all the good parts and then I ripped out the inner parts. And so when I was done, there was only the white and the skin. And my grandmother felt so bad because she thought she had shamed me into eating all of the grapefruit because of what she told me. She didn't know that that's what I liked. I liked, and I am still like that when I order a cocktail, I eat the citrus that's inside at the end. My husband has told me it's a little antisocial and adorable.

(00:35:20):

But yeah, it's these, and you just reminded me of that story. That's a story that I know that kind of lives in my mind. I think grandparents are a wonderful treasure trove of stories if you were fortunate to have them. I didn't really have grandfathers. I had a very sickly grandfather and then a grandfather that had passed away before I was born. And so I only had the grandmother experience and they both were characters, both in their own ways, but I feel like I always want people to be writers. So I feel like if someone was looking for ways to access meaning in their lives peek at your grandparents because in your experiences with them, because as a child they undoubtedly did things that were different than your parents that made you go, wait, what? What's happening around here? My very sickly grandfather, for example, he had had a trache me before I was born.

(00:36:35):

So he had a hole in where his throat was and he wore a handkerchief. And when he talked to you, he had to use a little vibration machine that he would put on his throat. And so he talked like a robot. And it made him really scary to me as a kid. I kind of didn't want, we called him Daddy Rab. I didn't really want Daddy Rab to talk to me or need anything from me. And it was kind of fine that he wasn't interested in grandkids, but as a small child, you couldn't not stare or just watch that happen because it was your own world of wonder. I didn't need to go to the fair. My grandfather could really open my eyes to something unique and entertaining.

(00:37:32):

So I feel like grandparents are this treasure trove and also some of what we've been talking about the natural world. And I know that you have a lot of experiences that your work has taken you to nature places. I know that you work with the Japanese gardens in Seattle, and when I was reading, I want to remember this, I encountered, I don't like saying I have a favorite of yours, Rumi, because I don't know if you can see, but I have a bunch of little dogeared marks in your book. But I did find one that just left me just with a smile, but also wonder. And that one is called What's Your Secret? And if you have it, I'd love you to read us that one too.

Speaker 2 (00:38:28):

I'd be glad to. What's your secret? That morning, the last of the golden ginkgo leaves were falling, leaving the branches bare. The air was still and the pond a crystalline mirror of the blue sky and the frosted pine needles hovering above it. Why is the garden so beautiful this time of year? I said, not really expecting an answer from the person beside me, he a seven foot tall, red-haired, former Buddhist monk and a regular Seattle Japanese garden visitor bent down to answer me. It's because the most exquisite beauty lives in close proximity to death. He said he continued talking after pausing to study my scrunched up forehead.

(00:39:20):

And if you can inhabit that same space, people will be drawn to you without knowing why. They'll ask you over and over again, what's your secret? Is there a backstory to this one? So somewhat so yes, the red hair Buddhist monk is a real person. One day he appeared and he came all the time. And then I didn't see him after a while, so he is a bit of an enigma. But yes, he studied. Buddhism was a monk in Japan and for some reason was living temporarily in Seattle. And so he was a very noticeable figure just by appearance. He was so tall and so thin and had such bright red hair.

(00:40:17):

So in November in Seattle, the Japanese garden there, I was working there at the time, and November is not a very popular month. Everyone descends on the garden to see the fall color. It's hundreds and hundreds of people a day going through the space, taking pictures, admiring the red and the gold of all the leaves. But then once it's all gone in November, it gets really, really quiet. So I was that one morning the fog was lifting off of the pond and the pond itself is not, it's kind of green most of the time if the water isn't moving, but sometimes when it's still, it is the perfect, perfect mirror, like I said in there. And it was otherworldly. And also it was a strange feeling of this is so beautiful and yet there's nobody here. And it did make me wonder, what is it that makes everyone decide that what's beautiful is to come see the fall color?

(00:41:26):

And there's no doubt it is beautiful. But then when the popular season goes away, there's this whole other beauty of sparseness that comes up that's in my opinion, even more sublime. But then there wasn't anybody there to witness it except me and the tall monk. And I did not expect an answer. I was so stunned by how incredibly beautiful it was that I just blurted it out. And also when he said, oh, it's the proximity to death, I actually, I had an office on the other side of the garden at the time, and I was so stunned by his answer that I ran back to my office and wrote the gist of this story down before I forgot it because I didn't think I would remember the details later. But for years I have thought about what is it about the proximity to death that s possible? And so we touched on this earlier, it's that dissolving of self to be held in something larger. It's something we yearn for, but we have to consent to give something of ourselves over. We have to consent to understanding of our bodies in this moment as a finite ephemeral. But something about just saying okay to that makes you feel so alive that maybe you're turned on, if that makes sense.

Speaker 1 (00:43:18):

Yeah, right. And maybe it doesn't have to make sense. Maybe it's just a physical reaction and a reminder that yeah, I am alive and there is life in me. If you're drawn to Rumi's work like I am, I just wanted to jump in here real fast and tell you how to find her books first. She may already be in your favorite bookstore, so check there or even ask them to order. You can certainly find her collections on Amazon. And let me say they make a wonderful and original gift. I'll add some links to the show notes. So if you're driving or walking like I do when I listen to podcasts, just keep doing your thing and check the notes later.

(00:44:03):

I feel a little envious of your job that you had when you were at the Japanese guard and the proximity that you had to these beautiful settings. And you live in Seattle. I live in Portland. The rest of the world probably should be envious of the beauty that we have in very close proximity to us. I think it's a big reason why people live in the now, don't feel too envious because we also have to go through some of the harder seasons that we are currently in. But I know not everyone lives somewhere, right? Someone might be in a very urban setting and outside their window is concrete, or they might live in a giant skyscraper and all they really have is sky and whatever green or plants they might encounter inside. And I think about that often. When I think about some of the wellness remedies that I use to help me feel better from the inside out, a lot of it does have to do with going outside or in the wintertime I've been focused on trying to grow herbs.

(00:45:26):

I have 'em in my office window. I'm mediocre at it, but I am trying, I have baby chicks in my bathroom right now. I'm trying everything. You probably shouldn't necessarily do what I do, but I am attracted to those kind of reminders because I think that I'm a lot like the wow culture in many ways where I can get really busy, something can be amazing, and we don't have a lot of time or we don't give ourselves a lot of time to really pause. I love that in your story, you have this conversation and you run back to your office because that feeling of, I'm not sure this'll be there later if I try to go back and really touch this. So I feel like one of the things I'd like to help people think about today is ways in which they can cultivate awe in the ordinary perceived vastness way that we started with. What are some of the practices that you have or that you recommend?

Speaker 2 (00:46:40):

One of my practices is a seven day challenge. It was a self-imposed challenge. And I write about this in my first book. I want to remember this. So the idea is to give yourself a reason to pay attention to maybe something you've overlooked. And so for seven days, I have some friends that I regularly send text messages to, but I tell 'em, okay, I'm starting a seven day sentence. And usually this happens when I feel like I'm stuck in a rut. I can't get out of feeling gloomy, and I make a point of noticing something worth photographing. And it's not Instagram worthy, just something that wanted to be remembered. And then if there's a caption to go with, I'll write a caption and then for seven days I send this to my friend. So it doesn't go on social media necessarily. This is just my own practice of waking up and there'd be days when I'd forget, and I'm running around at 11:58 PM looking for anything.

(00:48:09):

And there's one night I did it when the house I lived in at the time, it had the steps up to the house, there was the skeleton of a leaf stuck to it and a heart shape. And I took a picture of it and one of my friends was so moved by seeing that, that he asked me to send him a higher res version of the picture so he could have it on his office wall to remember that if you look in the most unexpected ways, the beauty of life will be there. So this is not even a green leaf outside, it's the ribs of a leaf stuck to the concrete. And so that's what I've done. And sometimes even in an urban sitting, a random bird would be perched on a wire or on the edge of someone's roof. Birds are in urban setting. So that's something I notice when I'm in places where there's not a lot of nature. It can also be the twinkle in somebody's eye that you passed and you wouldn't necessarily photograph that person, but I would remember and I would try to take a picture of the setting late or something like that. So the forcing function of making sure I notice and record and share. So this goes back to the Mary Oliver, pay attention, be astonished, tell about it. When I lose track, I may follow that quite literally for seven days and something moves.

Speaker 1 (00:50:05):

Yeah, it's a great little instruction now as I hear it. And I do think that especially when you talked about it as feeling gloomy or you've been going through something and you're just feeling like I can't seem to get my mojo back, or I am sort of done feeling gloomy, but I don't really know how to navigate that. I like how this is very simple and it can happen anywhere. I really, really love the example of the, what did you call it? The, you didn't call it the glitter in someone, the twinkle. The twinkle in someone's eyes. I think that people who smile at you that you don't know, I try to be that person when can, when it feels right is one of the coolest experiences. You can have that feeling of someone's warm smile. They don't really know you. They're just saying, I wish it's nice to see you out in the world. I wish you a wonderful day. It's just that exchange and it's hard not to smile back at them. And it's been a while since I've looked at the research on smiling, but it's very hard to fake a toothy grin. And so we tend to smile at people with our lips closed that we don't know. So if you're ever out and about and somebody just gives you that radiant smile, it's just a shot to the heart.

Speaker 2 (00:51:46):

It really is. That reminds me of, I was in Tokyo over the holidays, and as I was walking, I overheard two women talking. Well, one woman was doing most of the talking, but she was talking to someone that I think they were neighbors. The other woman was walking the dog and just the exuberant joy she had over the neighbor's dog, look at you. You've gotten so big. How adorable are you? And she was allowed about it and would not stop. And part of me was like, oh, I wonder if this one, it feels like being stopped for this long for her dog to be admired, but risk being that ebullient about something ordinary, your neighbor's walking a dog you haven't seen in a while, being goofy about your puppy is so cute.

Speaker 1 (00:52:57):

Yeah, it's worth putting our hearts out there. Sometimes it tends to go, well, every now and then somebody won't know what to do with it. But that's okay because it was really more about acting on your feelings. And I feel like it actually, Rumi, this reminds me of when I, do you remember when I proposed to you at the writing?

Speaker 2 (00:53:27):

Yes.

Speaker 1 (00:53:28):

Yeah. Sometimes when I am really, maybe we know that awe can be not just an experience, but also a trait. And I think I might be a little wired toward this because sometimes I just really get this feeling that I am connected to all people and then sometimes it's a particular person. And so when we were at the writing retreat in Santa Fe, I had not met you, and I don't know if you know this, but I had encountered you when you were looking for tea. I was getting coffee and you were looking for tea, and we maybe said one or two words, I think the tea's there something really profound. And then I went and I took my seat and then you were looking for a spot and you ended up sitting by me and I had already had the heart flutter when I encountered you at the tea.

(00:54:31):

I'm like, I like her. And then you came and sat by me and I was like, yay me. I am going to get to actually talk to her. And it's so cool because this was before I'd read any of your work. I didn't really know what you wrote about those kinds of things. It was just that feeling that I hope people get in life where you just know that this person you should get to know. And we did. I got to know you a little bit, but I also really felt like this is someone that could really help me with my writing. I don't know how, because at that point, we hadn't exchanged any writing, and I didn't know really if you were looking for that.

(00:55:21):

But for people listening at this writing retreat, they had this, I think it was a bubble arch. And we had already been talking and gone to lunch and we were about to walk back through the doors and underneath the bubble arch, I was like, Rumi, could you be my writing person? Can I give you some of my writing? You give me some of your writing. I don't really remember what I said, but I do feel like there was this, I don't know where it fits on the wall continuum, but I felt it. And so I think that we can, that twinkle in someone's eye, that kind of magnetic feeling that we have, it's worth being a weirdo and seeing what happens.

Speaker 2 (00:56:15):

Yes. I'm so glad you reminded me of that moment of standing under the arch and being proposed to was so talk about a heart flutter and feeling was mutual. And I think ultimately when you talked about health benefits are keeping our hearts closed as we tend to do growing up, facing disappointments, things not going our way, fear of being judged, fear of being rejected. We accumulate all these scars growing up and the only way to heal, and it's like a badly healed wound. We walk around with a bunch of badly healed wounds. And the alchemy to actually make those wounds heal properly is to open ourselves to those kinds of heart fluttering moments and give it voice. And I think it's funny, I'm really glad I accidentally said wa, because even Dacker Kaner and his research said that there's awe tends to have utterances like vocalization attached to it. And that he says that it's across the board universally that we give like, Ooh, there's a vocalization attached to the experience. So there's something very inherent in the sharing and connecting hearts, connecting our experiences coming out of our single person shells that awe spontaneously allows us to do if we let it carry us.

Speaker 1 (00:58:22):

Yes. And I feel like in our close relationships with our partners and our children and our friends, I think this vocalization has a place because I feel like often I am in awe of the love that my friends or loved ones have for me. They show to each other. I'm frequently moved when I see my children love and show up for each other. And I am married to somebody who really thrives on words of affirmation and lucky him. I love to talk and say out loud what I see and feel. And it's been a really beautiful part of our relationship because I will say, this is what I saw. This is how I felt. I think that that's this other place that awe can exist in our lives. Earlier you were talking about photographing as a way of finding something that is worthy to kind of help you get out that funk.

(00:59:39):

And it reminded me of a gratitude practice. And I feel like there's so many ways to practice gratitude, which is there's so much science and a whole other episode on that. But we don't have to always journal our gratitudes much that I love to write. We don't have to write them down, we can speak them out loud. We can just see the bird out our window and put our hand to our heart and go, ah, that's so beautiful. And the funny thing that happens is when you do, sometimes you will have more and more feelings. I've often cried at hummingbirds just how beautiful, just sweet and tender. When you allow yourself to go there and be with it, you might have your own Niagara Falls experience. And I think that's why the science is starting to show up and support this, is that we need more of this. And there is this beautiful endless supply.

Speaker 2 (01:00:47):

Yes, I feel that way about being, my children are teenagers too, two and these days, all they have to do is give a heartfelt thank you. And I am crying

Speaker 1 (01:01:06):

As a mom. I get that. I really do. Or sometimes it's, how was your day? What are you asking about me? Do you mean me? You're looking over your shoulder. Is there somebody else here? I think they mean me. And yes, it is this beautiful thing. And I also found out that my 15-year-old is a words of affirmation guy, which was stunning. We took the whole quiz and test. I was so stunned because typically you give him a compliment, okay, yeah, fine. He doesn't act on the outside. It really matters. So yes, I've started to with him when he asked me how I'm doing or how was the dinner with my friends to say back to him, I really like it when you do that for me. It's so great. Well, Rumi, I feel like we could talk on and on. I've so enjoyed our conversation. I wanted to share with my listeners how they can follow your work and stay in touch with you. Where can we find you?

Speaker 2 (01:02:24):

The easiest place to find me is on my website. You can go to hello rumi.co. That's HELL o.co. That'll take you to my website and can read the New York Times essay that I wrote on there. I also have linked to my Substack newsletter and the books that I've written and find all the information and all the things we talked about. They're on my website.

Speaker 1 (01:03:01):

Wonderful. Well, thank you so much for being here, and I am excited for my listeners to get some of your work in their hands.

Speaker 2 (01:03:14):

Thank you. It's been such a pleasure. And yes, go out and find some WA today.

Speaker 1 (01:03:22):

Find some wa. I hope you enjoyed this production of The Naked News. Everything created here is for educational and entertainment purposes and should not take the place of talking with a medical or mental health professional. And just a hunch here, I think the health community will be big fans of awe. But don't just take my word for it. Ask, see what they say. The truth is we're very new to understanding awe scientifically, but traditions from all over the world have known about its splendor for thousands of years. And if you're looking to incorporate more awe, try rumi's little experiment or take a walk among the trees or plant some seedlings and watch them grow. And if you want more wellness news delivered to your inbox and always be the first to know about a new episode of the podcast, head over to naked librarian.com and become a subscriber. In addition to the Naked Librarian Podcast, I also publish recess and monthly wellness newsletter with curated health hacks, recipes, book music recommendations, fun and more, and you get it all for free when you become a naked librarian subscriber. Thank you for tuning in today. I made this for you and cheers to living your very best life.