Want to Experience Greater Well-Being? Try a Little Awe
written by Beth Kurland Ph.D., posted on Psychology Today
The bird’s nest outside my door is a testament to something truly awe-inspiring. Every year, for many years, a bird laid her eggs in the carefully built nest in the lamppost above our front porch. Every year, I looked forward to watching her sit in her nest and then seeing tiny beaks finally peak out from her newly hatched eggs, eventually taking flight.
Last year, some unknown event (a bad storm or a hawk perhaps) knocked the nest to the ground, and I was devastated to see this treasure destroyed, along with the unhatched eggs. Every time I walked outside my door in this early spring and glanced up at the empty space where the nest used to be, I felt a bit of sadness.
And then it happened. Little by little, stick by stick and twig by twig, the nest started to appear again. Every day she worked, even when at first it wouldn’t hold and kept falling to the ground. Eventually, she did it—rebuilt it with some biological blueprint that had her come back to this same spot and persevere through repeated difficulties to achieve this thing nothing short of a wonder of nature.
When we think about being awestruck, we often think of something grandiose such as standing and looking out over the majestic mountains or watching a magnificent sunset at an ocean while vacationing. But daily wonders abound if we open our eyes to them, and when we notice and become mindful, we have the opportunity to transform these ordinary moments into something extraordinary.