119. Awe Effect: 6 Tools to Ignite the Power of Awe
Spiritually Hungry
Monica Berg and Michael Berg
4.8 • 617 Ratings
🗓️ 17 January 2023
⏱️ 33 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
There are moments in life when we are struck speechless, so overwhelmed that we almost can’t process an experience. This is awe. It’s the feeling of being small in a way that also makes us feel part of
something larger. In this episode of Spiritually Hungry, Monica and Michael unpack the complexities of awe and why it’s such an important component of our spiritual practice.
“In the deepest sense, awe takes us outside of physical selves and our ego into a connection with a much greater reality.” – Michael Berg
Further Readings:
- Awe: The New Science of Everyday Wonder and How It Can Transform Your Life by Dacher Keltner
- The Awakened Brain: The New Science of Spirituality and Our Quest for an Inspired Life by Lisa Miller
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | It's sort of that paradox where by understanding how vast everything outside of us is, we begin to appreciate how vast everything that we are is. |
| 0:26.5 | Welcome to spiritually hungry. |
| 0:28.1 | How's your week on? |
| 0:28.9 | Awesome. |
| 0:30.0 | Awesome. |
| 0:35.8 | Today we're going to talk about a feeling that doesn't come up very often, yet it's one of my favorites. |
| 0:38.1 | Have you ever been struck speechless, |
| 0:43.0 | so overwhelmed that you almost couldn't process what you were saying? I love those moments. I wish, |
| 0:49.7 | I wish they happened every day. That's right. Perhaps you were in the presence of great art at the Uffizi. Step through the doors of a mighty soaring cathedral, peered down on the whole of Manhattan |
| 0:55.5 | from the top of the Empire State Building, although I'd argue some people wouldn't think that was so |
| 0:59.4 | awe-inspiring, or stood in the shade of an immense sequoia tree. It transcended everything else going on |
| 1:05.9 | in your life. You felt small in its presence, but in a way that also made you feel part of |
| 1:09.9 | something bigger. |
| 1:12.9 | That's the feeling of awe. |
| 1:16.8 | And in case you haven't figured it out yet, that is our topic for today. |
| 1:19.4 | So what is awe? |
| 1:24.9 | Or as our youngest, Abigail, last night when I was looking over my notes and thinking about what I want to talk about today, she was reading over my shoulder. |
| 1:27.0 | And she said, what is awry? I thought that was really cute. In nature and selected essays, |
| 1:34.2 | Ralph Waldo Emerson described his experience of awe like this. Standing on the bare ground, |
| 1:40.7 | my head bathed by the Blythe air and uplifted into into infinite space all mean egotism banishes i am nothing i see all the currents of the universal being circulate through me i am part or parcel of god awe transcends the moment and it transcends the self it could be inspired by the greatest of man's achievements |
| 2:01.5 | in architect, art, and philosophy and just as easily inspired by the common or the mundane. |
| 2:07.0 | Every single one of us is a baby, I bet we inspired awe in our parents and families. We did. |
... |
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