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A New Way of Being

Nature, Awe and Ego Dissolution: Happiness Expert Dacher Keltner

A New Way of Being

Simon Mundie

Self-improvement, Spirituality, Health & Fitness, Religion & Spirituality, Education

4.8523 Ratings

🗓️ 10 March 2025

⏱️ 7 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

We tend to believe happiness is found when we accumulate money, success and status – but that’s actually wide of the mark. According to one of the pre-eminent happiness scientists in the world, real joy is found by tapping into the transformative power of Awe.


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Transcript

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0:00.0

So let's bring it back down to the earth and speak about nature.

0:04.7

Nature is almost the most obvious one, I think, in terms of finding or whether it be seeing

0:10.1

the millions of stars on a really clear night, not that you ever do in this country, but

0:14.5

many of us will have had that experience.

0:16.7

But even just being near parks and that kind of thing, now we've got a park really near

0:20.7

us. It's my wife and I's spiritual home. Now, we've got a park really near us.

0:21.0

It's my wife and I's spiritual home. It's called non-such park. So called because Henry the 8th said,

0:26.1

there is non-such park as beautiful as this. And I think he was bang on. But just nature and the power

0:31.3

of nature to evoke all, again, from the loftiest of nature experiences down to more every day.

0:40.7

Yeah, you know, terrific analysis, Simon, and you, you know, if you ask people what brings you awe, a lot of people will mention

0:48.7

the big sources of nature, right? Oh, the redwood trees in California, the Grand Canyon, the, you know, the

0:55.8

incredible lakes of the Lake District, or what have you. But what, but the, the more interesting

1:02.4

truth to where we find awe in nature is a couplefold. And one is it's, it's in every form of

1:09.8

nature. It is in gardening. You know,

1:12.2

they're great gardening traditions. It is in the walking paths of England. It is in fishing.

1:19.4

You know, it is in sitting near water. And then the science gets profoundly interesting,

1:26.1

which is it's not just the big conceptual epiphanies of nature.

1:33.2

Like, God, I didn't know a tree could live 1,500 years or be 300 feet tall or fungal networks

1:39.1

communicate through these chemicals with tree roots, which is all true.

1:42.9

And that's astounding.

1:43.9

But it is that

1:44.9

our bodies are like antennas, and we find awe through studies show listening to a river and the

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