Find Awe in Nature

Awe is being amazed. Filled with wonder. Lifted up and out of your worries and thoughts, and suddenly feeling stunned by the beauty of things. It’s a pretty great feeling.

Nature is full of awe-inspiring sights and experiences. Looking at a vast ocean and realizing how tiny we are in comparison. Walking through a dense forest. Even just looking at a single beautiful tree. There are many ways to find awe.

Awe is like a giant reset button for our emotions and thoughts. It lifts us up and out of our busy minds, and into a more open and peaceful state of mind. Do you have a place in nature that gives you this feeling?

Getting Started:

Find Your Happy Place: Is there a particular kind of nature that seems especially awesome or beautiful to you? Maybe it’s being near water, from an ocean to a burbling forest stream, which brings you to your happy place. For others it may be a mountain, a forest, or a crackling camp fire.
Go There: Whatever it is for you, even if you’re not sure and just have a tiny leaning toward one of these over the others, start there. Find a way to interact with this form of nature. In case it isn’t easy to get to an ocean, or wherever you believe awe will come the most easily, consider that finding awe is as much about your mindset as anything else. You can “tune” your sensitivity by finding awe in a simple small piece of nature near you, even if you’re in the middle of the city. Look at the next tree you see and study the way the branches expand outward, as if the tree is an explosion that’s been frozen in time. It doesn’t have to be far away, and you don’t have to climb Mount Everest to feel awe in nature. Find a place that does it for you, and then you have a special resource you can call on again and again, a way to rise above the day-to-day concerns in your life.