“Instead of thinking about the myriad negative feelings you want to avoid and the myriad things you can buy or do in service of that, think about a single organizing principle that is highly effective at generating positive feelings across the board: Shift your focus outward.” –Sigal Samuel
Is it too late to wish you all a Happy New Year? With the culmination of a much anticipated wedding in my family, I feel like I’ve spent the past couple of months floating in some kind of alternate universe.
Yes, after two years of extensive planning and one postponement due to the pandemic, our daughter and son-in-law finally got to say YES in one of the most beautiful and romantic cities in Mexico. On what felt like a most auspicious date of 12-11-21, the whole thing proved to be nothing short of a miracle – a divinely-held and inspired bubble of love that couldn’t be touched by any gremlin, covid or otherwise.
I even made a 3-minute video (see below) that will give you a taste of the magic that it all was leading up to, during, and after.
And now what? With all the heart and soul that went into anticipating, hosting, and experiencing something as epic as this was, the question for me has become how to keep up that joyful energy going forward.
How does one stay expanded when the music stops, the proverbial party is over, and it’s back to life as usual?
Keeping the momentum going
It doesn’t have to be some big life event like a wedding, mind you. It could be staying true to a big vision or creative idea; maintaining a daily meditation practice or clearing that closet once and for all. The challenge of keeping the momentum going when we contract – when we lose heart, focus, our center – applies in much the same way.
While navigating the swings of expansion and contraction has been the focus of my work and attention for years, there is one thing that usually helps me find my way back into balance when I get lost. It’s called awe walking. This is a practice where I step outside of myself (literally) to find myself.
Taking a beauty break
Here’s what it looks like: Every day, rain or shine, I put on my sneakers, grab my iPhone, and head outdoors in search of beauty. It could be a leaf, a cloud, a crack in the sidewalk – something ordinary that wakes up the spirit of curiosity, wonder, awe. I photograph whatever catches my eye. When I get home, I immediately cull out the best ones to post on my Instagram feed and delete everything else.
The simple act of photographing and posting images is profoundly grounding. It helps me overcome inertia, stay fluid and present, and connect with something bigger than myself.
Benefits of Awe Walking
I didn’t realize until recently that this daily practice I’d adopted for my own emotional well-being had a name and studies to back it up. Here is an excerpt from Vox:
“…a study recently published in the journal Emotion investigated the effects of “awe walks.” Over a period of eight weeks, 60 participants took weekly 15-minute walks outdoors. Those who were encouraged to seek out moments of awe during their walks ended up showing more of the “small self” mindset, greater increases in daily positive emotions, and greater decreases in daily distress over time, compared to a control group who walked without being primed to seek out awe.
“What we show here is that a very simple intervention — essentially a reminder to occasionally shift our energy and attention outward instead of inward — can lead to significant improvements in emotional wellbeing,” said Sturm, the lead author.
So, bottom line: When the world between your two ears is as bleak as the howling winter outside, shifting your attention outward can be powerfully beneficial for your mental health. And hey, even in the dead of winter, a 15-minute awe walk outdoors is probably something you can do.
Awe Walking the Spacious Way
Since I published this post, there have been countless articles written about the benefits of Awe Walking. If you’re serious about trying it, the New York Times just came out with a terrific article that introduces a simple process you can try.
In “This Kind of Walk is Much More than a Workout” author Jancee Dunn invites you to adopt some principles into your practice, including two that nicely match those you’ll find in the Spacious Way approach to clearing: “Start small” she says, and “Pay attention to your senses.”
I might suggest that all five S’s of the Spacious Way –– slow down, simplify, sense, surrender, and self-care –– lend themselves nicely to growing some awe.
There are infinite ways to keep the joy level up and the heart open when the music stops, of course. What helps find your center when you get stuck or lose your way?
Let us know in the comment thread. We could use all the inspiration we can get.
My December: A Feast for the Senses
If you could distill a month into one-second slices that includes an extraordinary wedding with the people you love… throw in brilliant colors, music, holiday lights, festive glamour and natural beauty set in the heart of a 17th-century colonial hill town in Mexico… this is what my December 2021 looked like…
