What if the antidote to overwhelm was not a productivity system or a wellness retreat, but a juvenile eagle eating breakfast on a causeway, or the way light falls through the branches of a tree on an ordinary Tuesday morning?
In Episode 70 of the Writing with Purpose podcast, I spoke with Elaine Brooks, a certified poetry therapy mentor and certified applied poetry facilitator who teaches the transformative power of awe. Elaine's work is rooted in the research of Dr Dacher Keltner, whose studies across 26 countries have shown that awe, those moments that stop us in our tracks and shift our perspective, is not reserved for grand experiences. Awe lives in the small, the unexpected, and the surprisingly ordinary. And according to both science and Elaine's lived experience, learning to notice it can profoundly change us.
What Is Awe?
We tend to think of awe as something that requires a dramatic backdrop. The Grand Canyon. A total solar eclipse. A cathedral ceiling. But Keltner's research, which Elaine has immersed herself in deeply, tells a different story. When 3,000 people across 26 countries were asked to describe their experiences of awe, the responses were classified into what became known as the Eight Wonders of Life. The results were surprising. The most cited source of awe was not nature or religious experience, as you might think. It was moral beauty, the kindness people show one another, the quiet strength of someone overcoming difficulty, the moments when another human being exceeds what we thought possible.
The other seven wonders are collective effervescence (that charged, shared energy at a concert or a football match), nature, music, visual design, spiritual and religious experiences, encounters with life and death, and moments of sudden understanding – those aha moments when something you have been turning over for weeks finally clicks. Together, they form a kind of map for where to go looking when life feels flat or heavy.
Elaine's own path into this research began with a podcast interview she heard with Dr Keltner. She was sceptical at first and wary of anyone promising such a transformation. But the more she listened, the more curious she became. "Times are challenging," she told me, "and we need to bring something that amazes us, little moments of amazement into our lives."
The Two Questions That Change Everything
One of the most practically useful ideas in our conversation came from a simple shift in attention. Elaine described how putting down the phone on a walk, slowing the mind, and asking two questions can completely alter what we see.
· The first: What if I never see this again?
· The second: What if I had never seen this before?
Both questions interrupt the autopilot that turns the familiar into wallpaper. They invite us to look at what is already there as if it were rare, because often it is. Elaine recalled a morning when walking her usual route along a causeway. Her thoughts were caught up in something difficult that had happened the day before, until she found herself standing alone with a juvenile eagle for what she thinks was about thirty minutes. "When she finally took her fish and flew away, I was different," she said. "I was out of my head. I could have a new perspective on what happened."
This experience was a transformation for Elaine, and Keltner's research supports this: that enough of those quiet moments, accumulated over time, can shift the texture of a life.
What Happens in Your Body
Awe is so much more than a feeling because it has measurable physical effects. When we experience positive awe, the kind that comes from beauty, kindness, or wonder, it activates the parasympathetic nervous system. Our heart rate slows, and our inflammatory response changes. We’re pulled out of rumination and into the present moment through absorption.
Elaine described it clearly: "If I'm having an experience of awe, I'm out of my head. I'm not thinking, I'm not ruminating. I'm just present with whatever it is. And for me, that is one of the biggest health benefits that I experience."
This is worth sitting with for anyone who journals as a way of processing difficult thoughts and emotions. The page can hold the heavy material, and it should. But Elaine's reflection on the book she is currently reading, The Weight of Ink, opened up a different question: what is the weight of the words we bring to our journals? And might we balance the heavier entries with something lighter, a captured moment of wonder, a note about what stopped us in our tracks today? A moment of awe, perhaps.
The Captured Moment
The journalling technique Elaine most often returns to for holding experiences of awe is one she calls the captured moment. It is exactly what it sounds like. After an experience of wonder, you sit down and write every detail you can recall: where you were, who you were with, what you could see, hear, smell, and feel in your body. The more specific, the better.
The reason this works is rooted in how our memory functions. When you write in sufficient sensory detail, rereading the entry later does not just remind you of the experience. It allows your brain to return to it. You can re-experience something of what you felt in the original moment, which means a single encounter with awe can keep giving long after it has passed.
Alongside this, Elaine also uses the dialogue technique in her journal, writing a conversation with whatever she is trying to work through. After writing, she uses the reflection practice of rereading past entries to notice patterns and capture aha moments that only become visible with a little distance – something we can all benefit from.
An Invitation to Go Looking
One of the things I found most encouraging in this conversation was Elaine's insistence that curiosity, the quality that makes awe possible, is not fixed and can be trained. "People can train themselves to be curious," she said. "If we really pay attention to where we're going and what we see on our way there, we can train ourselves to be curious."
Elaine is suggesting that we practise paying attention and trust that what we find there will be enough to spark that curiosity. Why not look for moral beauty in the supermarket queue or listen to a piece of music with the intention of noticing how it moves through your body, picking up on every instrument and the nuances of the melody? Step outside for ten minutes, even when you do not feel like it, and notice with all your senses.
Ask those two questions again: What if I never see this again? What if I had never seen this before? When something stops you, write it down.
Your Turn — A Journalling Practice for Noticing Awe
This practice draws on the captured moment technique Elaine described, combined with one of the sensory and reflective approaches that felt most alive in our conversation. Awe tends to live in the body before it reaches language, so let’s begin there.
Choose one of the prompts below or move through them in sequence over a few days or weeks. There is no right order and no pressure to find something grand. Remember that small is the whole point.
Prompt 1: The Captured Moment
Think of a recent moment when something caught your attention. It could have been a cloud formation, a stranger's kindness, a piece of music or a view from a window. Write it down in as much sensory detail as you can. What could you see, hear, smell, feel, or even taste? What happened in your body?
Prompt 2: What if I Never See this Again?
The next time you are somewhere familiar, a regular walking trail, a room you spend time in, a face you know well, ask yourself: what if I never see this again? Write what surfaces and notice what you have been moving past without really looking.
Prompt 3: The Weight of Your Words
Open your journal and reread a recent entry. What is the balance of heavy and light in your words? Underline or circle what appears obvious or curious. Write a short entry that captures one moment of wonder, however small, from the past week, and be honest with your words.
Prompt 4: A Letter to an Experience of Awe
Choose one moment of awe from your life and write a short letter to it. Tell the moment what it did for you. Tell it what you were carrying that day, and what you felt when it arrived. You’ll be amazed at how much gratitude you will share.
Want to hear the full conversation, including Elaine's reading of the poem Today's Headline by Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer and her story of the juvenile eagle? Listen to Episode 70 by searching for 'Writing with Purpose' on your chosen platform or watch the recording on the Journalling with Anna YouTube channel.