Awe, Wonder, Expansive Curiosity—whatever we call it, the habit of marinating in this experience can be life-changing.

There are infinite ways to evoke this feeling, but cultivating it consciously can be more difficult. The important steps are

1. Find the feeling
2. Notice some anchors and somatic markers that come with the feeling
3. As often as possible, continue using those anchors and markers to find your way back to the feeling, letting it infuse more and more areas of your life
4. Repeat, repeat, repeat.

Here are a couple ways each step of that might look:

Find the Feeling

• Remember a time when you felt deep, expansive curiosity about something
• Drop into meditation and revisit memories of something that brings you a sense of awe and wonder—maybe a mountain climbing vacation, or the first time you held your child, or after completing a resonant piece of art.
• Go for a long walk, approaching your environment as if every moment is a dream; without intellectualizing it, feel into the symbolic meaning of each moment, each stranger, each perching bird. Let your awareness expand to include more and more of the environment, allowing a sense of awe to find you.

Notice Anchors & Markers

• When you find the feeling, how does your body feel? Are some parts of you lighting up? Do you notice any movements that want to happen?
• Do any images or memories come to mind? Perhaps a spontaneous sense of dropping through space; or a sense of a vast landscape in front of you; or a zoomed-in view of microscopic life going about its cycles; or an image of a vast god standing over the sky. Any felt-image or sense-impression that seems to arise from the feeling.
• Are there any qualities to the somatic activations you feel, such as color, texture, movement, density? For example, it would be perfectly normal to hear any of the following odd phrases in this situation:
  • “It feels like there’s a buzzy blue crescent a few inches behind the back of my head”
  • “A dense sense of greenery in my gut—but moving like seaweed, I think. Kind of a slow waving motion in my torso”
  • “Something black and smooth, far off ahead of me. Like some part of me knows it’s just over the horizon, but I can’t quite see it yet.”

Use Those Anchors

It might be hard to evoke a feeling on its own (just try telling yourself “be happy!” when you’re not), but it gets easier when we have some associations and anchors to find our way back with.

• The sense of awe brought you a feeling of looking slightly upward and opening your chest and shoulders—so when you notice an opportunity to bring back that expansive curiosity and awe, take a breath or two to do exactly that. Let your chest and shoulders open while you look slightly upward, inviting awe to infuse your environment.
• You noticed that curiosity brought in some imagery of blue lightning and a sense of tingling skin—so take a couple breaths to call up that imagery, to notice any tingling sensations in your body. Invite curiosity to electrify you, to bring more power and vividness into your direct experience.