The Healing through Wonder Project: Sharing our Stories of Awe and Wonder

When we’re captivated by something greater than ourselves in a shared moment of wonder, we see each other in a whole new light. And later, when we relive these wondrous moments through storytelling—days, months, years later—we rediscover each other in a new light.

I recently listened to a friend’s awe-inspiring encounter of being in the path of totality for the solar eclipse in April this year. She had traveled from Boston to Ohio to reach her perfect viewing spot and fortunately, the weather was ideal for the full spectacle. Weeks later, she shared those powerful moments that had taken her breath away with me and a friend—and our breath was taken away just listening to her story. We got chills right along with her as she held us in suspenseful detail, allowing us to be in that moment of awe with her. We felt something greater than ourselves had unified all three of us in this profound moment of amazement.

Indeed, millions of Americans felt a collective sense of awe during the eclipse: “Oh, wow —I’ve never seen anything like this!” Their awe generated deep emotions, tears of gratitude, chills of excitement, reverence, a sense of oneness with others, an affirmation of life. For such a brief and fleeting event, the eclipse had an enormous impact.

In the same spirit, I’ve enjoyed watching stories of people viewing the Aurora Borealis in May of this year as Americans gazed at these stunning lights for the first time. And on a completely different awe-inspiring topic, it’s heartening to hear the stories from awestruck fans of Taylor Swift about being in a live audience of 60,000 (even though I’m not a Swiftie). And I’ve been captivated by the (comeback) performances of gymnast Simone Biles after her brave advocacy for the mental health challenges of athletes. And just last night, I’m still wowed by that amazing half-court shot by Boston Celtics player Payton Pritchard at the buzzer.

The awe-inspiring vibes are contagious through stories that relive the moment--from eclipse viewers, Aurora Borealis enthusiasts, ecstatic Swifties, or astonished sports fans.

Quite simply, in these cynical and pessimistic times, I’m awestruck when I see other people awestruck. Even vicariously, enjoying these moments of awe and wonder gives me a boost of faith in humanity. Certainly, humans are wired for collective experiences of awe and wonder, and we seem to be hungry for these experiences.

Neuroscience Validates Sharing Our Experiences of Awe

Neuroscience has shown us how these powerful moments of awe allow us to see ourselves in a whole new light. Awe is considered to be a self-transcending emotion—a state of mind that stretches our awareness beyond our habitual patterns of thinking. Essentially awe grabs our attention away from our self-referential thoughts and pulls us out of our self-absorption. Psychologist and author Dacher Keltner has called our sense of self within this expanded, vast perspective our “small self,” an awareness of being a small part of a much wider world beyond our own lives. This vast, all-inclusive sense of oneness helps us feel humility and compassion for others around us. (Keltner’s bestseller, Awe: The New Science of Everyday Wonder and How It Can Transform Your Life is a friendly introduction to the topic.)

In a BBC article, “Awe: the ‘little earthquake’ that could free your mind,” University of Michigan psychologist Ethan Kross describes awe as “the wonder we feel when we encounter something powerful that we can’t easily explain.” Awe and wonder leave us speechless and stunned for a moment, a pause—an instant change that resets our thought patterns. Kross adds, “When you are in the presence of something vast and indescribable, you feel smaller, and so does your negative chatter.” Kross has conducted studies with PTSD survivors including military veterans and youth from underserved communities. One study where participants joined in a rafting trip in Utah demonstrated how their feelings of awe predicted better outcomes in their well-being months later. In short, when we experience awe, we turn our attention outwards instead of inwards. We are better able to attune to one another in the moment.

It appears this attuning to one another, shifting our attention outward, also happens when we share our stories of awe and wonder. Social psychologist Michelle Shiota, a researcher at Arizona State University, describes getting out of our “predictive coding” about what is supposed to happen next when we open to an awe experience, even when we hear the story from the experiencer. Awe allows us to break out of our expectations, assumptions, and biases about what we think is supposed to happen as the experience unfolds. “The mind dials back its ‘predictive coding’ to just look around and gather information.” So, awe literally puts reality right in front of us. Our minds practically gasp when we’re overcome with awe—we “get it” on some level even if we cannot explain it.

So, when we are experiencing moments of awe with others in storytelling, we welcome these powerful, inexplicable experiences that snap us out of our habitual mindsets and expectations. When we share our stories of awe, we are allowing our listeners to “dial back” their own “predictive coding” and just be there with our experience as if we are all feeling it for the first time.

The Healing through Wonder Project

I’ve not only been excited about neuroscience research on awe and wonder but I’ve been inspired to gather storytellers to share their life-changing experiences. I’ve created a YouTube channel called Healing Through Wonder where my co-host, Robyn Houston-Bean, founder of The Sun Will Rise Foundation, and I interview guests who tell their stories of healing from transformative encounters with awe and wonder. We invite guests who are facing grief after the loss of a loved one due to substance use, as well as guests who’ve survived trauma and addiction, to share their awe-inspiring experiences. Many of our guests have attributed these transformative moments of awe to being a turning point in their healing—their lives have never been the same since that shift in their awareness.

Robyn Houston-Bean, co-host, Founder of the Sun Will Rise Foundation (top left). Val Walker, co-host (top right). Tavyn Thuringer, Special Projects Assistant at SADOD (Support After a Death from Overdose), bottom left. Mary Peckham, peer grief support facilitator at Matthew’s Candle, bottom right.

With our Healing Through Wonder channel, Robyn and I have created a friendly platform to claim and celebrate our healing encounters with awe, such as breathtaking moments with wildlife, with dreams, music, spiritual revelations, and more. We believe everyone has a “wonder story” and we’ve witnessed how sharing our story inspires listeners to explore and welcome future experiences of wonder. Indeed, healing moments of awe and wonder are contagiously uplifting as well as meaningful. We get goosebumps and feel a sense of oneness and closeness with each other when we share a moment that took our breath away.

If any readers of the Health Story Collaborative are interested in being a storytelling guest on our Healing Through Wonder channel, please feel free to contact Val Walker through her website.

About the Author

Val Walker is a contributing blogger for Psychology Today and the author of 400 Friends and No One to Call, released in 2020 with Central Recovery Press. Her first book, The Art of Comforting (Penguin/Random House, 2010), won the Nautilus Book award and was recommended by the Boston Public Health Commission as a guide for families impacted by the Boston Marathon Bombing. Val received her MS in rehabilitation counseling from Virginia Commonwealth University and is a rehabilitation consultant, speaker, and educator. Her articles and Q&As have appeared in AARP, Caregiver Space, Babyboomer.com, Caregiver Solutions, Time, Good Housekeeping, Coping with Cancer, Boston Globe Magazine, Belief Net, Marie Claire, and Sweety High. Keep up with Val at www.ValWalkerAuthor.com

You can also learn more about the Healing Through Wonder project through their YouTube channel, The Sun Will Rise Foundation, and Support After a Death by Overdose (SADOD) project.