Hello friends, happy fall,
It’s rainy with lovely changing colors here in northern Colorado, and I’m excited about the soft launch of a new PERMA Culture Lab. We’re on a mission to identify, educate, and equip people who want to strengthen their happiness habits and facilitate flourishing with others. We’re deepening our interpersonal approach to practical wisdom, nourishing relationships, dialogues and collaborations.
The Wisdom Workshop is on a mission to cultivate clarity via connection. We create the conditions for people to become greater agents of well-being, to write their good lives, and to live beautifully. Thank you for your support.
Orienting with Awe
Why Awe? Well, it’s a way to alleviate the loneliness epidemic that’s not an AI chatbot!
In all seriousness, the most constructive emotion may be AWE. Luckily, Dacher Keltner wrote an entire book called Awe: The New Science of Everyday Wonder and How it Can Transform Your Life. All the quotes below are from Keltner.
Awe is about "our relation to the vast mysteries of life." A kind of listening relationship to "the world", the cosmos, to nature — even ourselves — awe is the emotion “we experience when we encounter vast mysteries that we don't understand." It's an emotion because it moves us in different ways. We relate differently to ourselves and others when we experience awe.
Adam Grant says that awe "both elevates and grounds us" and you might know what he means. Awe grounds us. Its brings us back into our body in the here-and-now .Our shoulders fall back, our jaws might even drop as a whoa or wow escapes our lips. And awe can elevate us, too — lift us above the noise of the feed, loosen our preoccupation with the "small stuff" we shouldn't be sweating anyway.
The science suggests that everyday awe -- i.e., experiencing the wonders of existence for just a few minutes a day -- can reduce chronic inflammation. This, in turn, reduces depression, anxiety, heart disease, and auto-immune issues. Awe can bind people together (Keltner’s first book, Born to Be Good, suggests survival of the most grateful). Awe connects us and reduces despair.
How to Feel More Awe
"From wonder to wonder, existence opens." - Lao Tzu
Keltner gives us "Eight Wonders of Life." And they're perhaps not what you'd expect. I imagine stunning mountain vistas when I hear the word "awe." I remember turning the corner into Yosemite Canyon at sunrise, after driving through the dark for hours, eyes watering at the majesty of the place.
But Yosemite is far away. Other sources of “everyday wonder” are a lot closer:
1.) The strength, courage, and kindness of others -- "moral beauty"
2.) Collective movement, like dance or sports -- "collective effervescence"
3.) Nature
4.) Music
5.) Art and visual design
6.) Mystical encounters -- the spiritual, shamanic, and religious domains
7.) Encountering life and death
8.) Big ideas and epiphanies -- sudden understandings
The first everyday wonder — “the strength, courage, and kindness of others” — is the most accessible. It’s worth repeating: the kindness of other human beings — say, the essential workers who stock our shelves, deliver our goods, and bag our groceries — is a source of awe. The people we meet in our live sessions and in our classrooms: they’re each sources of awe.
And big ideas are a source of awe! We're in wisdom workshop land! I’ve been feeling into big ideas since I was a grad student in philosophy — Nietzsche’s “Eternal Return,” Buddha’s Interdependent Arising. . . and more recently, I remember feeling a distinct tinge of wonder at how Hylah converted her front lawn to an edible garden for the whole neighborhood.
And with the often-mystical experience of stream-of-consciousness free-writing — we’re working to share the experience of awe in the wisdom workshop. If you want to start a daily free-writing habit, consider joining our next live groups.
Writing to Feel Awe
"Wisdom begins in wonder." - Plato
(1) What is awe-inspiring to you now? What are your sources of wonder? Can you feel them now, as you write? Any memories of feeling a profound awe?
(2) Consider the moral beauty of others. Who stands out as wonderfully courageous, strong, kind? What stories do you have of your own strength, courage, and kindness?
(3) How might we design spaces for awe? Where do we go to appreciate the strength, courage, and kindness of everyday people? Where and when might we experience the awesomeness of nature?
🍁Upcoming Schedule
Thursday, September 25, 2025 1:00-2:15 pm MST
PERMA Culture Lab Orientation: Writing For Hope via Zoom (Group drop-in)
Friday, September 26, 2025 11:00-12:00 and 1:00-2:00 pm MST
Open Office Hours for PERMA Culture Lab 1:1 Orientations via Zoom (drop-in)
Next Monday, September 29: 11:00-12:00 and 1:00-2:00 pm MST
Office Hours for PERMA Culture Lab 1:1 Orientations via Zoom (drop-in)
Next Tuesday, September 30, 2025 1:00-2:15 pm MST
🎉 PERMA Culture Lab Cohort 1 Kick-off (Tuesday Session via Zoom)
All drop-in sessions and office hours are open to paid subscribers. Or to you, dear reader, just send me an email asking for a link. Here are some guidelines before you arrive to honor our time together. You can expect liminal communitas, presence, and a purposeful playfulness.
Cheers to you on your journeys,
Sean
"The real journey of discovery consists not in going new places, but in having new eyes." Marcel Proust
Thank you dear subscribers! Here is the zoom link:
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