Why We Need More Wonder in Our Lives
written by Stacey Lindsay
"Wonder is the catalyst to build the social and emotional competencies we need to make us more open, more curious, more compassionate… more human,” writes Monica C. Parker.
It is the heart-pounding euphoria from witnessing bison roam, a baby giggle, or the sky dotted with stars. It is the rush of blood from seeing a waterfall or an early spring bloom. What is this response that arrives like a wind to amplify our lives, even for a moment? It is wonder.
This magical free emotional experience is beneficial and transformative, believes Monica C. Parker, an author, and researcher fascinated by wonder for decades. "We need wonder," she writes in her book The Power of Wonder: The Extraordinary Emotion that Will Change the Way You Live, Work, and Lead. "Wonder is the catalyst to build the social and emotional competencies we need to make us more open, more curious, more compassionate… more human.”
Wonder makes us feel incredible in grand moments. But as Monica points out, wonder also exists in life's smaller, day-to-day, simple parts. The key is to notice and allow for more of it in our lives—because that stretches our capacity to navigate life's biggest obstacles. (Research shows that wonder makes us more creative, compassionate, generous, connected, and less stressed.)
And if that isn't enough of a wonder campaign, consider this. Wonder may be crucial for helping you take the leap you've been dreaming of.
Chatting with Monica C. Parker
In your book, you describe wonder as a journey and a destination, a verb and a noun, and an emotional experience that starts with openness, then moves into curiosity, absorption, and awe. So how can we lean into wonder to help us navigate significant change, be it starting a new business or taking another giant leap?
That's why I wrote the book! I wanted to help people through existential change— be it leaving a job, a career, a husband, a partner, whatever it might be.
The very first way is to try to understand your level of openness—and then try to increase it. You can increase your openness by looking at what I call "wonderbringers" you may have in your life and experience more of those. Think: What brings me wonder? Then be open to trying new things. Seek out new ideas and new ways of thinking. This will all increase your level of openness.
Also, allow yourself to see that two things can be true at the same time. Competing or paradoxical thinking is very helpful in growing our sense of openness and helps us when we're transitioning through change. You may say, 'Well, this job was great and paid me well, but it's not my passion.' I say to hold those two competing thoughts—the job paid you well, and it's not your passion—and allow them to sort of fight it out in your brain for a while because this can be really helpful for metabolizing change.
What's fascinating about holding more than one truth at a time, even if they are conflicting, is that so much of our world thinks in binary terms.
That's the problem with the positive thinking movement. It takes all the negatives and tells you to put them away. That's not helpful because it does not allow our full catalog of emotions to support us. We're only boxing in ourselves and saying, 'Happiness will help me.' Well, that will only get you so far. We need the whole spectrum—remorse, fear, nostalgia, and all of these other emotions—to help us through significant change.
Research shows that whe widowers reflected on their deceased loved one, those who remembered both the positive and negative of the deceased were able to metabolize their grief more effectively. So whatever it is that you're leaving or changing, I suggest listing all the positives and all the negatives. So say if you're leaving a partner or a job, you may only remember the negative, but it's important to remember the positive, too, because it will help you move through it and stay open.
How can curiosity, another component of wonder, help us?
It's so important to be curious and to ask as many questions as possible—especially while going through a great change—without making judgments. Try to really live in the questions you have. They may be big or small, such as:
How would this feel?
What would my morning look like?
What would my commute look like?
What would my life look like?
Try to imagine, and then that gets into daydreaming around it, which some people would say is like manifesting. Daydreaming is very helpful because it tells our brain that we want to commit cognitive resources toward whatever we're daydreaming about.
You talk about self-transcendence and how that can make us more desirous of pursuing our authentic selves, which can then increase satisfaction, engagement, and performance. What do you mean by self-transcendence, and how can it help us?
The phrase self-transcendence may evoke a guru sitting at the top of a mountain going 'Om…' but it doesn't have to be that way. Self-transcendence really means coming out of yourself. It means being above our self-focus and egoic needs. This touches on the awe part of wonder.
Self-transcendent experiences can be achieved in many ways, including mindfulness. What is a wonderbringer—an uber wonderbringer—that evokes a sense of awe for you? For instance, for my friend, music is it. Music will always bring her out of herself and out of her concerns. That is self-transcendent. Then when she stops listening and comes back, she can better focus. For some, this can be evoked from a walk in nature, meditation, or anything else.
What's helping about self-transcendent experiences is that you'll see that your concerns about what other people view you as or what other people think fall away. This is because you don't see yourself solely as important. Rather, you see yourself as one human in a constellation of humans. Also, you don't give outweighed importance to other people and their thoughts. They, too, are humans in a constellation of other humans. So self-transcendence can balance the disparity of I'm great, they're wrong, or they don't think I'm great, and I agree with them. It's about getting out of that ego.
Self-transcendent experiences can also help us get rid of the chattering mind. Well, we all know that monkey brain that tries to keep us safe and tells us everything we're doing wrong, especially when we're going through change. Having some kind of attentional control can be helpful.
Lastly, you say priming—an explicit, subtle, or subconscious cue—can be essential for experiencing more wonder and attaining our goals. How so?
I've spoken to many people on the spiritual spectrum, and they talk about manifesting. Well, if we look at the science of manifesting, one of the critical elements is the idea of priming: it's a way of preparing our brains to influence future memories, emotions, or behaviors. We can create personal conscious primes, such as motivational phrases or inventions. When we prime, we say, 'I will find this,' or 'I will find things to be wonder-filled about,' or 'I will find something to feel positive about,' or 'This will happen.'
There's so much evidence about how powerful priming is. Even people who put a single prime on their mirror daily have been shown to achieve so much more than those that didn't.
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You can learn more about Monica, order her book, and sign up for her newsletter at monica-parker.com.
Interview by Stacey Lindsay exclusively for Liberty Road. Parts of this conversation have been edited and condensed for clarity.
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