Why you should never lose your sense of wonder

I spent an hour watching humpback whales last Sunday and it lifted my mood far more than my daily meditation had.

The reason this excursion onto the rolling ocean turned my weekend around comes down to one very powerful word: wonder.

I had been feeling flat all weekend, struggling with some familiar demons and oppressed by a general sense of futility. I knew I needed to put some distance between my negative headspace and reconnect with hope, which is a fundamental ingredient when you are trying to bring about change. It took about 45 minutes to get out of the harbour and into the open water, where we waited. And waited. And waited. About 40 minutes later I finally caught a glimpse of a mama whale and her baby surfacing to blow out air, and it blew my mind. I saw two more whales after that and I think I said “oh wow!” about a million times. It was – and I’m not exaggerating here – extraordinary. 

Three days earlier I had attended a talk with US writer Leigh Ann Henion, who, as a young mother, realised her world had become too small. So she set off on a ‘wonder pilgrimage’ to see some of the world’s most astonishing natural phenomena – scaling active volcanoes and witnessing vast animal migrations. And then wrote a book about it, entitled (funnily enough) Phenomenon.

“Wonder is an underrated emotion,” she said. “It makes people feel more generous, more connected and more satisfied with life, and makes them feel less materialistic. The reason time passes so slowly when you’re a kid is because you’re always having new experiences.”

If climbing into a deep ravine isn’t an option or even a preference for you (me neither), there are other means to view your world like you’re a wide-eyed child again – and to reap the wellbeing benefits of those experiences. Think: visiting zoos and wildlife parks, star-gazing centres, bush walks and mountain-biking trails, just for starters.

It’s so easy to become immersed in day-to-day life and to forget that there is more to our existence than just work, home life and a steady stream of obligations. But being amazed – *actually* amazed in the true sense of the word, not just in the flippant way we throw the word around these days – is how we reconnect with the world around us. It puts problems into perspective and helps in appreciating the impermanence of what we have. 

About two years ago after I had been struggling with mood so low I had thought I would have to go back on anti-depressants, one of the first signs that the fog was starting to clear was when I started to notice incredible detail around me. Sensing this was significant, I started challenging myself to spot as many beautiful things as I could on my way to work every day. They were small, of course, but as I’ve noted on this blog before, the small things are really the big things. Snail trail patterns on fences, intensely coloured petals, gnarly tree trunks...  you get the picture. This sounds ridiculously twee, I know, but it really was helpful. I wouldn’t say it changed my life but for small moments it got me out of my own head and closer to a state of gratitude for what I had rather than despair over what I didn’t (which had been the root cause of my toxic gloom). It added momentum to a subtle internal shift of ‘looking at the doughnut, not the hole’, so to speak, which was a solid platform for getting myself out of the hole that I was in. When you’re in a deep pit of suffering you can’t see anything but the blackness. Noticing and appreciating beauty reminded me of the colours of joy, and urged me to continue riding out the storm so I could experience more of that. It gently whispered to me: it’s worth the struggle. 

This is why inspiration posters urge you to never lose your sense of wonder. I don’t think I’ve lost mine, but it does go MIA from time to time. Next time that happens I’m going send out a search party. And board a boat.