Awe

27 September 2024

We spent part of the holiday in a cottage in a wood (literally) and got happily snowed in (literally), but only for 24 hours. For a family like ours, born and bred in mostly the sub-tropical parts of South Africa, the snow was a delightful, awe-inspiring experience. We saw the snow forecast but didn’t know it would be snow on-the-ground, deep -up -to- the -tips- of- our -gumboots type of snow. It was powdery and beautiful and glorious to play in!

We also had lots of indoor time and I read The Anxious Generation by Jonathan Haidt. I agree with the reviews that it is essential reading for parents, and I highly recommend you get yourself a copy. I will be unpacking some of my learning from the book here over the next while (so stay tuned!) The book is about the move away from children having a play-based childhood to now having a phone-based childhood. Jonathan Haidt is a Social Psychologist who draws on research from around the world to expound on the damage done to mental health in teenagers through negotiating life predominantly via screens.

One of the chapters is entitled Spiritual Elevation and Degradation and talks about what we have lost in our digital age and 6 practices that we have less of, or even none of, that we may not know we need. One of these 6 is finding awe in nature. I have written about this before. (Funny how this previous article was also after a time away as a family in which we didn’t use devices at all. One really has to make space for engagement with awe in nature).

Haidt writes that being in nature in a present and embodied way ie: using all of the senses to truly experience the environment, is essential for the health of the soul and spirituality. He is a university professor and gave his students an assignment to do an “awe walk” and to write about it afterwards. Note: He teaches in New York City, and yet he says “The written reflections they turned in for that week’s homework were among the most beautiful I’ve seen in my 30 years as a professor.” You can take an awe walk anywhere in the world, even in one of the most busy cities in the world, with the right intention, students found moments of awe and connection with nature.

There are five ways that experiencing awe is found to improve well-being; changes in neurophysiology (evidence of moving from anxiety to more calm and regulated), a decreased focus on the self (focus on the self in a selfish way is correlated to poor mental health), increased desire to be social towards others (thus decreasing isolation), increased social integration (moving towards true connections with others), and a heightened sense of meaning. Monroy and Keltner (2023) We can get none of these things in a positive way from a constant phone-based lifestyle.

There is so much to unpack within all of this, but here is what I wanted to share.

We only have now to teach our children to cultivate moments of awe. We can’t stop them living in a digital age, because we’re already all in it. But we can model for them what it could look like to step out from behind a screen regularly, and make space for awe. It is possible and necessary, not just for their well-being, but for ours too. 

Parents may say that it’s too late, that their teenagers are so heavily invested in their devices, that childhood play has past them by. I want to say that this is not true. My children (14 and 13 years old) taught me this holiday that they need play, they love to play and they need times and spaces in which to play, in nature. We also all thrived in the time we spent together, a truly joyful time full of awe!

If you are a parent wanting to explore how to cut down on your own, or your child’s screen time but you’re not quite sure where to start, I might have a process that might help. Parenting for Connection is a four-part process in which I journey with you to increase emotional connection between you and yourself, and your child. You can find out more here.

You can find out more about Jonathan Haidt on his website https://jonathanhaidt.com/