awe is an antidote to overthinking
what it is, why it quiets the mind, and how to find it
Happy Friday overthinkers <3
Earlier this week, we talked about how overthinking can feel like a loop you can’t escape, no matter how many journal pages you fill or how much insight you collect. Dostoyevsky knew it. So did philosopher Simon Critchley, who described being trapped in his own mind as a kind of psychic purgatory.
We explored the idea that maybe the answer isn’t more self-analysis, but less. That sensitive strivers like us might not need another deep dive into our own psyches, but a return to presence. That looking outward toward art, love, music, nature, and movement might be more healing than another internal autopsy.
This week, I want to take that idea a little further. Because there’s one experience in particular that seems to quiet the overthinking mind more powerfully than most. It’s not another productivity hack or self-help strategy.
It’s awe.
Maybe this week you’ve found yourself trapped in your own head again – replaying client emails, overanalyzing tomorrow’s dinner outfit, rereading a text you sent a friend - but what if we paused that spiral – and replaced it with something else?
A grove of towering trees.
The miracle of a bird building its nest, one twig at a time.
The atmospheric note of a symphony that steals your breath.
The quiet enormity of the Grand Canyon.
A kind gesture that sends goose bumps up your spine.
A child taking its first steps
Whatever just shifted inside you while reading those lines - that’s awe.
What even is awe?
Awe isn’t quite joy or happiness. It’s not fear either, though it flirts with it. Nor is it surprise. In 2003, psychologist Dache Keltner and Jonathan Haidt gave awe its own definition – something richer and more complex than we’d imagined.
According to them, awe is defined by two key ingredients:
Perceived vastness: Something physically or conceptually larger than yourself: nature, art, brilliance, courage, scale.
Need for “accommodation”: Meaning, your brain has to stretch. Your understanding of the world can’t quite hold what you’re witnessing, so it reconfigures. You expand.
It’s not just a nice feeling – it’s a reorientation. A momentary rewiring of how you understand and process new experiences (including awe).
Unlike mindfulness, which is a state we work to achieve, awe often happens to us. It sneaks up. No effort, just an unexpected inhale and a softened sense of self. Awe is being vs. doing.
Awe is the Antidote to Overthinking
Dostoyevsky might’ve been right that we think too much - but maybe it’s also that we think too much about our own lives.
Not in a selfish way, but in a self-monitoring, spreadsheet-for-the-soul kind of way. We’re scanning for errors or wrong decisions, rehearsing futures, revisiting pasts. We’re cataloging every emotion like a quality control manager of the psyche.
And then… awe.
Suddenly, you’re not the protagonist of your inner monologue anymore: you’re the stunned observer. You're part of something. The spotlight swivels off your overactive mind and onto something larger, unknowable, beautiful.
Psychologists call this the “small self” effect. And it’s not diminishing - it’s deeply freeing.
In fact, studies show that awe decreases self-focus and increases feelings of connection to others and the world. It lowers activity in the default mode network (that same brain network overthinking lights up like a Christmas tree) and increases parasympathetic nervous system activity (a.k.a., calm mode).
It doesn’t fix you. It reminds you you’re not broken.
5 Types of Awe
Researchers have found that awe isn’t one-size-fits-all. In fact, there are at least five main “flavors”:
Beauty-based awe – natural landscapes, great art, a striking sunset
Ability-based awe – watching someone perform with breathtaking skill
Virtue-based awe – stories of moral courage and profound empathy
Threat-based awe – storms, earthquakes, or towering waves (awe + fear)
Supernatural awe – sensing a divine presence or unexplainable mystery
Some of these activate our stress response (like threat-awe), but beauty and virtue awe in particular are deeply soothing. They ask us to expand. They loosen the grip of our own narrow narratives.
And when overthinking makes our world small and rigid, awe cracks it wide open.
How Awe Changes the Brain
Overthinking loves certainty, control, categorization. Awe doesn’t play by those rules.
Instead of solving problems, awe interrupts them. It bypasses the part of your brain that wants to analyze—and turns on the part that wants to understand.
Awe decreases our bias and makes us more open to ambiguity and mystery. It enhances our capacity for wonder, and activates the kind of humility that doesn’t feel like shrinking—but like belonging.
You can’t spreadsheet your way into awe. But you can be surprised into it.
Awe as a Daily Practice
Awe might sound like something you can only find at the Grand Canyon or the Louvre. But it’s also in your neighborhood, your kitchen, your inbox. You can even find awe while doing the dishes - take my word for it!
In The Power of Awe, authors Jake Eagle and Michael Amster suggest a micro-practice:
Attention. Wait. Exhale. Expand.
Just 15 seconds. A pause. A moment to notice something vast, or strange, or beautiful.
Awe lives in noticing. It lives in letting yourself be moved, even if just for a second.
Try it:
Watch sunlight hit the soap bubbles in the sink.
Notice the sound of birds nesting outside your window.
Feel your breath. Marvel that it happens without your doing.
Read a sentence that rearranges something inside you.
Look at the night sky (or photos of it).
Read an incredible work of literature.
Read about scientific breakthroughs or acts of heroism.
Swim in a lake.
Listen to someone speak in a language (or two!) you don’t understand.
Visit a place with deep history (i.e. Machu Picchu, The Colosseum, Chichén Itzá).
Even better? Ask someone what they find awe-inspiring. I asked my Mom, who shared just a few of the wonderful places she finds awe:
“Watching Dads walk their kids to school in our neighborhood, side by side, talking with them and connecting without screens… watching children learn something new, like the video of you beginning to walk…. I’m in awe of artists and athletes and musicians and creators who make something and move people with their efforts… artists who move us… I’m in awe of people who do kind things for each other just for the sake of being kind and not expecting anything in return, friendly hellos or complimenting someone to brighten their day.”
In fact - this year, instead of giving something up for Lent (as is traditional before Easter), my mom decided to do a daily act of kindness instead. Just hearing her say this filled me with a little sense of awe!
Final Thought: You’re Not the Center (And That’s a Good Thing)
Overthinking makes us the center of the universe. Awe reminds us we’re part of it.
You are small - and that is sacred.
Maybe what you need isn’t another mental strategy. Maybe what you need is a little more wow in your day. Something to soften the edges of your mind. Something to remind you: it’s not all up to you. It never was.
So go. Seek out something vast. Let it stop you in your tracks. It might just make you feel whole again.
“We can find awe not just in the stars but in the stardust that constitutes everything—even the most mundane objects—on Earth.”
- Eben Harrell, The Power of Everyday Awe (HBR)
<3 Delaney
Additional readings/resources on awe:
Awe: The New Science of Everyday Wonder and How It Can Transform Your Life, by Dacher Keltner
The Power of Everyday Awe, Eben Harrell, Harvard Business Review
Research suggests feeling AWE, whitepaper prepared for the John Templeton Foundation by the Greater Good Science Center at UC Berkeley
The nature of awe: Elicitors, appraisals, and effects on self-concept, Shiota, M. N., Keltner, D., & Mossman, A. (2007)
Exploring the social aspects of goose bumps and their role in awe and envy, Schurtz et al., 2012
Is AI “Derivative Art” the death of awe? - Silas Tibbs, Substack
1006: Using The Power Of Awe To Overcome Anxiety - Anxiety Coaches Podcast
Honey losing her first tooth was my recent moment of awe!
I relate to this so much! It's no coincidence that all the moments of awe you've listed are such simple things - I think sometimes we fall into the trap of thinking the overthinking will stop when we reach huge milestones in life (fall in love, get promoted, buy the house, etc), when really appreciating the simple, everyday moments presents an antidote to the inner madness X