“People with a greater sense of wonder are more resilient, resilient, and more able to handle whatever life throws at them,” says Monica Parker, social scientist, entrepreneur, and author of The Power of Wonder: The Extraordinary Emotion That Will Change the way you live, learn and lead. “When I started exploring wonder, I saw that the more we invited wonder into our lives, the better and more tolerant we became.”
Monica is a world-renowned speaker, writer and authority on the future of work. She has spent decades helping people discover “how to lead and live wonderfully.”
The founder of global human analytics and change consultancy HATCH, whose clients include blue-chip companies such as LinkedIn, Google, Prudential and LEGO, Parker challenges enterprise systems to advocate for a more meaningful work life.
In addition, Monica Parker was also an opera singer, museum exhibit designer, policy director, CEO of the Chamber of Commerce, and homicide detective who defended death row inmates.
Here Metro.co.uk talks to Monica about how finding, creating and feeling more wonder in our lives will make us feel good.
Why will focusing on wonder make us happier?
We’re just not very good at knowing what makes us happy. We’ve been conditioned to think that hedonic happiness—the pursuit of pleasure—will raise the happiness threshold, but it doesn’t. While there’s nothing wrong with hedonistic happiness, we just go back to our baseline very quickly after we buy the shoes, or drink the cocktail, or whatever that thing is that gives us that touch of feel-good.
However, scientists have found that the benefits of feeling “great” outweigh those of happiness. We can’t always be happy. Happy is not a natural, stable state. You can’t necessarily be happy looking at COVID numbers, you can’t be happy looking at what’s happening in Ukraine.
Happiness is only about positivity, while wonder can feel both positive and negative. It helps us become more resilient to hold competing emotions at the same time. For example, research has been done with widows and widowers. When they remembered their past marriage, they were better able to cope with the grief if they remembered both the positive and the negative elements.
We’ve been conditioned to think that hedonic happiness—the pursuit of pleasure—will raise the happiness threshold, but it doesn’t.
What is wonder and how can we apply it in our own lives?
We have all felt wonder at times, even if we have not assigned a language to it. Most people will have had goosebumps listening to music, or tears in their eyes watching an incredible sunset. It makes its way through our lives from the first cry to the last gasp – they are moments that captivate us, surprise us, take our breath away and give us the gift of the world, and our place in it, in a very different way to watch.
What are the benefits of wonder?
From a psychological point of view, wonder makes us more curious, more creative, more eager to study the world around us. It makes us more humble, less materialistic, more generous, better members of the community, perform better at school and work, and have healthier relationships. Wonder makes us feel less stressed and makes us feel like we have more time – it literally extends time, so it makes us feel less time-poor. It makes us want to be better, more tolerant people; it makes us want to step out into the world rather than retreat. And those are just the psychological benefits.
It can also help us physically – in what way?
Researchers have found a link between surprise and reduced blood pressure, lower stress hormones and lower cortisol, and reduced pro-inflammatory cytokines, which are the markers of a number of diseases such as cardiovascular disease, cancer and even Alzheimer’s disease. Wonder lowers inflammation, which is physiologically incredibly positive for our bodies.
Wonder makes us want to be better, more tolerant people; it makes us want to step out into the world rather than retreat.
Where do we start to invite more wonder into our lives?
The first way is through novelty. When things change, our brain pays attention. The more we can introduce new ways of thinking, the better. It helps us with our openness, it helps us with our curiosity. Take new routes, discover new cuisines and new cultures. Go to new museums. Even wearing your watch on a different wrist can shake things up a bit.
Another way is nostalgia. Looking back on different moments in your life with both positive and negative effect. Gratitude is a great ‘miracle bringer’. I’m talking about that deep, existential kind of gratitude, not just like, “Thank you for bringing me a cup of tea” — though that can be important, too.
Keeping a journal is a great tool for remembering and reviewing certain moments when we felt amazed, and then writing about them. It helps us recall that feeling and brings us back to the benefits.
In the book you write about a miracle walk. What is a miracle walk?
This is the power of priming at its best. If we prime our brains and say, “I’m going out today and find wonder in my walk,” the evidence shows that we will. Studies show that people who took a miracle walk felt better and had bigger smiles than those who took regular walks. When planning an ideal wonder hike, look for new routes or new elements. We want to find great vistas if we can – mountains or the sea. We try to make ourselves feel smaller, which makes our problems seem smaller. And that’s really one of the main benefits of miracles. If you can, share the wonder with friends, because research has shown that wonder is contagious.
We try to make ourselves feel smaller, which makes our problems seem smaller.
Contageous?
Wonder thrives in social settings. Group wonder builds stronger relationships and communal commitment. Shared astonishment is astonishment multiplied. The vagus nerve, a cranial nerve that connects the brain to the rest of the body, is the longest nerve in the body and is associated with “miracle bringers” such as intercourse, as well as prosocial emotions such as awe and gratitude. Wonder literally makes you more attractive to others. Research showing that when we are genuinely and authentically curious about other people, and we ask them questions, they perceive us as friendlier and more attractive.
Five ways to create and find wonder
- To delay. Wonder is nurtured in a slow environment. There are several ways to get into slow thinking, such as meditation, gratitude, and narrative diaries.
- Meditate. There are over a hundred different types of meditation, which is one of the reasons why studying them is so challenging. Different styles can provide different benefits, of which there are many, but the “best” meditation is the one we do on a regular basis. This is because a consistent theme runs through all meditation traditions: building attentional control. Attention control is the basis of slow thinking and a miracle practice.
- Be grateful. Gratitude and wonder are connected. Gratitude is both a “miracle bringer” and a way to build a miracle practice, especially when we use it to empathize with others. Gratitude also contributes to a wonder-based work culture because it makes us less aggressive.
- Write a diary. Narrative journaling harnesses the power of stories, and nostalgia imbues these stories with extra emotion. When we remember miracle moments, journaling prolongs these moments in our mind and allows us to extract more meaning from them. It also aids in our understanding of our individual miracle workers and the barriers we may encounter.
- Sleep. Sleep is fundamental to every aspect of our lives, including wonder. Lack of sleep kills attentional control, while good sleep improves it and allows us to participate in a miracle practice. Not everyone has the same access to sleep, and with sleep inequality comes wonderful inequality.
You wrote in your book that curiosity is a very important element of wonder. How can we develop deeper curiosity?
We can tap into what I call “deep curiosity” by trying to find new ways of looking at the world, going to different places and looking for some intellectual component. Visiting museums is a great place to start. Try adopting a “beginner’s mind,” an important part of creating more curiosity.
The problem is that as we get older, we think there is less to be curious about because we see something, and we immediately give an explanation to it instead of allowing ourselves to say that we don’t understand all this . Allow yourself to sit in the ignorant.
What are some good practices you can follow to help your brain see wonder?
You can start training your brain to see the miracle. At the end of your day, write down everything that you thought gave you a sense of wonder. Preparing yourself to notice in the first place is powerful. We know from years of research that people who write down their goals are more likely to achieve them. Why? Because if our brain believes that goal has a long-term benefit, then it will redirect resources to achieve that goal. So even if you just write down, “Today I’m going to find three things that give me a sense of wonder,” your brain will race trying to identify it.
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