The Everyday Mystic

Micro-Dosing Awe: A Science-Backed Protocol for Instant Alignment w/ Dr. Michael Amster

• Corissa Saint Laurent • Episode 66

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Dr. Michael Amster is a physician who specializes in pain management and a meditation practitioner who’s cracked the code on awe. His book, The Power of Awe, written with co-author Jake Eagle, is a distillation of the research behind a practice they developed using the word awe as an acronym standing for Attention, Wait, Exhale and Expand. 

In this episode, we talk about the small moments of awe that often get overlooked as well as the big powerful moments, which he and Jake call awe-gasms, which I love! You’ll hear how this research came about and what they’re still digging into at the Greater Good Science Center at UC Berkeley. 

If you’ve ever struggled with meditation and tend to get antsy when you’re not moving, the A.W.E. method will tap you into a quick and new way of improving your alignment, reducing stress, and performing at your peak.

You'll hear his own story of finding clarity and purpose over the years, and definitely more so through the A.W.E. method in this episode with Dr. Michael Amster on The Everyday Mystic.


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Buy The Power of Awe: https://www.amazon.com/Power-Awe-Overcome-Burnout-Purpose-ebook/dp/B09ZB5JGCK

Learn more at: https://thepowerofawe.com 

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https://tiktok.com/@thepowerofawe 


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Thanks for tuning in!

Corissa Saint Laurent:

Hey beautiful souls, welcome to the Everyday Mystic, where we demystify the mystical and transform your everyday life into one of greater meaning, higher purpose, and true joy. Today we're going deep with Dr. Michael Amstra, a physician who specializes in pain management and a meditation practitioner who's cracked the code on awe. His book, The Power of Awe, written with co-author Jake Eagle, is a distillation of the research behind a practice they developed using the word Awe as an acronym, standing for attention, weight, exhale, and expand. In this episode, you'll hear all about the Awe method, and we talk about the small moments of awe that often get overlooked, as well as the big powerful moments which he and Jake call augasms, which I totally love. You'll hear how his research came about and what they're digging into at the Greater Good Science Center at UC Berkeley. If you've ever struggled with meditation and tend to get antsy when you're not moving, the Awe Method will tap you into a quick and new way of improving your alignment with mind, body, and spirit. You'll hear his own story of finding clarity and purpose over the years, and definitely more so through the Awe Method in this episode with Dr. Michael Amster on The Everyday Mystic. Thank you for joining us on The Everyday Mystic.

Dr. Michael Amster:

Good morning. It's so wonderful to get to connect with you and to meet your community of podcast listeners. Thank you so much for welcoming me on your podcast today.

Corissa Saint Laurent:

Well, you're you're so welcome. I'm I'm really excited to talk about the core of your work, you know, the book you've written, the core of your thesis and what you've been focused on recently. But before we get to all that good, juicy stuff, I want to talk about you and your journey. You know, we're we talk on this podcast to people that I consider, myself included, everyday mystics. We are those who are finding this mystical opening in our everyday life. And your book and the method that you've created absolutely does that and points to that. But I know that you came to that on a longer journey that wasn't just, oh, this book popping up out of you. So tell us a little bit about your own, you know, spiritual, mystical journey. You know, what was it for you that I guess awoke you to, you know, maybe there's more to life than just this 3D physical experience?

Dr. Michael Amster:

Yeah, well, I have to say I just love that the idea and the term of an everyday mystic. And I I really resonate deeply with that. I think that's it's um, I've always been a sensitive individual, just very aware of the beauty of the natural world around me and feeling a connection to you know, spirit or God, the universe. And um, I just love what you're doing. So um it makes it kind of connects a lot of dots for me. So thank you so much uh for the work you're doing in the world. And you know, my journey, I um I'm a medical doctor and I'm studying uh the emotion of awe and wonder, which is you know one of the tenets of the everyday mystic experience. And um for me, the journey came about uh at a pretty young age. I wanted to be a doctor since I was basically I think two or three years old. Like when I was a little kid, I just loved playing doctor and something I always dreamed to do. And as I continued on my path of my um undergrad and then, you know, studying for the MCAT, I started having more and more anxiety and kind of actually was having panic attacks taking exams. Um it happened during taking the MCAT, the entrance exam for med school. I had a full-on my first experience of a full experience of a panic attack where my heart was racing and um my mind shut down. And I was really at a crossroads where I had to figure out either to take medications and work with a psychiatrist to manage my test taking anxiety, or to begin to find more natural, holistic ways of managing this part of my mind. And a friend told me about a Buddhist meditation retreat, and I did a 10-day opassana retreat after that experience, and it completely changed the trajectory of my life. Um, I've been now a student of Buddhist meditation for over 30 years and trained as a Dharma teacher, as a meditation teacher out here in California at a place called Spirit Rock Meditation Center and a two-year program. I've led now probably thousands of patients through mindfulness programs for chronic pain and also started a meditation community. It actually was an interfaith community for not just Buddhists, but people that identify as like Jewish or Muslim, Christian. There's a full integration of contemplative spiritual practices in a in a spiritual community and led that for a number of years. And it was, I would say about five, six years ago, I was having a conversation with my mentor and friend, colleague Jake Eagle, who's a psychotherapist in Hawaii. And we were talking about how we've noticed that our students struggled with keeping a daily mindfulness practice, meditation practice going. That it often takes a lot of effort and a certain amount of time and commitment. And people really struggle in this busy world that we're living in to keep that going day in and day out.

Corissa Saint Laurent:

Yeah, let's go back to what your first vipassana, a 10-day, that's intense. Never, never meditated before. You drop into a 10-day uh silent meditation retreat. What was that like for you going from anxiety and panic attacks and dropping into that?

Dr. Michael Amster:

Well, it I'll have to say, um, I've told people this that I think that the first 10-day of a postner retreat was harder than all of medical school combined. I mean, it was definitely one of the hardest 10 days of my life. Just really learning to see my mind and its its activity, the intensity of its activity and kind of things that it was obsessing on was making myself anxious with. And I also experienced in those 10 days a deep sense of peace and healing from that as well. So, on the one hand, there was an intensity that got even more intense, but then learning very constructive skills to to work with what they call in the meditation community or monkey mind, you know, the um the mind that's sort of jumping all over to different places, the wandering mind, as well as the kind of obsessional mind. That for me it's around, it was like a sense of self-doubt. Like I would have this this voice in my head that said, you can't do this, you're not gonna get your dream of wanting to be a doctor one day. You're you you suck, you're a failure. And then that kind of it's like a train would leave the station. And it was like hard to get the train back and calm it down. Um so from the from that experience, I definitely learned about myself in a uh in a way that I never knew was possible, and then the skills to kind of keep the mind in check. And it's interesting because once you get into medical school, you have to take a lot more, many more exams. And that that voice would come up at times. I mean, I I can remember, you know, sitting there on a computer when I'm taking different board exams, and there's many of them we have to take, and just being able to at that a certain point in time learn to ignore it. Like, okay, I see you there. Because the thing is with meditation is if you try to suppress something, it it makes it worse. Like if you try to say, mind, stop doing stop your, you know, you can't stop your mind. And if you even say to yourself, I'm gonna stop this, it's sort of like you're feeding this this monster, this dragon, more fuel to make it louder in a sense. And what it for me has been is about learning to redirect, you know, focus on something that is positive, um, whether it's a gratitude practice or an awe practice of being like aware of the experience of the wonder and miracles of life in the ordinary times of our lives. And so this has been yeah, I appreciate this question because it's really kind of putting me in a framework of like looking at my life's trajectory and how why I am now where where I've kind of arrived with studying on wonder. Because what we talk about in our book and what we know from our research with hundreds of patients that we've studied is we believe this is this practice is actually probably the fastest way that we know to reset our nervous system and to take us into the present moment. It's a 10 to 15 second practice that just transports us back um into the present and puts us in what we call a state of spacious consciousness, which is that transcendent spiritual state of awakening.

Corissa Saint Laurent:

So you were talking about how you and Jake realized after your decades of meditation that students you were guiding through processes of meditation were not necessarily either adhering or they were having difficulty, they just were not getting anything out of it because they were having, you know, they were having a hard time even entering the space, right? So, how did then awe come to you as this, oh, well, this could be a way, this could be a ways and a means for those types of students, which I think are, I won't even say just those types of students, but just the modern human, it seems, who is very, we're inundated with information and distraction in a in a at a degree that probably we haven't been before. Um, I can't, I'm not gonna go Graham Hancock way into the bat. Like we could, who knows? We could have had, you know, this technology way, way, way, way back if you believe some of those theories. But you know, as far as our own current knowledge, you know, it's we we are filled with many more distractions than it seems like ever before. So the modern human is facing that, but also there's this easefulness with technology and things that kind of make life easier to some degree. So um, we're in this interesting place of where we are, on the one hand, not inundated with you know, all of our daily, you know, the struggle of daily life as much, but then we get the invitation to then go into deeper realms because we are we're kind of taking care of those daily needs, right? The low, you know, the the lowest form of Maslow's hierarchy, like done. We're take that's good. So it seems like with that complexity of life comes many, and then the distractions that modern life has has provided for us, right? Has given us even more for that monkey mind to jump around to. Yeah, I mean, your method just seems not, I wouldn't just say just for people who have difficulty with meditation, but just the modern human in general, because of this state that we're living in.

Dr. Michael Amster:

Yeah. So they talk about this idea of what's called the attention economy. And and that the a lot of the devices that we have in our lives, whether it's like a television, a computer, or cell phones and all the apps, they're all they're all vying for our attention. And they're designed in a way to give us that that sort of dopaminergic uh addiction level of hit, of an of a of a of a rush of some dopamine to to vie our attention. Um and so if if we are awake about 16 hours, 17 hours of the day, there's a competition going on between all these different companies that are vying for our attention, whether through advertisement or like using Instagram, Facebook, or whatever, TikTok.

Corissa Saint Laurent:

Yeah. Did you see um this? I think it was called the Social Network. It's a movie about really the the genesis of social media and and what they use to essentially mimic a gambling addiction, right? Of like we're we're always looking for that. The the thumbs up and all of the the triggers that are included within social media do provide a a not only distraction, but then like you said, a dopamine hit, a sense of reward, you know. So it's playing into this ancient system of ours, but in uh such a vacuous kind of way. I mean, what kind of reward is getting a thumbs up on a post? I mean, it's not real, you know, it's it's really empty. So I think it leaves a lot of people empty. It's the ones who get very addicted and spend that their time there.

Dr. Michael Amster:

Yeah, exactly. And we're seeing all the really bad consequences. I know you have a child, and uh my child grew up with these apps, and it's really interesting. I watched her really shun them away. And that was actually one of the things she wrote in her college essay was that she consciously chose to get off Snapchat and Instagram and different uh social media apps because she knew it was destroying the quality of her life. She just was a spiritual child and kind of uh an old soul and ahead of the game in many ways. And so it's really interesting to see how she reacted to it and knew that it was controlling her life because these apps are designed in ways to hook young people. Even right now, you know, in this particular time and age in 2024, we're seeing there was just Senate hearings on on how these apps are are causing young people to commit suicide because of the amount of stress that puts on them. So that's what, you know, I think one of the things I love about this practice of awe that we've come up with, and really we stumbled upon it, I would say, in many ways, is that it's a simple practice that takes 15 seconds to do that wherever we are, we can actually practice this really profound moment of awe and wonder um and bring us back to the present moment. If we look at research that's been done in the study of awe in different populations on the planet, North Americans have the lowest amount of awe in their lives. You know, on average, people don't even have one experience of awe in a week in their daily life, which is we've learned from our research and other people's research, it's the most important of all positive emotions. That's why we we call we titled our book the power of awe, because it is the most powerful positive emotions out there.

Corissa Saint Laurent:

Yeah, and I love, you know, you you say it in your book and in the work I also attended your workshop. So I recalled you saying how awe is the only emotion that can actually be, I guess, instigated in a moment of, I guess, what we'll call in a state of negative emotion or a state of positive emotion. So if you're feeling depressed, you can initiate awe. If you're feeling happy, you can initiate awe, whereas other emotions didn't fall within uh that kind of pattern. Was that, am I recalling that correctly?

Dr. Michael Amster:

Yeah, exactly. We have a chapter in our book where we talk about the unique property of awe is that, you know, let's say you're going through a really hard time in your life and you're going through depression or you're feeling anxious, you can't just say to yourself, hey, I want to be happy today. You can't force happiness to happen. Um, you can't force anxiety to stop. But whether you're experiencing some state of depression because of maybe a divorce or death of a family member or some period of sadness in your life, or you're going through an anxious time, we can always access the emotion of awe. Awe is is free and readily available all the time. So, and then when we get to that state of awe, it helps to, in a many ways, dampen the intensity of that anxious or depressed state. Um, we can hold the two together, which is really unique in terms of its ability to be held with a sad or negative emotion at the same time. You can have this positive experience.

Corissa Saint Laurent:

It's just fascinating how it is kind of lives in the middle. And even in the defin the pure definition of awe, right? It's something that invokes uh both a wonder, but also a terror, right? There's like that that level of where it lives between, where it can be either positive or negative, depending on what it is, I guess, that is awe strucking, striking you.

Dr. Michael Amster:

Yeah, we make a distinction in our book, and this is also based upon the neuroscience research of Oz, that we really have two different emotions that are going on in terms of the fear-based awe, which is sort of that sense of terror. And the it's often that's what's connotated in the Bible of like having a fear of God, of being in awe of God. Um, that actually goes down a different pathway in the brain in terms of stimulating the amygdala and that kind of like that fear state of the brain. And then what we call would guess what we could say is more of a positive awe, that sense of kind of wonder and amazement and that enlivens us and gives us a sense of connection to the vastness of all life, that's goes through a different circuit tree in the brain. So even though we're using this terminology of awe, I would say in many ways they're two separate emotions. And you know, we I think we can all relate to that too, right? But the experience of of seeing like destruction and and some like intensity of a storm that evokes fear is a very different experience than you know, standing at a beautiful sunset and looking out and feeling that sense of open-heartedness and connection to all things.

Corissa Saint Laurent:

Yeah, absolutely. What do you think? Do you have theories on you know why in our day and age, awe or the experience of awe is like you were saying, at least among North Americans, where we're not even experiencing one event, you know, awe event a week. Um, I would say it's probably less for most people too, of where, you know, they don't even that awe is just a foreign concept to them. We're so, you know, like we mentioned, we're so consumed by our environment here. Um, but what do you have other theories as to, you know, why did awe go away so much? I think that maybe I I don't know. I guess I'm picturing more ancient times where when we didn't quite understand what was going on, then awe was more natural because you were just like, I don't know what it is. I don't know what's happening here, I don't know what this is. So awe was maybe more just more commonplace than it might be now because we seem to have so many things figured out. I and that's my theory. What's your theory on you know why it might not be as common for us?

Dr. Michael Amster:

Well, I think it has to do with um like where we are as a civilization. And the attention and like what is taking our attention in what direction. So if you think of like a young child, children live in that sense of awe and wonder. Like they are looking at the world, and there's this like constant sense of amazement and wonder. And they live in that sense of childlike curiosity. And as we enter in our teenage years, and then we we start to get our focuses in different places. And then we get we get sucked into our devices and our careers and the general meme of like what we believe life is supposed to be like in this modern world. And then our attention is no longer in that space of childlike wonder and amazement. And we're focused in other ways. And if you look at like a lot of different spiritual teachings, it's all about coming back to living life. It's about bringing our attention to you know, seeing the miracles and the beauty and the wonder of everyday living. I could share some quotes right now of some great poetry. Like, for example, Mary Oliver, she gives like this like three-line, very simple poem that's called Instructions for Living a Life. Number one, pay attention. Be astonished. Tell about it. So hey, bring your attention to like what you see around you. Live life in radical amazement. Uh Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, who it's like thought of as sort of the awe rabbi, and he was close contemporary friends with Martin Luther King Jr., and there's photos of him walking on Selma Bridge hand in hand. He said, to quote him, our goal should be to live life in radical amazement. Get up in the morning and look at the world in a way that takes nothing for granted. Everything is phenomenal. Everything is incredible. Never treat life casually. To be spiritual is to be amazed. And so what we're doing in this very simple awe practice is we're learning to find the awe in many ways. I call it the extraordinary in the ordinary. To find the beauty and the wonder in the everyday life and to start to see the world in that way. And so it starts off for people, you're training yourself, and you experience this in a temporary state, but over time it becomes a permanent trait of who you are as a person. So I'll give an example, I think, that exemplifies yes, we have all this great technology, but then it takes awe away from us. So one of the ways I love to experience awe when I first get up in the morning is when I make a cup of coffee. I love to use it in French press so I can open the bag of grounds and I can smell them and just enjoy the aroma of it and the riches of the smell and the flavor. You know, I get to boil water and see the steam rising, and then the French press is clear glass, and I get to see the grounds floating in the warm water, and I can touch the carafe with my warm, you know, and feel the warmth going through my hands and just enjoy that warmth on a cold winter morning, and then get to press it down and you know, and then get to flavor it and taste it and put it in the foamy milk and all that. That is like such an amazing human sensual awe experience. But for most people, what they do is they take a pod, a plastic pod, and they put it in a machine and push a button, and then like 30 seconds later, a pretty sterile coffee comes out in a cup, and that's what they enjoy. That's a they don't get to have any more sensual experience of this like simplicity of making a, you know, it's simple making coffee, but it's like can be a truly an we call it an augasm. Yeah. You know, that extra that extreme experience that's like rich and lush and exciting and fulfilling. And then when you get to start your day in that way, it it just launches you off to see that the miracles and the beauty of everyday life all around us.

Corissa Saint Laurent:

Yeah.

Dr. Michael Amster:

Um, so my my ex my recommendation is get rid of some of these things that make our lives supposedly easier because they're taking away your awe. They really do. They there's something really uh that's just so rich around this the simplicity, the some the simple things of everyday living that we have lost because we let technology do all that for us.

Corissa Saint Laurent:

Are you aware of this concept of I forget what it's called, but you might you might know, uh, where it's a specific type of reward that comes from doing something with your hands, creating something, making something with your hands. Uh, and it has a term that I I cannot recall, but I've been experiencing that lately, making sourdough bread. And that's been it's a new venture for me. It was one of those things that I put off for years. I've I've I've had, I've give been gifted and thrown away so many sourdough starters because it ends up in my fridge and it's just like this sludgy, disgusting thing. I'm like, I guess I'm just gonna throw it away. Um, but I had this one, and you know, during the Christmas New Year's break, uh I pulled it out and I was like, I'm gonna do it. I'm gonna make sourdough bread. And I called my friend who gave it to me. And it I mean, it literally looked like poison. And there was uh this gray sludge on the top, and it just did not look good. And she said, Oh no, it's still good. Just, you know, she told me what to do and walk me through the process. It did, it did feel good to have a friend who I could go to about that. But then she pointed me to some recipes, and then I just, you know, I did it and I just started going. And it's so it's I mean, it's it's a kind of complex food making process for sure, but it's simple. It is flour, water, salt. Can't get more simple than that as far as ingredients. And even what you do is simple, it just is you know, it's spread out over a long time. But the things that you get to do, talk about sensorial augasm. I mean, you're you are pull, you know, pushing your hands through this dough and and actually feeling it. And the sourdough uh bakers that I read about and follow were like, don't do, don't do it in a mixer, do it with your hands. Like you've got to feel this dough. And I was like, yeah, I want to feel the dough. Like that's what I why I'm here. And so you get to do that and feel it. And then you go through all these processes and you're actually uh you're you're moving and growing along with the dough because it's going through this process of rising and as it's fermenting, and and you're you get to experience all of that with it. And and then you get to experience this incredible, if you like bread, incredible uh end product that you experience the whole of. And that's been my most recent awe-filled experience from really something so simple, something, you know, just getting back to doing something with my hands. Because I spend a lot of time, you know, on this machine, right? I'm doing a lot of computer stuff, a lot of screen stuff, and oh, and I can just step away and go to the dough, or you know, step away and go into the woods. It's just, you know, the most precious part of my day.

Dr. Michael Amster:

Yeah, I love what you're sharing. I think the terminology might be just hands-on experience. I I didn't I don't I was just curious while we were chatting and I looked that up. I said, Oh, it's called hands-on experience, but uh yeah, it's like this technical reward.

Corissa Saint Laurent:

It's a term, it's like a scientific technical term for this specific specific type of reward. Um system. Anyway.

Dr. Michael Amster:

Yeah, I think it it's a great example of what we call in our book. We talk about there's sort of being three categories of awe, and um the easiest one for us to sort of train ourselves to access is awe of the senses, sensorial awe that you were talking about. And um kinesthetic, touching things is one great way to experience that. And uh I think maybe an easy way for a list the listener to to try this today would be is is to try eating a meal with your hands rather than using a fork or a spoon. And there's actually research that says that we digest our food better when we eat with our hands. Um, because there's a direct our ancestors, first of all, they ate with their hands.

Corissa Saint Laurent:

Yeah.

Dr. Michael Amster:

And and there is a direct connection um that when we do eat with our hands, we secrete the digestive enzymes and stuff. There's what we when we feel the food in our hands, it it's a signal to the brain and says, okay, let all those different enzymes to digest the proteins and the fats and things uh be released. So um I personally find that a great way of experiencing awe is to is to feel your food and the textures. Yeah.

Corissa Saint Laurent:

Yeah, and doing it with that sense of focus, right? Just like you said, putting your attention to it, which is the A of the awe method, right? Let's walk a little through that because uh we're we're talking about awe as a concept and an emotion, but then you created a method using the the word of awe, but turning it into an acronym, right, for the stages for the the method. And A is attention, right?

Dr. Michael Amster:

Exactly. Yeah. So we use the word awe, um AWE, and we turn it into an acronym, which is the three steps for this very simple practice of experiencing awe in the ordinary. So A is attention, and what we're asking you to do is to bring your full undivided attention to something that you value, appreciate, or find amazing. So in the space that you're in right now, if if as you're listening to this, maybe you're at home, you could just look in the room around you. Maybe there's a piece of art, or um, maybe there's a tool you have, like scissors or pens that you can be in awe of and just something very simple that you can find amazing. And then the W stands for weight. And so we're allowing ourselves this opportunity to just really be with that idea, that memory, that object that we find amazing. And then in this very busy world where our attention is always being taken away to different places, we're gifting ourselves this moment of just being with us for five to ten seconds. And then the E stands for two things. One is a nice long exhalation out. When we take that nice long exhale out, we can even all do it together right now. Take a breath in, nice long exhale out. Yeah, immediately you can just feel yourself calm down and be more present. And that's because the vagus nerve, which is the master computer, so to speak, of the autonomic nervous system, the part of our nervous system that controls our heart rate, our respiratory rate, and all these processes that we're not consciously have to think about doing in our body, it puts us in that state of rest, repair, and healing by simply taking that nice long exhale out, which is what a moment of awe of those big moments of awe, they kind of give you that sense of like being really present and calm. And then the E also stands for expansion because when we have a moment of awe, we often feel like a sense of energy releasing. You may recall maybe going to really big, beautiful view and feeling the hair on your arms kind of stand up and tingle. Um, it's and so we're allowing that experience to happen in our body when we we do the practice. We want to let it expand and get bigger than our physical self.

Corissa Saint Laurent:

I think it's fascinating that you know, when you do have one of those big awe moments, you naturally exhale, right? You're just like, ah, you can just kind of you make the sound ah, right? You're like, ah so the the the that step by step of the going back to the A of drawing your attention to something and and pulling and pulling your focus to that thing, which is simple enough to do, certainly, right? It's just like look at it, focus upon it for a few seconds. It doesn't have to be, oh, well, now your entire attention is moving towards this thing for the rest of your life. Don't ever look at your phone. I I love the the process or the method because you're not making a choice between living in the modern life or becoming a Buddhist monk in you know, the mountains of Tibet. Like you're you're you're doing you're moving into and allowing that process of not only awe, but just all of the the benefits of that come from it, the calm and the state of wonder, really the bigger connection to source and to God, all of that, allowing that to happen, but through a simple process that begins with awareness, begins with drawing your attention to something. And we can all do that. We can all, you know, just just focus upon something. It's choice, however, right? And and so people choosing not to focus, you know, choosing, let's say, to focus on all the shitty things going on and all the distracting things going on, certainly it can it can feel difficult even to draw attention away from that for some. So do you have a, I guess just a maybe a word for a few words of advice for somebody who is just having a real hard time even just noticing something and paying and paying attention to. I mean, there's a I would say an epidemic of not a real epidemic, but I think a kind of manufactured epidemic of ADHD right now, where there's a lot of people claiming ADHD. Oh, oh yeah, I I know now that I'm an adult, I have ADHD, and that was my problem my whole life, and oh, my kid has ADHD, and um, everyone's on meds. And I just see this more and more popping up and and having uh that ready excuse of like, oh, I can't pay attention to that. So, what would you say? Like, what's some words of advice for someone who's having some real difficulty actually just even doing that first step?

Dr. Michael Amster:

Well, I would say that there is research that shows that our attention spans are the amount of time that we can focus our attention is decreasing. And, you know, this is a result of the apps that we're using. Like if you're on Instagram and you're scrolling and you look at a picture literally for a quarter of a second and you just keep going and going. I mean, this is you're by doing this repetitively day in and day out, you are um training your brain to have a lower attention span. Um I mean, that's just a matter of fact. So, but what I do love about this practice is that people, we know, and we know this from our research, that people that even struggle with being what's called the terminology is neurodivergent nowadays. That's the term they use for ADHD, but basically people whose brains maybe have a lower attention span, they can do this practice because really it takes just 10 to 15 seconds. And anyone can at least focus their mind on something for a matter of a cycle of a breath or two. Um, and so um that's what I love about this practice, is it is very simple to do. And um it's a very short practice. And the other thing that I think is really important about why this practice is so um helpful for people and why it works is that you get a reward immediately when you have a moment of awe. When you experience a moment of awe, you you feel more alivened, you um also are more present, you're more relaxed. Ah is what's called a pro-social emotion. So connected within awe is all these other positive benefits. Awe makes us more generous, we're more giving to people, like even to strangers. Um makes us more connected to the sense of the world, to whether you want to call it, you know, God or the universe, or just to other humans or animals on the planet. We um are just more open-minded politically to see divergent points of view. It also creates a sense of empathy and connection and love. So there's all these benefits that come from a moment of awe. But even just practicing this short 10 to 15 second practice, you do feel good. Like it's a it's an energizing yet calming practice. Whereas like a traditional meditation, you can sit for 10 or 15 minutes and your mind has been racing the whole time and going all over the place, and you're feeling back pain from sitting so long, and you've struggled to focus your mind, and you often feel kind of defeated. Like you just like, man, this is hard work, and I didn't really feel like I got anything out of this. Um, yeah. You know, yeah, I see you're nodding, like you know, I'm talking about totally.

Corissa Saint Laurent:

I mean, I didn't meditate for years because it was hard for me. It was hard for me to settle down my mind and get into that spaciousness. And it would push me away from it because it was hard, you know, to do and I didn't have the discipline to stick with it and and also wasn't getting that immediate reward, I would say. So that, yeah, you're right. I mean, absolutely when you when you get an immediate reward, you know, yeah, it's gonna encourage you, incentivize you to keep going, keep doing. I mean, now I meditate regularly. I feel like I've moved into even a state of being where I'm in a meditative state often throughout the day, even just from that depth of meditation in my life. But it took a long time to get there and to achieve that because and not just because, oh, it was hard, but because you get in your own, it's not just your thoughts that you're trying to quiet and you know, just put aside and watch them float like a leaf down the river. Like it's not just those thoughts, but then piled on it are just like you said, the thoughts of I can't do this. This isn't working, I'm failing at this. Like you start to then pile on these the other thoughts of the like, oh, this is ridiculous, right? And and that all just kind of compounds the whole situation of it being hard or something that you want to avoid, maybe rather than go towards. You want to move away from.

Dr. Michael Amster:

Yeah. Yeah, you're you you hit it on the nail, so to speak. And in Buddhism, they call this idea the sec the second arrow. So, like where the idea is that you know you're trying to do your meditation practice and you're having a hard time, and that's just the reality you are. It's just like it's it's you're you're you're experiencing a difficulty with focusing your mind. And then your reactivity to the fact that you can't focus your mind, you start to beat yourself up. And that's sort of the second arrow that you like, you're just, you know, you're you're harming yourself with those types of thought patterns. Um what we know from this are research studies, and we've studied this in two large research studies, is that the more people practice this brief moment of awe. The more benefit they get. So it's what we call a dose response. So we ask people in the research just to practice three times a day, but people that did it six times a day or 10 times a day had more benefit from the practice. And because it only takes 10 to 15 seconds to do, there's really no reason why you can't do this, you know, a hundred times a day. It's just scattered throughout your day. And we encourage people to do what's called habit stacking. So when you have ordinary habits you do throughout your day, like making a cup of coffee, taking a shower, brushing your teeth, you can have a moment of awe be attached to those experiences. Like there actually is a lot of awe that you can have around flossing and brushing your teeth. I mean, it sounds silly. If you really stop and pay attention and enjoy that experience, like, wow, like this is something that's pretty profound. Like our daily self-care activities can actually be quite awe-inspiring.

Corissa Saint Laurent:

Yeah. Going back to the A, okay, just walking through the method, drawing attention. A, do you uh I have one question about that, and then I want to move to the weight part, and I have a question about that. With the what you are putting your attention towards, do you recommend it being something that is visually right here with you or a thought, or does it matter?

Dr. Michael Amster:

It really doesn't matter at all. Some people maybe struggle with finding something in the space that they're in. So you can use a memory. And so you could just use a memory of a precious memory maybe you have of when you're a child of being with a grandparent or or your parents or a sibling or something or dear friend. And you or you and you can close your eyes and relive that moment in the present moment and just bring your full attention to that. That can be a moment of awe.

Corissa Saint Laurent:

And I remember in the workshop, there was one uh one of the classes was recommending like focus on something, you know, even that is still a mystery, like whether it's a mystery just to you or to humanity itself. And think about that. Think about, you know, like how are we staying, you know, on this planet as it's spinning through space and and we're just you know here. Think about something that that maybe you haven't figured out or that uh that we haven't as a species, and just put your attention on that for a moment and go, oh, whoa, that's wild.

Dr. Michael Amster:

Yeah, exactly. What you'll find as you learn to do this practice is that you have like a natural propensity to having awe in different ways. So some people are very sensorial. So like their awe happens, maybe it's more visual, or like looking at how light casts through trees and shadows, like that can be a while, like a moment of awe. Or maybe it's listening to really beautiful music, or playing music, or eating with your hands, or this, or feeling the wind or the breeze on your face when you're out walking your dog. It can be simple as that. And then, like you talked about just now, off concepts, like being in awe and blown away with this understanding of the natural world around us and physics and and astronomy, and like wow, like here we are on this planet floating a hundred million miles away from the sun. And if we were just a hundred, you know, 10 million miles closer or 10 million miles farther from the sun, there'd be no life on this planet. It'd be either too hot or too cold. Like we're in this sweet spot where all this beauty lives on this planet. I mean, just like how amazing is that? And then we get to experience consciousness. We get we get to like have deep conversations and philosophize with people. Like all that is awe-inspiring.

Corissa Saint Laurent:

And is there a third type of awe that you review in the book outside of conceptual and sensorial?

Dr. Michael Amster:

Yeah, we talk about awe of connection. That's the awe that we have with each other as humans that you know brings that depth and beauty of love and compassion and intimacy. Um, and it can also be with our pets and other you know, creatures and sentient beings on the planet. You might have like a sense of connection to the plant that uh lives in your your room, and knowing that it brings beauty. I mean, plants are living things and they actually are able to communicate with each other, and they're probably communicating with us, just that we're usually not aware of it. Um we don't bring our attention enough to the plants to listen to them. Definitely. Yeah.

Corissa Saint Laurent:

Yeah, that's beautiful. So I think within one of or more of those three categories, every listener could find something that they could put their attention towards that would be something to find awe in. And then the W of the waiting. Um, what do you what are we waiting for when we wait?

Dr. Michael Amster:

Well, the way I like to think of the wait is this idea, you know, when you're walking with a friend through a doorway and they're ahead of you and they hold the door open, and they're there in many ways gifting you, like they're just they're giving you this like moment of you getting to pass through the door. And it feels good because someone's caretaking you. So I think of the W as an opportunity to caretake yourself. You're giving yourself this gift, this period of brief amount of time to really enjoy, to really fully be with that experience. You know, there is we can bring our attention to something for a few seconds, but then to give ourselves five or six more seconds to just really soak it in, to just fully be with it, it's a gift. It really is. It sounds maybe kind of silly, but when we slow down and then we can really fully be present with something or a memory or an idea and really get to soak it in and marinate in it. That is the W. That's the waiting. We're just really letting ourselves enjoy that pleasurable experience of being with that, and which we brought our attention to.

Corissa Saint Laurent:

That's beautiful.

Dr. Michael Amster:

And sometimes you have like an extended awe. I mean, this practice we designed, we think of them as training wheels. So basically, we're teaching people this technique, which we know works, because we've studied it with a lot of people, and it's a training wheels to kind of develop this temporary state of awe, which hopefully over time becomes a trait of who you are as a person, so that ultimately you don't need to do this awe practice, but that you just live your life and you're going through the day, and you're like, you and then all of a sudden awe just bubbles up, and it's like, wow, that's just like that's amazing. And I'm a medical doctor, and so I get to, I get to have these these moments of awe during my patient care day. I mean, I bring this into my my room with patients, I'll talk to them and say, like, hey, it's great to see you again. You want to share a moment of awe like you've had in the last since I last saw you last month, and then they'll share a story. And I'll be, and what's really beautiful about awe is that when someone shares their awe, awe is contagious so that you experience awe. Like if someone shares an awe-inspiring moment they've had, you're like, oh yeah, like that's that's like really awe-inspiring. And you you actually can feel it in your body in that moment. Like, wow, I just got a hit of awe. Yeah.

Corissa Saint Laurent:

Yeah.

Dr. Michael Amster:

Right?

Corissa Saint Laurent:

Yeah. That is that's that's awesome. And I think like you were saying, the pro-social uh aspect of it, right? Really it connects us and we can feel it and feel other feel the awe through other people's experience. So the more that we do share. And and that quote you shared earlier, that was her third step, right? Tell it to the attention. And I forget what the second thing was, but then the third bit of that, those lessons for living a life was was tell it. And I think that is an important aspect of how we not only deepen it for ourselves, but allow it to then become more part, more you it's like you're breathing it into reality, right? You tell it, you get to actually speak it into reality.

Dr. Michael Amster:

Yeah, it it has um, it's very palpable, right? When often Oz has like a little bit of an ephemeralness to it, and sometimes it's hard to describe, but then when you get to to put it down in words, it can take away from the experience actually when you do that. Sometimes when you try to verbalize something that is non-verbal, it can change that experience. But there is something really powerful around making it in a way concrete that you can share it with other people. Yeah, it's I really encourage the listeners to to just try this and to not push themselves hard. I in our experience is that when people apply a lot of force to experiencing awe, then they tend to have a block. It like doesn't happen. It's like the same thing I shared earlier when I was going through a panic attack and I'm like trying to like force my mind from doing that, it makes it worse. Um, and it's uh so we have to be just gentle and useful. And then in that spaciousness, the awe arises. Like you can't go to the edge of the Grand Canyon and be like, hey, I want to have a profound moment of awe right now. It just happens when you show up and you're present. You're like, whoa, wow. And then you experience the awe, but you can't force it to happen.

Corissa Saint Laurent:

Yeah. I like I love that because that that's speaking of surrender, right? That you just surrender to the moment, surrender to the practice, the moment, this beautiful whatever you're putting your focus on, or this mysterious thing you're putting your focus on. And surrender is obviously such a strong aspect of spirituality, just letting go into the mystery and letting go into the embrace of the universe, of God, the creator, and and actually being able to settle into that is there's such a incredible processes or outcomes from that, which it's not an easy act, but it's a simple act of surrender, right? It's not easy to do necessarily, but when you do, it's just like profound in how much just rushes in um when you just simply let go.

Dr. Michael Amster:

Yeah, it is kind of a funny paradox, right? Because the efforting is in learning to let go. But once you've let go, then there's no effort.

Corissa Saint Laurent:

Yeah.

Dr. Michael Amster:

Yeah, it's it's really kind of funny in that way. I mean, there's some examples I could share about in my life where it's like you put a lot of effort finally learning to let go, and then you let go, and then it's like, oh, this is easy.

Corissa Saint Laurent:

Right. Like, why did I spend 20 years trying to do this? Yeah. Um well, I am just excited for people to pick up your book. It's the power of awe. Um, Jake Eagle is Michael's co-author and his friend and mentor uh as well. And uh it's a beautiful uh book because not only what I found interesting about this is that yes, the there's the practice, and you you talk through the studies and you talk through the you know the efficacy of the studies and all that's in there. And then the those three steps that we just talked about, but then there's other things. There's not there's other exercises and other ways and means too of connecting to awe and this emotion and deepening the practice. So it it uh takes you on a journey and it's very high utility, you know. You're really talking about living a better life through this practice, easing anxiety, depression, uh, even chronic pain. So, do you want to talk a little bit about that? Because I know that that's your medical practice. You you work with a lot of chronic pain patients, right? So, are you helping actually relieve physical symptoms uh like that as well?

Dr. Michael Amster:

Yeah, for sure. I mean, uh in terms of like how this works with chronic pain, and I actually lead these eight-week-long programs where, and the awe practice is sort of the foundation of of what we teach in these eight-week programs, but that um the way we process pain in our nervous system and our brain and our spinal cord, um, is that when we are um our thoughts, our beliefs, and and with energy and movement, like how we what what we're doing and activities in our life, we can either increase our experience of pain, our perception of pain, or we can you know dampen it down. And by experiencing awe, we can decrease the intensity in people's perception of pain. And we know it works. Um, and we've measured that in our research studies. There's a very simple uh mathematical equation we could say around like how pain works. So suffering equals pain times resistance. So the more we resist our pain, the more we are pushing away from it, fighting it, using force against it, then the more we suffer.

Corissa Saint Laurent:

Yeah.

Dr. Michael Amster:

But if we're less resistant, and awe helps us be less resistant. When we're in awe, we're living more with presence, with more ease, with more acceptance. So the the injury or the accident that may have caused the pain initially, when we have less resistance, our perception of pain is much less, and we don't suffer, or we suffer much less.

Corissa Saint Laurent:

Yeah. That's like it's reminding me of the like the second arrow thing you were mentioning earlier, right? The that resistance piece is just adding to it, or it's like the suffering, the suffering. Uh, and and then it exponentiates the the the actual pain. Oh, that's fascinating. So I'm I'm so happy to hear that um it also helps in those kinds of cases because we, you know, among our fellow humans, we've got I mean, those are all pretty common, common ailments, calm, common uh problems with a lot of people. It's it's pain, it's anxiety, depression, or some type of mental health, debilitation. Those two things make up a unfortunately a large portion of our population, it seems here, at least in the West, and uh to be able to use a practice. And actually, I think, and maybe you and Jake, I don't know if you actually studied this or or contemplated it, but the fact that it's something that you yourself can do, adding then to the power of it working, rather than, you know, when you go see an expert and then they administer something, and you're kind of giving your power over to that expert, there might be a difference then in how it lands with you or how it actually does impact and change you, versus this thing that you do yourself, and and through that layering of the empowerment uh or the self-reliance uh that that you are gaining from it, then there's an added benefit. Is that something that you looked at?

Dr. Michael Amster:

Yeah, definitely. The this practice does give one a sense of empowerment. Many times people with chronic illness feel victimized by their health condition. It's a what we call um a type of, we have in our book we talk about these five types of strife and the ways in which we can we suffer. And one of them is victimization. And so the awe practice is a way of empowering ourselves, helping to expand our identity so that instead of just identifying with your pain, and I see this with chronic pain patients, and the way they talk about their experiences, like, you know, it's my pain, my oxycontin, my my suffering. And so what the awe practice does is it really literally expands your identity of who you are as a person. So if you know, we think mathematically, if you say there's 10 parts of your identity before you learn the awe practice, and one part is you know your past trauma of a rough childhood, and then you have uh the trauma of maybe a bad accident, and then you have the identity of you know, of having had back surgery, and then you have identity of maybe being a diabetic or going through divorce, and maybe there's a little bit of a good identity, you know, maybe you have a good relationship with the child, but in whole, you have this like really tight, constricted, suffering identity. But then you start to throw the awe practice in and starting to open your eyes up to the beauty and the wonder of everyday living, your identity instead of having 10 parts now can increase to 20 parts and then 30 parts and 40 parts. And as you increase the diversity of your identity with all these other beautiful things that you can find to experience a sense of self and purpose in the world, those suffering parts are diluted and they are less impactful on who you are as a person. Um, that's the principle I teach in my program with the patients is that we're expanding your identity through these types of practices. I ask people with chronic pain to spend time like looking at beautiful art or creating art or listening to beautiful music or creating music. There's a plethora of research that shows that there's all these things that we can do to empower ourselves so that our brains processing of the pain signals become less and less and less, and our identity with the suffering becomes less and less. Um, and that is that's that's the ultimate of not being a victim, right? Is you're empowering yourself and you're becoming the person you want to become in the world, despite having had injuries or you know, things that have resulted in bad outcomes of surgery or whatever that that cause pain. Um we can still have a beautiful, rich life and be a paraplegic or a quadriplegic.

Corissa Saint Laurent:

Yeah. Um, did you ever read the book or and then they made it into a movie, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly?

Dr. Michael Amster:

Mm-hmm. I have.

Corissa Saint Laurent:

Yeah, that is one of my uh top three favorite books. And for those who've never read this story, it's you know, this French magazine, I think he was a magazine editor, and he ends up becoming I don't remember them, you would probably know the medical term, but um he's essentially frozen in his body. He's he's stuck and he can only blink his left eye.

Dr. Michael Amster:

He had a stroke in a particular part of the brain where he it basically you are like you're frozen. You can't move your limbs and you can't communicate, and the only thing you do is blink his eyes.

Corissa Saint Laurent:

And he wrote this beautiful memoir through blinking his eyes to the to the person who then transcribed and and wrote his the the most beautiful observations, which really harkens to what we're talking about here of just like the simplest things of recalling, you know, like the smile on his child's face and all of the the the what he could see out his window, you know, from the the bed he was in, and um the the way his nurse smelled, and you know, all of these incredible things that he that ended up completely changing him before his death, changing you know, changing his identity or expanding his identity before his death, that all came through very simple observation. Now he had to go and suffer that to get to that place, or maybe he didn't. Have to, but that's what happened, at least in his story. We don't have to have that be our fate, right? We can actually do that now, do that today. Don't wait until some tragedy happens where you are stuck, you know, and that that is the only ways and means. Um, we have this beautiful opportunity. And I love what you've written. I love the the whole method. I hope that you and Jake continue the research and and continue uh bringing more of this beautiful concept into the world. And it sounds like you are, at least through all of the workshops that you're doing and continue to do. Is there anything that you'd like to leave uh with the audience today before we sign off?

Dr. Michael Amster:

Well, if we have a moment, I'd love to read a little bit from our epilogue, the closing of our book, if that's okay. Please. Because um, and first I just wanted to thank you again for the opportunity to be here, Krissa. And I'm I'm it was really lovely having you in our group program as well. So thank you so much.

Corissa Saint Laurent:

Yeah, you're welcome. Thank you.

Dr. Michael Amster:

Yeah, and I love hearing from your listeners. If people want to just reach out to me, uh my email is michael at thepowerval.com and love hearing from people that have found this practice to be helpful and transformative. Or if you're struggling, let us know. Like we're we're there to be of support. We're just really driven and motivated to help people out and make the thing.

Corissa Saint Laurent:

And I'm gonna put all of you those links and ways to connect to you in the show notes so that people can do that.

Dr. Michael Amster:

Thank you. Um, so what I want to just briefly share from our epilogue is that, you know, in our conversations today, we talked a lot about how this practice can help us as individuals. But I'd love to leave today with talking about how awe can really help change the world. And I think we need that more than ever right now. Yes. So the implications of awe go well beyond personal transformation. Awe touches everything, and perhaps most telling is the effect it has on others. We're wired to attune to others' behaviors and moods. Our nervous system senses the emotions of those around us. Just as being the recipient of a warm smile can lighten our mood, when we're in awe, those around us feel it too. Awe is contagious, so practicing the awe method is one not so small way we can contribute to the world. In this book, we've covered how the awe method is grounded in science, that a whole body of science supports that awe changes lives. So we have a big simple crash ending to the power behind the simple practice of the awe method. If practiced frequently enough by enough people, a critical mass as it were, everyone would experience a significant heightened shift in consciousness. Awe changes us, and when we share our awe, we change the world. How can we be in awe of someone and physically or emotionally harm them? How can we be in awe of the natural world and destroy it? How can we be in awe of life itself and not live as if every day were a miracle? In awe, the tone of every conversation, from personal to political shifts, from having an agenda to being open and curious, our conversations impact how we raise our kids, how we help our aging parents, how we treat our spouse, how we participate in community, how we mentor or supervise people, how we govern a city, and how we lead a nation. We can think of no downside to practicing the awe method because awe is the light, the appreciation of nature and different cultures, the curious and open mind, the generous and giving soul. These days we need awe more than ever. Awe awaits you and surrounds you in the ordinary moments of your life. Like the view of the stars that fill the night sky. Awe is free and always available. All you need to do is pay attention to what you value, appreciate, and find amazing. Wait, and then exhale and expand into the unlimited timelessness of awe.

Corissa Saint Laurent:

That's so beautiful.

Dr. Michael Amster:

Thank you, Carissa.

Corissa Saint Laurent:

And thank you for tuning in today. As a big thank you, there are gifts awaiting you on the Everyday Mystic website. Beautiful offerings like complimentary sessions, discounts on programs and products, and special events and experiences. Check it all out on theeverydaymystic.org and get in touch with me if you want to infuse more of these types of topics into your company culture, career, relationships, or your everyday life. I'm here to serve and can't wait to connect with you. Have an amazing, awestruck, wonder-filled rest of your day. Until next time, beautiful soul.