Speaker 1 · 0:03Michael Amster is the co-author of The Power of Awe, Overcome Burnout and Anxiety, Ease Chronic Pain, Find Clarity and Purpose in less than one minute a day. So that's quite a powerful promise. And I know a lot of research has been done by you and others around the power of awe. And I love that you created a method for the non-monks of the world. But a little bit more about you. You're a physician and faculty member at the Toro School of Medicine. You have 20 years of experience as a pain management specialist. You're currently the founding director of the pain management department at Saturn Cruise Community Health, student of meditation for over 30 years, as well as a certified yoga teacher and meditation teacher. You split your time between clinical work, research on awe, teaching mindfulness, and leading awe-inspiring retreats around the world. Michael, it's a pleasure meeting you. You think, well, this is the practice of awe and presence, and like who doesn't want to experience awe? So I feel like this is packaged in a way that's very enticing. It's like, oh, here's a Hershey bar. And by the way, it'll help every part of your life, but without the side effects, or I guess all the side effects are positive. But that's incredible. You know, I want to dig in a little bit about the future of mindfulness. You know, in a sense, mindfulness is classic and unchanging. But with awe is that our experience may seem the same every day, but when we bring mindfulness to it, it's very different because every moment is new, everything's always changing. And that's one of the beauties of mindfulness is that you can practice the same thing every day, but it never gets old because there's always something new to notice or to be with. And so you can hear the same mindfulness teachings a million times, but every time it's a reminder to notice what's new.
Speaker 2 · 2:26So a few things that I wanted to share about, you know, the terms of the future of mindfulness and what's special about the emotion of awe and this practice. What we're seeing is a continual evolution really of mindfulness. When I trained at Spirit Rock, one of the most inspiring lectures I remember was a slideshow that Larry Yang gave looking at the historical changes of Buddhism and the changes of the iconography, for example, like initially the idea of Buddhism that was described in the wheel of the Dharma. And it wasn't until Buddhism actually spread into Greece and went all the way to Europe that the iconography of a sitting Buddha actually came about. And then all the different types, streams of Buddhism that are out there, you know, with Mahayana and Theravada and everything has changed. So what I love from that experience of memory is that the Dharma, mindfulness, whatever terminology you want to use, is in flow. It's in flex. It's constantly changing. And it changes based upon the different cultures that it touches. And that's where we see where the dharmas interface with traditional religions in China and Japan before Buddhism even hit there, and like how they interface, and then you get these different sects of Buddhism. And so we're seeing that same type of thing happen here in the West, where as technology advances and our lives change, and we're integrating with this busyness of technology and our devices, et cetera, like Buddhism or mindfulness also is evolving and changing. And so if you look at the papers that have been written over the last 20 years, the first paper on awe as a scientifically studied emotion was back in 2003. And from that, a whole bunch of research has been done over the years looking at awe. But here's the thing is that they were really studying extraordinary awe. That's what people think about when they think about awe. They think about, oh, I've just went to the Grand Canyon and I had that incredible sense of connection to the vastness of the universe or all life, looking out over that vista, or they witness the birth of their child, or they attend the passing of a friend or a loved one and witness someone taking a last breath and have this profound moment of awe and connection to something greater than the self. And so I shared the data with Dacker and he's like, wow, this is the future of mindfulness. You guys have stumbled on it. This is it. What's about how do we apply awe in the everyday to find on the ordinary and not necessarily have to take people into a virtual reality simulator to experience a moment of awe? So the pandemic hit. And so Jake and I reached out to Dacker and we decided as a team through his lab to do two robust studies studying the effectiveness of the awe method at the height of the pandemic. We recruited about 300 primary care patients and then about 200 doctors and nurses that were on the front lines managing COVID during June of 2020, is when we commenced our research. And coincidentally, at the time, it was also when the race riots with George Floyd were going on. So it was really kind of the worst of the worst of the time in the United States. And so we taught the 21-day awe program and did metrics daily as well as some pre-post measurements. And then when we looked at our data, it was really incredible what we found, quite awe-inspiring, to be honest, in that this simple method that we asked people to do in the study, we asked them to spend 15 seconds three times a day having this awe moment in the ordinary. And so less than a minute a day, we saw that this technique was actually a medical intervention. And what I mean by that is it's so effective, it really is considered a medical tool. It had 35% reduction of depression in both study groups, which, if you look at this that significance, I mean, that's really on par of pharmaceuticals that people take for depression. We saw a 25% reduction in anxiety in one group and 22% in the other group. We saw decreases in loneliness, which is really interesting because people were sheltering in place and alone. But there's something unique and what makes awe such a special emotion is that it connects us to the vastness, the grandeur of all life. And so we don't feel alone when we have a moment of awe. We feel a connection. Even if we're sitting by ourselves, we still feel connected. We saw decreases in burnout, which was so important in the healthcare group. An AMA study done during the pandemic showed that 50% of healthcare professionals are burned out and ready to quit medicine. And we need our healthcare professionals to be healthy and well and performing their best more than ever. And so this technique and our data showed incredible outcomes with helping people with burnout. We also looked at chronic pain, other chronic health symptoms, as well as an overall sense of well-being and saw improvement. And then from our research, what we know and what we've learned is a few things that are really interesting. So one is that awe happens on a spectrum. Sometimes your experience of awe is going to be subtle, and you might just notice a little bit of shift of, let's say, colors getting brighter or feeling more present, or the sense of metacognition where like you're almost become the observer of the observed, a sense of removal of the sense of egoic self-identity, all the way on the spectrum to an augasm where you might almost start to cry. It's like you're so deeply touched by that moment that you're just like, oh my God, I'm alive. I'm so grateful and appreciative and so present. We have in our book 30 extended awe practices. And one of them is about this idea of really giving an awe hug. And I've heard from people that have read the book and practiced this one practice that they come back, it's like, I've never had a better hug in my entire life. You know, I've been missing out. Like most of our hugs are these like quick ha ha little tap tap tap, go on, but to like really have a moment of awe, like in that moment of a hug and connecting deeply with another human. It's like that's augasmic. So it's wonderful when we can bring the intersection of mindfulness, spiritual practice with science and neuroscience, and to kind of see the marriage between the two. And we know that there's the evidence to support you know these practices. So here comes our book, and kind of really hoping to get this out in the world because we really believe in its efficacy and we're continuing to do more research, which is really exciting as well.
Speaker 1 · 8:50Yeah, that research goes a long way, as you know, and seeing those statistical outcomes is incredibly impressive. With concentration practice, yeah, a lot of teachers say you need that bulldog mind to really effort your way to kind of exclude everything else other than that one-pointed object that you're concentrating on. You know, with mindfulness, we can kind of titrate between very open awareness and then down to something more focused, but maybe not one-pointed. And certainly that balance goes a long way. You know, I think with mindfulness practitioners, a lot of us get in that habit of focusing on the outcome of what we want to feel rather than noticing what's naturally here, even if it's unpleasant.
Speaker 2 · 9:51One thing I've noticed in teaching mindfulness to hundreds, maybe thousands of patients and students of mine is that people really struggle with the busyness of their lives to find the time, the space, the effort to have a sustained mindfulness practice. And often when they fail, they then it's like an arrow coming at them where they're really self-critical and judgmental. And so, what I love about this is it gives people a taste, I think, that gives an immediate reward and they feel good. And I find this practice takes me to these places that I would often spend seven days on a retreat until I actually kind of got to a sense of selflessness at a profound level. And I find that this practice actually can take me there pretty quickly. I mean, it's nothing as competitive for me in terms of practices, like I really don't care, but I I always just love, you know, it's not like I'm trying to speed race to transcend us or anything. But in fact, the less you effort yourself in this practice, the more it happens. Whereas I noticed with my prior times on long retreats, of it took a lot of efforting and almost force in a way, like you're forcing that concentration. And so with our busier lives than ever and the technology that we're connected to, I think more than ever, you know, this type of practices, these informal practices are more important that we can take mindfulness completely off the cushion. And I'm not saying that those practices aren't valuable, like there is so much value in a deeper practice that really cultivates sustained mindfulness and awareness in a deeper level. But for the average family holder out there in the world that has kids and jobs and the busyness, like it's wonderful to take mindfulness out to the airport when you're aligned at the TSA checkpoint. You can have a moment of awe and mindfulness, like a profound moment of awe, actually, and radically shift your nervous system. And in our book, we talk about this idea of three levels of consciousness. And this is really the life work of my co-author and friend Jake Eagle and his wife Hannah, who've been studying consciousness for a very long time and teaching about this on retreats. But there's really a backstory about why we think this is working and helping people on a profound level and really changing their level of consciousness. If you do so even for 15 seconds, it has a ripple effect of how we then respond to everything throughout the day. You know, during the holidays, it's super stressful. You're in line at TSA and people are super reactive and jittery and ready to bite each other's necks off. And you can have the profound moment of awe that then changes your nervous system and it ripples out. And you can share awe with other people and then watch their nervous systems change. So it's a very practical practice. That's what I love about this is that we can take it to the grocery store, to wherever we are, when we're really struggling and life is hard. And I often start my patient visits with asking my patients a moment of awe that they've had. And it's really beautiful when you have a conversation with someone about awe, what you realize is that awe is contagious, contagious in every good way. Because when you share a moment of awe, you inspire other people to have awe. And then there's a resonance and attunement that happens between your two nervous systems that is one of presence and calmness, that parasympathetic state of rest and healing. And I can see people that are really wound up in that sympathetic flight or flight state radically shift their nervous systems in a matter of seconds into one of presence and awareness and really noticing more of a separation of the egoic identity of pain and them having a vastness, a bigger sense of self than just that small identity of pain. As a pain specialist, I know you know firsthand about the sense of one's identity and identification around pain. And this is my pain, my morphine, my these are my pills. And when people are in pain or they're struggling with depression or any chronic illness, it can be really hard to like shut off that egoic identity. You can't force that to happen. But what's beautiful is you can have awe moments in the midst of chronic pain or depression. And it does shift your physiology and your nervous system, and it does change one's egoic identity and self, even gradually over time. And with sustained practice, it makes a significant change. So I'll just read this few lines from our book in a chapter about where applying the a-method in times of strife when life is really tough and hard. And we share a story of Viktor Frankel, who, as most people would know, he's the author of Man's First for Meaning and a psychiatrist who survived Auschwitz. And he shares a story of leaving Auschwitz on sort of a death march through the Alps, through the mountains of Salzburg, and the all these prisoners, and then also seeing kind of moments of awe out there in the mountains, even though they were prisoners. And our book says awe can bring us back to what is precious, in part because it has the unique ability to be present with other emotions, including as Frankel and his prison mates experience hopelessness. When we're unhappy, for example, we may not be able to access happiness at the same time. And when we're anxious, we may not be able to relax at the same time. But whether we feel happy or unhappy, anxious or relaxed, we can also feel awe. That we have the capacity to be in awe when experiencing difficult emotions gives us a great deal of influence over our suffering.
Speaker 1 · 15:30Yeah, I wish we could talk for like hours about this because I think that this is sort of a key point in why uh so effective and profound in the sense that we kind of drop our egoic identity, you know, in the dharmic sense, we're touching on the crux of wisdom, which is like non-self and noticing change in the midst of challenge. And I think for a lot of us, just living in the real world, we have our stressors, and it's really easy to go inward and separate and bunker down, and things can feel heavy, and this is why we react. We might not feel connected or expansive or a sense of ease in the body. We're a little bit compact, and a lot of us when we bring mindfulness to some of the challenging moments, a lot of people unfortunately collapse a little bit into themselves and not be true mindfulness, but they're bringing this attention inward, and some people will bypass what's greater and maybe bypass the truth of the difficulty, and they might kind of forget about the world or forget about their emotion and almost feed their ego in a way. So, what I like about this method is that we're bringing awareness to a more fuller experience, and we're resting in that experience and waiting, pausing. We're not doing per se, we're not efforting, we're uh exhaling the body, which can denote or imply like a sense of safety or trigger a sense of safety in the limbic system, and then expand. Remember the context, the perspective. At least in Buddhism, one of the last points of awakening before full enlightenment is a much more profound understanding of equanimity. And equanimity includes this perspective, this caring perspective of like the bigger picture of the context, of the sort of interplay of energy inward and outward, and our understanding of the context. So that equanimity, that perspective is reached, I think, much faster when we allow ourselves to exhale and expand. And things feel lighter and it's not so much collapsed inward carrying the heavy load by ourselves anymore. It's a little bit lighter because it's shared. There's this feeling of interconnectedness, appreciation just for what's here. We don't have to get to the Grand Canyon of life, we don't have to get the mansion or the partner or whatever it is that we think we need in order to feel X. It's already here. No matter what, even if we have chronic pain, even if we have depression. Yeah. And we can still practice this, and it's not something that we create per se, but rather surrender to. When I was a Buddhist monk in Thailand, we were out in the middle of the jungle and we were doing an all-night meditation sit. And I was sitting all night just on this old concrete floor. But the longer I sat there and the longer I looked at this concrete floor, the more it looked like this floor could be taken to the Louvre Museum and like hung up on the wall. Like how amazing is this concrete floor? It doesn't need to be the Grand Canyon to experience, uh, can experience it right here and now, just wherever we are, even if it seems ordinary, it's quite extraordinary when we really pay attention to it. Which brings me to my next question is if we can do this in 15 seconds a day, how do we do this? And I'd love to hear you talk about how we can find this sense of awe and decrease depression and loneliness and anxiety, and you know, discover that untapped energy.
Speaker 2 · 20:33Yeah. So we use the word awe, A W E, and we turn it into an acronym. A stands for attention, W stands for a wait or that pause, and then E is two words, a deep exhalation and an extensive expansion. So I'll go through them a little bit more in detail now. So with the A, the attention, we're asking ourselves to bring our full undivided attention, really just for the cycle of a breath or two. So even people with an ADD mind, and I've watched my dad who has adult ADHD and has tried to go on some mindfulness retreats with TikNot Han with me, but couldn't sit and focus his mind, but he can do this practice and his mind goes a million miles a minute. So we all can bring our attention to just something that we value, we appreciate or find amazing. So right now we're talking, Sean, and I'm looking at you on a screen, and I'm I see beautiful cabinetry and behind you. And so, you know, someone created that, cut the wood and painted it, and that can be a source of awe for me right now. So just find something in the space you're in. Or you can also use a memory, you could have a memory of your loved ones, of a pet, and use that as an inspiration of awe. So you'll hold that in our attention for just a few moments. And then there's the weight. And the weight I think of is like we're really allowing ourselves this gift of time. You know, when you're walking with a friend and you're going through a doorway and they wait and they hold the door open for you, and like how good it feels that you're taken care of by that person. Well, you're taking care of yourself, you're giving yourself the gift of pure present waiting or a cycle of a breath. And this really is a gift. And I think of it as you're really letting yourself marinate or become receptive of that full moment of awe. And then the E is a deeper exhale than your inhale, long out, exhale. And if you think of like the word awe, right, that itself is ah that's what we're talking about. You're taking this nice long exhale, and when we take a longer exhale out, we're stimulating our vagus nerve. The vagus nerve is the master computer of your parasympathetic nervous system, part of the autonomic processes that we don't have to be aware of, and it lowers our heart rate, blood pressure, it creates that state of rest and repair for our physiology. And immediately our heart rate variability changes, all these things shift in our body. And then the E also stands for an expansion. And so when we experience a moment of awe, and part of the idea and the definition of what awe is, is that there's a transcendence of our normal perception of reality or the world. And when we have that moment of awe, we often feel those chills or tingling. It's because there's an expansion of energy in our physical body from that experience that we're just having. And so we can actually facilitate that and really to allow that to happen. So I can think of it, for example, my mind's eye, I can imagine like an energy field or like an orb kind of expanding of light of that moment of all that I just had and letting it kind of expand out beyond my physical form. And then I get those chills or those tingles. So again, just summarize what the practice is. And I know it took a minute to explain it or two, but really it can be done once you get used to it. It's just the three steps of bringing your full undivided attention to something that you value, appreciate, or find amazing. And so I'm gonna actually do this right now myself. And then that wait and then the longer exhale out and feeling the energy expand. And that's a moment of awe. So, really, what the awe method is about is giving people these training wheels to begin cultivating a practice of awe where any object can become an extraordinary source of inspiration, beauty, of awe, of wonder for us. And so we're building this muscle up, we're building selective perceptions so we can have the ability to really walk through the world every day with a sense of wonder and awe with everything that we can touch. And that's what this practice is about. Also, for those that want more help and resources, we do have at our website, thepowerbaw.com, free downloadable meditations that help you build what we call the awe muscle. So, really, what the awe method is about is giving people these training wheels.
Speaker 1 · 25:08It reminds me of Tigna Han, like interbeing with nature and with life and what's around me. And I feel my body expand and soften, and where I was kind of holding myself a little bit tight, maybe bracing, maybe craving a little bit, maybe holding on and creating a little bit of tension that really dissipates when I'm connecting with uh the energy and the field around me, and sort of that release of expansion as I'm exhaling. Yeah, I could feel the parasympathetic nervous system really just find more ease in the body. And uh there's almost like that sense of joy and gratitude of just being here, like being able to uh notice this, be a part of this, feel this. It's something to be grateful for, just to even be here experiencing this when we really pay attention, sweet, exhale, expand. It's really beautiful and so simple.
Speaker 2 · 26:20And it's effortless. And that's what I love about this practice, just as an experienced mindfulness teacher. And we talk about in our book this idea of the distinction of presence, you know, living with ease versus force. And we're pretty much always living our lives every day when we're out in the world doing our regular living with a sense of force, you know, of pushing, striving, craving, desiring, manifesting, building, obtaining. And what I love about this practice is it gives us the respite from that. And what we've learned from our research is actually you can't try to force yourself to have a moment of awe. It's like you can't go to the edge of the Grand Canyon and be like, okay, I'm gonna have a strong, powerful, orgasmic moment of awe right now. Like it doesn't work that way. You have to just be receptive and open to this field of consciousness and of energy and vastness of all life on this planet. And when we create that, it's like then the awe just bubbles up. It arises in the field of awareness, is awe. I mean, everywhere there's awe to be had and taken. And we're almost sleepwalking. When we live our lives with a constant amount of force, we put ourselves into a state of robotic, automatic beingness, and we forget that we're alive and there's wonder and amazement to be had every moment. And so I love about this practice is it's teaching us a very important lesson of living more with presence and ease, because the practice only works when you come at it in that level of consciousness. And we've learned that from our participants. You know, people that struggle with it is because they're forcing it, they're trying to make it happen. And then what's beautiful is with time, these are training wheels. Like I said, this awe method is really a training wheel. Then you'll have spontaneous awe that just bubbles up all throughout the day. You know, you walk your dog down to the park and you'll have ah looking at all the different plants and flowers. You can do the same walk every day. You can make the same cup of coffee every morning, but that experience every day is different. And you can have an awe moment that's different and unique every single day, making coffee or tea every morning.
Speaker 1 · 28:37Yeah, absolutely. Michael, what final words would you like to share with our community?
Speaker 2 · 28:45Well, thank you, Sean, for welcoming me here. And I really loved our conversation and hearing your wisdom and take on the practice. And I think I'd like to close with basically a dedication of merit. And for those of us that are familiar with Buddhist communities, we close our times of teaching and connection with community with putting out the goodness out there into the world for healing and peace. And I'd like to read a little bit from our epilogue because I think that it talks about the power of this practice. And this is what really excites me the most with this work is really getting an enlightened level of consciousness for the planet for all of us here. The awe method is more than a self-help technique, and 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, and 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, and that a whole body of science supports that awe changes lives. So we have a big symbol 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 the personal to the 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 of 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, even during times of darkness. 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 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 all. Thank you. May all beings be at peace and free from suffering.
Speaker 1 · 32:00Beautifully put. Thank you, Sean. I have to confess, I have not read the whole book, but after speaking with you, I will for sure. This will be on my desk. Find clarity and purpose in less than a minute a day. Michael, thank you so much for sharing this. It's a wonderful introduction to be able to meet you and discover a lot of your work. I think that we're aligned in so many ways. And I just want to encourage everyone out there to buy The Power of Awe. You can find it at any bookseller. The website, thepowerofaw.com, has a lot of great practices and information for you to learn more. Thepowerofaw.com. Michael, thank you so much for writing the book, for sharing these practices, for I want to say pushing the envelope, but like moving this forward in a way that will reach a lot of people in an accessible way and backing it with research and science. I'm really excited to see what kind of momentum this carries in all sorts of circles. And I'll do my best to share the good word and the link to the book throughout my circles. Great to meet you, Michael. Good luck. And thank you for your good work.
