Happiness Break: Feeling the Awe of Nature from Anywhere, with Dacher Keltner

Host Dacher Keltner leads us through an exercise in feeling the serenity and wonder that nature brings us, no matter where we are.

How to Do This Practice:

1. Find a spot where you can sit and rest comfortably. Once you’re ready, close your eyes.

2. Begin breathing slowly and deeply. Focus on your breath and unclench your muscles from head to toe.

3. Think of a place in nature that is sacred or significant to you. What do you hear? What do you see? Try to create as clear of an image as you can in your mind.

4. Notice what feelings arise as you think of this place; what feelings do you associate with it?

5. Contemplate how this place has become a part of who you are; how it lives in your mind and how you can conjure up the feeling of it within yourself.

Today’s Happiness Break host:

Dacher Keltner is the host of the Greater Good Science Center’s award-winning podcast, The Science of Happiness and is a co-instructor of the GGSC’s popular online course of the same name. He’s also the founding director of the Greater Good Science Center and a professor of psychology at the University of California, Berkeley.

His new book is Awe: The New Science of Everyday Wonder and How It Can Transform Your Life.

More resources from The Greater Good Science Center:

Secrets of the Vagus Nerve: https://tinyurl.com/yzuxtuzp

Why We Should Look Up at the Sky (Podcast): https://tinyurl.com/fn3bttw6

What’s the Most Common Sense of Awe? https://tinyurl.com/2p842t8r

Happiness Break: How to Ground Yourself: https://tinyurl.com/289ph9cz

Happiness Break: Experience Nature Wherever You Are: https://tinyurl.com/yv46xrr4

Why You Should Snap Pictures of Nature: https://tinyurl.com/5fp7bhk6

Could Your Life Be More Awesome? Take our Awe Quiz https://tinyurl.com/2p8mz57f

We love hearing from you! Tell us about your experience of awe in nature. Email us at happinesspod@berkeley.edu or use the hashtag #happinesspod.

Find us on Apple Podcasts: https://tinyurl.com/2p9h5aap

Help us share Happiness Break! Leave us a 5-star review and copy and share this link: https://tinyurl.com/2p9h5aap

We're living through a mental health crisis. Between the stress, anxiety, depression, loneliness, burnout — we all could use a break to feel better. That's where Happiness Break comes in. In each biweekly podcast episode, instructors guide you through research-backed practices and meditations that you can do in real-time. These relaxing and uplifting practices have been shown in a lab to help you cultivate calm, compassion, connection, mindfulness, and more — what the latest science says will directly support your well-being. All in less than ten minutes. A little break in your day.