The Power of AWE: A Unique Method for Mindfulness in Ordinary Life with Dr. Michael Amster

When you're amid the chaos of life, it's easy to lose sight of the magic of being alive. Imagine if you could reclaim that sense of wonder, in just 21 days, and use it as an antidote to burnout and anxiety?
That's what our esteemed guest, Dr. Michael Amster, co-author of The Power of AWE-Overcome Burnout and Anxiety, Ease Chronic Pain, and Find Clarity and Purpose in less than 1 Minute per day,  promises with the unique AWE Method.
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Get ready to uncover the power of mindfulness in medicine and discover how a panic attack during Dr. Amster's MCATs sparked a journey into mindfulness that would culminate in the transformative AWE Method.

You've probably heard of micro-dosing psychedelics, but have you heard of micro-dosing awe? Stick around as Dr. Amster takes us through the nuances of this fascinating practice. We uncover how just small doses of A.W.E. can create profound shifts in our mindset and delve into the science that backs this up. Especially riveting is our exploration of how the AWE Method can aid individuals with attention deficit disorder, helping them reclaim their focus and vitality. We'll also touch on the immediate rewards this practice brings and how the emotion of awe can heal and connect us.

But, what exactly is AWE? As we navigate the AWE Method, we unpack this complex emotion into three accessible categories: Awe of the senses, Interconnected Awe, and Conceptual Awe. Through this practice, you learn to surrender your expectations and attachments and embrace the present moment. As we wrap up our conversation, we discuss the importance of community in your personal growth journey and provide resources to support you. So, are you ready to break free from stress and reignite your sense of wonder and appreciation for life? Tune in, and let's start this awe-inspiring journey together.
Want to get in touch Dr. Amster? Contact him here: michael@thepowerofawe.com

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Transcript

Charlyce: 0:53

Welcome back to the Art of Healing podcast. This is Charlyce, and thank you so much for joining me. For today's episode. We'll be welcoming a guest, Dr Michael Amster, who is a co-author of the best-selling book the Power of AWE- Overcome burnout and anxiety, ease chronic pain, find clarity and purpose in less than one minute per day. Dr Amster is a physician and faculty member at the Toro School of Medicine, with 20 years of experience as a pain management specialist. He is currently the founding director of the Pain Management Department at Santa Cruz Community Health. He has been a student of meditation for over 30 years and as well as a certified yoga teacher and meditation teacher. He splits his time between clinical work, research on awe, teaching mindfulness and leading awe-inspiring retreats around the world. Hey, Michael, thank you so much for joining me for today's episode. How are you doing today?

Dr. Michal Amster: 2:11

I'm doing great, Charlyce, and I'm just thrilled to be here with you, getting to connect with a fellow physician and someone who's connected to the world of healing and a deeper level with spirit and energy and the mind and the body. I'm just thrilled to be here and to meet your community of listeners. So thanks for inviting me to be here today.

Charlyce: 2:33

Thank you so much. I thought it might be a nice place to start because your background is as a physician. You're a pain management specialist. But what led you to Jake, your co, -author, was taking a mindfulness course. So my first question for you what led you, as a pain management physician dealing with chronic pain, serious chronic pain to take an interest in mindfulness? Was it just for yourself? Was it for your patients? Tell me about that journey.

Dr. Michal Amster: 3:02

Yeah, so you know, actually my journey into mindfulness predates becoming a doctor. I was one of those kids that was really driven. I wanted to be a doctor since I was a little boy. It's kind of a life dream of mine. And as I went through my education and I experienced the stakes getting higher and higher, you know, getting into a good college and then in college doing really well.

Dr. Michal Amster: 3:25

And when I took the MCAT, which is the exam we take to get into medical school, the first time, I had a full-on panic attack in the middle of the test, like I experienced that feeling where my brain shut down, my heart was racing, I couldn't think anymore. I was like I was hijacked by fear and anxiety and I was starting to have increasing test-taking anxiety in school, just wanting something so bad and not knowing if I could get there. And that feeling like this was that important step I had to pass, you know, to get those through those exams. And at that point I was faced with the decision either to get on medication to numb my mind out, to calm it down, like like a lot of people do, or a friend suggested I go on a meditation retreat and that completely changed my direction of my life and so when I was probably around 20 years old, I did a 10-day vipassana retreat, which is a form of Buddhist meditation, and looking back now I'd have to say that was probably one of the hardest 10 days of my life. In some ways it's harder than medical school. I mean you're sitting for 14-15 hours a day practicing, calming and focusing your mind. But from that experience I really learned valuable insights and wisdom into the workings of my mind and I became a very dedicated meditation student.

Dr. Michal Amster: 4:56

Throughout medical school and my training I was very blessed and lucky to go to a med school that had a meditation group for students and I had a lot of support and my practices continue to grow over the years. I got trained as a what's called dharma. It's the Buddhist term for like the teaching, the wisdom got taught as a trained as a dharma teacher at a place called Spirit Rock Meditation Center out here in California, led a community of meditation interfaith group for a number of years, been teaching my chronic pain patients mindfulness, sort of based on mindfulness based stress reduction curriculum for for the most of my career. So mindfulness has really been a critical part of my journey in medicine actually, and I think that actually is one reason why I was drawn to pain management is that that interface between mind, body and spirit. It's like such a fascinating field of how everything is interconnected and it really plays out when people are in chronic pain.

Dr. Michal Amster: 5:56

So what happened was I actually met Jake he's a psychotherapist and currently lives in Hawaii with his wife, hannah and actually met Jake through a friend who recommended I see him as a therapist when I went through a divorce right after I was finishing up my, my fellowship and my training. So I connected with Jake probably 18, 18 plus years ago, originally sort of as a client and then over time became more like colleagues. He leads a community called liveconsciouscom with his wife and they. They run phenomenal mindfulness consciousness retreats that I've always loved attending and Jake and I had a conversation about four years ago reflecting back that a lot of our patients or clients have had a really hard time with a sustained mindfulness practice and I'm sure, surely she can relate to that too.

Dr. Michal Amster: 6:54

You know it's so challenging for people to find the time, the energy, the effort to really to create that space for a dedicated, long-term practice and plus, it's not easy. A lot of challenging emotions come up. It's not an easy thing to to really have a sustained practice. I mean, I have tried, inspired after a long retreat, to meditate a half hour day and then I often, you know, drop it off and then I feel guilty and bad about it. So Jake and I had this conversation about finding a way to get people the benefits of all sustained mindfulness practice without having to sit for 30 minutes at a time or 20 minutes, and that you can have mindfulness on the go, and from that we came up with what we call the method that we use. The word I, a, w, e we've turned into an acronym and it's a three step mindfulness practice to access moments of on the ordinary, and I can tell the brief story about how we came about discovering that if they interest you absolutely, yes, I absolutely agree is being a meditation student myself.

Charlyce: 8:07

And then is it comes up with my own patients that I know. When I first started to read your book, that was it hooked me. That this was, I think you said, like micro dosing. I think I saw some micro dosing because as a process taking on meditation, on the surface it sounds easy, but sometimes it's very difficult to find the time. It can be difficult and depending on where you are and a lot of my patients will tell me that just the thought of Not being busy in the worry that now whatever they've been trying to suppress is going to come up is it's scary. So when I first started to read my book, when I first started to read you know the work that you all done I that hooked me, like, oh, this is something that you do, you know any in a moment. So, yes, and that was my next question, can you tell me what all stands for and what's the three step process? And I've been practicing all myself, by the way.

Dr. Michal Amster: 9:04

Great, yeah, so. So I flew out to Hawaii about about four summers ago and where Jake lives, and we spent a week exploring like what would be this ideal, brief mindfulness practice to give people a sense of, you know, deep peace, presence, awaken consciousness, feeling of connection, of joy, and we had a kind of a inkling in the back of our mind that maybe I had something to do with experiencing a moment of awe. And for those that have been to Hawaii or you've been to a tropical island anywhere in the world, I mean, these places in the tropics are really beautiful and there's a lot of awe and you're, you know, on an island in the ocean and rainbows and the food and everything. Well, it's actually in a very ordinary moment that I had this. I guess we can call an op. Tiffany and I was making pancakes for Jake and Hannah one morning and I poured the batter and I just stood there and I just watched the liquid batter go into a nice big, fluffy pancake. And I think, like most people, when we pour the batter, we don't just stand there and watch the pancake go from liquid to solid, like we're often making sausages or coffee or getting our kids school lunches ready for school or whatever. We're just like constantly doing things. But it was like in this experience of watching this transition that I had a profound moment of awe, like my. I had a sense of tingling and chills in my body and I got so excited and energetic and I was Just really an awe of the chemistry of what and how this, this mushy batter, turns into something that's so delightful and delicious and a matter of a minute in front of your eyes. So we dissected kind of what happened and from our own mindfulness experiences and came up with what we call the method, and so we use the word A is this acronym and it's a three step process, and so go ahead and talk people through it and teach a little bit about, about, about the three steps. So what's really unique about this is that we're giving people a tool, a training wheel, so to speak, to learn how to Experience a moment of on the ordinary and real times of their life. So you don't have to go to the Grand Canyon or travel anywhere. You don't have to go to the like, the most amazing rock concert, to experience a moment of awe. You can have it right now, right wherever you are.

Dr. Michal Amster: 11:39

Listening to this podcast is, even if you're, you know you're at home, you're in your office, you're in your car, like there's ought to be had all around us all the time. So the A stands for attention. What we're asking you to do is to bring your full I divided attention to something that you value, appreciate or find amazing. So right now, I would encourage listeners just look around you in the space you're in. Maybe you know, if you're at home, there's some artwork that you have a connection to your memory, or photographs of loved ones or a plant. Maybe go up and touch the texture of the leaves, like we're talking right now and I'm looking at your, your, your microphone on our experience talking here, and it's changing colors and there's like beautiful colors and rainbow, really an awe of that. So you bring your full and divided attention to that thing.

Dr. Michal Amster: 12:36

And then the W stands for weight and what we're gonna do is we're just gonna be fully with, we're gonna pause, we're gonna slow down. So we're going fully in the present moment. You know, most of the day our minds are either in the what they call the ruminating monkey mind. We're either thinking of the future and what's gonna happen next, or we're ruminating of the past and we're feeling sad or excited from past memories, but we're rarely just fully in the present moment. So in that way we wanna just be, we're gifting ourselves. It's really the time of waiting, as a gift, of pausing.

Dr. Michal Amster: 13:16

And then the E stands for two things. So in the E you wanna take a nice long exhale out. And if you do this with me right now, together, like if we just take a nice long exhale and even make that sound of awe, ah, you feel like and it just happened to me like my voice tone has changed a bit. I'm like calming down. I'm slowing down. When we take that nice long exhale out, we actually stimulate what's the vagus nerve. And for those that don't know what the vagus nerve is, it's the master computer of our nervous system that creates that rest, healing state. It's the opposite of what is called the sympathetic nervous system, the fight-flight freeze, like when we're under attack or threat. It's all part of this autonomic system that regulates all these processes in our bodies that we don't have to be conscious of, but they have powerful impact on our health and our physiology. So when we take that nice long, deep breath in and a slow exhale out, longer and really expanding our diaphragm. What happens is is we stimulate the vagus nerve and then the E also stands for expansion.

Dr. Michal Amster: 14:36

And when you have a moment of awe, those moments give us a sense of vastness, of something bigger than us. It kind of scrambles our brain Like wow, like that's amazing, like how's that even possible? And then the identity, the egoic self, becomes smaller. And then our we actually as our identity, gets smaller. We actually feel like we're bigger, we expand, and so you actually wanna facilitate that sense of expansion.

Dr. Michal Amster: 15:02

And you know, when you have a moment of those profound moments of awe and you feel those tingles and chills in your body, it's because there's a release of energy. And I know you're an energy worker and so you know exactly what I'm talking about. But when you have a moment of awe, like you experience an energy expanding, a tingle, a chill of like expanding outwards, and you wanna just facilitate that happening in this three-step process. And so once you learn how to do this, it literally takes just 15 seconds to do. It's a cycle of few breaths and then you're you know you're off running, you don't have to think about it, it's just an automatic experience and process. And then all throughout your day you can find a moment of awe.

Charlyce: 15:39

Thank you for walking us through that awe practice. Since I'd start reading the book, I had started to do it myself. I have to admit, I had to sort of reread it a few times each time before I got it, cause I was so trained as a meditation practitioner student that my meditation it needed to be sort of formal and I needed to stop everything I was doing and put all aside. So you know, I try to do this some like in between patients. So, and that's it's been a nice, nice challenge. It hasn't come so easy for me, I'll be frank, but I really do like practicing this. So for the readers, which I'll put in the show notes where to buy a copy of your book definitely that awe method will. You can walk it with the book. But thank you so much for walking us through that practice.

Dr. Michal Amster: 16:28

Yeah, it's, you know. I'll tell you a few things we know from our research. So we've studied the awe method on about 500 participants in two large studies and our data has been published and some more papers are coming out, which is exciting. We talk about this, of course, in our book as well, about our research and what we found. But we teach people to do this in a 21 day program, and what we do is we ask them to just try it three times a day, and so when someone says, oh, I don't have time to meditate, oh, I don't have time, you know, to practice a mindfulness practice, I mean, you can't have an excuse for this. We're literally saying when you're at a bed, light, you can have a moment of awe. When you're wake up in the morning and you're making your coffee and you're waiting for the water to boil or your Kurg machine to like do its thing, you can have a moment of awe. Awe is just always around us to be had an experience. So it's a beautiful practice that, with time, becomes a lot easier for people to practice.

Dr. Michal Amster: 17:30

And what we've learned from our research study is that people that have tried traditional mindfulness practices and have struggled for various reasons whether, like their mind just is always racing, maybe their ADD that even people with what they call neurodivergent, like a mind that has attention deficit disorder, they can practice this because we're not asking you to bring your attention to something the longer than 15 seconds, and that's the beauty of this practice, and what you really do is you're micro dosing.

Dr. Michal Amster: 18:00

You're just taking these little doses throughout the day of mindfulness. And what we also know from our research is that there's what's called a dose response and we know this in medicine is that the more times you dose something and these are little micro doses the more benefit you have. So we know from our studies that people who practice this at least three times a day had excellent benefit, and then those that practice five times a day even have more benefit, and people that practice seven times a day even have even more benefit. So there's no downside to practicing this experience, and the beautiful thing too is that you get a reward Like you feel good immediately after you do it, like it's a, whereas in traditional mindfulness practices you don't necessarily feel good. You'd be, like you can feel pretty beaten up sometimes, right.

Charlyce: 18:48

Absolutely yes, and you know sometimes it does. Yeah, I have to coach myself, I have to coach my clients, my patients, that in a meditation practice you often have to have some faith works out with Reiki that it is helping you, because you may not feel that benefit right away.

Dr. Michal Amster: 19:07

Yeah, yeah, and that's one thing I really love about this practice is that we're kind of a society that appreciates immediate gratification and there isn't immediate reward. Like every time I have a moment of awe, I just it resets my nervous system, it takes me to the kind of a heightened level of consciousness, I feel good, I call myself down, and there's this instant reward because what you're doing is you're focusing your attention on something that you value, you appreciate or just find amazing. And I mean I'll give an example, like it might sound silly, so, but I had to go to Target the other day and just grab something really quick, but I was like, okay, I'm gonna make this like an awe experience and just have like this as I walk through the store, just to be in awe of everything around me. And I did like I had this like incredible, like multiple experiences of awe walking through Target. Like just looking at this row of crocs, they had all these different colors and they were just displayed in such a beautiful way. And I was like I just stood there and I had like what we call when you have an extreme moment of awe. We call it like an, an orgasm, like when your whole body gets those chills and tingles, and I was like here I am having an orgasm at Target looking at crocs and I know people think this is kind of funny, but it's profoundly healing for our nervous system and we talk about this in our book, about what these, what awe does, is an emotion.

Dr. Michal Amster: 20:42

It's what is called from the researchers that have been studying off for over 20 years and at mostly at UC Berkeley is it's what's called a pro-social emotion. So wrapped up within awe are all these other positive emotions that come out of it. So we know when people experience awe they're more generous. So we increase generosity, we increase compassion, we feel connected. We don't feel lonely, because when you experience awe, you feel connected to the vastness of all life and everything around us, and so you don't feel alone.

Dr. Michal Amster: 21:14

Hightened mood states, and I know we're gonna get into this. But how this works, what's going on in our physiology is just awe inspiring too, like the whole story behind it. It's incredible, and so we think of awe as really it's probably one of the most important of all human emotions and sadly, in our more connected to technology, busy lives, we've lost awe. You look at a child right, and children are filled with awe and wonder and curiosity. But as we get older we lose all that and we only experience like very little awe in these very extreme, extraordinary moments, like when we go on a trip somewhere really exotic.

Dr. Michal Amster: 21:58

But what I love about this practice is we're learning to retrain our nervous system and, instead of it being a temporary state, it becomes a trait, becomes who you are as a person you know. It's so cool talking to people that have known me my whole life and I have been an overachiever. I'm type A, very driven, like most doctors are, and success oriented, and they say that I'm like the happiest, most relaxed, most at peace, like fun. I laugh all the time. It's like changed my whole sense of reality and perception of the world and like awe is a healing balm for our nervous system and emotionally, physically and spiritually.

Charlyce: 22:46

I hope I'm getting this one correctly, but are there different types of awe? Are there different awe experiences, or is every awe experience kind of the same? Are there different flavors of it or is the-?

Dr. Michal Amster: 23:03

Well, we talk yeah, that's an interesting question. I know when people start to practice this that they often have a lot of questions that come up. And so in our book we do talk about and helping people develop a practice about different categories of awe and we sort of divide things into three simple categories just in developing a practice. So the easiest to access is awe of the senses. So if you just think about you know, when you see like a beautiful sunset or you're holding the hand of a friend or you're petting your pet and being just focused on the sensations of that Listening to beautiful music or hearing the waves crashing or a bird overhead, tasting something that is incredible and delicious so we all can access awe from our senses naturally and quite easily. And so being in nature is probably the most easiest way to begin that practice. Let's just go outside we call it, you know, going on an awawk go for a few minutes and just open your eyes and your ears and your sensations and your face and your skin to all the beauty around you and really taking that in fully. And then we talk about. Another category of awe is what we call interconnected awe, and that's awe that we have from connecting with other beings, like you know, humans or animals. That kind of sense of connection and just being in the presence of another human can be a great source of inspiration, of awe. And then the third category we talk about is what we call conceptual awe, and that's awe of concepts. So you know, if you think up right now about like the reality, here we are on this planet Earth, right, we're on this rock with some water on it. We're floating in space, we're orbiting our sun. I'm looking out my window right now. I see sunlight. Okay, well, the sun is 100 million miles away. It's like about eight minutes to get here. All the photons I'm seeing in my eyes right now, and those photons bring all life on this planet. It grows all of our food, it creates the air we breathe. That's just talking about. That is just so awe inspiring. So when we look at the world around us and you just begin to see the wonder and amazement of like physics and astronomy and the simple things that we take for granted, you know, plumbing, like that's like, can be awe inspiring. We even share a story about the development of the doorknob in our book. Yes, right, and just like. Imagine that the doorknob was invented in the 1800s and imagine, like, what life would be like without a doorknob. You know how that changed everyone's lives. Yeah, so that's kind of the three categories. But what I will just say to people and what we've known from our research is that this should be easy Now. Initially it will take a little bit of training and getting used to and questioning about am I doing this right? But Awe happens on a spectrum and this is an important point to make.

Dr. Michal Amster: 26:28

A lot of my awe is very subtle. It's just like a subtle change of perception of color or things look brighter or sounds are richer. I don't have an. I use the word orgasm like I don't have orgasms on a daily basis. They're rare. I mean, they don't happen all the time and I don't try to make them happen Like they. Just when it happens I'm like, wow, I happened looking at Croxid Target the other day. You know it's because the beautiful thing about this practice is is you don't.

Dr. Michal Amster: 27:04

When you try hard, when you effort, when you're forcing things to happen, it's when the awe doesn't happen. You really need to learn how to relax and let go. And in that spaciousness of letting go, in that void, so to speak is when things arise, that creativity, the beauty we're always. We live our lives in this very busy, frenetic world with a lot of force. We're pushing, we're striving. I know we know that as physicians, like our whole lives have been, you know, so much training and so much pushing ourselves and working so hard. And this practice one of the things I love about it so much is that it really teaches us to learn to let go, to fully be in the moment, to create a vacuous space, so to speak, to just allow things to arise in this like creative potential that the universe has, it's, it's and it's unlimited. It's like this unlimited field of energy that we can tap into. And you know that, as a Reiki practitioner, what I'm talking about, right.

Charlyce: 28:13

Life force. Key prana, absolutely so, if you don't mind, one of my last questions is for the listeners, for me as well. How do we know when we're experiencing awe? And since it's a short practice, maybe you could walk us through that all practice again so we can just see for ourselves if we're experiencing it and then you can advise us. You know, did we, did we? What will we know to look out for that? We got that vagus nerve stimulated.

Dr. Michal Amster: 28:46

Well, sure, well, I think one thing before I walk you through it. I would just say that again this comes back to what I just talked about presence versus force. So it's really helpful when you do this practice to not have expectations or attachments. That's often been from teaching this to. You know, thousands of people at this point teach us the doctors that are dealing with burnout, we teach this to chronic pain patients and you know it's like I know from a lot of experience that when you try hard this doesn't happen. So you really got to learn to just let go and go with the flow, so to speak. So I'll walk you everyone through the practice again and we'll just do it kind of a little more condensed. I already shared what the practice is and then I'll ask you what you're feeling now you maybe can tell a little bit and I can share about what I'm feeling and I'll give a few more tips of like how to really make the practice work. So remember, the practice is the word AWE and it's a three-step practice.

Dr. Michal Amster: 29:53

So first is attention. So we're going to bring our full, undivided attention right now to something that you value, appreciate and find amazing. So just invite you to find something Could be a memory, could be something that you're looking at right now with your eyes open, like a plant or a piece of artwork, or even maybe scissors in your office or all the colored pens can all be a source of awe. Just fully be with that, letting all other thoughts go. You're not thinking about the future or the past, you're just being with that, and then you're in this weight. That's the W. Just fully be with taking a breath in and a breath out, really being and appreciating that. Now we're going to go longer inhale in and a much longer exhale out. You can even make that awe noise, letting the energy expand, going out to your fingertips, letting it get bigger than just your physical body. Good, and then just check in with yourself for a moment. Notice how you feel, if you feel more relaxed, more present, open your eyes, if you see colors look a little bit different.

Dr. Michal Amster: 31:04

Thank, you. How was that for?

Charlyce: 31:07

you. So for me, my focus point it kind of changed. Initially I focused or took awe in the color behind you, the background color, so I really like that color. Then the focus became the actual connection, our conversation, the connection with the listeners. And then when you said expand, actually you felt that sort of expansion that we'll be communicating with people in Africa, in Europe, and so that connectedness and then that expansion part became much easier.

Charlyce: 31:41

Physically I did feel my breath slow down and deepen, which is really nice. I share with the listeners. When you're in a medium like this and a podcast, it becomes a habit to hold your breath. I've talked about that and even as a physician, sometimes as a female, we sometimes hold our breath to appear more attentive. We don't want to sigh. So I felt myself re-engaging with my breath and that sort of nice slow down and some of the tingles. So it was very nice and hopefully you listeners got a taste of that. Maybe, if you're wanting to deepen that practice and really get into the nitty gritty and the research of awe, I would definitely recommend you get Michael's book. Michael, where could the readers get a copy of your book if they're wanting to delve deeper into this?

Dr. Michal Amster: 32:36

Well, I think that the book is available, of course, on Amazon, like everything. But encourage people to go to their local bookstore and support them. I'll tell you you want to have a moment of awe. Go to a bookstore, a real bookstore. When you stand in a bookstore and you look at all the books around you and think about I mean, this is an example of conceptual law. Of course, it's sensorial too, but just all the people's whose brains and created all these beautiful works of art and new ideas that change the world, advance our consciousness. So, yeah, maybe order from your local bookstore and support them I mean, they would love your support and come visit our website, thepowerofawcom.

Dr. Michal Amster: 33:19

We have videos on there. We have free meditations, we have downloads. We do occasionally. Eventually, we're going to have an online course that you can do asynchronous, but we do do, a few times a year, live courses to our community as well. Yeah, we're excited by this movement. I teach this to doctors and nurses and, with continued education, you talked about doing this in practice, in your practice. It's a very wonderful way to reset your nervous system in between patients, to take that moment of awe, and I share awe with patients. One thing that we know from our research too is that awe is contagious. When you share your awe, you inspire awe and others. And I don't know if you mind if I read a little bit from the book to kind of close today.

Charlyce: 34:04

Beautiful. Thank you so much, please do.

Dr. Michal Amster: 34:07

Yeah, because we've talked a lot about the personal today, our own individual law practices. But what really excites myself and my co-author Jake is the potential this has to change the world and heal the world. So I wanted just that our epilogue from our book talks about that. I think it's a good way to close our talk today. So the law method is more than a self-help technique and the implication of law goes well beyond personal transformation. Law touches everything and perhaps most telling is the effect it has on others. We are 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. Law is contagious, and so practicing the law method is one not so small way we can contribute to the world.

Dr. Michal Amster: 35:06

In this book we've covered how the awe method is grounded in science and that a whole body of science supports that odd changes lives. So we have a big, simple crash ending to the power behind the simple practice of the awe method. If practice frequently enough by enough people a critical mass, as it were, everyone would experience a significant height and shift in consciousness Odd, changes us. 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 though as if every day were a miracle?

Dr. Michal Amster: 35:51

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 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. These days, we need awe more than ever. So awe waits 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.

Charlyce: 37:01

Michael, it has been an honor and a pleasure to have you on the podcast For the listeners. If you check your show notes, you will see links to both Michael's website and you'll also see links to purchase a copy of the book, which I think you have available in multiple formats I think it was, wasn't it? So it'll be available in multiple formats.

Charlyce: 37:22

So, definitely check the show notes. Any of the listening platforms that you're on will take you there. If you did miss any of the episodes, you'll also see a link to sign up for my weekly newsletter, which I will email out a copy of this podcast, as well as all of Michael's details and information, so that you can practice awe on a regular basis and get started with his book. Michael, thank you so much. I appreciate it. Thank you.

Dr. Michal Amster: 37:48

Thank you so much. It's been such an honor to, I guess, spend time with you and to share some awe and get to meet your community of listeners. And don't be a stranger. Feel free to reach out to me, you can. Anyone can ask me any questions or need support michael@t hepowerofawe. com. Thanks again.

Charlyce: 38:03

Thanks, michael, thanks so much. I'll see you next week listeners. Thanks, bye-bye.