Write from a small-self perspective after awe
After an awe experience, write briefly from the perspective of someone whose personal concerns feel appropriately small.
Why it works
Awe spontaneously produces the small-self effect — a temporary diminishment of the ego that reduces self-focused worry and increases prosocial orientation. Journaling immediately after an awe experience captures and extends this state by requiring language that explicitly frames personal problems within a larger context. The contrast between "my big problem" and the vastness just experienced is cognitively and emotionally reorganizing.
How to do it
- Within 15 minutes of an awe-inducing experience, write for five minutes.
- Begin with: "In relation to what I just experienced, the things that have been worrying me feel..."
- Do not force positivity — honest observation of scale shift is the goal.
- Note any change in which concerns feel significant and which feel smaller than usual.
Evidence
Shiota et al. and others have documented the small-self effect experimentally — awe induction reliably reduces self-referential content in self-descriptions. The journaling extension is a practitioner application of this well-documented effect. Bai et al. (2017) further shows the small self is a cross-cultural universal, strengthening the case that the state journaling captures is a robust feature of awe rather than a culture-bound artifact. (mechanistic)
The journaling application of the small-self effect is not separately trialed from awe induction itself; this combines a known effect with a standard journaling tool.
Sources
- Piff et al. (2015), "Awe, the small self, and prosocial behavior," Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
- Piff, P. K., Dietze, P., Feinberg, M., Stancato, D. M., & Keltner, D. (2015). Awe, the small self, and prosocial behavior. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 108(6), 883–899.
- Bai, Y., Maruskin, L. A., Chen, S., Gordon, A. M., Stellar, J. E., McNeil, G. D., Peng, K., & Keltner, D. (2017). Awe, the diminished self, and collective engagement: Universals and cultural variations in the small self. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 113(2), 185–209.
Common mistake
Writing immediately about the awe experience itself (describing it) rather than writing from within the small-self state it produced — description is different from perspective shift.
Practice this with IX Coach
More practices for Awe and Well-Being, Made Practical
- Take a weekly awe walk
Walk with the explicit intention of seeking something vast or wondrous — shifting your attention outward rather than inward.
- Use documentary and large-scale art to trigger awe
Watch content that conveys genuine vastness — deep space, ecosystems, historical scale — with full attention rather than as background.
- Attend to moral beauty as an everyday awe source
Notice and dwell on acts of extraordinary virtue, skill, or dedication — a common awe trigger that most people overlook.
- Use awe to expand perceived time
Deliberately induce awe when you feel time-pressured or rushed — awe reliably slows perceived time and reduces the feeling of scarcity.
- Build a personal catalog of micro-awe triggers
Identify the small, reliable stimuli in your everyday environment that reliably produce a mild sense of wonder — and use them deliberately.
- Use awe to reconnect with something larger than yourself
When awe makes the self feel small, follow the natural impulse toward belonging — toward community, nature, or humanity at large.
Related concepts
- Awe and the Small Self
Keltner’s science of wonder — the small self, moral beauty, and why awe heals
- Awe Walks, and the Science of Wonder
Why wonder quiets the self, and how to walk for it on purpose
- Positive Psychology, Made Practical
PERMA and the well-being exercises, graded honestly on the evidence
- Broaden-and-Build, Made Practical
Using positive emotions not just as rewards but as resources that build lasting psychological strength