Courting the small self

Seek experiences that make you feel small in a good way — and notice the relief in it.

Why it works

Awe produces what researchers call the "small self": a felt sense of being one modest part of something much larger. Counterintuitively this is relieving, not diminishing — it loosens the grip of personal worries by re-scaling them against something vast, and it tilts people toward generosity and connection rather than self-protection.

How to do it

1. Deliberately place yourself near genuine vastness: a wide horizon, deep night sky, a great hall, the ocean.
2. Let yourself feel small without rushing to reassert control or narrate it.
3. Notice afterward whether your own problems feel re-proportioned.

Evidence

Experiments inducing awe (e.g. towering trees, vast vistas) find it produces a diminished sense of self-importance and increases prosocial and helping behavior relative to neutral or other positive emotions. Piff et al. (2015) showed across multiple experiments that this awe-induced "small self" is what statistically carries the jump in generosity and ethical behavior, and Bai et al. (2017) found the effect holds across cultures. (rct)

Most studies are short-term lab inductions; the "small self" can feel threatening rather than freeing for people in acute distress, so it is not a fix for active overwhelm.

Sources

• 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

Treating "feeling small" as something to resist or fix. The point is to let the re-scaling happen — fighting it to stay the center of the frame cancels the benefit.