Melt the Iceberg Inside: How to Feel Joy at Any Age

I remember an old boyfriend telling me that he thought that I was “pretty weird” because I went into paroxysms of joy watching cherry blossoms bud on my block in Greenwich Village in the spring.

My experiences of elation, joy, transcendence, or awe were from reading, being in nature, seeing art, listening to music, and from travel combined with any of the above.

Describing the Indescribable

Words can approach some descriptions of the feeling, but they are often inexact. When I look back, I think that the word may be “melting.” It feels as though any negative emotions—worry, stress, impatience—slowly dissolved until I felt no borders between myself and the world.

I always kept this feeling to myself, being kind of private. And, like travel photos or religious experiences, most other folks don’t want to hear about it, and I don’t blame them.

Shut Up During the Sunset, Please!

Very often I need to be alone to feel that joy, but it is still there if I am with the right person. I returned with a dear friend to witness the beauty and antiquity of Lodhi Garden in New Delhi a few months ago. She could share and celebrate that moment of pure joy with me.

My husband and I can sometimes share the feeling when we go to a museum or sit in a concert hall or watch a great classic movie. But I do need quiet to appreciate the moment. Words can ruin the feeling, as can analysis. For me, awe-inspiring moments need to be discussed after the experience, if at all.

Mired in Covid Stagnation

During my early 70s I noticed that I was experiencing this phenomenon less and less.

Or maybe the feeling diminished because I was at home a lot during Covid and was not listening to music on long car rides to work or venturing out to museums or concerts. Or perhaps I was mired in the obsessive relationship many of us have to distracting technology. In the end, I was just not being mindful enough to stop and smell the roses.

And I know that one reason for the absence of those feelings of awe was because I was not traveling. Travel has been a source of joy throughout my life. Feelings of elation while on the road could be inspired by sounds, smells, and sights, in addition to the appreciation of being far from home and in another world.

The Life Stages of Awe

Some people may feel that elation is tied more to being young, when words on a page or notes in the air are fresh discoveries as we begin to explore the world. But I know now that it does not need to diminish or to end.

If I had influence with the good fairy…I should ask that her gift to each child in the world be a sense of wonder so indestructible that it would last throughout life.

Rachel Carson

Surprised by Joy

I can still feel that joy when I was hiking in the hills of the Greek island of Symi in Greece years ago. Suddenly I heard George Gershwin’s Concerto in F emanating from a record player in a cottage. When I remember that moment, I can relive the feeling that I was exactly where I was supposed to be.

Memory Heightens the Experience of Awe

For me, even remembering a moment while traveling can bring back some of those heightened feelings—and that was especially appreciated during Covid.

In March of 2020 I wrote an article for Travel Awaits, entitled “Missing Travel? Take a Trip Down Memory Lane,” about what researchers called episodic memory. This phenomenon was described by Dr. Andrew Budson at Boston University School of Medicine as the ability to mentally travel back in time to a life episode and to relive it in vivid detail.

Budson noted that what you pay attention to is what you remember best. Being conscious of feeling awe makes it easier to retrieve it once past.

This is not a new phenomenon, just that it is being scientifically researched. As poet Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote in an 1841 essay,

Though we travel the world over to find the beautiful, we must carry it with us, or we find it not.

Different (Brush) Strokes

Of course, that joy comes from different inspirations for different people. I remember having discussions about the emotions surrounding seeing great art vs. listening to music vs. being in nature. In which is it easier to “lose oneself”? And, of course, there are people all over the world who feel awe and transcendence when contemplating their own experience of a higher power.

You may find your ice melting from listening to Crosby, Stills, and Nash singing “Love the One You’re With” (as I did) and then again with Richard Strauss’s Waltzes from Der Rosenkavalier (as I did again).

Emotion Research: Awe is a Thing

I came across an article in the New York Times in January of 2023, entitled “How a Bit of Awe Can Improve Your Health.”

In the article, Professor Dacher Keltner, a psychologist at the University of California, Berkeley, said,

Awe is the feeling of being in the presence of something vast that transcends your understanding of the world.

Dr. Keltner found that the experience of awe can calm the nervous system by slowing our heart rate, relieving digestion, and improving breathing. According to him, that feeling can trigger the release of oxytocin, called the “love hormone.”

Awe also seems to affect the cerebral cortex of the brain, which regulates thought, emotion, reasoning, language, memory, and consciousness.

Feeling Awe Stills Negative Emotions

The benefit of feeling awe is the subject of considerable scientific research. In a 2022 article in BBC Worklife Science entitled “Awe, the ‘Little Earthquake’ That Could Free Your Mind,” writer David Robson notes the work of Professor Ethan Kross of the University of Michigan, who says,

When you are in the presence of something vast and indescribable, you feel smaller, and so does your negative chatter.

He asks us to try to identify what our triggers are in order to expand and inspire our brains.

In the same article, Professor Michelle Shiota of Arizona State University added,

Stars in the night sky remind us of the universe beyond our experience; the sound of the ocean reminds us of its enormous depths; vivid sunsets remind us how vast and thick the atmosphere surrounding our planet is,” she says. That’s not to mention the sublime experiences offered by music, film, or art….It’s all about choosing to experience and attend to the extraordinary in our world.

Identifying triggers, taking a leap, and stopping to appreciate the moment can melt the monkey mind and heart at any age or stage of life. The awesome is there. All you have to do is to open yourself to it.