07/10/2026
When did you last feel small, in a good way?
For most of us the answer maybe not recently…We spend our days being the one who knows, the one who decides, the one who holds it together. Feeling small does not fit the job.
Astronauts who look back at Earth describe a thin blue line, and no borders. Writer Frank White named it the overview effect. Many say it changed how they saw everything below.
I have never left the planet😅…yet on many evenings and days when I slow down…the sky stops me…the stars transfix me, the trees nourish me… For a few minutes, my to do list, my worries, and my need to be right all became very small…
That feeling is called awe, and the research on it is remarkable. Psychologists describe awe as meeting something so vast that our minds have to make room. In one study, people who stood looking up at tall trees felt smaller, and then behaved more generously. In another, people who felt more awe in daily life showed lower markers of inflammation.
Awe loosens the grip of the self. It makes us a little more humble, a little more curious, and a little kinder to the people around us.
Mindfulness is what makes space for it… when we are able to slow down… we begin to notice a sky, a leaf, a colleague’s tired face.
We do not need a spaceship. We need five unhurried minutes, and the courage to feel small.
Try it this week. Step outside, phone away. Find something vast and look at it slowly. Breathe out, and let yourself be small.
What is the last thing that made you stop, and simply look?
(awe, mindfulness, mindful leadership, overview effect, wonder, presence, emotional wellbeing, wellbeing at work, humility, positive psychology, Samatva)
![Just thoughts, thinking, reflecting…[Introspecting, Mindfulness, Leadership, EQ, Power, Conscious Mind]](https://img5.localgymsandfitness.com/971/075/1524429359710757.jpg)
