In an age marked by increasing isolation and disconnection, two seemingly disparate human experiences - loneliness and awe - may hold the key to cultivating deeper bonds with ourselves, each other, and the world around us. While loneliness reflects an unmet yearning for connection, awe has the power to jolt us out of our narrow self-focus and into a profound sense of interconnectedness. By understanding and engaging with these emotions, we can forge a path back to genuine belonging.
Loneliness and awe shape how we relate to ourselves, others, and the world in intensely personal ways. Loneliness manifests as a perceived state - measurable yet elusive due to its subjectivity. Awe resists simple measurement too; the word itself defies translation, bridging feelings of reverence and surprise. Yet we cannot label either as purely good or bad. They simply exist.
At their core, however, lies a profound shared longing: to move beyond the isolated self. This is a yearning to reconnect - with a deeper sense of self and belonging, but also with something greater. Be it community or cosmos.
Making Loneliness Visible
Loneliness has long been a part of the human condition, an evolutionary prompt motivating our ancestors to seek out the safety and support of tribal communities. Like hunger's motivating force, the pain of isolation originally drove early humans to congregate. Something in our evolutionary biology makes solitude feel unpleasant while togetherness brings contentment. In modern times, however, this once-adaptive response has morphed into a pervasive sense of alienation, an unspoken epidemic lurking beneath the surface of our hyper-connected society.
By destigmatizing loneliness through open dialogue, we reveal what was once unseen - the undercurrent of societal suffering and alienation. In doing so, we foster connection through an experience both unique and universally human.
Rediscovering Awe
Rediscovering awe nurtures the very capacities that allowed our ancestors' communities to cohere: empathy, compassion, trust, humility. Awe encourages questioning deeply held beliefs as we shift perspectives. It can destabilize how we view ourselves and our relationship to the world and each other. Yet awe also dissolves the ego, reminding us of bonds beyond the isolated self. A forgetting and remembering. Awe allows feeling and thinking beyond a single unit, guiding us back to "oneliness" - the realization that all is one.
Awe and gratitude nurture our fundamentally social nature. Practicing them fosters interconnection, shaping our thoughts and behaviors across the whole spectrum of human experience - in work, in community, in family etc.
Three Dimensions Converge
The Self
How to be alone but not lonely: to connect with others, connecting with feelings, needs, and body is essential. Knowing how to be alone equips me with how to navigate moments of feeling alone. Awe can be a catalyst for learning how to be alone but never truly alone as I am aware of the connections to a greater whole, to systems beyond what I can see and grasp.
Others
Experiencing awe collectively, at events or gatherings, can impact relationships profoundly. One-on-one intimacy fosters awe, reducing loneliness. Developing skills like active listening, positive communication and conflict resolution allows us to connect meaningfully with loved ones and strangers alike.
Many dimensions of awe arise through relationships. Consider Durkheim's "collective effervescence" - when a group shares parallel thoughts and actions, generating unifying energy and higher purpose. Or moral beauty - others' acts of kindness, courage and humility inspiring personal growth through awe. These shared awe experiences from cement profound intimacies transcending superficial aloneness.
The More-Than-Human World
While religion once provided purpose, meaning and humility, these are being redefined. Awe reminds us of our small place within the greater whole, reconnecting us to nature and beings beyond the human realm. This awareness could be an antidote to eco-anxiety and the narrative of separation fueling many of our climate movements.
Existential loneliness reflects the converse longing - for deeper significance amid self-sufficiency, guilt and powerlessness. Interconnectedness could offer humble solace to our collective spiritual search - the reassurance that we belong within nature's wildly interwoven systems.
The practice of awe is universally accessible, helping elevate individual and shared human experience. Cultivating awe in daily life strengthens our capacity to pause, to notice, and to regularly engage with wonder.
Can awe lead us toward deeper realizations of interdependence? And in these moments, might we share in our loneliness?
An invitation to our Berlin gathering on May 26th.
The Surprising Match of Awe and Loneliness: A Community Gathering on (Re-)Connecting With Ourselves, Each Other, and The World Through Awe-Based Practices
Hosted by Laura François, co-founder of Awe Exchange, and Monika Jiang, initiator of Sharing Our Loneliness. They both became friends somewhere along the way through a handful of encounters involving delicious stone-oven pizza on a rainy day in Lisbon, a heart-to-heart conversation during a dance break at Heideglühen in Berlin, and epiphanies shared on voice messages between Montréal and Madrid. On the rare, serendipitous occasion of being in the same place at the same time, they felt called to create and hold space together. Coming from different spaces—one activism, one business-ish, exploring different topics—one awe, one loneliness—they share a love for daring to do things unconventionally. Will you join us?