Bounce Back From Losing Your Sense of Wonder

 Hi Friends,

Today on Your Bounce Back Life we’re talking about how to recover and reset from losing your sense of wonder. 

When I was a kid, I would huddle in the dark beneath winter coats in our hall closet, hoping to find a magical Narnia place on the other side. I imagined an older world long gone as I hid among musty wool. If I sat long enough, would I be transported there?

The old homestead I grew up in was built during the late 1700s. I often envisioned the colonial people that once visited. Ladies in poofy dresses, men in fancy breeches, farmers, and soldiers.

But wonder isn’t just for children. And I’m going to talk today about what wonder is, how we can revisit our wonder from the past, and how we can create wonder now as a daily habit in our lives—no matter our age. 

If you look up the word wonder, you’ll find a description like this…

Wonder is a feeling of surprise mingled with astonishment and admiration caused by something beautiful, new, unexpected, strange, unfamiliar, awe-inspiring, and often inexplicable. 

I think the very description inspires the imagination. 

And if you consider these words used to describe wonder, don’t these words reflect the essence of what life is all about? Life is a mix of all of this. Of amazement and surprise and strangeness and newness—often without explanation. 

If you agree that life is, in fact, the definition of wonder then we can also suppose that life is full of wonder, right? Yet we often don’t see it. We lose our sense of wonder. Especially as we leave childhood behind. Wonder can become invisible to us, cloaked by our own making with the weight of adulthood. We become tethered to Earth. 

And in becoming tethered we become grounded and fixed in our concrete world. A world of material things and duties we navigate every day. We are chained to the undertaking of “doing” things. Dressing, eating, driving, meetings, grocery shopping, job duties, cooking, cleaning, parenting, laundry, etc. 

And with all this undertaking we think that undertaking is what we are committed to. This is our life. Day after day. Full of objects and full of doing something with these objects. Can you relate to this? I know I can at times.

We get so busy with undertaking that we don’t stop to look beyond our routines and embrace the gift of wonder that surrounds us IF WE CHOOSE TO SEE IT. 

So … what if, instead of just embracing the concept of undertaking in your day you also embrace the concept of incorporating overgiving in your day? To peer OVER and beyond your mundane activities and GIVE yourself the gift of wonder.

Even in the busyness of our daily lives we can seek out wondrous things. Magical moments. They may be fleeting but they can add unique shine to your dull daily undertaking. 

The poet W.B. Yeats once said, “The world is full of magic things patiently waiting for our senses to grow sharper.”

To me, this means we must simply use our senses to know wonder. And it’s this sense of wonder you might have experienced in childhood. A place where you had one foot in a magical world and one foot in the real world.

I’m here to tell you that you don’t have to lose that! You can keep it with you always. And in doing so, your world view will continually change and evolve and expand. 

And if life IS wonder through its very description, then I want you to consider this … to experience wonder again there is one simple thing to do. We need to engage all our senses again. We must get in the habit of seeing the wonder all around us once more as perhaps we did as a child. 

Seeking wonder throughout our day can be noticing…

1.      The bird who sings a glorious song bursting with melody on a branch outside your office window.

2.      Or the sun that warms your face for just a few moments between clouds as you unlock your car on an overcast day.

3.      Or the eerie wind that wails around you on a blustery walk.

4.      Or the hush of falling snow that blankets everything in soft peaceful white then melts away soon after.

5.      Or the last moments of summer as geese fly overhead on a chilly evening and the bullfrogs go quiet.

Seeking wonder means seeking awe in things beyond our own individual creation.

And while nature is a vast space to seek wonder, it’s not just in nature. Wonder is everywhere in every setting. Urban, country, suburban. Wherever you are. Whatever your mood.

1.      It can be an immersive piece of art at a museum like I recently experienced at The Museum of Modern Art in New York City/

2.      Or in a quiet space tucked away in a library.

3.      Or in the breathtaking expanse of a sprawling city from the top of a skyscraper, like I also recently experienced visiting the top of Rockefeller Center in New York City.

4.      Or in the sound of children playing in the street on a summer evening.

5.      Or in a thunderous orchestra playing a moving symphony.

As the writer, teacher, and activist Helen Keller once said, “Everything has its wonders—even darkness and silence. And I learn, whatever state I may be in therein to be content.”

Let me repeat her key words. Whatever state … be content. To think of an amazing women like Helen Keller, who was both blind and deaf, to speak of finding wonder in darkness and silence, inspires me. Through her experience, I know that there is no doubt that I can find wonder in the light and sound that encompasses my life. I hope it inspires you to find it, too.

Even to be blessed to hear and see, we also dwell in darkness and silence in our minds. And this is an internal world that none can enter or take away. A wondrous world of our own design. A sacred place where we are untouchable. Where we are free. 

Viktor E. Frankl touched on this in his incredibly moving memoir, Man’s Search For Meaning, on how he spiritually survived the Nazi death camps during World War Two. His own spirituality and inner world sustained him with hope and wonder through terrible events. He shares how we cannot avoid suffering, but we can choose how to cope with it and in doing so pursue what is meaningful in the very act of living. To understand that someone can find wonder within themselves living in such horror, is wondrous in itself—and a powerful lesson about the strength of our mind. 

And our silent darkness within is where we create our unique life. There, we grasp meaning. We understand ourselves. We view the world in a certain way. We choose to believe. We have epiphanies. And we wonder about who we are, who we want to be, and what we want to do. 

Our internal silent dark space is where the start of wonder begins. It’s where you can find the power to change your mindset and your mood with redirecting thoughts and creating affirmations.  
 
 The 17th century English writer and physician Sir Thomas Brown said, “We carry within us the wonders we seek without us.” I take this quote to mean that we hold infinite worlds inside us, and no one is tied to just one identity.

Wonder is a search for self. And we have the potential to see a multitude of wonder within us and outside us. 

While to have wonder is a noun, an object.

Wonder is also a verb—with two meanings. 

1.      To desire or be curious about something.

2.      To feel doubt.

There is something wonderfully contrasting about the two verb meanings of wonder—one filled with hope to explore the unknown and discover the new AND the other to feel doubt and withdraw from discovery.

To wonder is to be curious. And if we withdraw from curiosity, we’ll never fully understand ourselves. As the astronaut Neil Armstrong once said, “Mystery creates wonder and wonder is the basis of man’s desire to understand.”

And if we open ourselves up to wonder we then open ourselves up to the mysteries of life all around us. To be curious about what’s behind mystery. And to wonder is to be curious. Wonder and curiosity are magically intertwined. 

And mysteries are everywhere if you look! And in those mysteries lie stories. And stories are what shape our world. Stories are how we understand our world. To wonder is to seek story. And just like mysteries, there are stories everywhere! There is literally a story behind every big or small object, every encounter, and every presence. 

All the things in our lives have a story behind them. Like…

1.      The story of the rock wall in the middle of the woods. Who built it, where did the stone come from, why did they build it? What was this world like when they built it?

2.      A story behind a book written. There is literally a story behind every story! Who wrote it and why? What compelled them to create THIS story? Something in their imagination or real life?

3.      The story behind the name of a school. Who was it named for and when and why? What did this person do in their life to be honored with their name on a school?

4.      The story of the design of a city layout. Is it a grid? Are there mixed spaces?  How did the topography affect the design? What era was it created in? For example, New York City’s grid design was put in place over two centuries ago and has influenced urban planning into the modern age. 

As you can see, wonder holds story—and story holds the world. Story is how we explain the world around us. Story is history. So, to wonder is to discover where we come from and how we got here. The ancient Greek philosopher Socrates wrote, “Wisdom begins in wonder.”

How true! And if you choose to accept the gift of wonder, then you can experience the endless gifts of the world and the wisdom these gifts bring.

Wonder comes before discovery. And when it comes to the six passions of the soul, René Descartes, a 17th century French philosopher, scientist, and mathematician, said that wonder is the first of all passions. He believed it came before love, hate, desire, joy, and sadness. Perhaps because wonder leads to MORE. More knowledge. More feeling. More beauty. More acceptance. More creating. More peace. More anger. More joy. Just MORE.

And perhaps wonder is the first passion because we often refer to a sense of wonder through a child’s eyes—when we’re first becoming in our world. As a child we are curious, we ask questions, and we seek… more. 

Yet, I don’t want to lose my sense of childlike wonder. Do you? Perhaps we can just refer to it as a sense of wonder for all ages. Wonder may decline with age, but it doesn’t have to. We CAN keep the habit of being curious and asking questions as we grow older.

If you’ve lost your sense of wonder one way to introduce it back into your life is to use your childhood as a gateway.

LET’S TALK ABOUT  WAYS TO RELIVE CHILDHOOD WONDER

Do you remember what your world was like as a kid? I do. I walked along rock walls under the stars when the world was asleep. I climbed trees and sang songs to the woods. I swam all day in the summer becoming as brown and leathery as an armadillo. I hid away in rose bush caves to write—all the while believing that magic existed, and every day held little miracles. I believed in an imaginary dog, until I finally got a real one.

Regaining a childlike sense of wonder isn’t about returning to a childlike state, it’s about letting yourself be awed by the little things in your grownup life.

 Here are 14 simple ways to revive your past childlike wonder:
1.      Re-visit pictures of yourself as kid. Search through specific memories. Journal in your voice from that moment. What were you excited about? What did you most desire? What made you sad?

2.      Look at the world from an unfamiliar perspective. Make a snow angel. Hide in a closet, like me. Climb a tree. Be pulled along in a little red wagon (if you can fit!). There are Big Wheels for grownups now. Why not try it?

3.      You can create a new bucket list with your kids, nieces or nephews, or grandkids. What do they dream of doing that you could do together?

4.      Did you write diaries as a child or teen? Re-read them to inspire that voice of youth in your own writing. (Although, I know this can be painful)

5.      Do you have access to young kids in your family who like being told stories or having them made up? Sit with them and make one up on the fly and ask them to help you with characters and plot and action. I did this with my own son, Joshua, when he was young, and one story became my first children’s book, Joshua and the Lightning Road.

6.      Do your kids write stories? Read them to grasp a worldview through their own words. What do they notice? How do they feel?

7.      Go back to that time in your youth and draw a map of your neighborhood. Walk through it in your mind and journal about it. What do you see? How do you feel?  How did you react to events there? 

8.      You can face a childhood fear (mine was going down in our creepy 200-year-old cellar where I was sure bodies were buried).

9.      Write yourself a letter. What would you tell your kid self about life? What advice would you give your kid self?

10.  Engage in child’s play with kids you know. Like Hide-n-Seek or Tag. A favorite game of my son and mine was one we made up—Sock Wars. We’d battle to Irish jig music and try to whack each other with socks running around the living room.

11.  You can eavesdrop on kids at the mall or park (without being creepy of course). Take notes of their conversation to grasp how kids talk and think.

12.  Look back at the books you loved as a child. What are your favorites and why? I still re-read some of mine as they comfort me. I just finished the entire Little House series by Laura Ingalls Wilder again.

13.  Look back and write a day in your life as a tween or teen. What was a typical day? What did you feel, experience, learn, or desire?

14.  If you can, visit those places you spent time at as a child. Walk in your childhood shoes again.

I did this last one not so long ago. I resurrected an old manuscript I wrote rich with one of my childhood settings. It prompted me to go back in time to the campground my parents owned and operated in New England. When I drove up, I was zapped back to the 1970s. Suddenly, I was nine years old again. I swam in the campground pool, fished with my dad in the lake, whizzed about on strap-on roller skates, played pinball machines, and spun 45 records on the jukebox. Returning was an emotional gut punch. I could be a child again in that place of innocence but just as it resurrected joyous moments from childhood, it also brought back painful ones. It could bring joy and sadness for you, too, with such a trip.

What did this trip back in time deliver for me? It brought back … 

*Vivid feelings of childhood – good and the bad – to enrich my writing. 

*Revisited my creative foundations and reinforced my yearning to write for kids.
 
*Fortified the connection from childhood to adulthood. 

*That I can mend my past while forging my future from it. 

*And a renewed sense of childlike wonder. 

Most importantly, I remembered how awesome it was to be a kid again and lost in the moment – and that every day held magic. With renewing my childlike wonder, I could once again be lost in the little things. And so can you. At the end of this episode be sure to listen as I share my own short remembrance of what it was like for me in a day in my life at nine years old.

Looking to your childhood can help you create new doorways of wonder in your adulthood. 

HERE ARE 12 WAYS HOW TO SEEK WONDER IN YOUR DAILY LIFE NOW AS AN ADULT 

1.      Envision

Think of what you long for and are working toward. Perhaps it’s a new home, a family vacation, planting a garden, or flying down a country road in your vintage convertible. Now close your eyes and imagine it. Really imagine it. See yourself moving into that new home. Hear the soft splash of water as you kayak the lake with your family. Pop sweet peas in your mouth from the vines in your garden. Feel the wind and sun on your face as you cruise with the top down in your cool car. Using the power of vision can make you feel joy and wonder as if you are experiencing it for real.  

2.      Memory

Create a “happy memory” list of times throughout your life. Pick one, close your eyes, and relive that memory with as much detail as you can. Walk through it. The weather that day. Who was there. Why you felt joy. Revel in the heightened moments. It can fill you with renewed feelings of wonder and love for something experienced that is in the past but still lives within you, forever. 

3.      Landscape

Look for wonder around you. In the dust motes floating in sunbeams. In the reflection of water on a windowpane. The sound of hypnotic rain on the roof. Wonder truly is everywhere if you pause to seek it. 

4.      Loss

Losing someone you love can bring a sad wonder to your world. It made me reflect on where they went. What happened to their spirit? Were they reincarnated or is their spirit floating out there in the universe? The astronomer Carl Sagan once said that: "The cosmos is within us. We are made of star stuff. We are a way for the universe to know itself." If it’s true that we come from the stars and we all have stars inside us … do we then return to the stars when we die? 

5.      Stillness

Today’s world is full of busyness. Noise. Chaos. Static. Madness. There is no absence. No stillness. We must take effort to discover it. Or create our own.  To be alone in the quiet of a rainy day. To sit in peace in the woods and listen to the wind. Or doze on the couch with your cat. Allow yourself to lie down and close your eyes and let your mind wander. Rest in your hammock with soft sunshine upon your face. But even in urban life we can find stillness in a quiet office space. Or using noise-cancelling headphones to meditate in peace. Or walking a quiet snowy city street when most residents are hunkered down inside. 

6.      Nature

Finding wonder in nature again brings us back to our primeval humanity. To a time when we lived off the land. When we lived in harmony with nature and by the seasons. If you think about it, being in an office all day is relatively new to us as humans. It doesn’t connect us to grand wonder as nature can. In an office we can control our environment. We can’t control nature. Nature is power and wonder all wrapped up together. Make it a habit to seek out nature. Whether you live near forests or a landscaped park. Connect with the trees and grass and sky. 

7.      Faith

In this modern age, there’s been a great de-mystifying with religion. Things that once held us in awe like God, a great creator, and faith are no longer mystical. We often view them as ordinary and structured. Things expected of us. To be tolerated. To be endured in a church or synagogue or temple once a week and then forgotten when we’re free of it. I say, look to your faith for wonder again.   

8.      Music 

Music can not only be a great mood enhancer but be a way to transport us to places, revive memories, and comfort us. Music can also make us see wonder around us as melodies inspire. Music is the soundtrack to life. And like any soundtrack, it supports the story—our story, the story of the world that envelops us. It helps us wonder about ourselves and the space we live in.  

9.      Found gifts

We can reclaim wonder in found gifts. There are gifts all around us BUT we have to be open to finding them.

The gift of a day alone when an event gets unexpectedly canceled. 
 A surprising call from an old friend that comforts and warms your heart.

A book that holds you captive in its story telling.

A song that uplifts you and gives you hope when you’re feeling despair. 

10.  Longing

As a child, we can long for so many things. Long to be older, do as we wish, to play all day, eat ice cream for dinner, have a pet, get snow days from school, or have a birthday party.  

As we get older, longing can often be perceived as a negative thing. To be melancholy, unhappy, unsatisfied, and yearning for something more. Longing is not necessarily these things. To long for something does not always mean you are unhappy or unsatisfied. Longing resides beside contentment and happiness.  

To have a longing in your heart can be peaceful and comforting. It can be a longing to return to your homeland one day. A longing to see your family again. A longing to be in nature. A longing to create. Longing is hopeful. Longing is love. Longing is part of BE-longing. To long for people, places, and events means you seek belonging. And belonging is a key trait to being human. We all need to belong to survive. It’s part of the wonder of being human. 

11.  Discovery

When was the last time you discovered something? A new idea, new thought, new vision, new project, or new way to think about the world around you? Opening yourself up to new experiences can bring on discovery—and wonder. Discovery can be found through reading books. Visiting museums. Learning a language. Or trying a new hobby. Discovery expands your world—and with that expansion brings on more to wonder about. It’s truly a bountiful cycle! 

12.  And finally, change your perspective

Look up! As Charlie Chaplin once said, “You’ll never find a rainbow if you’re looking down.” 
 

I adore hawks. They are my spirit bird. And I seek them out whenever I’m walking or driving. And because I seek them out, my eye is trained to catch them. And so, I see them everywhere. On trees. Soaring alongside me as I drive. Flying across my path. I literally gasp, and say out loud, “Hello, beautiful hawk!” 

Last winter, I watched two kids sledding. Up and down the hill they went. Over and over. And their laughter and joy made me remember being ten years old and how spending a whole day sledding was magical. I also remembered turning twelve and being sad with the awareness that I didn’t want to sled anymore. I had moved on, just like we move on into adulthood.

Recently I saw a video of babies going through tunnels. They were mesmerized and excited over the lights and sounds. I couldn’t help but laugh at their wonder. At this little thing. Something so simple as going through a tunnel. Try it, the next time you go through one. Or try a day of sledding with some young child in your life. You never know what wonder you’ll capture.

Just imagine the enrichment in your life if you create a daily habit of wonder as you go about your day.  If you start to seek wonder every day on your life journey, you will find it. And your world view will expand. Become brighter. Fuller.  

I think, as humans, we have a natural desire to get lost in the wonder—of big and small things. Of everyday things. 

As adults, we can forget to look for it. 

Don’t forget. 

Remember to seek wonder every day and your life will be full of amazement. I know it.
 
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So, here’s my story for you that I promised. It’s an example of one of my ways to help you revive your childlike wonder. To look back and write a day in your life as a tween or teen. What was a typical day? What did you feel, experience, learn, or desire? Here’s what I wrote about a day in my life at 9 when I revisited a home from my past. Here we go …

A DAY IN THE LIFE AT 9 YEARS OLD: Bethel Woods Campground, 1978

Every day I dream about getting my first dog. I imagine she is so real that when I come home from school I run to meet her (her name will be Beauty after Black Beauty). But not yet…so while I wait, I keep busy roaming the campground we own.

It’s fun to wear my strap-on roller skates and hunt the woods for dead butterflies and shotgun shells. They make cool noise makers when you put them in old coffee cans. I’m lucky because there are always kids here to play with and swim with at the pool (awesome for an only child like me!).

I especially love to hang out in the recreation hall and play pinball machines and records on the juke box. My favorite song is Escape by Rupert Holmes. I asked Dad what a Pina Colada is from the song and he said it’s like a party in a glass for grownups.

Each morning as I pick rotten apples in the orchard to feed our fat hogs, I get to pretend I’m my favorite hero, Laura Ingalls from Little House in the Big Woods. Mom says we’ll even be butchering the hogs soon – just like Laura did! Mom wants to make head cheese Like Mrs. Ingalls did (ewww!) but I want to blow up the pig’s bladder like a balloon and roast its tail over the fire, just like Laura did. After hog feeding time, I get to gather the eggs in the chicken coop. Today I found a double yolk egg without a shell.  It was see-through and wobbly just like a Weeble. Although, I think it would fall down if I wobbled it.

Tomorrow is dump day. I get to collect the trash with Dad from all the campsites (we even saw a bear last week!). It’s a totally smelly chore but the best part is that I get to stand up in the back of our 1965 Ford truck and hang onto the wood sides as we cruise to the dump. Wheeee! It’s almost as fun as snowmobiling on the camp trails in winter.

If I help Dad out good, he even promised to take me fishing on Squam Lake this weekend to use my new tackle box. I caught my first pike there last month. Dad almost crashed the boat up on the rocks just so I could reel it in!

Oh, and there’s a big thunderstorm coming tonight so I plan to sleep on the screened-in porch and watch the lightning all night long (just don’t tell Mom, okay?). Well, time to go practice my after-dinner show for Mom and Dad. I’m singing and dancing to The Wonderful Thing About Tiggers and On The Good Ship Lollipop on my record player. 

Being nine is the best. Getting a dog would make it even better.

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 I hope you enjoyed my nostalgic story from my 9-year-old-self.

Now I encourage you to spend some time evoking your own childhood wonder. It’s not lost. It’s still inside you. Waiting to be found and live alongside your adulthood—for always.