The Oprah Podcast - Discover AWE Daily with Oprah and Dacher Keltner

Episode Date: February 3, 2026

Did you know that experiencing awe can improve your health and your overall well-being? Oprah talks with University of California, Berkeley psychology professor Dacher Keltner to delve into his latest book "Awe: The New Science of Everyday Wonder and How It Can Transform Your Life." During this inspirational conversation Dacher explains how each of us has the potential to experience awe every single day and shares how encountering awe can lead us to greater fulfillment and happiness. Based on his extensive research Dacher outlines and describes what he calls the “Eight Wonders of Life” or the eight experiences that most commonly trigger awe. Throughout the discussion Oprah and Dacher each share their own deeply personal encounters with awe. BUY THE BOOK! https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/622175/awe-by-dacher-keltner/ 00:00:00 - Welcome Dacher Keltner, author of “Awe” 00:04:30 - Awe decreases depression 00:07:40 - Awe and death 00:10:20 - Finding awe everyday 00:11:05 - 8 awe experiences 00:20:20 - how Awe affects our health 00:21:36 - Awe vs gratitude 00:24:45 - How awe can heal divisions 00:26:50 - Making space for awe and kids 00:28:20 - Develop an awe practice 00:29:50 - Psychedelics and awe 00:36:00 - Everyone can experience awe The Science of Happiness Podcast What does it take to live a happier life? Learn research-tested strategies that you can put into practice today. Hosted by award-winning psychologist Dacher Keltner. Co-produced by PRX and UC Berkeley’s Greater Good Science Center. https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/podcasts/series/the_science_of_happiness Follow Oprah Winfrey on Social: https://www.instagram.com/oprahpodcast/ https://www.facebook.com/oprahwinfrey/ Listen to the full podcast: https://open.spotify.com/show/0tEVrfNp92a7lbjDe6GMLI https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-oprah-podcast/id1782960381 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I love how you begin the book, your introduction. This is funny to me. You said, I have taught happiness to hundreds of thousands of people around the world. It's not obvious why I ended up doing this work. I've been a pretty wound-up, anxious person for significant chunks of my life. And I love this. And was thrown out of my first meditation class for laughing while we chanted, I am a being of purple fire.

When I read that, I was like, what kind of meditation class was that? a being of purple fire. Yep, my best friend, Melmo, and I got tossed out of that class in college. Yeah, you know, and that's the point. You know, I struggle to meditate. I am wound up. I can't. That's just what I got, you know, in my nervous system.

And awe really, as I wrote this book in a very hard time in my life, I was like, yeah, that's what grounded me in life. Hi, everybody, and welcome to the Oprah podcast. I'm so pleased, honored, actually, that you chose to spend time with us here, where my intention is to offer some inspiration and maybe a bit of breathing space from the hustle of your day or from the endless barrage of news hitting your timeline. I hope you all are watching that, being careful about that because it can just be too much. But I'm excited for you to hear from my guest today because he spent decades studying, searching, researching for the secret to this question.

how can we live a good life? Yeah, that's really what we all are in search of, right? How can we live a good life? And he says the answer is really simple and something any one of us can access at any time and anywhere, no matter your background, no matter your circumstances. His name is Dacker Keltner, and he's a professor of psychology at the University of California, Berkeley, and the host of the award-winning podcast, The Science of Happiness. I didn't even know there was such a podcast. I didn't even know there was such a podcast. podcast until researching for this. And I just recently read his best-selling book, Aw, the new science of everyday wonder, and how it can transform your life. Now, I read it and thought, this man is speaking my language. And that's why he's now here in the tea house. Dacker Keltner. Hello. Hello, Oprah. It's nice to be with you. Nice to be here. I'm an honor. Thank you. When you first started on this path, I think you found there wasn't even a real definition. of awe. So what is awe? Let's start with letting everybody know what we're actually talking about. Yeah, that's actually a tough question, right? People are trying to define the sense of the mystical

and the sublime. Yeah. And the word awesome is thrown around as a sling. A little too much these days. Yes, yes. Yeah. So awe is an emotion you feel when you encounter vast things most typically, giant Redwoods, right, a vast piece of music, somebody who really inspires you with their the size of their character. And then it's mysterious to you. You don't quite understand it immediately and it provokes you to wonder. So very simply, awe is when we encounter vast mysteries.

Aw and wonder the same thing? No, philosophers pull awe and wonder apart. Aw is an emotion you feel. I see an incredible tree or a sunset. And then wonder is the cognitive state after awe by which I try to make sense of things, right? Right. One of my favorite examples is Newton and Descartes

were these famous scientists and philosophers. And they were awestruck by rainbows. You know, how do rainbows exist? And then in a state of wonder, they figured it out. They did math and color theory and figured out how when light bends through water, it produces a rainbow. Ah.

So awe and wonder, obviously, are not the same. Wonder is what comes after the awe moment. Right. Okay. And tell us why, as you do in the book, but most people who are listening to us now probably haven't read awe. So tell us why it matters. Well, when you look at our world, Oprah,

and you see the crises of mind, depression and anxiety at historic eyes, body, a lot of people are suffering pain and community. You know, our surgeon general, former surgeon general Vivek Murthy, whom you know well, the crisis of loneliness. Holiness. A minute of awe a day,

helps us with those crises. It makes you feel less depressed and more happy. It helps your body physically. Uh-huh. And even if you experience awe by yourself with music or nature, you feel connected to community. And so when I started to look at these scientific findings and thinking about our crises, our shared crises,

I was like, you know, there's almost nothing better than a couple minutes of awe a day. Yes. And nothing is better also than shared awe, What would you call? Collective effervescence. Collective effervescence. And a lot of people who are listening and watching us right now, you all have experienced this.

Yeah. You know, I remember having a gospel brunch here on the lawn many years ago, and I had Gladys Knight and Dionne Warwick and Mariah Carey and all of them were here. And someone was passing the mic, and literally everybody in the audience, all of us were in collective effervescence. We had never seen anything like it or experienced anything like it. And it was like the spirit came in to each of them and then entered us. It was spectacular.

But lots of people experienced this in sporting events. Yeah. Concerts. Yeah. I remember just recently this past year, I went to see a gypsy with Audra McDonald. Uh-huh. And that performance of hers was out. I just started weeping now.

Was out of body. Yeah. Was an out of body experience. And so was Nicole in Sunset Boulevard. Yeah. Out of body. So you were just amazed that a human being can do that. I was like, I literally afterwards wrote both of the letters saying,

to see somebody vibrating at their highest level possible, you just know that he doesn't get any higher than that. Yeah. brings awe to you. It does. And it's just remarkable. And I love your descriptions of it, Oprah. I mean, music's a classic example, gospel music, as good as any, right?

And it astounds me and it speaks to how ready we are to experience awe, which is you can go hear music that means a lot to you. And within a millisecond, you are having goosebumps, you're tearing up, you're synchronizing with other people. And it is an out-of-body experience. You leave the self. Yeah. and become part of this collective and you're hugging each other and crying and proposing camping trips.

That's the collective effervescence you talked about. Well, in awe, one of the things, the new science of everyday wonder and how it can transform your life, one of the things you did was you asked over 2,000 people from all over the world, different faiths, different backgrounds, different life situations,

different educations, and you ask them, what is an experience of awe that you've had when you encountered a vast, mystery and that transcends your world. I'm asking that of you all now. For you, it was, I mean, what most people wouldn't consider

an awesome moment, but for you, it was the death of your younger brother. Yeah. Can you tell us that story? Yeah, you know, I was lucky to be raised by parents who really cultivated a sense of wonder. You know, Rachel Carson, the great environmentalist, teach your child the wonder.

And I had a younger brother, Rolf, who was a companion in awe. And we grew up listening to music in the late 60s in Laurel Canyon and wandering the foothills of the Sierras. And we did all of the awe inspiring things in life together. And when he passed away first, it was pure grief and panic and anxiety. And the moment of his passing was all. inspiring it was you know seeing something transcended about his bought something there in his spirit

seeing the space around him as he was leaving reveal new dimensions out there i'm a scientist you know i didn't know what to make of this i had no religious background and then the big question which is how is he going to stay with me and through grief i heard his voice i felt his hand on my back he was saying things to me and he he changed how i look at the universe that there are other dimensions that we don't understand, that beings who leave us can be with us forever, and that there's a cycle of life, and that's one of the wonders of life,

is the extraordinary miracle of life is its beginning, its growth, and its ending, and that it repeats itself. That's just a law of the universe. It was the first time I understood that when I had to see my brother die. Yeah. Yeah. And you said that after your brother's death, that you lost your ability for a while to experience awe.

Yeah. Why, from the grief? Yeah, I mean, grief. Did you shut down? Yeah, grief is panic and breathlessness and waking up at all hours and grasping for who was gone. My brother and I shared a narrative about life.

I couldn't hear his voice that I heard all the time. And it was strange, Oprah. Here I was studying this emotion, giving it to people, and I just couldn't feel it. So how did you get it back? I very intentionally said, you know, I'm going to go in search of the wonders of life. I'm going to find some moral beauty. I'm going to be out in nature.

I'm going to listen to music that I don't understand, like classical music, or I'm going to think about the big ideas that matter to me. And so it took a while, but it changed my life. And so I like the idea of people understanding that there is awe in the everyday. Yeah. So are you one of those people who, as a scientist, you've written the book, and then do you actually practice it? Yes. Do you find awe in your everyday?

Yeah. You know, I think one of the most important findings from our research is people think awe is mysterious. It takes a lot of money. You've got to travel somewhere to find it. And that's just not true around the world. People feel awe a few times a week. And in those stories we gathered from 26 countries, it was right around them.

And Einstein said, awe is a basic state of the mind that we can access any time. And so I make it a practice to find awe on a daily basis. After a quick break, we'll be back with psychology professor and researcher, Dacher Keltner, who will share the eight everyday experiences that can inspire awe in all of us. Welcome back to the Oprah podcast,

Hacker Keltner shares the number one experience that is most likely to inspire awe. This one might surprise you. You say there are eight experiences that inspire people to feel awe. You call them, actually, the eight wonders in life. People may be surprised to learn what the most common reason for awe is. I know y'all are going to be surprised by this. Yeah. Yeah.

I mean, this is, you know. I'm not because I experienced it every day, 25. years of doing a show and seeing it happen. Yeah. You have a career that cultivates moral beauty. Yeah. And when we got these stories rolling in from Indonesia and China and Mexico and other countries, the most common source and most universals, what we call moral beauty, which is when you are moved by the courage and kindness, sense of justice and humility of other people. And it is, you know, people start writing about, oh, yeah, my grandmother or,

my teacher, you know, often teachers, this nurse who helped me with pain, my mother, my father, et cetera. And the stories are astonishing, you know, of encountering a fellow human, stands up to injustice or gives away some resources or is courageous facing. I remember watching the news and seeing a young, burly, black guy standing out in the middle of water. And this was either a flood in Houston or flood in Dallas. I can't remember which flooded was, but he'd been out there all day, just, you know, handing down sandbags.

Yeah. And I remember him, you know, looking exhausted but exuberant. Yeah. And him saying, this is what Texans do. Yeah. This is what Texans do. And my eyes watered when I saw it

because I just thought, wow, you know, he's tired, he's got his own family, but he's out there and this is what Texans do. So seeing someone do something extraordinary for somebody else. Yeah. I remember years ago there was a Maxwell House coffee commercial

around Christmas time and there was an elderly lady and the young woman next door goes and takes a Christmas tree and they put the ornaments on the Christmas tree together and then have a cup of Maxwell House coffee and at the end of it, I'm like, ugh. That's commercial moral beauty, right?

Yeah, but the idea of sharing what you have with someone who doesn't. It is, but it's, but it's, It's just remarkable to me that you can see a stranger helping another person in the streets. You don't know any of these people and you're tearing up. You can hear a story from another country about the courage of a woman facing a disease. And it can change your life, right? And that is a mystery for me scientifically.

Why is it that that's so powerful? But it definitely is the universal source of all. So that is the number one wonder of life is people experiencing other people doing extraordinary, awesome things. Right. Yes. And you call that moral beauty. Yeah.

I love that. Yeah. And because it evokes this feeling, like you said, of tearing up. And it's almost like you're hearing a phenomenal piece of music. Humans seem beautiful. They seem transcendent, right? They're not part of the mundane world anymore. So it has this beauty quality to it that we've been interested in for a long time.

So what are the other seven? We talked about number two, which is collective effervescence. Right? That's being in the, that's everybody in the football game and your team and feeling that. Yeah. Or the gospel concert. Or the gospel concert or wherever, the collective effervescence. And the third is nature. Yeah. Let's talk about that. Yeah, I mean, you know, the science is a great place to begin. People know nature is awesome, you know, from oceans to clouds to redwood trees to flowers to spring to the sounds of birds.

And the science is astonishing, which is that we're now learning that we are wired to be inspired and moved by nature. If I hear running water, it activates parts of my heart, right, that calm me down. If I hear birdsong, parts of the brain light up that feel rewarding. If I smell certain scents like the trees around here, that activates specific chemical processes in your brain that make you feel part of something larger, the ecosystem.

Yeah, and isn't that the whole idea of every awesome experience is that it takes you out of your ego self and allows you to feel that you are a part of something bigger than your small self? And that took us 10 years to figure out, and you just put it in one sentence, so thanks a lot. But, you know, it, yeah, time and time again, we started to realize that moments of awe in nature,

moral beauty, music, et cetera, that nagging voice of the ego quiets down your to-do list and your sense of status and what it just quiets down in fact the brain regions of the ego quiet down right and importantly what you said which is you become more aware of how you're connected to larger things than you be it a musical tradition gospel music a social cause the environment around you the gardens that's really what's going on. That is what's going on. Even in that collective effervescence, what you're really feeling is that you are a part of something that's bigger than you. Yeah. Yeah. And it's profound. And it's profound. And needed. The fourth is music. Yep. We talked about that. Fifth is visual design. I thought that was

interesting. Like great architecture or paintings. Yeah. I mean, you think about the, you know, the Islamic tile patterns of the Mesoamerican basket weaving and sculptures and and temples and our minds are wired to detect these sacred geometries of the visual world. Even though we don't even know that's what we're detecting. Yeah, you know, but you feel struck by the facade of a cathedral or some painting. I was lucky to be raised by a painter, my dad, who got me looking at paintings early in life and they changed my life. And so, yeah, the visual world is a very rich realm of awe to explore. And then spiritual or religious experiences?

Yeah. And it's important because, you know, in this complicated time in American history, spirit and religion can divide. And in some sense, as William James argued, underlying that is this feeling of the divine or mystical experience. 81% of Americans feel a sense of the divine.

Half of those people find it in nature. And awe is the emotion that tracks that relationship to spirit and the divine. One of the many sort of transcendent emotions like... Stories also of life and death, number seven. Yeah. Tell us about that. Yeah, you know, we started getting stories around the world,

watching children be born, infants be born, grandmothers, parents, friends, relatives. You just see life come in. The life cycle begins. Likewise, you could now think about, you know, why are people awestruck by spring, right? because it's this maximum moment of life in nature. It's like everything is blooming.

Blooming and blooming, yes, coming forth. Right, life. Yeah, but life, it's a law-like pattern. It ends and I remember Oprah, when I started to talk publicly about the science before the book, I remember very clearly this, I was just asking this group, like, when have you felt awe? And this woman raises her hand and she said,

I was holding my sister's hand as she had her last breath in life. and I was awestruck by her place in my life, that things like this end, she continues like I felt with my brother, Rolf. And so the life cycle is a very underappreciated, but reliable source of all. Well, also that brings us to number eight,

which is epiphanies or suddenly understanding the essential truths about life, which is what happened to you also with your brother in that space, right? when he was dying. Yeah, it, you know, and people feel awe about these big ideas, you know, AI, quantum physics, you know, evolution, et cetera. And for me, the challenge of my brother's passing,

not only concretely to live a life without my companion in awe, my brother, was to understand what life means, you know, which is it is a cycle for us physically. And we all have to lose people. You know, Buddhism, the first noble truth is we grasp that suffering. And things continue. And they go onward and we grow and we learn. And for me, I had to grasp that we're not just cells and neurons and bodies that were more out of the experience. And I feel that to this day.

You know, I feel my brother's with me. and that there's something beyond what I thought was all that there is to nature. This has to be physically good, actually physically good for us, too. I mean, I would think your blood pressure goes down, all the other things in your body that need to mellow out and chill. Yeah. When you're experiencing, if you've had an awe-sum moment or an awe-filled moment, that it would change your neurosystem.

I even felt it when you're describing this gospel concept. I started to feel my body change. And we've made a lot of progress in understanding that. And what we know is a couple minutes of awe, reduces physical pain. It reduces long COVID symptoms. It benefits your heart by activating what's called the vagus nerve, this big bundle of nerves in your chest

that calms your body down, like you said. It reduces inflammation in the body. The immune system heats up your body, to kill pathogens. If you feel chronically threatened by poverty or racism or misogyny and your body will be heated up, inflamed, it's a very troubling condition for your health.

Aw cools down that system. I mean, it's amazing. And so it makes me bullish in promoting this to medical doctor. And how is it different than gratitude? Because I've had a gratitude practice for decades now, where I do five things.

I have volumes of gratitude journals. I'm constantly always, even when I'm just walking around my property here, in a state of gratitude, appreciation, reverence. Yeah. But awe is something different. It is. And we call these self-transcendant emotions

where you get out of the self and really appreciate what's around you, reverence, like you said. Yeah. Very much love that word. Gratitude is really not. not as mysterious as awe. Yeah.

And it's really about more concrete things in your world. Yeah, that you appreciate. Right, that you appreciate. Aw is fundamentally about something vast that you don't understand. It's mysterious. So, I mean, after reading your book, awe, I was thinking differently about, you know,

my everyday experiences. And one of the experiences that I've shared you all here before that I still love and I still think it's an awe. I understand today, is this an awe moment or is this a gratitude moment? What is it? That moment where you're on the plane, you probably experienced it because you couldn't get in at first because of fog. Right.

There's that moment that no matter how rainy, dreary, miserable it is, you shoot through the clouds. Yeah. And you're up above the clouds. Oh, yeah. And you're looking down through the clouds. Yeah. I am in awe every time that happens. Yeah.

I'm just like, how am I up here? And that's all, right? That's all. Suddenly you're like, this is vast. This is vast. I used to be on Earth and now I'm in space. Yeah. And now I'm here.

Yeah. And it's, how did this happen? How do planes work? And it's so beautiful. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. And that's a, and, you know, that's just a classic experience of all, which is you suddenly encounter something vast. And you can't, your ordinary mind, if you will,

you know, just making sense of our daily lives. Can't make sense of it. And I feel that about flying too, just, you know, appreciating the earth from 30,000 feet. Yeah. And I have,

you know, one of my, I've had 21 dogs and now Sadie is about to, she's going to turn 17. And the other day we were walking her and she has trouble getting down the stairs sometimes, right? So now I carry her down the stairs. And then we were out on the yard and she just started cantering, like running. And I stood there. I think I was in awe.

Like, how is she doing that when you can't walk down the stairs? Yeah. Yeah. I think that, you know, it's almost like moral beauty. Right, which is we marvel at the exceptional qualities of other life forms around us. Yeah. And so you're sensing something, a spirit in her, a transcendent spirit. Yeah, that something came over her and she just decided I'm going to run across this yard.

Aw. Yeah. When we come back from this short break, Decker Keltner says, awe has the potential to heal social, cultural, and political divisions. We're back with Professor Decker Keltner talking. about his best-selling book, Aw, the new science of everyday wonder and how it can transform your life. You talked about in awe, you talked about these fractures times. I mean, yeah, politically, socially, culturally. How do you think awe, or if it can, be a bridge to help

heal divisions? Is that possible? Yeah, I do. I mean, you know, I'm always worried about structural things, racism, misogyny, inequality. But I do feel that the, and we have empirical data for this, that feelings of awe socially make you appreciate your shared humanity. And they make you aware of the bigger thing that you're part of, right? And our study found that people on opposite sides of the issues of police brutality, and abortion, once they felt awe,

they didn't demonize or dehumanize their opponents, right? They saw the humanity in them. And, you know, Oprah, when you think about, there are sources of awe that unite people in this country. 330 million people go to the national parks. It is unlike anything. And they are... Really?

They're environmentalists, they're radicals, their hunters, they're, you know, sports people, and it unites them in a sense of common spirit. So it's worth remembering the big sources of awe that bring us together. The Constitution is awe-inspiring as a document. I didn't know that 300 million people were going to the National Parks. Yeah. And you can go for $20.

It's anybody goes. There's a program for fourth grade kids to go put together by John Jarvis, the former director of the parks. So it's a unifying American. and it transcends our concerns in the moment about, you know, taxation or immigrants or the like. So there are things that we can cultivate. So our culture, as you know, is obsessed with this whole idea

of ranking who's best and when when and how, and, you know, who's number one and who's not. So the question is how can schools, how can families, how can communities make space for awe for children? growing up in an achievement-driven, achievement-oriented environment. Yeah, I mean, I worry about this a lot and having raised two daughters

and teach young people at Berkeley and see the effects of our times, 90% rise in anxiety in young people. 90% rise. Yeah, it's epidemic. And so what the science of awe tells us is, get them off the junk of their devices. And there's a lot of moral ugliness.

We know that. We know that, yeah. Let them wander, give them more spare time. And then, you know, let them do the things that we deprioritize of music and visual arts. And the ones that I really like, Oprah, that I think we've de-emphasized are moral beauty, you know, get them to reflect on the people who move them.

And then, you know, I think every child should be thinking about the big ideas they care about. And our educational system has kind of, I see this in our colleges. We don't think about like, what's the singular thing you want to be part of, you know, that you learn from in history. Is it justice? Is it ameliorating suffering or what have you? And so I think we've got to return to these old ways that we used to find meaning. How would you advise those of us who are looking for more awe in our life?

What is an awe practice? Well, one of my favorites we tested, which is the awe walk. The aw walk. And this is with Virginia Sturm at UC San Francisco. We tested it with people over the age of 75 where they're feeling a little more anxious and pain, painful. And once a week you go out, a lot of people. people are walking in the United States, and you look for awe.

You look for natural awe, right? You go do your walk at sunset, or you go to a stand of trees. You look for moral beauty. You may go visit, walk past a park, right? Where the kids are playing and all the wonders of play. So all you have to do if you're looking for awe is build it into your daily routines.

Looking for awe walks. Yeah. And there are thousands of them, being led by practitioners of all walks now around the world. And it's an easy thing to do. A lot of people find their best exercise in walking and now just make it include a little mystery and wonder. Well, I had, speaking of mystery and wonder,

I had Michael Pollan on and we were talking about the effects of, and also the late Dr. Roland Griffiths. Yeah. And we're talking about the effects of psychedelics. Yeah. What is the connection between psychedelics? and awe. Yeah.

Well, you know, and it's a little comical that it took a while to realize this in the scientific community, but psychedelics or spirit medicines in indigenous traditions produce these self-transcendent states where the self-quietes down and vanishes and dissolves to use Michael's language and opens us up to awe, right? And now several labs really feel that's the active ingredient of, a psychedelic experience is to feel a deep sense of reverence and connection to an ecosystem, to feel really moved by the compassion of fellow human beings, to feel music in a different way. And that's true.

I mean, in those experiences, awe is driving a lot of the benefits you get from psychedelics. Next, psychology professor Decker Keltener explains how awe can be experienced even in the unlikely of places. Welcome back. If you know somebody who might need an awe-inspiring conversation right about now, send them the link to this episode. Let's get back to my conversation with best-selling author and the Science of Happiness podcast host, Dacker Keltner. I hope those of you are listening incorporate this idea into your own life, the idea of an awe walk. And one of the things I appreciate about the new science of everyday wonder and how it can translate. transform your life awe. What I appreciate about it is, is it doesn't matter where you live.

Yeah. Or if you have a PhD or no D, it makes no difference your life circumstances. Yeah. Your ability to experience awe is within reach of every human being, even at San Quentin Prison. Yeah. So tell us about your experiences there. Yeah. You know, I had the great privilege of being part of the restorative justice program. at San Quentin Prison.

And I went in, and that's a remarkable program that's built on the idea of moral beauty, that all humans have goodness within them that they can find with the right guidance and practice, even if they've perpetrated harms and the like. And so I go in and give a talk, you know, and I think every American should go into an American prison and just to see that part of our state

and it's astonishing. It's, you know, it's, you don't have the wonders of life readily available. Solitary confinement, which I've worked on, is horrific. It's a form of cruel and unusual punishment. So I go in, I'm giving a talk. In this program, there are 180 prisoners. All of them work out a lot. I was the smallest person in that building, you know,

and they would have twisted me up like a pretzel. And they are working hard. And in the middle of my talk, I was like, I have to do this. And I said, what brings you awe in San Quentin? And there's this quiet. And then the answers came, you know, pouring forth. And it was, you know, my grandchild, learning how to read, getting my college diploma, you know, the Quran, meditating.

My sally. My sally, you know. being outside and seeing the bay light, you know, San Quentin's on the San Francisco Bay. And I, you know, Oprah, I was like, these are the best answers I've ever heard. You know, they are a lesson that we can find awe anywhere, right? And we can cultivate awe in the hardest places.

And then, you know, my experience in San Quentin and I will call out Darnell Washington, who's now he led the restorative justice programs. He's a dear friend outside. He's teaching yoga and meditation that he learned inside to kids in L.A. And we know that those programs work. There's an 80% drop in incarceration rates for young people because of people like Darnell.

And when I look at his career, I'm like, it inspires me. So it was a life-changing experience. Because we know that it seems to quiet the ego and help reduce stress. and it can be a part of also healing trauma. Yeah. As you're talking about, that's why you don't have 80%. That's why you have 80%. Right.

Exactly right. Healing trauma and grief or loss. And so many people who are traumatized are actually really grieving. Yeah. Well put. Really well put. You know, I... They're grieving the life that they wish they'd had.

Yeah. They're grieving. Yeah. They're grieving. Yeah. The family could, what they could have been. And I was privileged to work with Stacey Bear, who's a veteran with the Sierra Club. And Stacey is a pioneer in grappling with the trauma of veterans.

You know, they have twice the rates of PTSD as of civilians. And his wisdom coming out of his life was get veterans outdoors, you know, get him on rock climbing and rafting and backpacking and skiing. You know, they don't necessarily want pharmaceutical cocktails. They want to challenge them. themselves and to find their courage. And so we took veterans on a half day rafting trip on the American River where my brother and I used to raft,

which was amazing. And it led to a 32% drop in PTSD and for a week. And so for those of us who are experiencing trauma or grief, be thinking about those immersive experiences of awe, right? Like that half day rafting, 32% a drop in all the symptoms of PTSD. And so, yeah, I am really excited about how awe can be a tool for transforming grief and trauma. Yes.

And so you wrote the book because you wanted the experience for the reader to result in what? You know, Oprah, I've been teaching happiness for 25 years at Berkeley. begin the book talking about teaching happiness yeah and you know the world has changed and you know the loneliness and anxiety and self-harm and depression and opioid use and and what i wanted to give people was the idea that they can experience all whenever they're wanting to i love how you begin the book your introduction this is funny to me you said i have taught happiness to hundreds of thousands of people around the world it's not obvious why i ended up doing this work. I've been a pretty wound-up, anxious person for significant chunks of my life.

And I love this, and was thrown out of my first meditation class for laughing while we chanted, I am a being of purple fire. And when I read that, when I read that, I was like, what kind of meditation class was that? I'm a being of purple fire? Yep, my best friend memo and I got tossed out of that class in college. Yeah, you know, and that's the point, which is, you know, I struggle to meditate. I am wound up. I can't. That's just what I got, you know, in my nervous system. And, and awe, really, as I wrote this book in a very hard time in my life, I was like, yeah, that's what grounded me in life, is nature and the moral beauty of seeing Nelson Mandela come out of prison and Oakland calls him. Wasn't that a day? I was just like, I think about that.

and I just got goosebumps, you know, that's with me today. So it was awe that lifted me up. Well, I appreciate you coming on, flying all the way through the fog, making it here. Thank you, Dakker-Kelner, for this awe-inspiring conversation. I hope that you all begin to take awe walks for yourselves and find more awe in your everyday, the book, awe, the new science of everyday wonder and how it can transform your life is available. wherever you buy your books, come hang out with us again next week. Go well. You can subscribe to the Oprah podcast on YouTube and follow us on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen. I'll see you next week. Thanks, everybody.