You Can't Feel Shame and Awe at the Same Time
I want you to think for a moment about the last time something stopped you.
Not in an anxious way. In the other way โ the way where you looked up and something was so much larger than you that your thoughts went quiet, and for a moment you forgot what you were worried about, forgot to measure yourself against anything, forgot the whole running commentary.
Maybe it found you in the dark once, looking up at a sky full of stars and suddenly understanding โ really understanding โ how impossibly small you are. Maybe it arrived in a piece of music that reached somewhere words couldn't. Maybe it was a person, brand new to the world, discovering their own hands.
That feeling is awe. And your body has been reaching toward it your whole life.
We spend so much time trying to fix ourselves. We read the books, we do the practices, we try to cultivate self-compassion and silence the inner critic. We treat our own minds like projects to be managed.
But research shows that awe does something none of those practices can do: it quiets the default mode network. That's the part of the brain that keeps score, measures worth, and turns everything back toward self-evaluation. When we are in the presence of something genuinely vast, the loop of am I enough simply stills.
You can't hold shame and awe at the same time. There isn't room.
This week, everything I'm sharing is about that experience โ what it is, what it does to us, and how to find it without having to climb a mountain or fly to space.
1. The Essay: The Medicine for Shame
Awe โ the feeling of being in the presence of something vast โ may be the most underrated antidote to the quiet shame of never feeling like enough. This essay explores what awe actually does to the mind and body, and why finding it in ordinary moments might matter more than any self-improvement practice you've tried.
2. The Podcast: E.18 - The Medicine for Shame (Why We Need Awe)
Episode 18 explores the science of awe โ what it is, what it does to the brain, and why it might be the most accessible form of relief from the exhaustion of self-improvement culture. If you've ever looked up at a night sky and felt, for just a moment, like you could put everything down โ this episode is about that.
3. The Practice: A Guided Meditation on Awe
A short guided reflection that invites you into the experience of awe โ not as a practice to perform, but as something your body already knows how to do. It guides you into the kind of smallness that feels like relief โ the smallness that means you don't have to hold everything. No experience necessary.
Until next time,
Lacey