Awe, Curiosity, and Doing Something New: A Conversation with Bonnie Pitman
Awe – a “complex, self-transcendent emotion triggered by encountering something vast, powerful, or beautiful that challenges our understanding of the world.”
I was on a walk the other day listening to the Hidden Brain podcast, hosted by the delightful Shunkar Vedantam who, in each episode, delves into a different phenomena about the inner workings of the brain. This week’s topic: awe.
In the world of modern psychology, awe remains a Pandora’s box – full of unanswered questions and largely unknown neurobiological mechanisms. From an evolutionary standpoint, there is no sound explanation for why we’d rely on it for survival. However, we know it has been around for at least three or four millenia.
The Bible inadvertently describes awe in the context of experiencing God – an experience marked by simultaneous fear and profound wonder. In Isaiah 6:5, the prophet Isaiah sees God and is left nearly “paralyzed by the vision.”
The Torah similarly describes a nature scene that evokes an unexpected response from people on Mount Sinai. Lightning strikes and smoke covers the mountain. “All the people trembled,” overwhelmed, yet humbled by the beautiful scene.
How baffling it is that we’ve cracked the code on rewiring neural pathways on stroke patients, and developed prosthetics that link to signals in the brain, yet we still haven’t discovered the neurobiological process of awe.
On a quest to crack the code, I reached out to my friend, Bonnie Pitman, the most awe-inspired and joyous person I know. Bonnie and I met at the Center for BrainHealth three years ago, when she gave a lecture on the neurological benefits of practicing gratitude and seeking out new experiences. We quickly bonded over our mutual love of modern art and ice cream.
I came to learn about her Do Something New practice, where every day, she seeks out a new experience. Today is day 5,415.
That’s right, Bonnie has done something new every day for almost 15 years.
Her “something new” can range from visiting a new museum exhibit to, my personal favorite, trying Botolino’s latest seasonal ice cream flavor.
If you ask Bonnie, this daily ritual didn’t begin randomly, but emerged out of necessity.
“Do Something New came out of a very challenging period of my life. I had just become the Director of the Dallas Museum of Art, the most joyous moment in my career.”
In 2008, while sitting in a meeting to negotiate the acquisition of a King Tut statue in Vienna, Bonnie felt a strange sensation in her lungs. “I knew something was off in my body and that I had to come home.”
What followed was a long and arduous journey to diagnose her condition. She spent long stretches of time in the hospital three to four times a year. When she wasn’t hospitalized, she was traveling between the Mayo Clinic, Cleveland, and Harvard, searching for answers about the “mysterious organisms in [her] lungs.”
Eventually, the toll became too great. “I resigned from the job of my dreams,” she said, and “became depressed.”
When it became clear that a diagnosis was not coming anytime soon, Bonnie made an unlikely decision for someone facing such uncertainty: “I’m going to take an ordinary day and make it extraordinary through the power of intention.”
What began as a simple practice recorded with pen and paper eventually evolved into photo diaries – and ultimately into her own Do Something New blog.
What Bonnie is after in this practice is joy and awe. “Sometimes incredibly ordinary things – roses, my cat – can bring the type of excitement when your body tingles and you can’t look away.”
If you’ve experienced awe, it likely happened while trying something new or seeing something familiar in a new light: the breathtaking view at the top of a long hike, a song on the drive home that scratches an itch in your brain just right, or a conversation with a friend where you’re so absorbed in the moment that time feels irrelevant.
Bonnie is a master at seeking out awe, but where she is almost sure to find it is when she “escapes into the art” around her.
She recounted an experience she had several years ago at Sotheby’s. She and a friend had come to view a Signac painting as a potential acquisition for the DMA. Sitting in the private viewing room, they were swept away – gasping and tears streaming – as the painting was illuminated, its beauty utterly overwhelming.
“If art is in the right place and the right context,” she said, “it can transform itself.”
Bonnie’s relationship with art is unlike anything I’ve witnessed before. She goes far beyond viewing it at the surface level, seeing it instead as a conduit for “self-discovery and transformation.” She places herself within the context of the artist, the culture, and the time period, often leading to personal insight and moments of breakthrough.
Bonnie’s experience with South Asian art – particularly depictions of Siddhartha and the Buddha – inspired her to reflect on what she calls the “power of the pause.” “Pausing is an extraordinary thing,” she said. “A lot of people think they are stuck, when really they just need a pause.” Learning more about Siddhartha’s life led her to adopt a simple practice: taking three cleansing breaths when life starts to feel too busy or overwhelming. She even encouraged one of her doctors to incorporate the practice into his routine – something he has done before every surgery he has performed since.
Ever since Bonnie embraced her “Something New” practice, she’s noticed her mind growing sharper – a change backed by neuroscience, not chance.
We may not know exactly what triggers awe, but research shows it has a plethora of benefits for the brain. Gratitude and awe are linked to activity in the vagus nerve, a key pathway that helps regulate stress, emotion, and social connection. Experiences of awe – whether found in nature, conversation, or art – activate the parasympathetic nervous system, the body’s “rest and digest” mode. In other words, moments of awe pull us out of “fight or flight” and into a calmer, more connected state.
Researcher Dacher Keltner at University of California, Berkeley has also found that experiences of awe and joy can literally reshape our neurobiology. When we regularly engage in gratitude and cultivate joy, we gradually strengthen vagal tone – improving the nerve’s functioning. Stronger vagal tone is associated with better stress regulation, deeper social connection, and healthier heart rate variability (HRV). In short, our brains benefit when we make room for awe. (F.Y.I. Dacher builds five-minute “awe walks” into his daily routine: a quick, simple practice that can boost brain function and help you tap into a flow state.)
When I first asked Bonnie for advice on how to invite more of these awe-struck moments into our busy lives – especially on days when everything feels overwhelming – her response quickly humbled me. “There are 1,440 minutes in a day,” she said. “What do you mean you can’t take three minutes to reflect and engage with the world around you? Your cup of coffee in the morning, going to a museum – it doesn’t have to be climbing a mountain or writing a book.”
As always, she is very right. Since my conversation with her, I’ve tried a little something new each day. I’ve taken a different route home from work, tried a new dessert recipe courtesy of Bonnie, and have spent more time each morning petting my cat. I wouldn’t call what these small changes evoke a remarkable sense of awe, but rather a priming of my brain for a more grounded and joyful life.
In hindsight, my conversation with Bonnie felt like divine timing – a much-needed nudge to slow down and take life a little less seriously. As to-do lists grow and stakes feel higher, I find myself missing the kind of awe that once came so easily: watching the tadpoles in the pond, making mud cakes, and the feeling of climbing to the top of a tree, feeling the breeze, and realizing just how small my problems really are. When did we get too old for these things?
In moments when overwhelm and panic set in, I often turn to my biggest sources of inspiration: my friends. In a Substack post, Penny captures it so perfectly: “We can all benefit from living a more unseriously intentional life.” She goes on to describe a trail run where she ventured off her usual path in search of novelty:
My feet seemed to levitate over the tree branches as I traversed the new terrain. I had a new sense of what it meant to feel alive.
The multi-marathon runner that she is, Penny’s usually precise in her pace and routes, but this time she approached the run with flexibility and curiosity. She goes on to describe an interaction she had on the run with a furry canine friend: I stopped my watch (obviously), bent down, and gave the furry girl some love. An instant dopamine hit… One split decision - deciding to stop and pet the dog - paved the way for the rest of my run to be a frivolous adventure.
I’d venture to say that this shift helped unlock the ever-so-coveted emotion we’re all after: awe.
So, thank you Bonnie – and thank you, Penny – for reminding us that a lot can happen when we stop to smell the roses.
Bonnie says it best: these small shifts in how we see the world – and the practice of observation and gratitude – it’s “all for YOU.” These moments we carve out for ourselves to reflect, feel grateful, and revel in life’s simplest joys might just be what stands between us and a more grounded life.
Today, Bonnie’s “something new” was exploring the discography of Grammy award winner, Bad Bunny. “He was an eye-opener for me,” she said. “I thought it was the most extraordinary halftime show. I don’t understand all of it, but I’m trying – and it’s opening a whole new world.”
Having known Bonnie for a few years now, it’s safe to say she’s onto something with this practice. Fifteen years and more than 5,000 'something new's later, and she’s still chasing curiosity with the enthusiasm of someone discovering the world for the first time.
Science may still be catching up, but the proof is clear: a life filled with awe, gratitude, and curiosity is one worth chasing.
So here’s to Bad Bunny, new worlds soon to be discovered, and striving to be a bit more like Bonnie each day.
Until next time,
Charlotte, Founder of Giving Tree Paper Co.
Resources:
https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/topic/awe/definition
https://centerforbrainhealth.org/people/bonnie-pitman