After kayaking and visiting native Inuit hot springs, her group was guided to an area where the bears were often seen. "After about an hour and a half, the first spirit bear came up and fished just 20 feet from us," recalls McKinley. "It was a huge adrenaline rush. We were almost shaking, we were so excited to see this animal that most people in the world will never see. I had a light feeling and an energy rush like euphoria. And I was sharing it with all the others."
McKinley says that seeing the Kermode bear has been one of the best moments of her life. "Even talking about it now, I feel a little bit of the high," she says. Besides the memories, it left her with an expanded idea of herself. "I've always been shy and had a low sense of self-worth," she confides. But researching, planning, and arranging all the details of the trip boosted her sense of self-efficacy. And getting to know 12 strangers demonstrated that she could conquer her shyness. "That experience built up my sense of who I am and what I can accomplish."
Everyone's life has superlative moments—times when we feel extraordinary and our experiences are recorded in Technicolor. "It's part of the human condition," says Roland Griffiths, a neuroscientist at Johns Hopkins University. "We're wired to have such experiences."
Psychologist Abraham Maslow famously coined the term "peak experience" in 1964 to denote sudden feelings of intense well-being that fill us with wonder and awe. Psychologically healthy people tend to have more of them, and such experiences can also bring feelings of interconnectedness and create a sharper sense of life purpose. "It's that quality of the experience that makes it so memorable," says Griffiths. "People feel that it informs life going forward." As a result, peak experiences may cause a cascade of changes in our lives, as we accommodate our newly expanded sense of self.
While brain studies on peak experiences are impractical since such moments arrive unbidden, researchers believe they involve extraordinarily diffuse activity in the brain. "It isn't localized," says Griffiths, who has created peak experiences in a laboratory setting by administering the hallucinogen psilocybin to subjects. "It's going to involve an incredibly complex network of neural activity and interactions that we haven't been able to model yet."
The details of our extraordinary moments can be as different as the individuals who have them. "Some people have to climb to the top of a mountain to have a peak moment,"says Jeffrey Kottler, a psychology professor at California State University. "But for a painfully shy person, reaching out to a stranger to start a relationship is the equivalent of climbing Everest."
About half of all Americans report having had a life-changing moment, according to Gallup polls. And while such moments can't be ordered into existence, we can gently prepare for the possibility. Despite the many varieties of peak experience, they all have a lot in common.
Peak experiences often involve an epiphany, an aha! moment that occurs suddenly, typically during a period of emotional turmoil. In an instant, we have an insight that is entirely new and deeply meaningful. We might realize that we can't stand one more day working as a corporate lawyer. Or that heavy drinking is ruining our life. An epiphany can reorder our priorities, revealing how we've veered away from our authentic self and inspiring us to move towards behavior that better matches it. The transformation is usually enduring.
Robert Blodgett was blindsided when his 6-week-old son caught a respiratory virus and became desperately sick. "The doctor came out and told us, 'Your son is fighting to breathe, and he's not winning,'" he recalls. "My mind started spinning, and then it became clear how important my family was to me." He was hit by the realization that he had been devoting his time and energy to the wrong thing. "I was working 50 hours a week. I'd get to the office early and stay late." That is, when he wasn't traveling. "I was always pursuing the bigger job. I left most of the family responsibilities to my wife."
His son's illness flipped a switch in his brain that completely overturned his value system. At that moment, Blodgett resolved to spend more time with his family, less with his job. It meant turning down promotions, accepting smaller paychecks, and leaving the corporate world for a more flexible freelance life. He ultimately moved his family to be closer to relatives but believes the change was worth it. "We have a nice life now," he reports. "I may not have the fanciest car or best vacations, but I have a great relationship with my kids. They're teenagers now and we can talk about anything."
It is natural to wonder if your partner is the right one for you.
