Relationships
How to Find and Sustain Your Sense of Self in Relationships
Personal Perspective: The importance of having awe moments.
Posted May 11, 2026 Reviewed by Kaja Perina
The time has to be right; one has to be, by chance or intention, upon the border of two worlds. And sometimes these two borders may shift or interpenetrate and one sees the miraculous. —Loren Eiseley.
We’re not our skin of grime, we’re not dread bleak dusty imageless locomotives, we’re golden sunflowers inside. —Allen Ginsberg
Life, in many ways, is a quest to define yourself within relationships. Yet our Western-based culture has placed many constraints on that biological drive to connect with others and our environment. Through profit-based marketing's ability to transform our natural instincts, we have succumbed to a competitive win-lose metaphor: who makes the best coffee to the last drop, what detergent will make you more romantic, or having your shirts go untucked.
Within this framework that fosters competitiveness and far too many instances of demoralizing psychological patterns, the question arises: where are our edges? How do we recognize, accept, and interface with larger contexts that nature has already mastered through encouraging possibilities and improvisation in a way to sustain interdependency?
This is important, especially since we are constantly part of this ecology, which often peeks out from what is hidden within us, but is not unheard. It is here in our role in this kaleidoscope of our being. It starts with nature's unending mantra that she is more than the sum of her parts. Yes, each part, be it you, me, or the worms that help to reinforce our soil, allowing the emergence of a sunflower as Allen Ginsberg ( whose centennial birthday is being celebrated this coming June) so poignantly shouted in the above quote.
So here lies our quest to be in a win-win volley with you, me, and all the parts of this world. To leave the false sense of individuality, we must humble ourselves and rise above the barriers and polarization that pose for us to be amongst the sum of what nature just is not. Nature doesn't think that way; it is messy and beautiful at the same time. This understanding of nature's ever-changing energy opens a path to using our senses to experience it, which is very attainable through an “awe” moment of wisdom.
Jack Kerouac described it as a sudden "kick in the eye." The profound, insightful philosophers Humberto Maturana and Francisco Varela offered another way of digesting Kerouac's enlightenment: "thus come into a different biological insight of what it is to be human.” Yes, we all have experienced it during a rainbow or falling in love.
We hear it in our everyday backdrop, that flash of intuitive insight into one's true nature and the essence of reality. Some call it Satori, an epiphany, an awakening, or a spiritual experience. British novelist Iris Murdoch describes it as “the extremely difficult realization that something other than oneself is real.”
It entails having a beginner's mind, which, in essence, is an aesthetic process akin to nature, allowing the stochastic process of randomness to become a way of harmony, as in the martial art of Aikido, or, for that matter, any empathic gesture towards others and the environment.
There is no self without honest everyday sharing of stories with others, especially in intergenerational opportunities of mutual learning that make room for dialogue across all the interdependent contexts and institutions that educate, i.e., family, school, media, religion, government, and so on. It is, as Maya Angelou was fond of saying, “We are more alike than unlike.” This is especially important for today's youth around the world as they navigate new technologies, AI, and social realities. Forums such as Warm Data, developed by my friend Nora Bateson, president of the International Bateson Institute, and the Mingle Project, originated by radio host Michael Smerconish and other community-based sharing groups, can provide a way for each of us, in a relational manner, to recognize, understand, and tend to the needs that we all encounter in our day-to-day interactions.
The self-myth of individuality as strength and perseverance only reinforces a sense of isolation from how nature works. It is a partial piece of any relationship. It doesn't garnish what is between our relationships, allowing the always-present, available wider simultaneous perceptions to guide us to an enlightening moment. This awe can also arise from the hypnotic pauses that occur when we communicate harmoniously and mutually. This creates an opportunity to step out of the everyday box and seek the possible in what was previously impossible. It drives our species' evolution. The self can now transform from an isolated presence dictated by repetitive content to an experience of learning in a mutual manner, which allows for that explosive kick in the face, creating Satori awareness and an affinity for how nature works.
Here are some prompts to help you find your sense of self through an intuitive awe moment:
- When walking in a park or forest, or, for that matter, on the street in your neighborhood, pause, take a deep breath, and be absorbed by the wonders around you. Create a peripheral view of all that surrounds you. Stop and think about how you are part of this moment.
- Choose a piece of art, a poem, or a photograph that has brought you joy in the past. Give it a new look and ask yourself why, how, and in what way it brings you happiness or a sense of contentment. Jot down these thoughts and responses and re-read them twice a week for the next month and keep a journal of how you feel about these personal gifts.
- In what creative out-of-the-box ways can different contexts, i.e., schools, work, family, politics, economics, etc., be seen and celebrated as having interdependent benefits?
- How would you communicate to another person the need to maintain a collaborative environment? How would being more aware of nature’s intent and workings affect your emotional and physical well-being?
- How can a wider perspective help you in expressing yourself and expand your friendships?
- What stories can you share stories that stay true to your emotional traits and unique qualities regarding your concerns, and ways to be sensitive to the needs of others?
- Narrate a story of a time you had a sense of awe. How would you describe the way your senses responded? In what ways did you explain or internalize the essence of the experience in relation to your previous view of the world?
- How would you describe your sense of the difference that can occur in your life and that of your family and community if the predominant framework that surrounds you were more in tune with how nature works?
