Wondrous
Full of open, childlike marvel.
Wondrous is being full of open, childlike marvel. The chest is open and lifted, and the eyes widen. You give yourself over to the experience of marvel. The analytical distance adults often keep falls away.
Childlike is not childish
There is a quality of attention that small children bring to the world. They have not yet decided what is impressive and what is not. A puddle is as worthy of investigation as a planet. Adults lose this. We learn what to look at and stop looking at the rest. The wondrous is what you feel when, for a moment, you remember to look at anything as though you have never seen it before. The bark of a tree. The structure of an ear. The way water folds. The world is wondrous. You are not. Childlike attention is not regression. It is the highest form of seeing.
"The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes."
— Marcel Proust
Wondrous has a distinctive body signature of open captivated attention. The chest is open and lifted. The breath becomes fuller. The face shows particular open marvelling expression with widened eyes and often soft sustained smile. The voice may become softer or produce particular exclamations of marvel. The body holds itself in a way that suggests being captivated by what is being witnessed: posture orients toward, movement reduces, attention focuses on the source of marvel. The state can be brief moments or sustained engagement; some experiences produce extended wondrous states that persist throughout the encounter.
Wondrous has been studied within research on wonder and awe, particularly through Keltner and Haidt's foundational work on awe as an emotion (Keltner & Haidt, 2003). Research has shown that awe and wonder produce specific psychological and physiological responses including expanded sense of self and broader perspective. Wondrous as the more open childlike form sits within this research as one of the related states. Research on the developmental trajectory of wonder has shown that children often have more sustained access to wondrous states, with adults sometimes losing access through patterns of analytical engagement that displace open marvel.
Wondrous arises through specific conditions involving openness to what marvels. Common patterns include:
Wondrous is supported by both encounters that warrant it and cultivated openness. The following help.
Cultivate openness to ordinary marvels
Many ordinary things contain conditions for wondrous experience that pure analytical engagement does not access: natural phenomena visible daily, ordinary skills and crafts, simple encounters with beauty. Cultivating attention to these ordinary marvels often supports more sustained access to wondrous states than waiting for extraordinary encounters.
Resist patterns that displace marvel
Various patterns can displace wondrous experience: constant analytical engagement, sustained cynicism, attention to phones and screens that prevents engagement with present surroundings. Recognising and resisting these patterns, when they have displaced marvel that would otherwise be available, often supports better access to wondrous states.
Engage with what produces wondrous for you
Different people find different things wondrous. Identifying what genuinely produces wondrous experience for you and arranging life to include these encounters supports access. Some people find it in nature, some in art, some in human accomplishment, some in particular contexts or experiences.
Allow childlike engagement without embarrassment
Some cultural patterns discourage adults from engaging childlikely with marvellous things, treating it as undignified or unsophisticated. Allowing yourself to engage in the open childlike way that wondrous involves, including the visible expressions of marvel, supports both the experience and the broader capacity for it.
If wondrous has become difficult to access
Sustained difficulty accessing wondrous states may signal patterns including sustained analytical orientation, cynicism, depression, or other conditions that prevent the openness wondrous requires. Working with these patterns, sometimes through therapy or sustained practice, often makes wondrous more accessible. The capacity is widely shared but can be specifically blocked.
"Research on wonder and awe has shown that these emotions produce specific psychological and physiological responses including expanded sense of self and broader perspective."
— A summary of Keltner and Haidt's research on awe
What does it mean to feel wondrous?
Wondrous is being full of open, childlike marvel. The body has been opened by encounter with something that exceeds ordinary understanding or expectation, with quality of being captivated by what is being witnessed in ways that have a particular childlike openness. The chest is open and lifted. The eyes widen. There is a quality of being captured by what is in front of you, of giving yourself over to the experience of marvel, of being engaged with what is wondrous without the analytical distance that adults often maintain. Wondrous specifically refers to the open childlike marvel quality, often without the more reverential dimension that awe includes, often with particular delight in what is being witnessed.
Where do people feel wondrous in the body?
Wondrous has a distinctive signature of open captivated attention. The chest is open and lifted. The breath becomes fuller. The face shows particular open marvelling expression with widened eyes and often soft sustained smile. The voice may become softer or produce particular exclamations of marvel. The body holds itself in a way that suggests being captivated by what is being witnessed: posture orients toward, movement reduces, attention focuses on the source of marvel. The state can be brief moments or sustained engagement; some experiences produce extended wondrous states that persist throughout the encounter.
How is wondrous different from awe?
Awe involves recognition of vast or sacred dimensions, often with more reverential quality. Wondrous can occur about smaller marvellous things without the vastness that awe typically requires. A person can be wondrous without specific awe (open marvel at things that are not specifically vast or sacred); awe typically requires the additional dimensions that pure wondrous does not require. The two are related and both involve openness to what exceeds ordinary expectation, but wondrous tends toward delight and childlike marvel while awe tends toward reverence and recognition of significance. Many experiences produce both, but the structure of each can be present without the other.
Why do children feel more wondrous than adults?
Children often have more sustained access to wondrous states than adults, partly because they have not yet developed the analytical patterns that often displace open marvel. Many things in the world warrant wondrous response if engaged with openly; children engage with these things more freely while adults have often developed patterns including analytical distance, familiarity that breeds dismissal, attention to other concerns, and sustained engagement with phones and screens that displaces engagement with present surroundings. The capacity for wondrous experience does not disappear in adulthood; it often becomes less accessed because of patterns that displace it. Adults who maintain or recover capacity for wondrous experience often have made specific efforts to resist the patterns that displace it. Some contemplative traditions specifically work toward maintaining or recovering this capacity through practices that cultivate open attention.
How do you experience more wonder in your life?
Several practices help. Cultivating openness to ordinary marvels supports more sustained access than waiting for extraordinary encounters; many ordinary things contain conditions for wondrous experience that pure analytical engagement does not access. Resisting patterns that displace marvel, including constant analytical engagement, sustained cynicism, and attention to phones and screens that prevents engagement with present surroundings, often makes more wondrous experience available. Engaging with what produces wondrous for you, whether nature, art, human accomplishment, or particular contexts, supports access. Allowing childlike engagement without embarrassment supports both the experience and the broader capacity for it; some cultural patterns discourage adults from engaging childlikely, but the suppression often reduces what marvel can provide. When wondrous has become difficult to access through sustained analytical orientation, cynicism, depression, or other conditions, professional support can help; therapy often makes wondrous more accessible when patterns have blocked it.
- Keltner, D., & Haidt, J. (2003). Approaching awe, a moral, spiritual, and aesthetic emotion. Cognition and Emotion, 17(2), 297–314. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/02699930302297
Wondrous sits in the joy family as one of its more contemplative and open forms. It overlaps with wonder as the broader category, with awe when vastness or sacredness is involved, with marvel as a closely related term, with what Keltner and Haidt's research has identified as having specific psychological and physiological effects, and with what childhood often produces more readily than typical adult engagement.
See where wondrous sits among the other 402 emotions.
Open Wondrous on the wheel