{"id":15928,"date":"2026-03-10T12:25:45","date_gmt":"2026-03-10T12:25:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gpbookstore.org\/articles\/uncategorized\/why-a-sense-of-wonder-is-important\/"},"modified":"2026-04-10T06:00:32","modified_gmt":"2026-04-10T06:00:32","slug":"why-a-sense-of-wonder-is-important","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gpbookstore.org\/articles\/angels-and-miracles\/miracles\/gods-grace\/why-a-sense-of-wonder-is-important\/","title":{"rendered":"Why a Sense of Wonder Is Important"},"content":{"rendered":"

Is it really possible to regain your childlike sense of wonder? That\u2019s a question Dr. Anthony T. DeBenedet has made his goal to investigate. As a board-certified physician, Dr. DeBenedet spent his career focused on keeping his patients healthy, all while finding himself increasingly stressed.<\/p>\n

Frustrated and exhausted, he set out to find a better way to live. The journey ultimately led to his book Playful Intelligence: The Power of Living Lightly in a Serious World<\/em>. He talked to Mysterious Ways about his research and how to maintain your wonder throughout life.<\/p>\n

What led you to investigate wonder?<\/b> I\u2019m a gastroenterologist and behavioral science enthusiast. A few years ago, my life was spiraling out of control. I was headed toward burnout, personally and professionally. I was a young father of three, working long hours. There was also the looming issue of my mother\u2019s health, which was declining. Generally, I\u2019m a happy-go-lucky guy. But I found myself becoming very irritable at home and at work.<\/p>\n

I started talking to patients and people who\u2019d experienced trauma and difficult circumstances yet still managed to stay positive<\/a> and actually thrive. What I found was that those people, often without knowing it, exhibited five playful behaviors that helped them live their best lives: imagination, sociability, humor, spontaneity and wonder. The most interesting of those to me is wonder. In many ways, it\u2019s an antidote to the intensity that surrounds most people\u2019s lives.<\/p>\n

Define wonder<\/i>. <\/b>From a neuroscience perspective, wonder is an emotion. Technically speaking, you feel it when a sensory stimulus provides new and expansive challenges to the limbic circuits in the brain. It\u2019s a very playful quality, one that makes us pause in meaningful, lighthearted ways.<\/p>\n

You often experience it in the presence of some-thing greater than yourself. Something that causes you to marvel at the big or small workings of the world. Wonder gives us a warm, positive feeling and usually makes us feel as if time is slowing down. It\u2019s really the only emotion that urges inaction rather than action.<\/p>\n

How does wonder relate to spirituality? <\/b>Wonder makes you feel smaller. Not insignificant but smaller, in the sense that you are a piece of a greater whole. In that way, spirituality and wonder have similar functions. Meditating, encountering the divine or experiencing the miraculous can often make you feel smaller in that wonderful way. You realize that you\u2019re part of a greater symphony of things. You have a greater place and purpose in the world.<\/p>\n

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