The Power of Wow

One of my favorite yoga teachers (prominently featured in my upcoming memoir; details soon!) used to have a favorite mantra she’d repeat every time something amazing happened in her life (which was quite often). Here it is: “Wow.” She’d say this numerous times a day—whenever she ran into someone she knew in an unlikely place, whenever she looked up at the sky, whenever she woke up in the morning to a beautiful sunrise. Her enthusiasm for life was (and still is) contagious. For her, every moment seemed to hold a potential “Wow.”

At first, I thought this exuberance was a little over the top. But then, I too, began to notice that I was saying Wow a lot. It began to seem amazing to me that cats purr or that somehow the universe managed to hook me up in college with a best friend I would have for life. It seemed extraordinary that an opossum liked to hang out in my pear tree at night, and that I lived within walking distance from a fantastic Thai restaurant. It seemed unbelievable that goats are so adorable, or that butterflies and birds have such vibrant colors.

 I started to no longer take much of anything for granted, and to look at all the ordinary things in life in terms of their potential “wow-ness.” Of course, it’s easy to feel “The Wow” when you’re gazing at a sunset or looking into the eyes of a newborn baby. But in time, if you get into the Wow of things, you’ll find yourself totally wowed by a head of organic cauliflower or by a good car mechanic.

As a yogi (and as an admirer of author Eckhart Tolle) I often extol the “Power of Now,” and the beauty of living in the now. But I think my yoga teacher takes it an important step further.

If you can live in the now and in the Wow at the same time, I believe you may find true happiness. And all I can say to that, of course, is Hallelujah! I mean... Wow.