There’s a reason so many breakthroughs happen near water, under trees, or on a trail where nobody can see your “thinking face.” Nature has a sneaky way of doing what your best friend, your therapist, and your productivity app have all attempted and failed to do: it gently un-centers you, but less in a shaming way and more in a relieving way.
Because the illusion that we’re the center of everything is exhausting. It turns your life into a constant performance review. It makes every email feel personal. It makes every decision feel like it will be carved into granite. It keeps your attention circling you like a drone on a good day ( and a buzzard on a bad day.)
When you step outside, the world says, quietly, “Oh hey. I’ve been here the whole time.”
Nature teaches scale without making you feel stupid
Stand in front of an ocean long enough and something odd happens. Your nervous system starts to accept a truth your brain refuses to put in writing:
You are important. AND. You are not the axis.
Nature is an honest teacher of proportion. Mountains, weather, night skies, even a single ancient tree carry a kind of calm authority. They don’t argue with you or rush to reassure you. They just offer scale.
And scale does something powerful: it reduces self-importance without reducing self-worth.
That’s the good version of feeling small where you don’t feel diminished or invisible, just… correctly sized.
The science-y part: nature gets you out of your head
In 2015, a Stanford-led study published in PNAS looked at what happens when people take a 90-minute walk in nature versus an urban environment. The nature walkers reported less rumination (that repetitive, self-focused loop) and showed decreased activity in a brain region associated with rumination, the subgenual prefrontal cortex. The urban walkers didn’t show those same shifts.
In other words: nature doesn’t just feel good. It changes what your mind rehearses. And if you’ve ever walked into a park with your brain on fire and walked out feeling… spacious, this is part of why.
Nature doesn’t need you to impress it
Here’s one of my favorite parts about the outdoors as a doorway into self-forgetfulness: it is aggressively indifferent to your image.
A tree has never asked for your credentials. A canyon does not care if you have imposter syndrome. The ocean will not be moved by your five-year plan.
Nature doesn’t reward polish. It rewards presence.
And that’s a relief if you’re a person who spends a lot of time managing perception (which is… most of us, and especially leaders. There’s truth to the phrase that “perception is reality”).
Awe: the emotion that shrinks the ego and expands the heart
Awe is what we feel in the presence of something vast that makes our usual mental framework feel too small. That “vastness” is often nature, but it can also be music, art, moral beauty, or collective human goodness.
Researchers have found that awe tends to create what’s been called the “small self,” a momentary shift where you feel less self-focused and more connected to something bigger. In a well-known set of studies, awe was associated with increased prosocial behavior (things like generosity and helping), and the “small self” helped explain why.
So yes, that sunset might be making you less self-absorbed, which is an odd thought, but also kind of wonderful.
Awe vs wonder: two different kinds of magic
People often mash awe and wonder together, but they’re cousins, not twins (or even Wonder Twins like motivation and inspiration).
A study looking at how people describe awe versus wonder found a meaningful difference: awe language leaned more toward perceiving and observing, while wonder leaned more toward trying to understand, with more cognitive complexity and tentative language.
Here’s how that plays out on an actual trail:
- Awe is the jaw-drop. The quiet. The “I can’t even talk right now.”
- Wonder is the curiosity spark. The “How does this work?” The “What is that bird doing?” The “Why does this smell like childhood?”
Awe unhooks you from yourself through sheer scale. Wonder keeps you out of your head by pulling you into inquiry. Both are forms of self-forgetfulness, just with different flavors.
Why leaders need “good smallness”
If you’re responsible for people, money, outcomes, and the invisible emotional weather of a team, your brain can start acting like the world will end if you miss a detail.
Nature offers a corrective. It reminds you that you are not holding up the sky.
And paradoxically, when you stop trying to be the center, you become a better center because you become less reactive and defensive. In those moments, you become more, more able to listen, more willing to collaborate, and more likely to choose what serves the whole.
Awe doesn’t make you passive. It makes you proportional.
A practice for this week: the Two-Scale Walk
Try this the next time you get outside (ten minutes is enough, thirty is better, ninety is Stanford-approved):
- Find something vast. Ocean horizon. A ridge line. Or just look up at a big sky. Or a thundercloud. Stand there long enough to feel your internal urgency lose its grip.
- Find something tiny. A leaf pattern. Ants. A small flower pushing through concrete.
Let wonder take over. Get curious like a kid who isn’t trying to be impressive. - Ask one question: “What gets easier when I’m not the center?”
You’re not trying to solve your whole life out there. You’re letting nature do what it does best, which is returning you to presence, perspective, and the kind of smallness that feels like freedom.