Atlas of the Heart is a book by Brene Brown that was published in 2021 by Random House. You can get it at Amazon.ca in Canada or Amazon.com. This post is just some of the interesting thoughts I’ve found in the book.
To connect to our inner selves and to others we must understand how our emotions shape our thoughts and decisions. To do that we need the vocabulary. Also, from a psychology point of view, our thoughts shape our actions. Let’s dive right in to some of my favorite points in the book. We all try to avoid feeling pain by perhaps causing pain and abusing power. Few people can handle being accountable without rationalizing, blaming or shutting down.
On page xxi of the book, Brene quotes a philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein saying “The limits of my language mean the limits of my world.” We need to be able to know and use the language of our emotions to express ourselves and become better people. Language is our conduit to meaning, connection, healing, and self-awareness. We need language to understand. Having the correct words to identify emotions makes us better able to identify those emotions. The ability to name an emotion or experience is essential to be able to process it in a productive and healing manner. To that end, the book explores 87 emotions and experiences organized into groups.
From experience and observation, Brene recommends using an effective strategy for dealing with anxiety and pain that does not include substance abuse (alcohol, food or whatever). We need to be thinking and learning about ourselves, our emotions and our connection with others. To start really feeling is one of the hardest things Brene has ever done and continues to do, but worth it. These feelings make us feel vulnerable, but when we stop trying to outrun or outsmart vulnerability we end up with more clarity in our lives, leading to better choices. As an example, we know that power is not bad. The abuse of power over others however is an attempt to maintain a very fragile ego. It’s a scramble of self-worth quicksand. Also, subjecting ourselves to that behavior in other is a sign of our own lack of self-worth. You can set boundaries. If you hold someone accountable for their bad behaviors, they may feel shame.
Here is what we need to do. Atlas of the Heart helps us with the first step and if we work at it, the book can help us with the next two steps.
- Establish a common understanding of the language of emotion and human experience.
- Connect with ourselves. Know ourselves.
- Connect with others.
Atlas of the Heart’s Sections of the Book
A book I like regarding emotions is by Brene Brown called Atlas of the Heart. In that book there are several emotions and experiences described, each divided into sections. For example, one section is called comparison. What can happen when we compare ourselves to others? Comparison is not an emotion, but it can affect all kinds of feelings and our self-worth and relationships. Comparison can also distract us from our authentic goals. As Brene Brown says: “comparison says “Be like everyone else, only better”.
Places We Go When Things Are Uncertain or Too Much includes stress, overwhelm, anxiety, worry, avoidance, excitement, dread, fear, and vulnerability.
What follows from comparison, are things like admiration, reverence, envy, jealousy, resentment, schadenfreude (pleasure or joy derived from someone else’s suffering or misfortune) and freudenfreude (the enjoyment of another’s success – a subset of empathy).
Another example from Brene Brown’s book is places we go when things don’t go as planned. Facets of this are, boredom, disappointment, expectations, regret, discouragement, resignation, frustration. Boredom is the desire to engage in satisfying activity, but not being able to do it. Disappointment and regret can range from mild discomfort to deep hurt.
Places we go when it’s beyond us. Awe, wonder, confusion, curiosity, interest, and surprise.
Places we go when things aren’t what they seem. Amusement, bittersweetness, nostalgia, cognitive dissonance, paradox, irony and sarcasm.
Places we go when we are hurting. Anguish, hopelessness, despair, sadness and grief.
In her book she has a a section called places we go with others. This includes compassion, pity, empathy, sympathy, boundaries, and comparative suffering.
In her book she has a a section called places we go when we fall short. This includes shame, self-compassion, perfectionism, guilt, humiliation and embarrassment.
Places we go when we search for a connection includes belonging, fitting in, connection, disconnection, insecurity, invisibility and loneliness.
Places we go when the heart is open includes love, lovelessness, heartbreak, trust, self-trust, betrayal, defensiveness, flooding and hurt.
Places we go when life is good. We have joy, happiness, calm, contentment, gratitude, foreboding joy, relief, and tranquility.
Places we go when we feel wronged include anger, contempt, disgust, dehumanization, hate, and self-righteousness.
Places we go when we self-assess include pride, hubris and humility.
Atlas of the Heart’s Selected Topics and their Definitions
Anxiety
The American Psychological Society defines anxiety as “an emotion characterized by feelings of tension, worried thoughts and physical changes like increased blood pressure. Anxiety can be both a state that you are in at the moment, or a trait, which is part of a person’s personality. We can feel anxious as a result of something, and some people are more disposed to feeling anxious than others due to their personality. Anxiety often leads to one of two coping mechanisms: worry or avoidance.
Worry is a chain of negative thoughts about bad things that might happen in the future. Avoidance is not showing up and often spending time and energy around the thing we fell is consuming us.
Vulnerability
Vulnerability is the emotion that we experience during times of uncertainty, risk, and emotional exposure. It’s uncomfortable and difficult, but vulnerability is not weakness; it’s our greatest measure of courage. It is a myth that vulnerability is a weakness. To feel is to be vulnerable. Does showing up to be with someone in a deep struggle sound like weakness? Vulnerability sounds like truth and feels like courage. The enemy of courage is armor, not fear. We protect ourselves to avoid loss or hurt.
When we are vulnerable we are totally exposed, like we are naked onstage and hoping for applause rather than laughter. When you are vulnerable, you are capable of being wounded; you are open to attack and damage.
It’s important to acknowledge our vulnerabilities. Why? In the psychology of health care, patients will comply with prevention routines only if they perceive their vulnerabilities. The illusion of invulnerability undermines the very response that would have supplied genuine protection. Always saying to ourselves that everything will be just fine, you don’t have to do anything, is dangerous.
Cognitive Dissonance
Cognitive dissonance is a state of tension that occurs when a person holds two cognitions (ideas, attitudes, beliefs, opinions) that are psychologically inconsistent with each other. Leon Festinger observed that people continually seek to bring order to their world, often by being consistent. Habits are developed. Disruption of these routines will cause uneasy feelings. The same is true with habitual thought patterns and beliefs. If a strong opinion is met met with contradictory evidence, it creates cognitive dissonance.
Compassion
What’s the most effective way to be in connection with and in service to someone who is struggling, without taking on their issues as our own? Compassion is fueled by understanding and accepting that we’re all made of strength and struggle – no one is immune to pain or suffering. Compassion is not a practice of “better than” or “I can fix you” – it’s a practice based in the beauty and pain of shared humanity. Compassion includes an action. It’s not just a feeling. Pema Chodron, in her book, writes: “Compassion involves learning to relax and allow ourselves to move gently toward what scares us… In cultivating compassion we draw from the wholeness of our experience – our suffering, our empathy, as well as our cruelty and terror…Compassion is a relationship between equals.”
The “action” part of compassion is not about finding a solution and making things better. It’s about truly knowing and understanding. If you really care for someone you might be thinking “fix it, fix it – stop the pain”, but perhaps we should be clinging to what we know and have learned, rather than act on what we are feeling at the moment. Compassion is not rescuing. Compassion is not pity. Pity feels isolating to one one being pitied. Pity involves a belief that the suffering person is inferior, does not include providing any help, a desire to maintain emotional distance, and an avoidance of sharing in the other person’s suffering. Pity is a “near enemy” of compassion.
God says “I Well Know the Pains They Suffer” Exodus 3:1-10. “…throw all your anxiety on him [God], because he cares for you.” 1 Peter 5:6, 7.
Empathy
Empathy is the most powerful tool of compassion, its an emotional skill that allows us to understand what someone is experiencing and to reflect back that understanding. Empathy has many benefits. Researchers Peter Paul Zurek and Herbert Scheithauer say empathy helps interpersonal decision making; facilitates ethical decision making and moral judgements; enhances short-term subjective well-being; strengthens relational bonds; allows people to better understand how others see them; and enhances prosocial and altruistic behavior. Brene says we need to dispel the myth that empathy is “walking in someone else’s shoes”… I need to learn how to listen to the story you tell about what it’s like in your shoes and believe you even when it doesn’t match my experiences. It’s understanding, from the other person’s perspective. Can we accurately imaging another’s perspective? Can we imagine being someone else?
Freudenfreude
This is the enjoyment of another person’s success. It’s a subset of empathy. It’s the opposite of schadenfreude, which is the taking of pleasure or joy from someone else’s suffering or misfortune. It’s cruel and can lead to feelings of guilt or shame. However, freudenfreude builds connection and strengthens relationships. Schadenfreude is positively correlated with envy, aggression, narcissism and anger, and is negatively correlated with empathy and conscientiousness.
As for envy, the Bible says: Let us not become egotistical, stirring up competition with one another, envying one another. (Gal 5:26)
Shame
Shame is the topic that perhaps we least want to discuss. Shame is the intensely painful feeling or experience of believing that we are flawed and therefore unworthy of love, belonging, and connection. Shame says we are not enough. Shame is universal, except for those who lack the capacity for empathy and human connection. We seldom ever want to talk about shame, but the less we talk about it the more control it has over us. What are some examples of shame? Shame is flunking out of school, getting a DUI charge, or raging at my kids. Shame is the fear of disconnection. This fear says that something we’ve done or failed to do, an ideal we’ve not lived up to, or a goal that we’ve not accomplished makes us unworthy of connection. Shame says: “I am unlovable. I don’t belong.” Shame is self-doubt and self-criticism. Shame becomes fear which leads to risk aversion which kills creativity and innovation.
Shame thrives on secrecy, silence and judgement. Empathy, however, is a hostile environment for shame. The antidote to shame is empathy. Shame is a social emotion. Shame happens between people and it heals between people For example, if we reach out and share our shame experience with someone who responds with empathy, shame dissipates. Vulnerability and empathy can overcoming shame.
When we feel shame we may protect ourselves by blaming something or someone, rationalizing our shortcomings, offering an apology or hiding. Shame is a fixed mindset that inhibits meaningful change for the better. Shame also erodes courage and fuels disconnection and disengagement.
In your mind, try to separate the value of a person with their behavior and the results or outcomes of their efforts. We can’t equate defeat with being unworthy of love, belonging and joy. As for behaviors, we are all imperfect and on a journey of constant learning, growth and change.
Perfectionism
There really is no such thing as being perfect. It’s an unattainable goal because we’re imperfect. We can however strive to be better. We can change. Perfectionism is a self-destructive and addictive belief system that we try to use to protect ourselves from feelings of shame, judgement and blame. Perfectionism wants to be perceived as perfect, but there is no way to control the perceptions of others. It’s a heavy burden to bear. It’s self-destructive. Perfectionism is addictive because when we do experience any shame, judgement or blame, we believe it’s because we weren’t perfect enough and we need to work even harder. Perfectionism says “I’m not good enough”. Also, perfectionism is not self improvement, it’s a hustle because its others-focused. Perfectionism is not the key to success. Gretchen Rubin writes that “A twenty-minute walk is better than the four-mile run that I don’t do.” Perfectionism is the enemy of done.
Guilt
Like shame, guilt is an emotion that we experience when we fall short of our own expectations or standards. Guilt says “I did something bad” whereas shame says “I am bad”. Remorse is a subset of guilt. Guilt can be a driving force for being adaptive and being apologetic. When we apologize and make amends or change a behavior, the driving force is guilt, not shame.
Humiliation
Humiliation is the painful feeling that we’ve been unjustly degraded, ridiculed, or simply put down and that our identity has been diminished or devalued.
Curiosity
You can be a curious person and you can feel curious about something in the moment. Interest, however, is more of a state. You can be interested in something at a specific time. Curiosity seems to involve both thinking (cognition) and feeling (emotion), while interest is just about thinking. Curiosity can start with just a very mild interest in something and it can range up to a passionate investigation. Curiosity is recognizing a gap in our knowledge about something and becoming emotionally and cognitively invested in closing the gap through learning and exploration.
Choosing to be curious is choosing to be vulnerable because it requires us to surrender to uncertainty. We have to ask questions, admit to not knowing, risk being told that we shouldn’t be asking, and sometimes make discoveries that lead to discomfort.
Belonging and Fitting In
All people need love and belonging. In the absence of love and belonging there is always suffering. Love and belonging is the middle tier of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. It’s fundamental to being human. We have to belong to ourselves as much as we need to belong to others. True belonging always asks us to be our true selves. When you belong to yourself, you can share your most authentic self with the world. True belonging does not require you to change who you are; it requires you to be who you are. Do you have feelings of not belonging?
Belonging is a practice that requires us to be vulnerable, get uncomfortable, and learn how to be present with people as we really are. Because we can feel belonging only if we have the courage to share our most authentic selves with people, our sense of belonging can never be greater than our level of self-acceptance.
Connection
Connection is the energy that exists between people when they feel seen, heard and valued; when they can give and receive without judgement; and when they derive sustenance and strength from the relationship. See freudenfreude. Our yearning for belonging is so hardwired that we often try to acquire it by any means possible, including trying to fit in and hustling for approval and acceptance. Not only are these efforts hollow substitutes for belonging, but they are the greatest barriers to belonging.
Insecurity
The opposite of personal insecurity is self-security. Self-security is the open and nonjudgmental acceptance of one’s own weaknesses. In studies Huang and Berenbaum found that self-security is positively correlated with self compassion and negatively correlated with shame-proneness, neuroticism, fear of negative evaluation, self-aggrandizement, and relationship conflict. The more comfortable we are “in our own skin”, the more willing we are to be more vulnerable with others. Also, we are more likely to have healthy relationships. People with a growth mindset don’t deny their weaknesses. They learn from them. They don’t let their “failures” define them.
Invisibility
Invisibility is one of the most painful experiences. Invisibility is a function of disconnection and dehumanization, where an individual or groups’ humanity and relevance are unacknowledged, ignored and/or diminished in value or importance. I also have a post called When Parents Ignore Their Children. Here is a YouTube video on this topic called Here are Signs No One Listened To You in Childhood.
Loneliness
To grow into adulthood for a social species, is not to become autonomous and solitary (independent) it’s to become the one on whom others can depend. It’s in our nature. At the heart of loneliness is the absence of meaningful social interaction – an intimate relationship, friendships, family gatherings or even community or work group connection. One should know that loneliness and simply being alone are two different things. You can feel lonely when you are with other people. We are really wired for belonging.
Love
I’ll start with the Bible here instead of Brene Brown’s research. 1 Corinthians 13:1 – “Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous. It does not brag, does not get puffed up, does not behave indecently, does not look for its own interests, does not become provoked. It does not keep account of the injury. It does not rejoice over unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails. But if there are gifts of prophecy, they will be done away with; if there are tongues, they will cease; if there is knowledge, it will be done away with…. 1 Corinthians 13:13 “Now, however, these three remain: faith, hope, love; but the greatest of these is love”. Brene says we cultivate love when we allow ourselves to be seen and known and when we cultivate trust, respect, kindness and affection. What damages love? Shame, blame, disrespect, betrayal and withholding affection damage the roots of love.
Defensiveness
Defensiveness is a way to protect our ego and a fragile self-esteem. We end up with a fragile self-esteem when our imperfections decrease our self-worth. The opposite of a fragile self-esteem is grounded confidence. With grounded confidence we accept our imperfections and they don’t diminish our self-worth. When we don’t want to hear anything negative about ourselves what do we do? We get defensive. We tend to over-justify, make excuses, minimize blame, discredit, refute, and reinterpret. people with a fixed mindset try to repair their self-esteem after a ‘failure” by assigning blame or making excuses. “Flooding” is a sensation of feeling psychologically and physically overwhelmed during conflict, making it very difficult to have a productive, problem-solving discussion.
Joy
Joy comes to us in moments. Joy is an intense feeling of deep spiritual connection, pleasure and appreciation. Sometimes experiences of joy are hard to articulate. With joy, our senses seem to be more acute and we smile naturally. Sometimes we experience spontaneous weeping.
Gratitude
Many of the emotions that are good for us – joy, contentment, and gratitude, to name a few – have appreciation in common. Gratitude is good for us physically, emotionally and mentally. Gratitude is correlated with better sleep, increased creativity, decreased entitlement, decreased hostility and aggression, increased decision-making skills, decreased blood pressure and more. With gratitude, we celebrate goodness and become greater participants in life, and not just spectators or observers. What really is gratitude? Gratitude is an emotion that reflects our deep appreciation for what we value, what brings meaning to our lives, and what makes us feel connected to ourselves and others.
Foreboding Joy
It turns out that gratitude is the antidote for foreboding joy. What is foreboding joy/ Are you afraid to lean into good news, wonderful moments, and joy – if you finding yourself waiting for the “other shoe to drop” – you are not alone in your experience of foreboding joy. Scarcity and fear drive foreboding joy. We may ask if we deserve our joy, given our inadequacies and imperfections. When we are grateful we acknowledge that we are enough and that we have enough.
Pride and Hubris
Pride is a feeling of pleasure or celebration related to our accomplishments or efforts. Some level of pride is good. It’s healthy. Some people call this authentic pride. You can feel proud of yourself and others. However, it’s possible to be too proud. Have you ever been too proud to accept help for example?
Carol Dweck in her book Mindset, on page 31 says: “If you’re successful, you’re better than other people. You get to abuse them and have them grovel. In the fixed mindset, this can pass for self-esteem.”
Hubris is an inflated sense of one’s own innate abilities that is tied more to the need for dominance than to actual accomplishments. It’s negatively correlated with self-esteem and positively correlated with narcissism and shame-proneness. Dominance is a status that is coerced through aggression or intimidation. When you observe hubris it feels terrible, but to the person experiencing hubris it feels good. They feel puffed up and superior, even if their speech and actions are not received well by others. In other words, they don’t care what others think. Narcissism is defined as the shame-based fear of being ordinary. You will need constant validation. You will want to prove that you are special. It’s okay to have love for yourself, but problems arise when being special turns to being superior to others. Narcissists are said to have narcissistic personality disorder.
Humility
Humility is openness to new learning combined with a balanced and accurate assessment of our contributions, including our strengths, imperfections and opportunities for growth. I would not completely agree with this statement, unless we simply took out “imperfections”. Humility is not downplaying yourself or your accomplishments and it is not low self-esteem. Humility allows us to admit when we are wrong. You can have conviction and resolve and still be open to listening to other points of view. Humility is not a weakness, it is a strength. In fact, humility is key to grounded confidence and healthy relationships. Humility is freedom from pride or arrogance or conceit.
Intellectual humility refers specifically to a willingness to consider information that doesn’t fit with our current thinking. Humble people are curious and willing to adjust their beliefs when faced with new or conflicting information. They realize that getting it right is more important than being right.
Grounded Theory Research
What is grounded theory research? Your participants decide what your research is really about. The researcher doesn’t start with a hypothesis that they are trying to prove. You follow the participants wherever they want to go.