Atlas of the Heart: Mapping Meaningful Connection and the Language of Human Experience

by Brené Brown

also learned that when you hold someone accountable for hurtful behaviors and they feel shame, that’s not the same as shaming someone. I am responsible for holding you accountable in a respectful and productive way. I’m not responsible for your emotional reaction to that accountability. Sadly, I’ve also learned that sometimes, even when the pain takes your breath away, you have to let the people you love experience the consequences of their own behavior.

People will do almost anything to not feel pain, including causing pain and abusing power; Very few people can handle being held accountable without rationalizing, blaming, or shutting down; and Without understanding how our feelings, thoughts, and behaviors work together, it’s almost impossible to find our way back to ourselves and each other. When we don’t understand how our emotions shape our thoughts and decisions, we become disembodied from our own experiences and disconnected from each other.

This is not that different from what can happen to us when we are unable to articulate our emotions. We feel hopeless or we feel a destructive level of anger.

Language shows us that naming an experience doesn’t give the experience more power, it gives us the power of understanding and meaning.

We feel stressed when we evaluate environmental demand as beyond our ability to cope successfully. This includes elements of unpredictability, uncontrollability, and feeling overloaded. —

Overwhelmed means an extreme level of stress, an emotional and/or cognitive intensity to the point of feeling unable to function. I

There’s no earthly way of knowing Which direction we are going. There’s no knowing where we’re rowing Or which way the river’s flowing. Is it raining? Is it snowing? Is a hurricane a-blowing? Not a speck of light is showing So the danger must be growing. Are the fires of hell a-glowing? Is the grisly reaper mowing? Yes! The danger must be growing For the rowers keep on rowing. And they’re certainly not showing Any signs that they are slowing! That’s what anxiety feels like to me. Escalating loss of control, worst-case-scenario thinking and imagery, and total uncertainty.

A trait is considered to be something that is part of an individual’s personality and therefore a long-term characteristic of an individual that shows through their behavior, actions, and feelings. It is seen as being a characteristic, feature, or quality of an individual.

A state, on the other hand, is a temporary condition that they are experiencing for a short period of time.

Avoidance will make you feel less vulnerable in the short run, but it will never make you less afraid.”

We can never forget that we experience social pain and physical pain in the same part of our brains, and the potential exposure to either type of pain drives fear.

Vulnerability is the emotion that we experience during times of uncertainty, risk, and emotional exposure.

Comparison is the crush of conformity from one side and competition from the other—it’s trying to simultaneously fit in and stand out. Comparison says, “Be like everyone else, but better.”

Reverence, which is sometimes called adoration, worship, or veneration, is a deeper form of admiration or respect and is often combined with a sense of meaningful connection with something greater than ourselves.

Envy occurs when we want something that another person has. Jealousy is when we fear losing a relationship or a valued part of a relationship that we already have.