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

by Brené Brown

This means that rather than making a bid for connection and having the bid ignored or rejected, we hide out or pretend we don’t need anyone. I think most of us have done this—I know I have. And it’s a recipe for loneliness and, for me, blame. I can withhold a bid for connection, then blame someone for not responding. It’s a lot of scrambling to avoid being hurt. And it doesn’t even work. The second watch-out is about perfectionism. There’s actually a “perfectionism social disconnection model,” and this research shows that people who are high on the perfectionistic traits scale behave in ways that cause perceived and actual exclusion/rejection by others. In other words, my perfectionism drives me to show up in ways that lead people to push me away. This doesn’t surprise me, but it’s still painful to think about, because ultimately our perfectionism is about trying to avoid being excluded or rejected.