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

by Brené Brown

One of the most important learnings to come out of the research for this book is how to recognize, name, and talk about my feelings of disconnection. I think we underestimate how much disconnection hurts. And it hurts more than our feelings. It can cause physical pain. Disconnection is often equated with social rejection, social exclusion, and/or social isolation, and these feelings of disconnection actually share the same neural pathways with feelings of physical pain. Current neuroscience research shows that the pain and feelings of disconnection are often as real as physical pain. And just as healing physical pain requires describing it, talking about it, and sometimes getting professional help, we need to do the same thing with emotional pain. A couple of serious watch-outs when it comes to disconnection. The first comes from researcher Trisha Raque-Bogdan. She writes, “To avoid the pain and vulnerability that may result when their efforts to achieve connection are unsuccessful, individuals may enact their own disconnection strategies, such as hiding parts of themselves or discounting their need for others. They may learn that it is safer to keep their feelings and thoughts to themselves, rather than sharing them in their relationships.”