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

by Brené Brown

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;

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 disem...

So often, when we feel lost, adrift in our lives, our first instinct is to look out into the distance to find the nearest shore. But that shore, that solid ground, is within us. The anchor we are searching for is connection, and it is internal. To form meaningful connections with others, we must first connect with ourselves, but to do either, we must first establish a common understanding of the language of emotion and human experience.

Vulnerability is not weakness; it’s our greatest measure of courage.

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.”

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.

Maya Angelou frames it. “Jealousy in romance is like salt in food. A little can enhance the savor, but too much can spoil the pleasure and, under certain circumstances, can be life-threatening.”

Resentment is part of envy.”

Resentment is the feeling of frustration, judgment, anger, “better than,” and/or hidden envy related to perceived unfairness or injustice. It’s an emotion that we often experience when we fail to set boundaries or ask for what we need, or when expectations let us down because they were based on things we can’t control, like what other people think, what they feel, or how they’re going to react.

but nothing that celebrates the humiliation or pain of another person builds lasting connection.

Shoy: intentionally sharing the joy of someone relating a success story by showing interest and asking follow-up questions.

Bragitude: intentionally tying words of gratitude toward the listener following discussion of personal successes.

If I had influence with the good fairy who is supposed to preside over the christening of all children, I should ask that her gift to each child in the world be a sense of wonder so indestructible that it would last throughout life, as an unfailing antidote against the boredom and disenchantments of later years, the sterile preoccupation with things that are artificial, the alienation from the sources of our strength. — RACHEL CARSON, The Sense of Wonder: A Celebration of Nature for Parents and Children

“Wonder inspires the wish to understand; awe inspires the wish to let shine, to acknowledge and to unite.” When feeling awe, we tend to simply stand back and observe, “to provide a stage for the phenomenon to shine.”

Curiosity is recognizing a gap in our knowledge about something that interests us, and becoming emotionally and cognitively invested in closing that gap through exploration and learning. Curiosity often starts with interest and can range from mild curiosity to passionate investigation.

my team and I define surprise as an interruption caused by information that doesn’t fit with our current understanding or expectations. It causes us to reevaluate.

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,

Anguish…It’s one of those words you understand the meaning of just by the way that it sounds. It has this gnarling rasp to it as you twist your mouth around to say it…kind of like what feeling it does to your insides. It’s an awful, drawn out, knotted up word. It’s also one of the things I feel without you. — RANATA SUZUKI

Grief does not obey your plans, or your wishes. Grief will do whatever it wants to you, whenever it wants to. In that regard, Grief has a lot in common with Love. — ELIZABETH GILBERT

Compassion is a daily practice and empathy is a skill set that is one of the most powerful tools of compassion.

Compassion is the daily practice of recognizing and accepting our shared humanity so that we treat ourselves and others with loving-kindness, and we take action in the face of suffering.

Empathy, the most powerful tool of compassion, is an emotional skill set that allows us to understand what someone is experiencing and to reflect back that understanding.

If there’s no autonomy between people, then there’s no compassion or empathy, just enmeshment.

“Science is not the truth. Science is finding the truth. When science changes its opinion, it didn’t lie to you. It learned more.”

Shame is the intensely painful feeling or experience of believing that we are flawed and therefore unworthy of love, belonging, and connection.

Belonging is a practice that requires us to be vulnerable, get uncomfortable, and learn how to be present with people without sacrificing who we are.

I define connection as the energy that exists between people when they feel seen, heard, and valued; when they can give and receive without judgment; and when they derive sustenance and strength from the relationship.

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.

Distinguished emotions researcher Barbara Fredrickson describes the umbrella term love as including “the preoccupying and strong desire for further connection, the powerful bonds people hold with a select few and the intimacy that grows between them, the commitments to loyalty and faithfulness.”

Interestingly, there is debate among researchers about whether love is an emotion.

Love is not something we give or get; it is something that we nurture and grow, a connection that can be cultivated between two people only when it exists within each one of them—we can love others only as much as we love ourselves.

define calm as creating perspective and mindfulness while managing emotional reactivity.

My hope is that we find that solid ground within us, that shore that offers safe harbor when we’re feeling untethered and adrift. The more confident we are about being able to navigate to that place, the more daring our adventures, and the more connected we are to ourselves and each other. The real gift of learning language, practicing this work, and cultivating meaningful connection is being able to go anywhere without the fear of getting lost. Even when we have no idea where we are or where we’re going, with the right map, we can find our way back to our heart and to our truest self.