Atlas of the Heart Quotes

“Like empathy, story stewardship is not walking in someone else’s shoes, it’s being curious and building narrative trust as they tell you about the experience of being in their own shoes. It’s about believing people when they tell you what an experience meant to them.”
― Brené Brown, Atlas of the Heart: Mapping Meaningful Connection and the Language of Human Experience

“When we reject the truth of someone’s story—the ultimate failure of story stewardship—it’s often because we’ve stealthily centered ourselves in their story, and the narrative takeover is about protecting our ego, behavior, or privilege”
― Brené Brown, Atlas of the Heart: Mapping Meaningful Connection and the Language of Human Experience

“Story stewardship means honoring the sacred nature of story—the ones we share and the ones we hear—and knowing that we’ve been entrusted with something valuable or that we have something valuable that we should treat with respect and care.”
― Brené Brown, Atlas of the Heart: Mapping Meaningful Connection and the Language of Human Experience

“Power with is “based on mutual support, solidarity, collaboration and recognition and respect for differences.” Power to is “based on the belief that each individual has the power to make a difference.” Power within is defined by an ability to recognize differences and respect others, grounded in a strong foundation of self-worth and self-knowledge.”
― Brené Brown, Atlas of the Heart: Mapping Meaningful Connection and the Language of Human Experience

“once heard Anne Lamott say, “Help is the sunny side of control.” Yes and yikes. All of us who were raised taking care of other people and trying to manage environments can default to wanting to control the path, regardless of our great intentions.”
― Brené Brown, Atlas of the Heart: Mapping Meaningful Connection and the Language of Human Experience

“In order to change, people need to become aware of their sensations and the way that their bodies interact with the world around them. Physical self-awareness is the first step in releasing the tyranny of the past.” Van der Kolk goes on to explain that, “The mind needs to be reeducated to feel physical sensations, and the body needs to be helped to tolerate and enjoy the comforts of touch.”
― Brené Brown, Atlas of the Heart: Mapping Meaningful Connection and the Language of Human Experience

“Cultivating meaningful connection is a daring and vulnerable practice that requires grounded confidence, the courage to walk alongside others, and story stewardship.”
― Brené Brown, Atlas of the Heart: Mapping Meaningful Connection and the Language of Human Experience

“It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data. Insensibly one begins to twist facts to suit theories, instead of theories to suit facts.”
― Brené Brown, Atlas of the Heart: Mapping Meaningful Connection and the Language of Human Experience

“Humility allows us to admit when we are wrong—we realize that getting it right is more important than needing to “prove” that we are right.”
― Brené Brown, Atlas of the Heart: Mapping Meaningful Connection and the Language of Human Experience

“The emotion of humility involves understanding our contributions in context, in relation to both the contributions of others and our own place in the universe. It’s different from pride in that when we feel pride, we focus entirely on the positive aspects of a specific accomplishment (which can still be healthy and productive).”
― Brené Brown, Atlas of the Heart: Mapping Meaningful Connection and the Language of Human Experience

“What’s interesting is that we can develop hate toward people we do not know personally simply based on their affiliation with a group or ideology that doesn’t align with our beliefs. Research shows that a lack of direct contact with such individuals can actually strengthen hate. This confirms my belief that people are harder to hate close up, and easier to hate when we’re behind our ideological bunker and they’re behind theirs.”
― Brené Brown, Atlas of the Heart: Mapping Meaningful Connection and the Language of Human Experience

“Contempt makes political compromise and progress impossible. It also makes us unhappy as people. According to the American Psychological Association, the feeling of rejection, so often experienced after being treated with contempt, increases anxiety, depression and sadness. It also damages the contemptuous person by stimulating two stress hormones, cortisol and adrenaline. In ways both public and personal, contempt causes us deep harm.”
― Brené Brown, Atlas of the Heart: Mapping Meaningful Connection and the Language of Human Experience

“With grounded confidence, we accept our imperfections and they don’t diminish our self-worth. It makes sense that defensiveness occurs in areas of our lives where we have fragile self-esteem, or across several areas of our lives if the fragility is more general.”
― Brené Brown, Atlas of the Heart: Mapping Meaningful Connection and the Language of Human Experience

“The brokenhearted are the bravest among us—they dared to love.”
― Brené Brown, Atlas of the Heart: Mapping Meaningful Connection and the Language of Human Experience

“The death of a loved one is heartbreaking. I didn’t expect them to live forever, and death is nobody’s fault regardless of smoking, bad diets, no exercise, or whatever. But my heart is broken anyway. A related heartbreak is the death of something unique, maybe even essential, in someone I love. I didn’t want my children to stay children all their lives, but at times the loss of innocence was heartbreaking.”
― Brené Brown, Atlas of the Heart: Mapping Meaningful Connection and the Language of Human Experience

“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.”
― Brené Brown, Atlas of the Heart: Mapping Meaningful Connection and the Language of Human Experience

“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.”
― Brené Brown, Atlas of the Heart: Mapping Meaningful Connection and the Language of Human Experience

“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. When we sacrifice who we are, we not only feel separate from others, but we even feel disconnected from ourselves.”
― Brené Brown, Atlas of the Heart: Mapping Meaningful Connection and the Language of Human Experience

“The definition that best fit the data is that perfectionism is a self-destructive and addictive belief system that fuels this primary thought: If I look perfect, live perfectly, work perfectly, and do everything perfectly, I can avoid or minimize the painful feelings of shame, judgment, and blame.”
― Brené Brown, Atlas of the Heart: Mapping Meaningful Connection and the Language of Human Experience

“Perfectionism kills curiosity by telling us that we have to know everything or we risk looking “less than.” Perfectionism tells us that our mistakes and failures are personal defects, so we either avoid trying new things or we barely recover every time we inevitably fall short.”
― Brené Brown, Atlas of the Heart: Mapping Meaningful Connection and the Language of Human Experience

“Shame is the fear of disconnection—it’s the fear that something we’ve done or failed to do, an ideal that we’ve not lived up to, or a goal that we’ve not accomplished makes us unworthy of connection. I’m unlovable. I don’t belong. Here’s the definition of shame that emerged from my research: Shame is the intensely painful feeling or experience of believing that we are flawed and therefore unworthy of love, belonging, and connection.”
― Brené Brown, Atlas of the Heart: Mapping Meaningful Connection and the Language of Human Experience

“Embarrassment—I did something that made me uncomfortable, but I know I’m not alone. Everyone does these kinds of things. Embarrassment is fleeting, sometimes funny.”
― Brené Brown, Atlas of the Heart: Mapping Meaningful Connection and the Language of Human Experience

“Humiliation—I’ve been belittled and put down by someone. This left me feeling unworthy of connection and disgusted with myself. This was unfair and I didn’t deserve this.”
― Brené Brown, Atlas of the Heart: Mapping Meaningful Connection and the Language of Human Experience

“Guilt—I did something bad. The focus is on behavior. Guilt is the discomfort we feel when we evaluate what we’ve done or failed to do against our values. It can drive positive change and behavior.”
― Brené Brown, Atlas of the Heart: Mapping Meaningful Connection and the Language of Human Experience

“Shame—I am bad. The focus is on self, not behavior. The result is feeling flawed and unworthy of love, belonging, and connection. Shame is not a driver of positive change.”
― Brené Brown, Atlas of the Heart: Mapping Meaningful Connection and the Language of Human Experience

“Yes, perspective is critical. But I’m a firm believer that sharing how we feel—even complaining—is okay as long as we piss and moan with a little perspective. Hurt is hurt, and every time we honor our own struggle and the struggles of others by responding with empathy and compassion, the healing that results affects all of us.”
― Brené Brown, Atlas of the Heart: Mapping Meaningful Connection and the Language of Human Experience

“Pity involves four elements: a belief that the suffering person is inferior; a passive, self-focused reaction that does not include providing help; a desire to maintain emotional distance; and avoidance of sharing in the other person’s suffering.”
― Brené Brown, Atlas of the Heart: Mapping Meaningful Connection and the Language of Human Experience

“The near enemy of compassion is pity. Instead of feeling the openness of compassion, pity says, “Oh, that poor person. I feel sorry for people like that.” Pity sees them as different from ourselves. It sets up a separation between ourselves and others, a sense of distance and remoteness from the suffering of others that is affirming and gratifying to the self.”
― Brené Brown, Atlas of the Heart: Mapping Meaningful Connection and the Language of Human Experience

“What the majority of definitions share, including these, is that compassion includes action. It’s not just feeling, it’s doing. 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.”
― Brené Brown, Atlas of the Heart: Mapping Meaningful Connection and the Language of Human Experience

“The idea of “no regrets” doesn’t mean living with courage, it means living without reflection. To live without regret is to believe we have nothing to learn, no amends to make, and no opportunity to be braver with our lives.”
― Brené Brown, Atlas of the Heart: Mapping Meaningful Connection and the Language of Human Experience