Atlas of the Heart Quotes

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

“We cultivate love when we allow our most vulnerable and powerful selves to be deeply seen and known, and when we honor the spiritual connection that grows from that offering with trust, respect, kindness, and affection. 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

“When we are intentional and thoughtful about our expectations, and things don’t turn out how we thought they would, disappointment still hurts. Potentially, a lot. One reason it can sting is precisely because we were vulnerable and asked for what we needed or shared what we were excited about.”
― Brené Brown, Atlas of the Heart: Mapping Meaningful Connection and the Language of Human Experience

“Each person’s grief is as unique as their fingerprint. But what everyone has in common is that no matter how they grieve, they share a need for their grief to be witnessed. That doesn’t mean needing someone to try to lessen it or reframe it for them. The need is for someone to be fully present to the magnitude of their loss without trying to point out the silver lining.”
― Brené Brown, Atlas of the Heart: Mapping Meaningful Connection and the Language of Human Experience

“The term “intellectual humility” refers specifically to a willingness to consider information that doesn’t fit with our current thinking. People who demonstrate intellectual humility don’t lack confidence or conviction.”
― Brené Brown, Atlas of the Heart: Mapping Meaningful Connection and the Language of Human Experience

“over making other people comfortable. It was the hardest work I’ve ever done and continue to do.”
― Brené Brown, Atlas of the Heart: Mapping Meaningful Connection and the Language of Human Experience

“While most of us think of boredom as a negative feeling, it turns out that not all experiences of boredom are bad. In fact, if it weren’t for boredom, you wouldn’t be reading this book or any book by me. Let me explain the research first. A recent study showed that simple, boring tasks or mundane activities can allow our minds to wander, daydream, and create. The lack of stimulation that defines “being bored” gives our imagination room to play and grow.”
― Brené Brown, Atlas of the Heart: Mapping Meaningful Connection and the Language of Human Experience

“Near enemies are states that appear similar to the desired quality but actually undermine it. Far enemies are the opposite of what we are trying to achieve. For example, a near enemy of loving-kindness is sentimentality—similar but different. A far enemy of loving-kindness is ill will—the opposite of loving-kindness. Similarly, a near enemy of compassion is pity and a far enemy is cruelty.”
― Brené Brown, Atlas of the Heart: Mapping Meaningful Connection and the Language of Human Experience

“We should not test and build on theories that are just conjecture—especially when it comes to hypothesizing about underrepresented groups while knowing very little about their stories and lived experiences.”
― Brené Brown, Atlas of the Heart: Mapping Meaningful Connection and the Language of Human Experience

“As someone who can fall prey to comparing myself and my life to edited and curated Instagram feeds, I laughed so hard when he told me that due to the physics of how grass grows, when we peer over our fence at our neighbor’s grass, it actually does look greener, even if it is truly the same lushness as our own grass. I mean, does it get better than that? The grass actually does look greener on the other side,”
― Brené Brown, Atlas of the Heart: Mapping Meaningful Connection and the Language of Human Experience

“50 to 60 percent of the challenge of mapmaking is labeling the map in a way that appropriately prioritizes the right information. He explained, “The interaction between the layers is the story of the map. It is the narrative structure of what we see when we read a map. The layers tell us the hierarchy of what’s most important.”
― Brené Brown, Atlas of the Heart: Mapping Meaningful Connection and the Language of Human Experience

“I used to ask my graduate students to submit a semester-long goal the second week of school. After doing this for years, I knew I could expect 90 percent of the goals to be unrealistic. Setting realistic goals is a skill and a prerequisite for hope.”
― Brené Brown, Atlas of the Heart: Mapping Meaningful Connection and the Language of Human Experience

“In more than thirty years of research, Aaron Beck and his colleagues have established that experiences of hopelessness are strongly and specifically related to suicidality.”
― Brené Brown, Atlas of the Heart: Mapping Meaningful Connection and the Language of Human Experience

“Disappointment takes a toll on us and our relationships. It requires considerable emotional bandwidth. Researcher Eliane Sommerfeld explains that we come away from the experience of disappointment feeling bad about ourselves and the other person. Our negativity is tinged with astonishment and surprise, and, at the same time we’re trying to forgive, we’re concealing emotions. We’re trying to think positively and urging ourselves to move on. It’s exhausting.”
― Brené Brown, Atlas of the Heart: Mapping Meaningful Connection and the Language of Human Experience

“York Times bestselling writer, and his latest book, Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don’t Know,”
― Brené Brown, Atlas of the Heart: Mapping Meaningful Connection and the Language of Human Experience

“Too many lonely and secret lives.”
― Brené Brown, Atlas of the Heart: Mapping Meaningful Connection and the Language of Human Experience

“Hope is a function of struggle—we develop hope not during the easy or comfortable times, but through adversity and discomfort.”
― Brené Brown, Atlas of the Heart: Mapping Meaningful Connection and the Language of Human Experience

“Dissonance is disquieting because to hold two ideas that contradict each other is to flirt with absurdity, and, as Albert Camus observed, we are creatures who spend our lives trying to convince ourselves that our existence is not absurd.”
― Brené Brown, Atlas of the Heart: Mapping Meaningful Connection and the Language of Human Experience

“When someone else is suffering and we feel joy, there is decreased activity in the area of the brain that processes empathy and increased activity in the reward centers.”
― Brené Brown, Atlas of the Heart: Mapping Meaningful Connection and the Language of Human Experience

“I say “counterfeit” because when we see someone who we don’t like, we disagree with, or is outside our group stumble, fall, or fail, it’s tempting to celebrate that suffering together and to stir up collective emotion. That kind of bonding might feel good for a moment, but nothing that celebrates the humiliation or pain of another person builds lasting connection.”
― Brené Brown, Atlas of the Heart: Mapping Meaningful Connection and the Language of Human Experience

“Last, it’s interesting to note that people who are more satisfied in their romantic relationships are less likely to be jealous about potential relationship threats; however, they are more likely to react negatively to actual relationship breaches.”
― Brené Brown, Atlas of the Heart: Mapping Meaningful Connection and the Language of Human Experience

“There are too many people in the world today who decide to live disappointed rather than risk feeling disappointment.”
― Brené Brown, Atlas of the Heart: Mapping Meaningful Connection and the Language of Human Experience

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

“We feel admiration when someone’s abilities, accomplishments, or character inspires us, or when we see something else that inspires us, like art or nature. Interestingly, admiration often leads to us wanting to improve ourselves. It doesn’t, however, make us want to be like the person or thing we admire—we just want to be better versions of ourselves.”
― Brené Brown, Atlas of the Heart: Mapping Meaningful Connection and the Language of Human Experience

“However, no matter how much the lists vary, one item is on every list I’ve seen: the fear of social rejection. 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.”
― Brené Brown, Atlas of the Heart: Mapping Meaningful Connection and the Language of Human Experience

“The comparison mandate becomes this crushing paradox of “Fit in and stand out!” It’s not be yourself and respect others for being authentic, it’s “Fit in, but win.”
― Brené Brown, Atlas of the Heart: Mapping Meaningful Connection and the Language of Human Experience

“Comparison says, “Be like everyone else, but better.”
― Brené Brown, Atlas of the Heart: Mapping Meaningful Connection and the Language of Human Experience

“Comparison is the crush of conformity from one side and competition from the other—it’s trying to simultaneously fit in and stand out.”
― Brené Brown, Atlas of the Heart: Mapping Meaningful Connection and the Language of Human Experience

“Heart is sea, language is shore. Whatever sea includes, will hit the shore. — RUMI”
― Brené Brown, Atlas of the Heart: Mapping Meaningful Connection and the Language of Human Experience

“In the words of Harvard psychologist Susan David, “Learning to label emotions with a more nuanced vocabulary can be absolutely transformative.”
― Brené Brown, Atlas of the Heart: Mapping Meaningful Connection and the Language of Human Experience