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

Brown begins by explaining her “special power” of observation as a young child. She could tell what people were feeling or how they would react, and she would act in anticipation of their behavior. She could avoid her swim teacher’s disapproval by swimming backstroke or shield herself and her siblings from her parents’ conflict. While these “top-level observation powers” (xvii) helped Brown fit into a variety of contexts, she believes that “knowing probably just upped my anticipatory anxiety and my intolerance for vulnerability” (xvii). Starting as a teenager, Brown numbed these feelings with activity, fun, drugs, and alcohol. After her mother began recovery and therapy following her parents’ divorce, Brown was inspired to “do her work” of sobriety and facing her thoughts, feelings, and experiences.

Over the past 20 years, Brown has started formally researching the connection between “how we think, feel, and act” (xx). She has studied shame, vulnerability, courage, wholeheartedness, etc. Fifteen years ago, she developed a curriculum based on her research. In her workshops, Brown has surveyed thousands of people about what emotions they feel—most commonly, the emotions named are “happy, sad, and angry” (xxi). Brown believes these broad terms are evidence that if we are to articulate our emotions, we need to find the language for our experience to be able to share it with others.