Atlas of the Heart: 3 Takeaways
“People will do almost anything to not feel pain,
including causing pain and abusing power.”
-Brené Brown
Brené Brown is a professor and podcast host of Unlocking Us and Dare to Lead. She also had a Netflix special called Call to Courage but she’s probably best known as the author of six New York Times Best Sellers including The Gifts of Imperfection and Daring Greatly.
Aside from hearing interviews with her on podcasts, my first introduction to her work is through this book: Atlas of the Heart: Mapping Meaningful Connection to the Emotion and the Language of Human Experience. It’s her latest best-seller which was turned into an HBO Max series.
The book is basically a (very) glorified glossary that literally goes through 87 emotions and experiences, breaks them into categories, and defines them. Using “glossary” to describe a book doesn’t have much selling power, so what makes the book a best-seller?
The reason it’s interesting is that, as the book summary puts it, “she maps the necessary skills and an actionable framework for meaningful connection, she gives us the language and tools to access a universe of new choices and second chances—a universe where we can share and steward the stories of our bravest and most heartbreaking moments with one another in a way that builds connection.”
Her background in the research of these emotions is evident and provides deeper dives into seemingly trivial fluctuations in mood we experience on a day-to-day basis, which include (my favorite part) actionable takeaways. Here are a few.
1. Schadenfreude
Schadenfreude (Shaden means "harm" or "damage" and Freude means "joy") is when you derive pleasure from someone else's misfortune. The word traveled from Germany to the U.S. but lost favor until it was in a 1991 Simpson's episode (clip here) and then again in a Ted Lasso episode (clip here). (Sidebar: I watched that Ted Lasso episode the same day as reading this book. Mind blown.)
It seems that the more you dislike someone the easier it is to experience this. It tends to be woven into plenty of shows and movies as a way to tap into the viewer's pleasure centers. The big bully picking on the little guy walks away and trips. The Willy Wonka movie is littered with moments of schadenfreude: Augustus falling into the chocolate river, Violet turning into a blueberry, Veruca and the squirrels, etc.
This feeling feels so innate that the people who don't revel in this seem saintly or on a different level from us mortals. When I think of emotions and behaviors I immediately think of their evolutionary advantage but Brown doesn't dive into that much throughout her book so I'll spare the theories on why this feeling is so woven into our brains. Instead, let's look at the opposite of schadenfreude which is freudenfreude, or finding joy in others' successes.
My mom is the epitome of freudenfreude. She beams with joy when she hears about someone else's success. She's routinely come home from a day of running errands to tell her “guess who I met today” story. Usually this entails spilling details about the cashier she met who had a grandchild born to the same doctor that helped with my birth.
You also often see freudenfreude in sports. When a player scores a goal, the other players run to her. And when the person who scored points back to the person who gave them the assist.
Parental implication. People who suffer from depression have less of an ability for freudenfreude. For this, and other reasons, Brown has taught the importance of it to her kids.
“Good friends are not afraid of your light. They never blow out your flame and you never blow out theirs. Even when it's really bright and it makes you worry about your own flame. When something good happens to you they celebrate your flame and when something could happen to them you celebrate theirs. To explain and illustrate to them, we have them stick out their hand, palms flat and open and say, if this is your flame and the wind picks up, good friends cup their hands around your flame to prevent it from going out and you do the same for them. And the way we've always said it to them, since elementary school, is no flame blower outers.”
2. Expectations & Disappointment
Brené Brown and her husband noticed that on the weekends when they were both together with the kids they experienced more "disappointment, anger, and resentment." They got into arguments and were much less happy compared to when each of them was flying solo with the kids on the weekend. Turns out the issue boiled down to expectations. When it was just one parent alone with the kiwds "they just enjoyed the craziness" and dropped the other plans they had. When they were together they didn't drop the plans and expected to do more, did more, and didn't communicate their plans well.
Now they make a point to talk about expectations frequently, especially before busy periods (vacations, busy school weeks). "What do you want this weekend to look like? I just want to be able to hit the gym for an hour on Saturday. Want to grab dinner on Sunday night? Sounds good. I want to see my friend for a couple of hours on Saturday afternoon. What time are you going to the gym?"
Other questions can include:
What expectations do you have going into this?
What do you want to happen? Why?
Are you setting goals and expectations that our completely outside of your control?
They have these conversations this in front of their kids as a way of modeling it to foster better communication skills.
Much of this might seem obvious and boil down to just communicate with one another. Still, it resounds louder with me since this way of communicating is definitely a weakness of mine. Point taken.
3. Cognitive Dissonance
Leon Festinger came up with his cognitive dissonance theory when he was observing a cult in the 1950's that claimed the end of the world was near. He theorized that the hard-core believers who sold their homes and possessions would use cognitive dissonance to somehow rewrite the situation to say that they were never wrong and the members who weren't truly convinced that the end was near would write it off as a learning experience. This was a bold statement back in the day (I guess there weren't as many cults predicting Armageddon as today) but when “the end” came and went, Festinger’s theory held strong.
Festinger describes cognitive dissonance as "a state of tension that occurs when a person holds two cognitions (ideas, attitudes, beliefs, opinions) that are psychologically inconsistent with one another. " Brown uses the phrases “doubling down”, “spit shining the truth”, and “using mental gymnastics to be right” (or at least not be wrong) as ways to describe this phenomenon.
I see this in the clinic every day. One example is when they see their high blood pressure. In my decade and a half of experience, I’ve never heard someone say, "it's because I have a history of not eating well, exercising as much as I should, or managing my stress." Instead, regardless of how many consecutive days in a row that this happens, they’ll typically give an acute justification such as recently eating a salty snack, just having walked to the session, or the machine is just wrong. This is quickly followed up with an implication that it's a one-and-done situation.
The former explanation isn’t wrong but the latter gives an abrupt stop to proceed with any meaningful change for the better. Our minds create an instantaneous detour on the road to progress and even the car being redirected on the detour is happy about it.
Another example is when someone smokes, knows that smoking is unhealthy, but can't kick it. They may justify it by saying it improves their alertness, helps them to lose weight, etc.
Humans use cognitive dissonance on a regular basis. It happens in politics, conspiracy theories, fashion, gossip, sports, and any behavior we have. It's a big reason there's so much misinformation out there. One of my favorite experiences of this is when a big political statement comes out, the loud guy in the room makes a bold statement justifying it, and then someone says the news was wrong and it's the opposite of what was said. The loud person has to double back and hilariously walk through mud to re-justify their stance. Schadenfreude.
It's thought that we do it to make sense out of contradictory ideas that people perceive to be important or impactful to them.
How to overcome cognitive dissonance:
Brown suggests "choose courage over comfort."
Adam Grant, in his book Think Again, writes "it's best to rethink and unlearn."
Daniel Kahneman is known for being open-minded and getting excited when he's wrong. "Being wrong is the only way I feel sure I've learned anything."
Another phrase that goes through my mind is "strong convictions held loosely."
Bonus: Anguish
One of the many emotions Brown mentions is anguish. She says to look at the painting titled Anguish by August Friedrich Albrecht Schenck for a great visual description of this emotion. Click the link for an immediate gut wrench. Powerful.
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