Unlocking Us with Brené Brown - Brené, Ashley, and Barrett on Atlas of the Heart: A Sisters Book Club, Part 1 of 3

Episode Date: December 1, 2021

In this first episode of a three-part Sisters Book Club series, Ashley and Barrett turn the tables on Brené and interview her about her new book, Atlas of the Heart: Mapping Meaningful Connection and the Language of the Human Experience. They ask all the questions we want to know, and they pull no punches—starting with stories about childhood superpowers, to matters of biology, biography, behavior, and backstory in the context of emotions and the book itself. They also talk about how Atlas is broken up into three sections, how the data was collected and analyzed to present the 87 emotions covered, and how powerful it is to have vocabulary that's as expansive as our experiences. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hi everyone, I'm Barrett Guillen. And I'm Ashley Brown-Ruiz, and this is Unlocking Us. We're back! Hey guys, it's Barrett. If you remember, I am the Chief of Staff for Brene Brown Education and Research Group. And I'm Ashley, a licensed clinical social worker and the Senior Director for the Daring Way. And we're also Brene's younger twin sisters. And we are here to talk to Brene about her new book, Atlas of the Heart, Mapping Meaningful

Connection and the Language of Human Experience, which came out yesterday, November 30th. Guys, we actually got to turn the table on Brene today, and we asked her the questions. This is a three-part series that we're doing. It's a sister's book club on Atlas. And the first two episodes, Ashley and I interview Brene about her book. In the last episode, we're going to ask you guys to submit any questions you have after diving into the book. We'll give more details on how to submit your questions, but get the book and start reading so you can hang along with us. It's really going to be fun.

Support for this show comes from Macy's. Fall is in full swing, and it's the perfect time to refresh your home and wardrobe for the sweater weather with new finds from Macy's. From October 9th to October 16th, get amazing deals on shoes and boots, on sale at 30% to 40% off. And you can shop new styles during the Macy's Fab Fall Sale from October 9th to October 14th. Shop oversized knits, warm jackets, and trendy charm necklaces and get 25% to 60% off on top brands when you do. Plus, get great deals on cozy home accessories from October 18th to October 27th. Shop in-store or online at Macy's.com. About a year ago, two twin brothers in Wisconsin discovered, kind of by accident, that mini golf might be the perfect spectator sport for the TikTok era.

Meanwhile, a YouTuber in Brooklyn found himself less interested in tech YouTube and more interested in making coffee. This month on The Verge Cast, we're telling stories about these people who tried to find new ways to make content, new ways to build businesses around that content, and new ways to make content about those businesses. Our series is called How to Make It in the Future, and it's all this month on The Verge Cast, wherever you get podcasts. A little bit more about Brene before we get going, just in case we've never actually read

her full bio on the Unlocking Us podcast. So here we go. Dr. Brene Brown is a research professor at the University of Houston, where she holds the Huffington Foundation Endowed Chair at the Graduate College of Social Work. Brene is also a visiting professor in management at the University of Texas at Austin McComb School of Business. She has spent the past two decades studying courage, vulnerability, shame, and empathy. She is the author of five number one New York Times bestsellers and is the host of Unlocking Us, whoop, whoop, here we are, and Dare to Lead.

Brene's books have been translated into more than 30 languages and her titles include Dare to Lead, Braving the Wilderness, Rising Strong, Daring Greatly, and The Gifts of Imperfection. Most recently, Brene collaborated with Tarana Burke to co-edit You Are Your Best Thing, Vulnerability, Shame, Resilience, and the Black Experience.

Her TED Talk, The Power of Vulnerability, is one of the top five most viewed TED Talks in the world, with over 50 million views. She's also the first researcher to have a filmed lecture on Netflix. The Call to Courage special debuted on the streaming service in April 2019. Brene lives here in Houston, right by her sisters and with her husband, Steve. They have two kids, Ellen and Charlie. Here we go. So Brene Brown, welcome to Unlocking Us.

It's so great to be here. We're so excited to interview you. Oh my gosh, wait till we get to the rapid fire. We've added a few questions. Okay, that's not even funny. That's like, Ashley just winked at me. Seriously. No, it's going to be so much fun.

My kids could listen to this. I know. Oh, yeah. We got you. Yeah, of course. We have our kids. Good. We're good. But we of course. Any of our kids could. We're good. But we're excited to be here today to talk about Atlas of the Heart. Yes. The new book. Beautiful. And you so graciously let us interview you to talk to you about this book.

So can we jump in? Let's do it. I'm scared. Okay, so you start unlocking us with every guest with one question. Tell us your story. Now, we're going to pause a little bit because we know your story, and everybody knows your story. Yeah. But what we want to ask you is, tell us about little Brene who already started studying emotions and understanding emotions from a young age and why you did that. It's so funny because I'm not nervous because I'm still like, I'm the boss of this podcast.

Well, I'm glad you're not. I'm like, at first I was like, oh my God, I'm anxious. I'm anxious. What are they going to say? And then I'm like, I'll just be like, no, I'm like, we're not doing it. And then, yeah. Isn't it awful? Okay, I'm anxious. What are they going to say? And then I'm like, I'll just be like, no, I'm not, we're not doing it. And then, yeah. Isn't that awful?

Okay. That's awful that I think like that, but this is, I'm armoring up. Okay. Little Brene, you know, I think the first time that I realized that, wow, I have some kind of really massive talent or superpower. I think we still lived in New Orleans. And so maybe y'all were newborns. I was probably eight.

I negotiated with mom and dad that y'all were staying after they brought you home. You're so, aren't you lucky that we stayed? I am actually really, really lucky. But I'll tell you guys, eight-year-olds like, wow, whatever this thing is, is loud. And beautiful. And beautiful.

And there are two of them. And how long are they staying? I think it was just an ability to, well, I knew it was about patterns because mom, mom used to sew a lot. Did y'all know that? Yeah, because I remember like the patterns that we would get from the store or whatever. Oh, shopping for patterns. McCall's or something. Yeah, the pattern store.

Yeah, the fabric store. So mom used to make dresses where my dress matched her dress matched my doll's dress. Oh, I don't think I knew that. Yeah, and sometimes she, in fact, there's an old picture somewhere of us getting on a train and she's got on like a yellow plaid shift dress and I have on the same shift dress and then my doll has on the same shift dress. And sometimes she would take me to the fabric store and I'd be able to pick out the fabric and she made all the clothes for my dolls. And so she would often say, well, I don't know about this pattern. It's really hard to match like on the back, you know,

how clothes that have the pattern that matches with like around the zipper and stuff. And so I knew what a pattern was. And then we had that gold couch, the infamous gold couch. And I realized, man, that's a pattern. And then what I realized very quickly from like situations at Holy Name of Jesus, where I went to elementary school, it's a heavy elementary school name. I was just going to say, I'm so glad we were Tice Tigers. Yeah. Holy name of Jesus. So I would recognize that there. I would recognize it at home with mom and dad. I would definitely recognize it like when Aunt Trina and Uncle Joe would come or like Meemaw and Curly would come, I could tell people are starting to act this way, something bad's going to happen in a little bit. Or people

are saying this and I think it's meant to be funny. And some people are laughing and some aren't, and it's going to go bad in a little bit. And so I think from very early on, I understood that there was like this holy trinity of emotion, thinking, and behavior, that they were inextricably connected. And if you could put two of them together, you could predict the third. So if you could see kind of how people were feeling and behaving, you could predict what they were thinking. If you knew what they were thinking and how they were feeling, you knew how they were going to behave, which was the biggest one for me. And yeah, little Brene was, I mean, really, I tell a couple of stories in the book about that,

like Memorial Northwest Marlins. Like we had a swim coach that was out of control sometimes. And everybody tried to figure out like, God, when he loses his shit, what's happening? Yeah. And it only took me like two or three practices before I realized, because at first, when you're not a fast swimmer and you're not the fastest or the best, you think, oh God, he's after the kids that are not the great swimmers. But I was like, God, he's not after those kids. But sometimes he's after the great swimmers. And sometimes he's after the shitty swimmers or the swimmers who are trying. we'll rephrase that since I was one of them. But then I realized very quickly, oh, he's after the kids that are not

obviously demonstrating effort. And he doesn't like it during free swim when you can swim like a hundred yards, whatever you want. And we were in a meter pool actually. So a hundred meters, whatever you wanted, he really had a preference for the backstrokers. So I always got in the lane with the grittiest kids, not the best kids, but the grittiest kids, and then I always swam backstroke. Never was I in his crosshairs. Yeah. But I was really good at it. I did it all the time. Well, how did you navigate that? I mean, being so young, obviously, you probably didn't have the language you have now to understand what the superpower was, but how did you navigate that? Well, I mean, I tell the't have the language you have now to understand what the superpower was. But how did you navigate that?

Well, I mean, I tell the story in the book. I thought something, is it fair to say that we had a kind of a shame-based family? Totally. Yep. Yeah. And I think, is it also fair to say that most of the shame came from a complete lack of normalizing? Yeah. Oh, yeah.

And that mom and dad were in a lot of shame. Yes. Like, they were living in this cookie cutter suburb where the dads were supposed to be like this and the moms were supposed to be like this and I'm being completely gender binary because that was also part of the expectation. And they both came from such hard places

that I think they had like a always pretending waiting to get caught feeling. And so they were always, I think, in a lot of shame. And so I think I was a very shame-based kid. So when I knew I could do that, I actually thought something was wrong with me. I thought maybe I'm like a wizard. And the only reference I had at the time was like Sybil and Carrie, you know, like unwell teenage girls are like witches are crazy. Or so could you imagine like mom and dad, I know that I've disappointed you in a number of ways. You know, I'm not on the drill team. I'm not a cheerleader. I'm not dating a quarterback or a running back or anyone important on the offensive line. And I just really want to be in French club and I like to wear a beret, smoke a little pot.

And I also have superpowers that would not have gone over well. So I just, I just use them, but I hid them. Yeah. How do you think that that skill set led to where you are right now in your life? I think it's a mixed bag. I think that there's a couple of things. One, my therapist today calls it hypervigilance.

That's your people, Ashley. Your people, the therapi. The therapi. The therapi call it hypervigilance and talk about it being exhausting and talk about it like always being on guard. Like one of the things I talk about, and this is like a really hard thing for me, is kind of, and I've talked about this before, like never feeling like I belonged in our family. And I think it was because of that hypervigilance. Like I never really could participate in the family because I always had to be watching

and I always had to be careful, you know? And so even when things got really fun and everyone was laughing, I was like either the actual protector because shit was going bad or I was a protector in waiting. Yeah, because it was going to blow up. Because it was going to blow up

and it always did, right? Yeah. Yeah. And so I think on the bad side it's an exhausting trait probably related to trauma and growing up in an unpredictable environment. Yeah.

And you know the thing is that when people like sometimes I feel shame even talking about like how we grew up. Cause I'm like, yeah, it was really fun. And it was really, do you ever feel like that? Oh yeah. Well, we were just driving through the old neighborhood the other day with two of my elementary school friends. And when we were talking about all of our friends and you talk about this too, back in the day, we had no idea what was going on in their house, but now we know what was going on in their house back then. And the power that we could have had if we would have been talking about it with each other

is crazy. It's just so crazy because you thought I'm the only one laying in bed at night listening to the screaming come through the walls. But I think the thing about the unpredictability is there was a lot of love in our house and there was a lot of laughter in our house and a lot of fun. It was just unsafe, not because it was dangerous all the time, but because it was unpredictable all the time. Does that ring true for y'all? Totally fair. Yeah. It's weird if you're listening because we have to ask each other these questions because we almost come from different families. I mean, we don't, we have the same parents and we grew up all together, but I'm eight years older. And so, so in one way, the hypervigilance, it's hard to carry. I still

can feel like that. I can still feel like, where is everybody? Who's safe? You know, those kinds of things. And so I think that was hard. And then I think the superpower was understanding that all the connections between thinking, cognition, feeling, and behavior. The other thing that I think was important is that when I started numbing with alcohol and probably smoking too much pot, I don't know how much is too much, but yeah, both. What I realized is I lost those superpowers, that those superpowers were completely connected to not numbing. Damn. You know, and so I hate that the hypervigilance, I hate that part. And I think I have to work all

the time to overcome that. But I'm grateful that I learned that in the AA Big Book, they say the promise of neutrality, where you're not running towards something or away from something, is only granted, that promise, if you're in fit spiritual condition. And so I think leading me to recovery was a gift of that. Leading me to this career was a gift of that. Leading me to this career was a gift, you know, I think, but there was also hard parts. Yeah. Do you think part of the upside or positive side to that was this beautiful gift that you have

to normalize crazy shit for people, for all of us? Like you definitely, even in Atlas, you share a lot of stories where we're like, oh my God, me too. Thank God other people are like this too. Do you think that came from that young hypervigilance? Yeah. And it came from like, my kids are never going to think I'm the only one that feels this way, acts this way, smells this way. My body does this.

Like, no. We're talking about everything. We're naming everything. we're talking about everything. We're naming everything. We're normalizing everything. And I think y'all normalize with your kids too, like crazy, right? Oh yeah, I think so too. Mm-hmm.

I feel that so much of this beautiful community that you've built, that we've all built in this work, part of such the gift that you've given people is that normalizing and is that me too. You're just not afraid to use yourself to let people know, yeah, shit happens to me too. It happens to every one of us. And so I just think it's a gift and it feels like it may have been born from this. I think it was born from that. And I think, Ashley, what you said, I could just cry when I think about it. Like, you drive through, like, look, we just come from a subdivision, probably middle to maybe upper middle class subdivision, college educated. Probably one

parent was college educated, usually the father where we grew up. They commuted into town. A lot of stay-at-home moms back then. And I'm telling you, there's a story in every one of those houses in that neighborhood that will bring you to your knees. I mean, death, suicide, addiction, mental health, violence. And even when that stuff did leak, our parents would be like, no, we don't talk about that. Or we make up lies about it. Or we tell stories. Like it was never honest, open conversations. I remember having like a list of things to ask you when you would come home from college because we never had those conversations with mom about like our bodies or what that meant and stuff like that. And I'd be like,

oh God, Brene's coming home and ask her all these questions because you would tell us. Yeah, I just couldn't. You know why? Because I met friends for the first time when I left. Because I was like, I got to get the fuck out of here as fast as possible. When I left, people would be like, yeah, oh my God, look at this.

I mean, look, and they'd pull up their skirt and they'd like, who needs a bikini wax? I was like, what is happening? I was like, what is happening? I was like, what is happening? And I would look at it, I would literally be like, that's normal. Because all I have is Seventeen Magazine, Young Miss, and no one's talking about it.

And so I was pretty sure I had a genetic disorder. Like, or something, I literally would look up so many things in the library, like what's happening. And I'd be like, oh my God, you need to put your skirt down. She's like, no, listen, I could just braid this shit right here.

Like, you know, and I'd be really, I just like, oh, you know, and you just throw yourself in this room with a bunch of 18 year old women who are talking about everything. It was incredible. I love that. I love that, too. I would say, well, I'm going to ask you a question, and then after you're done answering it,

I want to give you my point of view from it. OK. We'll see. This is how we interview. We're going to ask the question, and then we're going to frame the answer. Like I said, we'll see. Yeah. This is how we interview. We're going to ask the question and then we're going to frame the answer. Like I said, we'll see. Yeah.

Okay. So I've heard you say that this book kicked your ass. Can you say a little bit about what, I mean, I think you started already just by, but what was hard about it? I think environmentally what was going on in the world was hard. So we're in the middle of COVID, you know, hardest season of my marriage. My kids are really struggling. I went into it kind of like, oh my God, am I going to be able to do this?

I don't know if I'm in the right place. And then also just, are we going to talk about that? Like just hard things with our parents. Oh yeah. I mean, we could talk about it here or just surprise people when they get the book. Oh shit. I forgot.

It's in print. I blocked it. Yeah, I mean, I would just say like, there is a lot of grief in this book for me. I mean, starting from the first chapter, but even reading throughout the chapters, this idea of being able to talk about these feelings and knowing these feelings and sharing these feelings. And I felt like so much of that was taken away

from me as a kid because of how I was a kid. Say more. Well, I had so much grief around the part about being curious. And I can just tell you like five stories about a time I was curious and everybody would be like, stop talking. God, you're asking too many questions. Like, and it almost took away my curiosity where I stopped asking so many questions and just try to figure out shit by myself. And when I was reading this book and really thinking about the part around curiosity, I was so sad. I was angry and sad. So I was just wondering, like, when you say it kicked your ass, did you go through any of those emotions when you were writing it?

Yeah, I'm just, I have to say, I'm like having a very emotional reaction right now just because I feel very protective of you. And potentially there could have been learning moments in my curiosity. For example, maybe the Disney World bus driver wasn't the best person to ask a lot of questions about the difference between alligators and crocodiles. But I was so curious. I don't know about you, but I love that part of you. Me too. I mean, I love that part of you.

You are a insatiably curious, excuse me, sir. As we're crossing the swampl land that's close to the resort, I'm curious about alligators or crocodiles? He'd be like, I'm pretty sure it's alligators. And what would be the difference, do you think? And what's the survivability of both of those? So part curiosity, part survival. And where's the exit? Yeah, no, I don't know. I think you were and still are joyfully curious. Yeah. And I do think that was shut down.

Because I don't think you just asked about alligators and crocodiles. I think you asked, do you, I mean, do you remember? Yeah. I mean, you would say, so I mean, do you remember? Yeah. I mean, you would say, so why are you acting like this? Yeah. Or that seemed hurtful. Why did you say that? You know? And I was like, oh God, oh God. Go to my room, go to my room. I was like, I'll take the girls upstairs. Yeah. And so I do think that just like I was a very, you know, 10-year-old emotions researcher, you were a 10-year-old therapist.

Who is Barrett? With a parasol. That's always my favorite story, y'all, because like the first day of kindergarten, Ashley and Barrett come hauling ass down the stairs, and Barrett's got on a down the stairs and Barrett's got on a flannel shirt, like a logger, like a flannel shirt, blue jean cutoffs, tube socks up to her knees, like the kind that had the circles around the top, tennis shoes and two

long braids. Like, I don't know, she's looking to go logging or she's going to Oregon to do some work. I don't know what it was. Ashley's right next to her. And she has on a dress that literally had like a frilly petticoat. She has a purse in one hand and a parasol that matches her dress. And these are the identical twins. Pretty sure I had an umbrella too that matched everything. Yeah, that's the parasol.

I was logging, by the way. Yeah. I thought it was a purse. What what's the difference between a parasol i do believe a parasol is from like gg like gg yeah okay i can go there yeah y'all are so funny okay so tell us tell us about the book, Kicking Your Ass. The time, everything that we were dealing with, the pandemic, our parents. Yeah. Does there need to be more to have my ass kicked?

Was there more that I haven't mentioned? Oh, this is it. Like they have an answer in their head. So they need to be, go ahead. No, I don't. I don't either. No. No, it was just hard. It was like, I remember one day like in a really bad argument with Steve and I was like, you know

what? If I just had to write this book, that would be hard enough. But I had to write the book and I'm hurt because I got hurt playing pickleball and I was really hurt. Like I couldn't really sit down well. I pulled like my piriformis muscle or something like right up in your hip butt area. If I was just hurt and having to write a book, it'd be okay. But hurt writing a book and COVID and hurt write this book and mom

and then blah, blah, blah, blah, mom and dad, blah, blah, blah, mom, dad, and this. And it was just, yeah, it was hard. And for sure, part of your writing process is like a two mile walk every morning to frame your thoughts for writing for the day. And then you couldn't do that either. No, I couldn't. It was really hard. Yeah. Yeah. And I did something really hard this time that I haven't talked about yet.

Do tell. This time, this is the first time I've done this writing a book. I said, I will not miss one water polo game. Good. I will not miss one big thing for Ellen. I will not miss anything. And that was hard. And I'm sure it's why I was late turning it in, which started a domino of hardness for all of us. But this time I thought, I can't go into the vortex and come out and having missed the things in my life that are so important to me. So I remember like Chaz, who is our CFO and also my friend for decades, always comes and kind of stays with our family and midwives the books. We play ping pong, we talk out concepts and Steve and Charlie left for Dallas for a water polo tournament. And then it was right after I got hurt. So I had to go in a separate car chat

because we had to pull over every 30 minutes for me to get out and walk. And, you know, and then I'm trying to do that. And then we're staying at Airbnb and I can't sleep because I'm hurting. And then I had a chapter due in 24 hours. And then the water polo games were like four at a time. But I was like, I'm not doing it. And I didn't miss anything, but the stacking of stuff was hard. And parents in struggle is maybe one of the hardest things I've ever had to do. Oh, yeah. Because I mean, mom was in struggle, but there was also a shit ton going on with dad all through your book. Yeah. Yeah. Really hard.

And while physically we were not all in San Antonio at the same time, we were all in it together on the phone with each other talking through all of it. Yeah. Hard. Yep. Tons of grief. through all of it. Yeah. Hard. Yep. Tons of grief. Tons of grief. And rage. 100%.

Yeah. Yeah. And normalizing. For each other, yeah? Yeah. Yeah. Thank God. Hello, I'm Esther Perel, psychotherapist and host of the podcast, Where Should We Begin,

which delves into the multiple layers of relationships, mostly romantic. But in this special series, I focus on our relationships with our colleagues, business partners, and managers. Listen in as I talk to co-workers facing their own challenges with one another and get the real work done. Tune into Housework, a special series from Where Should We Begin, sponsored by Klaviyo. What software do you use at work? The answer to that question is probably more complicated than you want it to be. The average US company deploys more than 100 apps, and ideas about the work we do can be radically changed by the tools we use to do it. So what is enterprise software anyway? What is productivity software? How will AI affect both? And how are these tools

changing the way we use our computers to make stuff, communicate, and plan for the future? In this three-part special series, Decoder is surveying the IT landscape presented by AWS. What surprised you about this book? I don't know. You know, I think of the book divided into three sections. So the first is kind of my story, how I came to do this work. And then also in the first section is the power of language. And the Ludwig Wittgenstein quote, the limit of my language is the limit of my world. And I thought, you know, when we first started running the curriculum and we asked all the people,

I think it's right at 7,000, right over 7,000 people, make a list, write down for us all the emotions that you can identify within yourself while you're experiencing them. And the average number was three. I was so shocked. And I started thinking about that combined with that quote that really stuck with me all the way from college, from Wittgenstein.

I don't know if it's Wittgenstein or Wittgenstein, but I mean, I don't even know it's Ludwig Wittgenstein, Wittgenstein, hard name. But I was like, God, what happens when the limits of our vocabulary are the limits of our lives? And I'm not like right now with everything going on, I'm not happy or sad or mad. I'm feeling grief. I'm feeling some despair. I'm feeling resentment. I'm feeling all these words. And what if I couldn't pick up the phone and call y'all, you know, or tell Steve what it was that I was feeling?

And so I think the two things, how dangerous it is really that we do not have vocabulary that's as expansive as our experiences and that we have to shove, like shoehorn our experiences into the language we have. Like if I just said, it's very different if I called the phone, I'm on the way back from San Antonio and I was just like like, God, I'm so mad. And I'm just sad and I'm mad. But to say like, oh my God, I am so overwhelmed with grief about what's happening right now. That's a completely different conversation. And I am envious of my friends who are not having to do this right now that can focus just on their kids or, you know. So I think the power of language, the power of creating an expansive vocabulary, but I think one of the biggest shockers, other than like in the first section of the book, the middle section is how we go through

all the 87 different emotions and experiences, but the fact that language does not just communicate what we're feeling, but shapes it. And the only thing that I've come up with as people I've been interviewing about the book is that if I say, let's make chocolate chip cookies, and I pull a bowl down and I add the flour and the milk and the brown sugar and the chocolate chips and everything, what we don't understand is what if I told you that you have four different bowls at home and depending on the bowl that you use, every bowl will produce a dramatically different flavored cookie. Language is the bowl. It doesn't just hold, it shapes and flavors what we feel.

So if I say, I'm so pissed off, but what I really am is disappointed, I can't reconcile, regulate, and move through that emotion and heal it as powerfully as I could if I had named it accurately. Like, God, the language thing is like no joke. And it's no joke in personal relationships, but it's also no joke collectively. Everyone is so full of fear and they're calling it rage or anger, but it's fear. And I was watching this Trump rally on television. And I kept saying, this is like awesome.

They have the best swag. They've got overalls and t-shirts and flags and banners and decals and all of the artifacts they have are brimming. I mean, just like seething with emotion. I was like, wow, these people are getting to experience such intense counterfeit belonging. Do you know what I mean? Like, isn't it fun? Like when you go to a football game and you've got, like, we're like this for sure in our family.

Like, do we ever go to a football game without the swag? No. Nope. No, it doesn't matter. Like, you were like, I don't know. I got tickets to the Green Bay Packers. Oh, I'm wearing a Chiefs head. I know, I got it. I just bought a Chiefs hat.

I'm not even a Chiefs fan. Yeah, yeah, because you were going to a Chiefs game. I know, I just bought a Chiefs head. I'm not even a Chiefs fan. Yeah, yeah, because you were going to a Chiefs game, right? Yeah, with Cheryl. But that sense of how we want to believe that we are cognitive thinking beings and that our first order of processing is rational thought or cognition, when in fact we are not built that way. We are emotional beings. And when emotion is driving, cognition is not riding shotgun. Cognition is hogtied in the trunk. It's in the bed of the truck. You know what I mean? Like it's,

oh my God, am I like a Texan or what? I tell y'all what, when emotion is driving, cognition or that thinking bullshit, that's not even riding shotgun. That's hogtied in the bed of the truck. But guys, I do have a question. So what happens, let's just say you call on your drive back from San Antonio and you're like so pissed off, but it's actually not what you're really feeling. And then I respond to you from a position of you're pissed off. I'm not even responding to the correct emotion. Do you just fall in a cycle of we're not being helpful? I'm not being helpful in how I'm responding because I don't know how you're really feeling. Yeah. I mean, it's a really, I think, I think we can still connect. I don't think we can move through it and heal and process productively. So growing up in our house, because emotions

were off limits and emotions and vulnerability were seen just as weakness, right? The only, and this has been, this is profound growing for me, understanding this. The only emotion that was actually allowed was anger because anger is not a weak emotion. It's an emotion of dominance a lot of times. So dominance was okay. So you could be pissed growing up. But I mean, could you imagine saying, like, if one of us said, if you were like doing something and I said, Barrett, you're pissing me off. Like our parents would not blink. Yeah. But if I said something like, Barrett, that feels like you're hitting a real tender place and it hurts my feelings. Why are you laughing? Because you said, pretend like when we were little, I said that. I would not have been able to even articulate that, I bet.

Yeah, and we would have probably gotten in trouble. I was laughing because I was like, it would have been scary to say something like that. It would have been scary to say something like that. Because I think what we would have heard back is, Oh, you want to see Tinder? Oh my God, yeah. I think because we were raised with that, I think my go-to emotion is anger. Like I get mad.

And so if I call you on the way home and I'm like, God, I'm so pissed off about something, usually what will happen now is you'll say, what are you pissed off about? And I'll say, no, I'm just pissed that, you know, then we'll start talking about it. And because I feel safe with you all, I'll probably end up getting to, I don't even know if I'm, I think I'm like, I'm in a shame storm. Yeah. You know, so I think because we can hold space for each other and we can hold that container and we feel safe too. But I think we're all pretty good at when we say, God, I'm so pissed off. We just stop and we just open our arms really wide

and prepared to catch what's behind that too. Yeah, that's true. When we think about all these emotions and new language and all of it, who do you think the target audience is for Atlas of the Heart? My dream scenario would be that families go through it together, that couples go through it together, that people read it in college classes, even if they're like, I only agree with 50% of these definitions of emotions.

And they're not my definition. So we really defer to the scholars and the researchers, the academics who study these things. But even if you don't agree with it, if it just gets you talking and thinking, and even we go through 87, even if you got, if you were able to read this and it added 10%, eight of those, and the mean number that we can experience is three,

then you're up to like, let's say three of them are, you know, you're still up to eight, which is more than 100% of what you knew going in maybe. Yeah, that's true. And so I just hope it's a big conversation that people have about how to build a vocabulary. And it's not just me doing the work. There's so many great social emotional learning folks doing the work. Well, and so I took this on a flight with me recently. I took the cover off because I didn't want anyone to ask me how I got it already.

But it was cool because I thought I want anyone to ask me how I got it already. But it was cool because I thought I was going to read something and every once in a while I would lean over and be like, oh, Amaya, read this. But it was like every page. And her perspective on it was so cool. So I was thinking about how cool it'd be for high schoolers to be able to just talk about this with our kids and with everyone. What does she think? Amaya's my niece who's 18. First of all, she just always loves any story that you tell. Like she really loves the story about Lucy and how you never thought you'd have an Ewok. I mean, like, but it just melted our hearts. And you were talking about, I think, awe in that part, but she was just like, oh my God, that's so true.

And then she would want to tell me a story about a time that she felt that or saw that or someone shared that with her. Oh my God, I love that. I love that. It's such a beautiful gift that we can teach our kids how to tell us how they're really feeling so we can really show up in a way that's meaningful. And one of the really cool things that's different about this book is all of the pictures and images and it's colored

and there's like quote pages and there's like little cartoons. And so sometimes we were just flipping around. So it makes it, well, I love stuff like that, but it also makes it friendly for all ages to be able to just look at one page, like the belonging page of just the signs that they're holding up. How cool would it be to have a conversation around the dinner table with your family about that page? Right. Yeah. Yeah.

I hope people talk about it because I think it's something, I mean, the whole book, the whole purpose of the book is how do we find our way back to ourselves first and then to each other? And I think we're not just disconnected from each other. I think we're disconnected from ourselves as well. It's almost like so beautiful. It's a coffee table book. I mean, how do you think the images and all, I mean, there's big, beautiful quote pages. And I mean, it's so beautiful. How do the images and graphics in

this book support the content? You know, it's so funny because I've never done a four-color book before, and that was a whole dangerous thing. Because Ben, my editor, would be, you know, because Barrett works with me side by side kind of every day while Ashley, the therapy, is healing the world. But Ben would be like, hey, we really need that. It's back on this chapter. And I'd say, I'm sorry, I'm picking photos right now. And I could get really lost in the aesthetic force of the book. I think, I mean, I have it on my coffee table because it is a beautiful book. And the folks at Global Prairie, led Mike Hauser who designed the front, the images, just the photography inside, the quote cards, and then trying to figure out a way to

express hard concepts. I'm a big fan of Gavin's, the graphic, he did all the comic art. I just wanted it to be a little bit like a combination of reference book and story. Oh, well, you nailed it. Yeah, you nailed it. Thanks, guys. And just like knowing you the way that we do. Yes. Where did your joy meter fall being able to bring in such beauty into really great content?

It's probably really high now. It was not high then, just to be honest with you. Like, I'm joyful when I see it now. Then I was like, fuck. It's hard. Yeah. It's so good. It's beautiful.

So you landed on 87 emotions. Yeah. Emotions on 87 emotions. Yeah. Emotions and experiences. And experiences. We just talk a little bit about, in the book you talk about, well, first we had them alphabetically and then we grouped them this way. We just talk a little bit about how. Oh my God.

And how you named the chapters. I mean, I think it'd be really neat to just go through the table of contents and tell everybody what the chapter names are and what emotions fall in each. But tell us how you grouped them. Well, first of all, it was really interesting because Ashley, you and your people had a very big part in kind of how we ended up here. So where we started is in partnership with OWN, the Oprah Winfrey Network, several years ago, I taught an online course that had a big component on kind of emotional liturgy. Kind of.

Peace be with y'all. Yeah, and also with you. Okay. Where's my wafer? Do you remember when, was it Charlie that said, hey, when's it time to get the Jesus cookie? The Jesus cookie indeed. Yeah. Okay, focus the sisters.

So I taught this course with OWN and it was from 2013 to 2014. We had close to 70,000 participants that were enrolled in the course. And we had over 500,000 comments and questions. So we took all the comments and questions, de-identified them, and then submitted for permission from human subjects so that we could use it as secondary data. So then we went into the data asking, what are the emotions and experiences that emerge

most often and which ones do people really struggle to label and name? And I will just tell you right now, we say emotions and experiences because there's a lot of debate within the academic community about what is an emotion, how many are there? And there's this great quote from an emotions researcher that says there are as many theories on emotions as there are emotion researchers. So I wanted to like skip that pissy match and just say, look, I'm going to call it emotions and experiences. I don't know that they're all emotions, but they are the emotions and experiences that define what it means to be human. So from that, it yielded about 150 emotions. And then you'll see your picture, Ashley, Roman numeral page XXV1, so 26.

So then I brought together this incredible group of clinicians, so therapists, counselors, who work in very diverse areas. I mean, if you're looking at this picture, it's like everyone from kind of psychoanalytic Jungian counseling to Black Lives Matter, community organizing work, addiction work, school counseling. Hospital. Hospital. And we put all of the emotions on the wall.

And then this is like a very high tech focus group. Yeah. It was pretty. Yeah, it was pretty. Put all the emotions on the walls and then gave everyone garage sale stickers, green, red, and yellow, and asked this group of clinicians. There were one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, to kind of rank them in terms of what do we need

to name to move through it, heal, replicate it if it's a positive affect or an emotion. And that's how we ended up with the final list. I added some to the final list because, and this was interesting. So once we had that final list, I was going to put them in alpha order in the book. And then we had Prerna and Ellen interning with us on this project. And they were like, that's a terrible idea, which there's nothing better really than a millennial or Gen Z intern. Yeah. Yeah. And we have, I think over 50% of our folks in our team are millennials. I mean, I don't give a shit what all the myths say. They're just badass. Right. Yeah. And they're just like, that's a really bad idea. And so I was like, well, say more.

And they said, we have learned so much by comparative understanding. So it's like when you teach shame, guilt, humiliation, and embarrassment, if you put those in alphabetical order and you put like, you know, it'd be, I don't even have to do this on the fly, but you do, you know, you'd have embarrassment and empathy close together. That's not helpful. What's helpful is understanding how their things are the same and how they're different. And if you're talking about a metaphor of a map, which of these emotions live kind of close together, which do you guess are close together, but live continents apart? Yes. And so then we ended up saying, okay, let's not group them alphabetically. Let's group them how we think we can teach them and learn them the best.

And so those are the chapters. Should we go through them? It's so fun. Yeah. Let's go through them. We'll just go really fast. So chapter one, the places we go when things are uncertain or too much. So that's like stress, overwhelm, anxiety, worry,

avoidance, fear, dread. There's places we go when we compare, places we go when things don't go as planned, which is disappointment, frustration, regret, discouragement, resignation. Places we go when it's beyond us. Aw, wonder, confusion, curiosity. And it's so funny to me because you talk about being such a

inherently curious person, but you are also an awe and wonder seeker. I am, but I wouldn't have even been able to tell you the difference, or I would never use those words had I not read this chapter. Awe and wonder? Yes. Yeah, and they're so important

because they're both experiences that we need more of. They really, really just contribute so much to the human experience, experiences of awe and wonder, but they are different experiences. Places we go when things aren't what they seem, bittersweetness, nostalgia, paradox, irony, sarcasm, cognitive dissonance, places we go when we're hurting. That's a tough chapter. Anguish, hopelessness, despair, sadness, grief, places we go with others,

compassion, empathy, sympathy, boundaries, when we fall short, shame, the shame, blame. Chapter, places we go when we search for connection, where we go when the heart is open, when life is good, joy, happiness, calm, contentment, tranquility, places we go when we feel wronged, and then places we go to self-assess. And so, yeah, this made so much more sense. So points for Ellen and Prerna. I've loved reading it this way. Oh, me too. I love it. And it's just so great. I agree with Ellen and Prana. Way to go. I'm so glad you spoke up. Yes, me too.

All right. So there's one more question we have for you. Okay. Book club. So we can turn our pages to XXX, page 30. And the Roman numerals. You know what would be really fun, y'all? Is if we did a podcast together where we came up with songs that went with each chapter. Oh, my God.

That would be. Maybe we could even sing a little of them. Ashley really wants to sing. I just want y'all to know this is take two of this podcast. Because right out of the gate, Barrett said one thing and Ashley already was singing. Okay. And then we had to stop because Barrett couldn't get it together.

She was laughing too hard. Yeah, and then Barrett's laughing so hard, she's hysterical. And I'm just thinking, I don't know how we get copyright clearance from Beyonce on that. So, yeah. All right.

So do you want to ask this one, Bea? Oh yeah, sure. I just wanted you to take a second because in our next episode, and we'll talk more about it, but we're actually going to go into the chapters and ask you some questions or rumble on a few things and how we responded to some of the emotional experiences that are in the book.

But before we get into that, the last part of this episode, talk to us about the biology, biography, behavior, and backstory. Oh, yeah. Just, you. Just what is an emotion? And I think emotions, this is why the map was such a great, you know, I'm going to talk about the map metaphor, because how many books have I been trying to use the map metaphor? Oh, my gosh. Not just books, years. There's so many maps everywhere in our office, in her home. Yeah, I love maps. Because you are here, and how did did I get here and how am I going to get there during the Searcy phase there were a lot more maps oh my god I was I got really obsessed with

ancient like Greek maps and yeah mythology maps when I was reading Madeline Miller's Searcy okay so it's so interesting because when you talk to cartographers, what they will tell you is that the story of a map is the layers of the map. And the same is true for an emotion. An emotion is biology. We need to understand how emotions show up in our bodies and why. It's biography. So all the emotions we have, like we talked about the biography emotion like I get angry that's my go-to feeling

because that's what we had permission to feel right and what's what we saw modeled like I'm not even sure I've ever seen either one of our parents ever say something hurt their feelings have you? no I don't think so

I mean y'all had like the same parents 2.0 but yeah but even we were even like such different kids yeah so what is your biography like what is your story about these things it's behavior how do we show up in emotion and then it's backstory and here's a real moment to take a pause so So Ashley, you know, as a clinician, and Barrett, you know this because you go to every training I've ever been to, but I've spent my whole career saying, and it wasn't flippant, you know, it was just, I just spent my whole career,

like many, many emotion researchers I've heard say, we need to learn how to understand emotions, recognize emotions in ourselves and others. And I just don't believe that we can recognize emotion in other people anymore. I don't think that's true. And so when we were filming the HBO special, I used movie clips to illustrate this. I showed this great scene from a movie where someone's just losing their shit. And if I had to recognize the emotion in that person, I would say rage, anger, contempt. But without the backstory, I don't really know. And then once I knew the backstory, I would say shame, humiliation, grief. That's why I think therapy is so important because it's a place where people are trained to

help us open the hood and look at biology, biography, behaviors, and backstory. Do you know what I mean? Totally. If we can understand this for ourselves, I think it's powerful. And so now what I've learned is we need to recognize emotion and self. We need to build a vocabulary and we need to build an understanding of what the emotions are. If I say, God, what am I feeling right now? I'm pissed. I'm so pissed. Wait, actually, I think I'm disappointed. Oh, shit. Disappointment's usually connected with expectations. Did I have an expectation for how this was going to go? Did I set myself up here?

Like, was there a stealth expectation? Like, how was it that I'm like, how many of you have done this thing where you're texting the person you love, like your partner, I can't wait to see you, can't wait to see you too. And then you're together actually for five minutes and you're in a fight because no one voiced the expectation. And so I think our job is not to recognize emotions in other people, but to be really curious. Another great way you've leveraged your innate curiosity

as a therapist, right? Yeah. Get curious about people's stories. And when they tell us their story, we listen. Yeah. And we believe them. That's much better than guessing what people are feeling, is to say, what's going on?

I love how you talk about story stewardship in this book. You just mentioned that. Yeah. Tell us about that and we'll wrap up the episode after that. Well, yeah, no, it's in the last, so y'all know I've been working on this model for Connection for like 20 something years, ever since my dissertation. Oh, it's been so frustrating.

Every book I think, oh man, and the final chapter of this book and every kind of like, when you start writing books, you like to put proposal together. And then once they trust you, you're just like, here's my idea for the next book. And they're like, okay. And then in my head, every book's going to end with this, you know, a framework, a model for meaningful connection. Because it could have gone in any book I've written, right? Because connection's the heart of everything I do, everything we do. And so I couldn't get it.

I couldn't get it. Finally, in this book, I come across a concept that I had heard many, many years ago, but didn't give much thought to. And it helps me, we'll save it as a cliffhanger. It helps me put together this framework for the first time in a way that's really that works. I can't wait for other researchers to come behind and start testing it. But one of the things I talk about in this new model is story stewardship, that we need to be amazing stewards of the stories that people tell us. That when you tell me a story, when I say,

how are you? And you tell me, I don't think empathy is about walking in other people's shoes. I think it's about listening to the stories they tell about their experiences in their shoes and freaking believing them. Even though our walk is different. And I think that's where we miss everything around race, around identity, around gender, around poverty and class.

We don't believe the stories people tell us about their pain and their experiences because A, it's too dissimilar from our experience or B, we don't want to be accountable. Yeah. Yeah, so I was very excited. Well, when you just took us a second ago on your journey from disappointment to expectation, that's where we plan on going in the next episode. Oh, great.

Yeah, we'll pull in some things that shocked us or surprised us or that we want to ask you a little bit more about in each of the, not all of the different chapters, but most of them. And guys, we get to finally ask Brene the rapid fire questions. What? We're turning the tables on Brene. I swear to God, I did not prepare for these.

And we've added some that she doesn't know. So stay tuned for episode two. Oh, good. Thank God. Hide your paper. Take it home with us. Yeah. She's not going to be able to see it.

And we'll see y'all right back here next time. Oh, and I just want to say, I'm so grateful to y'all for celebrating. I just couldn't do the work without y'all. I mean, it's just such a gift to be able to work with y'all all the time. I love y'all so much. It's such a gift for me that you've done this work and that I get to go out in the world and implement it. So I'm so grateful, too. Me, too.

I feel like it's such an honor every day to come to work and put this work out into the world so thank you too love y'all too love y'all bye bye bye do you want to sing us out yeah um bye bye miss american pack drove my Chevy to the levee but the levee was dry and the good old boys were drinking whiskey and rye, singing this will be the day that I die. This will be the day that I die. Have you read the book of love? And do you have faith in God above?

We're going to get cut off. We're the copyright people. All right, we out. Well, that was super fun. It's really different sitting on this side of the table and asking Brene all the questions, but it was really exciting. And this book is amazing. Yes. She makes it look so easy to interview people. And I was like, no, no, I don't know what to say. It was really great. And you can find Atlas of the Heart, Mapping Meaningful Connection,

and the Language of Human Experience wherever you like to buy books. And we'll also put a link to purchase the book in our episode page. You can find Brene online on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn at Brene Brown. We will also put those links on the episode page. Don't forget that every episode of the Unlocking Us podcast has an episode page on brenebrown.com where we have resources, downloads, and transcripts. You can also sign up for our newsletter there too.

The Dare to Lead podcast is also available and it's free to everyone. Don't forget tomorrow, this podcast is dropping on December 1st and tomorrow. Don't forget to join us for the live virtual launch event, Atlas of the Heart. It's Thursday, December 2nd at 8 o'clock PM Eastern. You can find a link on the episode page to register for the event. Registration includes access to the event and a copy of Atlas. We're grateful that we get to be here with you to unlock the deeply human part of who we are together.

And it's really fun to watch Brene squirm a little bit as she did not know any of our questions today. And the rapid fire is coming next, guys. Just wait. All right. Stay tuned. Ashley, how about if we do it together? Stay awkward, brave, and kind. See you next week. Unlocking Us is produced by Brene Brown Education and Research Group. The music is by Keri Rodriguez and Gina Chavez. Get new episodes as soon as they're published by following Unlocking Us on your favorite podcast app. We are part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.

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