Atlas of the Heart: A Summary of Emotional Diction
- amnicklaus
- Dec 6, 2022
- 4 min read
Part 1 of my book review on Brené Brown's NY Times Bestseller
I love diction. Diction is the “choice and use of words and phrases in speech of writing,” according to Oxford Languages. Meaning: choosing one word over another because the nuances of meaning better articulate what you are trying to communicate.
A dictionary is the book that lists all the words in a language alongside their specific, nuanced meaning. This is different from a glossary, which lists specific words and their definitions from a certain context, like a book. (See how we’re already using diction to determine the difference between these two words?)
Research has proven that language shapes our reality. It provides a framework for how we think about the world and how we interact with the world, so having the correct words to name our emotions and experiences is important for shaping our reality to accurately reflect our insides.
Enter emotional intelligence research queen Brené Brown.
Brown has written several books on topics such as shame, vulnerability, empathy, and perfectionism. Her most recent book, Atlas of the Heart, was sparked from her in-depth surveys asking participants to name their emotions. Her startling find: the average number of emotions participants could name was three–happy, sad, and angry.
This is clearly not the average number of emotions most of us feel on a regular basis.
Brown quotes the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein in his statement that “the limits of my language mean the limits of my world.” If all any of us can describe is happy, sad, or angry, we are deeply limited by our inability to describe our emotions–and to recognize these emotions in others.
Atlas of the Heart is a beautiful dictionary of emotions, one that I wish I could gift to every person in the world. In an attempt to spread the knowledge of this book, I am going to share summaries of each section, so that you, my reader, can get acquainted with the specifics of emotional language. While I am presenting a summarized dictionary of sorts, by no means can it measure up to the experience of reading the book in full, so I strongly encourage investing in yourself by investing in this book, which you can purchase here.
Brown’s team reduced their studies to 87 emotions and experiences, which she says is not meant to be comprehensive of all other research or the end-all-be-all of emotional language. These 87 are her team’s best efforts to give us a manual, so that we can know ourselves better and improve our experience here on earth. As Socrates once said, “To know thyself is the beginning of wisdom.”
Let’s begin.
1. Places We Go When Things Are Uncertain or Too Much
Stress: “We feel stressed when we evaluate environmental demand as beyond our ability to cope successfully. This includes elements of unpredictability, uncontrollability, and feeling overloaded.” Stress can be navigated, although added up, it can take a toll. Stress decreases as we deal with each stressor or learn how to handle the feelings that come with it.
Overwhelm: “An extreme level of stress, an emotional and/or cognitive intensity to the point of feeling unable to function.” When all the stress adds up and reaches your personal max capacity, you reach a point of brain-fry. Brown says that the only remedy for overwhelm is mindful play or non-doing time (doing nothing!).
Anxiety: “An emotion characterized by feelings of tension, worried thoughts, and physical changes like increased blood pressure” (American Psychological Association definition). Brown says anxiety can be both a state and a trait, i.e., anxious as a personality or anxious as a response to a situation. Anxiety is strongly linked to discomfort with uncertainty, and it leads to one of two coping mechanisms: worry or avoidance.
Worry: “A chain of negative thoughts about bad things that might happen in the future.” Research shows that worry is not an effective coping mechanism for anxiety; it is actually controllable; and suppressing worry leads to more worry. Understanding worry can lead us to better understand the root of our anxiety.
Avoidance: “Not showing up and often spending a lot of energy zigzagging around and away from the thing that already feels like it’s consuming us.” Avoidance prevents us from addressing our fears, which in turn increases our fears.
Excitement: “An energized state of enthusiasm leading up to or during an enjoyable activity.” It is often associated with positive bodily sensations, while anxiety is often associated with negative bodily sensations.
Dread: “Dread occurs frequently in response to high-probability negative events; its magnitude increases as the dreaded event draws nearer.” We work ourselves up about a likely negative outcome in the future.
Fear: “A negative, short-lasting, high-alert emotion in response to a perceived threat, and, like anxiety, it can be measured as a state or trait.” Fear arises from a likely negative outcome in the present. Fear can cause body sensations quickly; typical responses are fight, flight, or freeze.
Vulnerability: “The emotion that we experience during times of uncertainty, risk, and emotional exposure.” Brown’s research shows that courage requires vulnerability, something we often get backward by equating vulnerability to weakness instead of strength. Vulnerability requires self-awareness to discern what to share and with whom to share. For more on vulnerability, read her book The Gifts of Imperfection.
Brown says that anxiety and fear need to be “understood and respected, perhaps even befriended.” If we can learn from them, they will have less power over us and can instead be tools for better navigating ourselves and the world around us.
By better understanding the places we go when things are uncertain or too much, we can learn how to navigate these territories in ways that create healing and connection within ourselves and with those around us.
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