Atlas of the Heart by Brene Brown

This book, Atlas of Heart by Brene Brown, is gold. Pure, emotional processing gold.

In this book, Brene Brown shares her extensive research on the language of emotions and she processes through the 87 emotions she believes we experience. As always, I found her writing captivating and engaging. She groups the emotions by “places we go when…” which I found brilliant and enhanced my understanding and comprehension of the various emotions.

This work is so important because, to work through our emotions, we must accurately name them. The statement “if you name it, you can tame it” only works if you can name the emotion(s) you are experiencing. She does a phenomenal job of differentiating very similar emotions, like envy and jealousy, anxiety and worry, and grief and anguish. Being able to distinguish these differences in emotions can be the difference between being able to move through that emotion or being stuck in it.

This is a book that I have read through, marked up, and know that I will continue to reference and re-read through it. On her podcast, Unlocking Us, Brene shared that she does not plan to offer a condensed version of the 87 emotions as she believes it is so important to lean into the definition of these emotions and the ways that we experience them. Which cannot be captured on a single sheet of paper with the 87 emotions listed.

I do recommend buying this book as I believe much can be gained from continuing to go back to it but they also should have it available to check out from your local library.

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