Poured Over: Brené Brown on Atlas of the Heart

“We’re going to have to learn to be cartographers in our own lives.” Brené Brown is the author of five number one New York Times bestsellers, including Dare to Lead, Daring Greatly, and Rising Strong; co-editor with Tarana Burke of You Are Your Best Thing; The host of two podcasts, Unlocking Us and Dare to Lead. Her Netflix documentary, The Call to Courage, is a huge hit—and her 2010 TED talk, The Power of Vulnerability, the one that launched her career as we know it, it is one of the top five most viewed TED talks in the world. Brené joins us on the show to talk about her new book, Atlas of the Heart, including how language shapes how we feel, how to become great story stewards for ourselves and others, plus nostalgia, hopefulness, and more. Produced/hosted by Miwa Messer and engineered by Harry Liang.

Poured Over is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and Stitcher. New episodes land Tuesdays and Thursdays.

From this Episode:

B&N: Let’s look at the word atlas.

Brené Brown: I always say, Look, I’m a matchmaker and a traveler. So, I have this data and this research I’ve collected from all of us. And I put together a map based on the data and I’m following it like you: tripping, falling, stumbling, trying to figure it out, trying to practice vulnerability when I hate vulnerability, trying to let go of comparison when I can be a compare-a-holic. But on this one, I was thinking, Boy, each of these groups, emotions and experiences, it’s their own map. It’s like, there’s a collection of maps in here. And I gotta tell you, you’re going to have to be your own map maker, because I don’t know where you are, where you’ve been, where you’re going. We’re going to have to learn to be cartographers in our own lives. And that’s a different approach, I think, than what I’ve done in other books.

B&N: You talk about practicing story stewardship, which I’d really like to talk to you about right now. Because I feel like that’s a piece that you can use to counter the rumination that goes along with nostalgia…

Brené Brown: So, you’re in the last the last section of the book, which is this theory that I’ve been working on since my dissertation…But what I found as we were digging into this research is that in meaningful connection, there are three main properties: grounded competence, the courage to walk alongside other people and practicing stories stewardship…Our connection with other people can never be deeper, broader, wider than our connection with ourselves. I think the main quality of grounded competence is being a Learner, not a Knower. And so, then you’ve got practicing the courage to walk alongside, which is really difficult, because that means to be other centered versus self-centered. And then I tell you, like, I’m an emotions researcher, I’ve studied connection for 20 something years, I can still go into a lot of situations self-centered, like others centered is not a default, the default is self-protection…. I have to consciously intentionally choose to be other focused, not, My husband’s telling me a hard thing that’s going on at work. How do I stay out of the fear of how’s this gonna impact us? Our family? You know, like, how do I stay with him and other focus? And that leads to what you said, practicing a story stewardship. And that means how do we become great stewards of not only our stories, but the stories that we have the privilege of hearing from other people.

Other books mentioned in this episode:

Somebody’s Daughter by Ashley C. Ford (We have signed editions while supplies last.)

Salt Fat Acid Heat by Samin Nosrat

The Art of Gathering by Priya Parker

Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert

The Lightmaker’s Manifesto: How to Work for Change Without Losing Your Joy by Karen Walrond

A Little Devil in America by Hanif Abdurraquib (finalist for the National Book Award)

Ann Cleeves’s mysteries, including the Shetland Island series and the Vera Stanhope series

The Inspector Armand Gamache series by Louise Penny