About the Speaker
Brené Brown is an expert in social work, research professor, and author whose work focuses on vulnerability, shame, courage, and empathy. She holds a Ph.D. in social work from the University of Houston, where she also serves as a research professor and occupies the Brené Brown Endowed Chair at the Graduate College of Social Work. Additionally, she is a visiting professor at the University of Texas at Austin’s McCombs School of Business.
Brown is the author of several New York Times bestsellers, including The Gifts of Imperfection, Daring Greatly, and Atlas of the Heart. Her research combines academic rigor with practical insights, making her work widely accessible. She has delivered a TED Talk titled “The Power of Vulnerability,” which is among the most-watched talks globally, highlighting her influence in both academic and public discourse.
Her research has applications in leadership, education, and personal development, providing frameworks to better understand human connections and emotional resilience.
Video: Brené Brown on Dan Harris' Channel
Date: 06.02.23
"In the research, they refer to the ability to, with nuance, name emotions as emotional granularity. And what we know is that if we can name something or accurately label it, we are much more likely to be able to ask for what we need and move through it productively."
Brené Brown
Description
In this episode of the Ten Percent Happier podcast, Dan Harris talks with Brené Brown, the author of six New York Times bestsellers and a researcher who has spent two decades studying vulnerability, shame, empathy, and emotions. Brené discusses her new book, “Atlas of the Heart”, and the HBO Max series, where she explores 87 key emotions and experiences. She explains how understanding emotional granularity helps people better manage their feelings, build deeper connections, and avoid emotional burnout.
The interview covers important topics: why Brené no longer believes it’s possible to “read” other people’s emotions, how the Buddhist concept of the “near enemy” has influenced her work, and why healthy relationships require clear boundaries. Brené also shares personal insights on how to recognize and name your emotions to live more mindfully and harmoniously. This episode is a must-listen for anyone interested in psychology, emotional intelligence, and personal growth.
Content (table)
For your convenience, the interview text is divided into sections, with some parts cut/hidden under a “Expand text” button. Click the “Expand text” button to expand full section text.
Introduction to Brene Brown discussing Feelings
Dan Harris
00:00:03 — This is the 10% Happier Podcast. I’m Dan Harris. A male friend of mine once made a funny comment about how his wife, who was also a friend of mine, had helped him overcome what he called “emotional imbecility.” I love that phrase. His wife had apparently helped him get better at understanding what he was feeling, why he was feeling it, and then how not to be yanked around by sad feelings.
00:00:33 — Now, I’m definitely not accusing anybody listening to this show of emotional imbecility, of course, but it is worth noting that my guest today, the great Brené Brown, did some incredible research in which she found that most people are only able to identify three of their emotions: happy, sad, and pissed off. In her most recent book and accompanying TV show, Brené makes a compelling, evidence-based case for getting better acquainted with the full spectrum of your emotions.
00:01:00 — Instead of emotional imbecility, she uses the term “emotional granularity”. She says, and I fully agree with her here, that the better you understand yourself, the better you will be at surfing rather than drowning in your emotions, and the better you will be, therefore, at relating to other human beings. And given how important relationships are to our own flourishing, this can become an upward spiral.
00:01:26 — Brené is the author of six No. 1 New York Times bestsellers. Her most recent book is called “Atlas of the Heart”, which is also the name of the five-episode HBO Max series that debuted in March of this past year. Brené is a research professor at the University of Houston and a visiting professor in management at the University of Texas at Austin McCombs School of Business. She has spent the past two decades studying courage, vulnerability, shame, and empathy.
00:01:51 — She hosts two weekly Spotify original podcasts, “Unlocking Us” and “Dare to Lead”. Her TED talk on the power of vulnerability is one of the top five most viewed TED talks in the world, with over 50 million views. In this conversation, we talked about why she decided to map the 87 key emotions and experiences, how she was deeply influenced by the Buddhist concept of the “near enemy”, why she no longer believes it’s possible to read other people’s emotions, why we should believe other people when they tell us how they feel—although she does not rule out the possibility of manipulation in this regard—what she means when she says she has created a new framework for meaningful connection, and why meaningful connections require boundaries. A couple of notes here before we get started. Brené is, in my opinion, delightfully profane.
00:02:44 — We’ve chosen to let Brené do her thing and not bleep her, but you should know that if listening with kids or if you have sensitive ears, there’s a clean version of the episode available over on our website, 10percent.com, or on the 10% app here. Hi, Brené Brown.
Brené Brown
00:03:04 — Hello, how are you?
Dan Harris
00:03:06 — Doing great. Thanks for coming back on the show. I do want to say that several of the things you said the last time you were on the show pop up into my mind all the time, so I’m really happy to have you back.
Brené Brown
00:03:17 — Well, thanks. I’m happy to be back.
Dan Harris
00:03:18 — So, congratulations on the new book and the new TV show, “Atlas of the Heart”. Why “Atlas”? What’s your thinking behind the map metaphor?
Brené Brown
00:03:29 — Oh my God, I’m still processing that you said “TV show.” That is so uncomfortable. I just have to take a second and be like, “Why am I out of my lane? Why am I out of my lane?” Yeah. Do you see how red I am? Like, I’m turning red. It’s, yeah. Yeah.
Dan Harris
00:03:46 — Stepping out of your lane requires courage, which is on brand for you.
Brené Brown
00:03:50 — I guess so. But I didn’t even put my blinker on, like I just did it, and I’m not used to it yet. The cartography stuff I can talk to you about more easily because I’m a cartography fan. I love maps. I collect old maps. When I first visualized this book and thought about, you know, I’m a metaphoraholic. So I was like, “What metaphor am I going to work with? Am I going to use an epigraph, a quote that really speaks to me?” And I thought, “This is going to be the map book, but this is not going to be a single map book.”
00:04:20 — This is going to be a collection of maps. And so the Atlas really spoke to me, like an atlas is a collection of maps. And I hope what this book does, and I hope what the show does, is help ground us and kind of tether us to solid ground around where we are, what we’re feeling, and what we’re going through. I think so often in our lives, and mine included—I just had a morning like this today—it was really hard and stressful, and I had to work through some really uncomfortable stuff.
00:04:53 — We’re always looking on the outside of us to figure out, “How can I find my way back? How can I get retethered? How can I get grounded?” And all of that, especially when we feel very adrift. And so, for me, what the research has taught me is that the anchoring happens within. There is nothing external that’s going to offer us a way home.
00:05:14 — And so, I think the combination of feeling untethered personally after COVID—and I don’t think it’s “after,” I don’t know what preposition to use anymore: during, between, in the midst of—it’s just been a very hard couple of years. And I thought, “Man, what I’d really like is some kind of map for myself, just to find my way back home.”
Mapping Emotions
"And I say emotions and experiences—I must say this right off the bat—because there's a real pissing match in academics around what constitutes an emotion and what doesn't. And so, just to cover my bases, I say 87 emotions and experiences, because some of them, I know, are not emotions."
Brené Brown
Dan Harris
00:05:38 — And in particular here, we’re talking about mapping emotions, as I understand it. And I’m going to quote you back to you, you say something to the effect of there’s nothing more human than emotion, but we know very little about emotions, and we have very little language with which to describe them. Can you expand upon that?
Brené Brown
00:05:56 — Yeah, you know, probably a decade ago or so, we were running a curriculum based on my shame resilience research, and we asked people to write a list of every emotion they felt comfortable or able to identify while they were actually experiencing it. And I was so curious—I didn’t even really have a hypothesis about what that number would be. I guess I thought eight or nine, but the mean or average was three.
Brené Brown
00:06:22 — Happy, sad, and pissed off. I can tell when I’m happy, I can tell when I’m sad, I can tell when I’m really pissed off. And that has haunted me, stuck in my craw—I don’t even know how to describe it really. It just… I could never get over it because the human experience is so vast and complex. What does it mean if we have to shove everything we experience into one of these three buckets? You know, like, what I’m really experiencing is resentment, or anguish, or awe, or wonder, or love.
00:06:55 — And I have to just say, “I’m happy” or “I’m sad.” Well, anguish and sadness are not the same thing. You know, and bittersweetness and sadness are not the same thing. And resentment and being pissed off are not the same thing. And so, I really wanted to try to put together some kind of glossary of the emotions and experiences.
00:07:17 — And I say emotions and experiences—I must say this right off the bat—because there’s a real pissing match in academics around what constitutes an emotion and what doesn’t. And so, just to cover my bases, I say 87 emotions and experiences, because some of them, I know, are not emotions. Some of them, I’d be willing to go toe to toe with some folks on; others, I’m not sure. And I actually don’t care. I don’t even think it matters very much. But first of all, which ones do we need to know? And secondly, how do we define them if we know they’re important to be able to label and name? And so, it became a really big project.
00:07:51 — I had no idea. I thought it would take a year and it took four.
Learn how to Awe
"What I learned in this research is there's a difference between stress and overwhelm. And overwhelm is a very intense kind of stress where, actually—Jon Kabat-Zinn has this great definition — the world is unfolding at a pace that our mind, our neurobiology, can't keep up with."
Brené Brown
Dan Harris
00:07:56 — I want to hear more about the project and the research in a second, but let me just ask quickly, what are the consequences of us not being able to have this sort of emotional lexicon internally and externally?
Brené Brown
00:08:07 — So, in the research, they refer to the ability to, with nuance, name emotions as emotional granularity. And what we know is that if we can name something or accurately label it, we are much more likely to be able to ask for what we need and move through it productively. In the case of positive emotions, we’re able to replicate and seek more of those experiences. Let me give you two examples.
00:08:33 — You can have a moment in your life where you kind of walk away and say, “Oh man, that was cool. That was really cool,” and not realize, “Oh, that was awe that I experienced.” Those goosebumps, that feeling of being small compared to the world, but at the same time, my smallness is connected to the world in this inextricable way—that’s awe.
Brené Brown
00:08:58 — And if I understand awe, what I know is that these are the kinds of experiences—nature, beauty, art, being outside, my dog—these are the kinds of things that bring that. And I want more of that in my life. And awe is good. I mean, we need it as human beings. It’s such a fuel. And then we can have the experience of, “Man, that was really cool. I want to know more about that.”
00:09:26 — And that’s not awe. That’s wonder. And what awe and wonder share in common is a feeling of vastness, a feeling of being small, but also connected to a world. But the difference is with awe, we just want to step back and watch that unfold. And with wonder, it piques our curiosity and we want to learn more.
00:09:52 — And so, to me, having that language around—and boy, you think we’re bad at labeling negative emotions or hard emotions, or whatever you want to call them, and we really have no language for positive emotions other than “that was good,” “that’s cool,” “had some goosebumps”—but I’ll tell you why it’s also important. And this was the thing that I just didn’t know going into the research, to the extent that I understand it now. Language does not just communicate emotion. It shapes emotion. It changes our bodies, our neurons.
00:10:27 — And so, the best example I can give—and it’s kind of like a solid C-plus example; I can’t think of a better one, though—is if I said to you, “Dan, can you make me your famous chocolate chip cookies? Like, I’ve had them at your house a couple of times. They’re incredible.” And you said, “Great.” And you made them exactly the same way you always make them. But instead of using the blue bowl, you used the white bowl. And this time, they tasted a little bit different and had a little cinnamon taste to them.
00:10:57 — Language doesn’t just carry the emotion; it actually changes it. So, first of all, let me just go on the record as saying, as someone who has studied emotion for 20 years, I got a lot of it wrong. I was using a ton of the wrong language, and some major hypotheses in my work were wrong. So, one of the things that I learned—that was not serving me—is I would say on a very regular basis, “Shit, I am so overwhelmed. I’m overwhelmed, I’m so overwhelmed.”
00:11:22 —What I learned in this research is there’s a difference between stress and overwhelm. And overwhelm is a very intense kind of stress where, actually—Jon Kabat-Zinn has this great definition — the world is unfolding at a pace that our mind, our neurobiology, can’t keep up with. What’s interesting is when one says to themselves, “Hey, I’m so overwhelmed,” our body goes, “Okay, let’s shut down.”
00:11:50 — Because the only cure for recovery from overwhelm is actually nothingness. So now, when I feel like, “Oh my God, it’s too much, it’s too much,” I always say to myself, “Are you stressed? Are you overwhelmed? Like, are you in some serious whack-a-mole? Or are you actually overwhelmed and incapable of making good decisions? Like, what’s going on?” And so now, about 90% of the time, I’ll just say, “Wow, I’m stressed.”
00:12:21 — And now, I do not allow myself to say “overwhelmed” without stopping what I’m doing and going outside for a walk. If you’re going to say you’re overwhelmed, then you’re going to own it, and you’re going to address it. And so, there’s a great quote in the book, and I remember the first time I heard it—I was an undergrad in a philosophy course—and I was like, “Geez, what does that even mean?” It’s Ludwig Wittgenstein.
00:12:43 — And the quote is, “The limits of my language mean the limits of my world.” Wow. What happens when we don’t have a vocabulary that’s as expansive as our experiences? Hard.
Dan Harris
00:12:57 — It’s fascinating. I hear two benefits to emotional granularity from what you just said. One is, if you can name it—particularly a positive emotion—well, then you can replicate it. “Oh, that was awe, so now I can seek that out on the regular.” And the other is that if we’re naming things incorrectly, we’re kind of throwing our body or nervous system in the wrong direction, perhaps unnecessarily.
Two word check-in with partner
Brené Brown
00:13:22 — I mean, that’s 100% right. And if you look at the research on emotional granularity, the correlation is not just to being able to regulate emotion and move through it productively and replicate it. Emotional granularity is positively correlated with really significant life indicators like positive well-being, social connection. I mean, it’s a big deal. Again, we’re talking about two of the 87 that were just like, “Shit, I had this wrong.” When my kids call and say, “Oh my God, mom, I’m so overwhelmed.”
00:13:55 — “I’m so overwhelmed.” I’ve got a 23-year-old in graduate school and a 16-year-old in high school. “I’m so overwhelmed.” I used to be like, “Okay, let’s just cut it into small pieces. What’s due when? What’s going on?” And now I’m like, “Yeah. Sometimes things just unfold faster than we can handle them. The only way through this is nothing. Go for a run. Go for a walk. Sit out in your backyard for 15 minutes.” I handle it completely differently now—not only for myself but as a parent, a partner, and a leader.
00:14:25 — We do two-word check-ins. If someone checks in and says, “You know, I’m anxious and overwhelmed,” as soon as that meeting’s over, I circle back and say, “Let’s talk about the overwhelm. What’s on your agenda? I’ve got back-to-back meetings until four.” Well, pick the next one because you’re gonna have to reschedule it. You’re gonna have to walk away from everything for a while. It just makes no sense.
Brené Brown
00:14:46 — And the data on the kind of decisions we make in overwhelm—they’re for shit, right? You know, it’s so funny because I used to have this list of, like, incoming speaking requests. And by the end of the first page, I’d be completely overwhelmed. Do you know what I would do? I would just say yes to everything after that, just to get it over. Not to get the speaking over, but to get the list over. Then it’d be like, “You’re flying out tomorrow.” “No, I can’t fly out tomorrow. My son’s got a water polo game tomorrow.” “No, you’re flying out”. “You agreed to this four months ago. You’re like, ‘Yes, yes, yes.’ You said, ‘For sure.'” I said, “Yeah, but I just said ‘for sure’ because I was overwhelmed.” They’re like, “Well, we’ve got contracts now, and you’re flying out tomorrow morning.” Then I cry at the airport.
I see some look of recognition in your face here, Dan. I have to say, I don’t want to call you out, but just to call you out.
Dan Harris
00:15:33 — I am fair game for calling out anytime. Yes, absolutely. I get overwhelmed, and actually, for me, it’s more like—I mean, I definitely overcommit, but it’s also like I’m a jerk, and that really hurts.
Brené Brown
00:15:49 — That hurts. I am too. I am too. I don’t get overwhelmed and small and quiet. I get overwhelmed and scared and scary. I get intense. Yeah. So I can be a jerk too. So now, when I’m really overwhelmed, I’m like, “That’s it. I’ll be out in the parking lot. Don’t come after me.”
Dan Harris
00:16:09 — Coming up, Brené talks about how she mapped the 87 key emotions and experiences, why we need to be able to name our emotions in order to regulate them, and we’re going to talk about some examples of pairs of emotions that often get confused for one another and what the consequences of this confusion can be. Right after this.
You talked about the 87, and that is a reference to the 87 emotions or experiences—for the persnickety out there—that came up as part of your research. So maybe that’s a good entrée to the research.
Brené Brown
00:16:49 — Yeah, so it was interesting. I wasn’t sure where to start. I wasn’t sure what was important, what’s not important. And so, we had this huge secondary data set. I co-taught a course with Oprah—I don’t even know how, maybe 2007—and we had close to 100,000 people go through this course, and we archived all of the comments. And part of the course was identifying emotion.
00:17:15 — And so, we de-identified everything, took it through human subjects, and then did a content analysis asking, “What are the emotions or experiences that people really struggle to name?” And then, once they’re named, having that language really helps them talk about them, process them, and move through them. And we came up with, I don’t know, maybe 150, I think. Then we brought in a focus group of clinicians. And these were licensed clinicians, therapists who worked—and still work—in very diverse settings.
00:17:46 — Therapists who work on college campuses, work in addiction and behavioral health, psychoanalysis—I mean, all over. It wasn’t fancy. It was all 150 of the emotions and experiences in a room, posted up, and then they got stickers of different colors to indicate the importance. And they had to answer, “When my clients can language this, it helps them move through it—or, in the case of positive emotions, replicate it. When they can’t, it causes pain and suffering.”
00:18:13 — And then, from there, we ended up with about 80, and we ended up with 87 because every now and then—actually, that was because of interns. So we thought, “Well, here’s our list. Interns are the best. That’s why they should be paid. Here’s our list. We’ll do it alphabetically because how else are you going to do it? What do you privilege over the other? Like, how do you do it?” And the interns were like, “That’s the worst idea we’ve ever heard.”
00:18:36 — And we’re like, “Why?” And they said, “Because we learn them through comparison. So, when you taught us shame, guilt, humiliation, and embarrassment as part of our onboarding—which is kind of my central work that I’ve been doing forever—we understood what shame was by understanding what shame wasn’t and what guilt was. And then humiliation—how humiliation is different from shame and guilt. And then how embarrassment, which is one of the four self-conscious affects, is different altogether.”
00:19:05 — And so, you’ve got to put them in comparison pods. We’ve got to learn comparatively. And so, when that happened, we added some words that we thought would help clarify the core ones that emerged. So, for example, schadenfreude—it comes up a lot in clinical work because people feel a lot of shame around it, actually. They’re like, “Oh, I feel so happy that Brené has taken this great fall publicly, and then I feel shame about feeling happy about it.”
00:19:38 — And so, one of the things I thought was interesting is let’s talk about Freud and Freuda, which is the opposite of schadenfreude. So, Freud and Freuda didn’t emerge from the data, but it’s a really helpful comparative tool. Another one that the research team thought would be helpful is “irreverent.” So, admiration and reverence emerged as important, but “irreverent,” I thought, was an interesting word because it is a very loaded word for people. People have a very natural tendency to connect reverence with church or synagogue or temple or mosque—just religion in general.
00:20:14 — But then they feel guilty about enjoying irreverent things. One of the number one algorithm categories on Netflix is irreverent comedy, irreverent cartoon, irreverent series, irreverent acting, irreverent drama. And so, we added some words just to help give color and context to some of the main words.
Shame and loneliness
"Envy is wanting something that someone else has. Jealousy is the fear of losing something we have to someone else. "
Brené Brown
Dan Harris
00:20:35 — And the headline of all of this—I assume there were many headlines, but maybe the über-headline was—ignorance is not bliss. We need to understand the map here. The maps, plural.
Brené Brown
00:20:47 — Yes, we need the maps, and we need the language. We need the language. We desperately need the language. I mean, philosophy is not research, but if you go back to Ludwig Wittgenstein and you think about the limits of your language being the limits of your world, it’s very powerful. For someone to say—just from the work that I’ve done for many years around shame—I mean, just the ability to say, “What I’m experiencing right now is really deep shame, really profound shame.” Just the ability to name shame starts to weaken it because shame cannot stand being spoken.
00:21:20 — Shame works when it convinces you that you are alone. And then, when you name it and wrap words around it and speak it—when I call and say, “Dan, shit, you’re not going to believe what happened at work today. I am in a shame shitstorm.” And you say, “Hit me, what happened?” And I tell you, and then you come back and say, “Oh, God, I’ve been there.”
Brené Brown
00:21:44 — “Jesus, I’m sorry. That’s how I’ve been. I’m sorry.” Now, shame can’t hold on to anything because now I don’t think I’m alone anymore. And that’s the prerequisite for shame to work—I have to believe that I’m alone. And so, it’s very different than if I called you and said, “Oh my God, this really embarrassing thing happened at work today.” That’s like walking outside of the bathroom with, you know, a toilet paper stuck on your shoe or something. Like, if I called you and said, “Can I tell you this really embarrassing thing that happened at work?”
00:22:10 — Would your mindset be different if I said that, or if I said, “Hey, I’m in some shame about something that happened at work today”?
Dan Harris
00:22:17 — Yes. Yes. I, I would think the latter would be more grave.
Brené Brown
00:22:23 — Yes, yeah. It’s different. We have to be able to name it if we want any chance of regulating it.
Dan Harris
00:22:32 — What are some other examples of emotions that we can get confused with?
Brené Brown
00:22:38 — Yeah, so I never—to this day, and I haven’t decided yet if I’m gonna use the correct term because I still take objection to it—but jealousy and envy. So, if you show me your pictures from your trip to Greece, and I’m looking at them and I go, “Oh my God, I’m so jealous. I’m dying to travel again. It’s been so long since I’ve been anywhere.” I’m not actually jealous. I’m actually envious. Envy and jealousy are very different constructs.
00:23:07 — Envy is wanting something that someone else has. Jealousy is the fear of losing something we have to someone else. So, let me say that again: envy is wanting something that someone else has. Jealousy is being afraid of losing something we have to someone else. Researchers find that—and I’m not a jealousy and envy researcher—but when I was reading the research from these folks, many of them talked about how envy normally is a two-person experience, whereas jealousy is normally a three-person experience.
00:23:41 — And it’s not just the way we think about it. It can be the jealousy a child feels when a baby sibling comes along. And I’m not losing a parent, but I’m losing time and attention. The reason why I would never say to you, “Wow, those pictures are great, the interior is beautiful, I really envy,” I would never say that because the problem with envy is, I think…
00:24:04 — One reason we stay away from it is it’s like one of the big seven sins, right? Like, envy is one of those big ones. So, I think for those of us—you know, I’m a product of early Catholic school—I wouldn’t want to say I’m envious of anything. The second problem with envy is that there is malicious envy. There is kind of benign envy, but there’s also malicious envy, which means not only do I want what you have, but you should not have had it. And so, then I feel like if I’m going to use the word envy, I have to say, “Wow, I’m really envious of your trip.”
00:24:34 — I mean, not that I don’t want you to have it—not a malicious kind of envy—but happy for you, but I’d like to go there too. So, I think it’s just easier to say, “I’m jealous,” but that’s actually not the right term.
Dan Harris
00:24:44 — So there are times, yes, you’re calling for precision in language, but you’re also saying, let’s not take it so far that we have to like tie ourselves in knots.
Brené Brown
00:24:51 — Yeah, I think with the jealousy and envy thing, I’m like, y’all go first. Once it gets normalized in, you know, in the culture, it’s just, do you not feel like envious, to be envious sounds worse than to be jealous?
Dan Harris
00:25:04 — It doesn’t quite roll off the tongue. It’s not the thing we say.
Brené Brown
00:25:10 — No. And then I can make jealousy really cute by saying, “Oh, I’m so jelly.” That sounds really friendly, but there’s no fun word for envious. So, I’m going to try to think of one. But those two are… Oh, let me tell you one more that changed my life and my marriage and my work. This one was no joke. Like, if this is not an example of the power of emotional granularity, I do not know what it is. So, Mark Brackett, who heads up the Yale Center for Emotional Studies—I’m doing a talk with him on his book.
00:25:41 — And we’re doing a podcast. And before we go on and I start recording, I say, “Hey, can I just ask you a personal question? I got a little free therapy here.” And he goes, “Yeah, shoot.” I said, “Resentment is from the anger family, right? Because I really struggle with resentment.” And he said, “No, not at all. Resentment is part of the envy family.” And I was like, “What?” And he was like, “No, resentment is kind of a function of envy.”
00:26:09 — And then we started the podcast, and I was like, “What?” So, I think about the times when I’m really resentful—where I feel like I’m in hour 16 of my day and people have gone home, or the house is a mess and people are coming over, and Steve’s sitting down to watch the game, and I’m like, you know, just coming home from work and picking shit up everywhere. And I’m so resentful. And I’m not angry about what they’re not doing. I’m envious that I’m not sitting down. And so, for me, what goes hand in hand is my resentment problem and my inability to ask for what I need and acknowledge my limits.
Dan Harris
00:26:50 — But wouldn’t that be comorbid with anger on the regular? I mean, I could see them arising.
Brené Brown
00:26:56 — Yeah, I think they are comorbid in some ways. But I think for me now—I mean, it has really been a life changer for me—when I start to feel resentful, and I always know when I start to feel resentful because I start having this big conversation, like planning what I’m going to say: “I’m going to say this, and then they’re going to say that, and then I’m going to come back with this, and then they’re going to have no comeback at all.” But now, when I start to feel resentful, the first thing I say is, “What do I need that I’m not asking for?”
00:27:23 — What do I need—like rest, play, sleep, time away? What do I need that I’m not asking for? And it’s been a crazy change for us in my life.
Dan Harris
00:27:34 — That’s fantastic, and it does remind me of the researcher Christopher Germer, who’s one of the two lead researchers in the field of self-compassion. He said the preeminent self-compassion question is, “What do I need right now?”
Brené Brown
00:27:47 — Oh my God, it’s so good. And I tell you what—Chris Germer’s work, along with Kornfield and Kristen Neff—I would not have been able to finish this book without it. Yeah, their concept of the near enemy changed everything for me as a researcher.
Near enemy of love
"It's the Buddhist concept of this thing that masquerades as the virtue that you're seeking to embody or be."
Brené Brown
Dan Harris
00:28:05 — Coming up, Brené talks about the Buddhist concept of the near enemy. She explains why she no longer believes that it is possible to read emotions in other people. And we’re going to talk about something that I struggle with all the time: how to give good feedback. After this.
Can you say more about the concept of the near enemy?
Brené Brown
00:28:27 — Yeah, so for my dissertation—working on my PhD—I studied connection, and I was able to define connection. I was able to develop this framework for how we connect with each other, especially as it pertains to professional helping—like social workers, counselors, psychologists, but even physicians, doctors, community organizers, nurses. And one of the properties that emerged from the data was this idea of disruption to connection.
00:28:56 — And I couldn’t figure out what disrupts connection. Like, obviously, it’s disconnection, but it never resonated fully. It never explained what the research participants were saying, because, like, if you reach out to me—if you make a bid for connection with me—and I just don’t return it, or I just cut you off, you have a lot of clarity about what just happened. Like, “I made a bid for connection, and that’s not going anywhere.”
Brené Brown
00:29:20 — But there’s something that happens every day in relationships—every hour in relationships, every kind of relationship—that just corrodes connection, and I could not figure out what it was. So, I came across this term for the second time in my life. The first time, I was like, “Oh, that’s interesting,” and just kept reading. Then I came across it when I was working on the Atlas research. It’s the Buddhist concept of the near enemy. It’s the Buddhist concept of this thing that masquerades as the virtue that you’re seeking to embody or be.
00:29:55 — And while it masquerades as this thing, it actually unravels everything between people. And so, that became the linchpin for—in the back of *Atlas of the Heart*, the book, and in the show—I talk about this new framework for meaningful connection. And the linchpin is literally the near enemy concept. So, let me grab this. Can I read you something?
00:30:22 — This is Jack Kornfield’s work. He says that near enemies may seem like the qualities that we believe are important—may even be mistaken for them—but they are different and often undermine our practices. I just want you to hang on this sentence for a minute. This sentence—like, I spent a week doing nothing but just sitting in the sentence: “The near enemies depict how spirituality can be misunderstood or misused to separate us from life.” Like, the near enemies depict how spirituality can be misunderstood or misused to separate us from life.
00:30:56 — So, I flip over to Jack Kornfield’s work. And so, here’s an example of what he says about—here’s a near enemy that he writes about, which I think is a very helpful example: love. The near enemy of love is attachment. Attachment masquerades as love. It says, “I will love this person because I need something from them.” Or, “I will love you if you love me back.” “I’ll love you, but only if you’ll change and be the way I want.” This isn’t the fullness of love.
00:31:22 — Instead, there’s attachment. There’s clinging and fear. True love allows, honors, and appreciates. Attachment grasps, demands, needs, and aims to possess. Another great example of a near enemy is the near enemy of compassion, which is pity. So, think about this.
00:31:45 — If I called you and said, “Dan, I’m really struggling,” and you listened, and you sat with me in it, and you said, “You know, what does love look like right now? What does support look like right now?” and offered to take some action—that’s compassion, right? But if I told you what happened, and you said, “Oh, bless your heart, you poor thing,” that’s such a great example of… I get off the phone. I think, “Well, he said something nice, right? But why do I feel so alone?”
00:32:19 — Because near enemies drive separation. When someone says, “You poor thing,” or, like in Texas, the worst—”Bless your heart”—what they’re saying is not, “I feel with you as an imperfect human with an imperfect human.” What that says is, “I feel sorry for you from over here, where that shit does not happen.” Right? That separation. And so, for me, again, the far enemies are easy.
00:32:47 — The far enemy of compassion is cruelty or indifference. You know, the far enemy of love may also be indifference. The far enemies—I get the far enemies. But the near enemy… and so, what is the near enemy of connection? Which—I didn’t even know the question was, “How can you put together a framework on connection if you don’t understand the near enemy?”—because I didn’t even think about that construct. But the near enemy of connection is control. It seems like we’re making a good effort.
00:33:17 — But what we’re trying to do is actually control something. We’re trying to control… for example, I did this podcast, and we were talking about the near enemy. And I did it with Glennon Doyle and Abby Wambach. And Glennon was saying, you know, navigating a newly divorced and remarried family, sometimes her kids will say, “It’s hard to have two homes. You know, it’s hard to have this house and dad’s house.” And what she wants to come back with real quick is, “Oh, my God, but it’s actually great. You have two houses.”
00:33:44 — And, you know, we’re only a block apart. And, you know, if you get sick of one, you can go… and that’s an attempt to control feelings. Because it’s hard to stay in connection there and say, “That is hard,” because, you know, who wants to be the subject of kids’ therapy? Like, not me. Like, I’m like, “I’m so much better than my parents around some of this shit. You can’t talk about me in therapy. Like, I’ve come so far.” But, you know, alas, they do. But I thought about this too as a social worker—it’s really important to me—and also as a grounded theory person, it’s so important that every finding has macro and micro application. So, I think about politicians. I think about, like, Donald Trump and the people who follow Donald Trump. And you look and you want to say, “Man, there’s real connection there. These people are dialed into him; they’re connected.” But he’s not sharing vulnerability; he’s exploiting vulnerability.
00:34:41 — He’s not being in emotion with; he’s leveraging emotion. You know, and so, even on a macro level, it fits. It’s that sometimes when we think we see connection, but then when we step back and say, “God, I don’t feel closer; I feel separate,” I think the near enemy of control was at work.
00:35:04 — And I’m guilty of it, man. Like, if one of my kids calls and says, “Listen, I got in trouble,” or, “This happened,” I’m like, you know, the first thing I do is, “How can you fix it so I look like a good parent?” As opposed to, “God, that sounds really tough. How was that for you?” I’m thinking, “You get your ass upstairs and you email that teacher and apologize for being disrespectful.” You know, like, that’s my training.
00:35:28 — So, I think when we talk about emotional granularity, part of it is understanding how we need to connect with ourselves first, and the depth of that connection will dictate the depth of our capacity for connection with other people. I did not know that before this book. I got that wrong.
How to learn what connection is with children
"I think what we're called to do in the service of meaningful connection is not walk in someone else's shoes, but to believe them when they tell us what their experiences are like in their shoes."
Brené Brown
Dan Harris
00:35:43 — This seems crucial, so I’m just going to sit in this for a second. Understanding your own inner maps will help you have good relationships with other people. And since having good relationships with other people is probably the most important variable in human happiness, this is an upward spiral.
Brené Brown
00:36:05 — This is an upward spiral. This is a virtuous cycle, not a vicious cycle. This is a virtuous upward spiral. And so, what does that mean—be connected? It seems so gauzy. Just as an example, with my kids, to know when they say something’s hard and to recognize when I’m moving into self-protection—which is self-focused, not other-focused—that I’m missing an opportunity for real connection and love and compassion with my kid, because I’ve moved into self-protection, which is probably going to move me into control.
00:36:36 — The second thing that I think I really got wrong—and I bet I’ve said this to tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of people over the past 15 years, and I’ve heard many, many other emotions researchers say it as well—we, in a very kind of fast way, say, “You need to understand emotions in yourself and others. You need to be able to read emotion in self and others.” I no longer believe it is possible at all to read emotion in other people. I don’t believe it.
Dan Harris
00:37:03 — Yeah that seems like an article of faith that we can read emotion in other зeople. I feel like I…
Brené Brown
00:37:06 — Yes, yeah.
Dan Harris
What changed for you?
Brené Brown
Because too many emotions or affects present in the same way. And I actually think it’s a really terrible hot-wiring of connection to think we can do that. And I’ll tell you why. I think what we’re called to do in the service of meaningful connection is not walk in someone else’s shoes, but to believe them when they tell us what their experiences are like in their shoes.
00:37:39 — And that pushes a ton of buttons. Because around race, around gender, around poverty, around class, around difference—everything, that if you tell me your experience, and part of connection is believing you, and it doesn’t align with my lived experience, it creates such cognitive dissonance in me that can very quickly lead to, “What is my part in that experience for you?” It gets very hard, but it is truly to believe yourself, to say, “Jesus, that shit hurt my feelings.” “Oh God, Brené, come on, suck it up. Like, you’re tougher than that.” No, no, I’m not. And I need to believe myself when I say that hurt my feelings.
00:38:28 — And reading these comments or being on all the social media—it’s not good for me. I’m not… I can’t do it. And I’m living that right now. It’s like I have to keep all these antennae open to do my work, to understand the world and people’s experiences of it. And the cost of that for me is that I cannot be taking in bullshit all the time—hurtful, trivial crap online. And then, when I hear someone’s experience, when they tell me something, instead of saying, “Oh, do you think you’re overreacting?” or, “Was it really that bad?”—to say… because that’s control.
00:39:02 — I’m trying to control the level of discomfort. What I’m saying is, “My comfort is more important than that hard shit you just said to me.” And so, you know, one of the things that was so fun about the HBO special is, after I had a total freak-out the last minute and said, “I can’t do it, I changed my mind,” you know, and everything’s set up, like, we’re getting ready, I was like, “Action.”
00:39:24 — I’m like, “No, I can’t.” They said, “You play football; we’ll do the rest,” which speaks to me because I’m a big sports person. And I’d already convinced them to bring in an audience and just let me teach because that’s, you know, been in the classroom for 20-something years, so I can teach. And so, what was so funny about that is, as I was teaching, the audience kept asking me all these just hard, great questions.
00:39:50 — And the answer always ended up being either the near-enemy concept or the concept of having to believe people. And I got to use film because I’ve taught with film and television clips my entire teaching career. Like, from a junior faculty, from a doctoral student, you know, working on my TA-ship that paid my tuition. And so, there’s… have you seen the movie «Chef»?
Dan Harris
00:40:13 — I am familiar with it, but I have not seen it.
Brené Brown
00:40:16 — Okay, one of my all-time favorite movies. Well, there’s a scene where Jon Favreau plays the chef, and Dustin Hoffman owns this restaurant. He’s forcing him to make this food that’s been popular for 20 years, where, you know, the chef wants to make great stuff. A critic comes in and just makes fun of the food. And then Jon Favreau, as the chef, comes out of the kitchen and loses his mind.
00:40:38 — “F*** you,” and, you know, but… and so, I played the clip for the audience on the HBO special and said, “What is he feeling right now?” And people said, “Rage, anger, grief, embarrassment, humiliation, resentment,” you know. And I said, “I would have guessed shame, because one way shame shows up a lot is in rage and anger.” And I said, “This is why we cannot read emotion in other people. If we really care about connection and compassion, we have to be curious and ask. We have to be learners, not knowers. We have to believe people.”
Dan Harris
00:41:11 — I’m feeling both curious and chastened by the argument you’re making right here. Chastened mostly as a dad, because my seven-year-old son—I often accuse him of malingering and manipulating, particularly with his mom. And her instinct is to believe him, and my instinct is to say, “He’s playing you.” And so, I feel chastened on that front, because I’m probably being an ogre.
00:41:33 — And curious, because if you’re exhorting us to believe people, are you saying there is no such thing as emotional warfare or manipulation or anything along those lines?
Brené Brown
00:41:46 — No, no, I think there absolutely is. I mean, I think we see it every single day. But I think still seeing the position of the learner, not the knower, and being curious, and extending that question that you posed as the big question of compassion: “What do you need right now?” And if you need this and are not asking for it in a straightforward way, what’s getting in your way of asking for what you need right now?
Dan Harris
00:42:15 — So, I might be confronted with somebody—whether it’s a diminutive kid with Oreos all over his face or whatever, or anybody—and I could feel, “Okay, I’m being manipulated.” However, I can drop beneath that and say, “There’s some need here, and maybe it’s being expressed unskillfully. And can I get at whatever is underneath all of this?”
Brené Brown
00:42:36 — Yeah, if our goal is meaningful connection. I mean, one thing I can tell you for sure is that boundaries are a prerequisite for good relationships. I mean, meaningful connection requires boundaries. And so, you can very much say to anybody—from, you know, our kids to our colleagues to whomever—”Here’s what’s okay, and here’s what’s not okay. You know, it’s okay to ask me for something you want or need. It’s not okay to lie or manipulate to get it.”
00:43:06 — And if you think that’s the only way you can get it, we need to talk about why and what part I might have in that. And if you think there’s some kind of unfairness, then let’s dig into that and talk about that, because that must be what’s really going on here.
Dan Harris
00:43:20 — I’ve heard you do this before—where you play-act how you would give somebody feedback in a workplace or, in this case, in an interpersonal relationship. And there are times when I need to give people feedback, and I wish I could just call you and have you do it. You’re very good at it.
Brené Brown
00:43:35 — No, well, you know what? I… I don’t know if I’m good. Sometimes I’m good; sometimes I’m shit. Sometimes I… I mean, you have no idea the number of times I have to circle back and say, “I apologize for how I showed up yesterday. I was not who I wanted to be in that conversation. I’d like another shot at it.” I mean, I have to do that. I just had to do it. What is today? I had to do it Sunday night, like, with a family member, two family members, three family members—everyone that was on the court when we played.
00:44:06 — I had to show up because my sister and I should not play doubles with our husbands against our husbands, period. But, yeah, but you know what? I really live by this idea that I’m here to get it right, not to be right. I have very little vested in being right. And I have a very high threshold for discomfort. And knowing that about myself, one thing I will always do—like, in a work context—is we always teach people to give feedback in two sessions.
00:44:30 — One is, “I want to sit down and talk about what’s going on, what I observe. I feel like it’s something we need to work on together; it doesn’t feel good to me. And I’d like for you to think about what you need from me, what my part might be, and we can meet tomorrow again for 30 more minutes, because not everyone can think on their feet, and sometimes we need to pull back, and we get flooded and overwhelmed.” And so, I don’t know that I’m particularly good at it; I’m just… I can do discomfort.
Dan Harris
00:44:56 — Well, I don’t want to create discomfort around holding you longer than what I would assume to be your very demanding schedule can bear. However, in our remaining minute or two here, I’m going to give you some discomfort because I’m gonna remind you again that you are now a TV star. And can you please plug your show and book before we go?
Brené Brown
00:45:15 — Yeah, I’m really excited. The book is called «Atlas of the Heart». The subtitle is «Mapping Meaningful Connection in the Language of Human Experience». I’m really proud of the book, to be honest with you. It took a lot during a really hard time, but I’m proud of it, and I think it’s been useful for me, and I hope other people find it useful. And then we decided to turn the book into a five-part HBO Max series, where we tackle, in the first season, 30 of the 87 emotions, using a lot of film, television, and pop culture clips to kind of dig into emotion.
00:45:46 — It’s a fun way to teach because it gives us a little bit of permission to spectate and kind of step back and watch emotion unfold with somebody besides us. So, it’s neat. And it’s basically me with a live audience teaching, and it’s weird and different for me. But if you’re not doing something that scares you a little bit, what’s the point, right?
Dan Harris
00:46:06 — That is a point you have made many, many times to great effect. So congratulations on both the book and the TV show, and thank you very much for doing this. Really appreciate it.
Brené Brown
00:46:15 — Thank you.
Ending the Podcast
Dan Harris
00:46:17 — Thanks again to Brené Brown. Before we let you go here, a quick note from our friends at the Insight Meditation Society. Next month, IMS is kicking off a new online program conceived by the great Sharon Salzberg. It’s called “Essential Mindfulness”. Every month, for nine months, a different world-class meditation teacher will teach a series of lessons on the intersection of mindfulness and a variety of fascinating topics—from ethics to trauma to science to interpersonal communication.
00:46:47 — The all-star roster of teachers includes many people who have been guests on this show, such as Kamala Masters, Alexis Santos, Dara Williams, and Orin J. Sofer. However, the sessions will be short, convenient, and affordable, and you can view them live or after the fact. You can sign up for all nine months of sessions or just pick and choose the topics that interest you the most.
Dan Harris
00:47:08 — So, whether you use mindfulness to manage stress and difficult emotions, improve relationships, increase engagement, or enhance your overall well-being, these discussions can help you further live out your mindfulness practice. Take it off the cushion, so to speak. To find out more and sign up for “Essential Mindfulness”, check out dharma.org or click the link in the show notes. Thanks as well to everybody who works so hard on this show. “10% Happier” is produced by Gabrielle Zuckerman, DJ Kashmir, Justine Davey, and Lauren Smith.
00:47:39 — Our supervising producer is Marissa Schneiderman, Kimi Regler is our managing producer, and our executive producer is Jen Poyant. We get our scoring and mixing from Peter Bonaventure over at Ultraviolet Audio. We’ll see you all on Friday for a bonus meditation. Hey, hey, Prime members. You can listen to 10% Happier early and ad-free on Amazon Music.
00:48:06 — Download the Amazon Music app today. Or you can listen early and ad-free with Wondery Plus in Apple Podcasts. Before you go, do us a solid and tell us all about yourself by completing a short survey at wondery. Com slash survey.
"True love allows, honors, and appreciates. Attachment grasps, demands, needs, and aims to possess. Another great example of a near enemy is the near enemy of compassion, which is pity. So, think about this."
Brené Brown
Speaker Interview
View MoreSummary with timestamps
Key Themes of the Interview:
- Emotional Granularity
- The Concept of the “Near Enemy”
- Shame and Its Role in Relationships
- The Role of Language in Emotions
- Practical Tools for Improving Relationships
- Emotional Regulation
- Cultural and Social Aspects of Emotions
- Empathy and Compassion
The interview begins with Dan Harris introducing Brené Brown and her work on emotions. Brené explains emotional granularity, the ability to precisely identify and label emotions. She notes that most people can only name three emotions: happy, sad, and angry. This lack of emotional vocabulary limits our ability to process and regulate emotions effectively. Brené introduces her book, Atlas of the Heart, which maps 87 emotions to help people better understand their inner experiences.
This section delves into how naming emotions can help regulate them. For example, distinguishing between stress and overwhelm is crucial for managing emotional responses. Brené shares personal anecdotes about how understanding her own emotions has improved her relationships and decision-making.
Brene introduces the Buddhist concept of the “near enemy,” which refers to behaviors that mimic positive qualities but ultimately harm relationships. Examples include attachment masquerading as love and pity masquerading as compassion. She explains how recognizing these “near enemies” can help build healthier connections.
This segment focuses on shame and how it thrives in isolation. Brené emphasizes the importance of sharing feelings of shame to weaken its power. She discusses how believing others when they share their experiences fosters deeper connections and reduces feelings of loneliness.
Brene provides practical advice for improving emotional awareness and communication. She suggests giving feedback in two stages to avoid overwhelming the recipient and emphasizes the importance of setting boundaries for meaningful connections. The section concludes with a discussion on asking, “What do you need right now?” as a way to foster empathy and understanding.
