Brené Brown: Atlas of the Heart - Part 1

I thought about something I taught my kids when they were in elementary school ... I used to ask them to cup their hands and put them in front of me. And I said, 'In your hand is your flame. It's your soul. It's your light. You need to surround yourself with friends who, when your light is shining bright, don't feel the need to blow it out.

Let's say you decide to make some chocolate chip cookies. You get out a bowl, you add the milk, you add the flour, the brown sugar, the egg. But what if I told you that the cookies changed, the way they tasted, based on the bowl you picked. That's what language is. Language does not just communicate emotion; it shapes what we're feeling.

If all we really have are three words to describe—happy, sad, and mad—what happens to grief, anguish, despair, wonder joy, heartbreak? What happens? And that is why language is a portal to universes, new choices, and second chances.

And for those of us who struggle with perfectionism, myself included, when we invariably feel judgment or blame or shame... our thinking is not 'Ah, this perfectionism thing is BS, it's not working;' our thinking is 'I wasn't perfect enough.'

Envy is usually an experience between two people; jealousy is an experience between three. Envy is when we want something that someone else has; jealousy is when we're afraid of losing something we already have to someone else.

The limits of my language mean the limits of my world.

We will do almost anything to not feel pain, including causing other people pain.

Our heart is this sea of expansiveness, of emotion, of experience. And at some point, that emotion and experience needs to bump into language.

If you do not turn toward a painful story and own it, that story owns you.