This is the 10% happier podcast. I'm Dan Harris.
Hey, everybody. A male friend of mine once made a very funny comment. Funny, to me, at least about how his wife who was also a friend of mine had helped him overcome what he called, emotional imbecility. She had apparently help this male friend of mine, get better at understanding, what he was feeling, why he was feeling it and how not to be yanked around by his emotions. No, of course not accusing. Anybody listening to the show of emotional imbecility, but it is worth noting that my
Today, the great brene Brown did some incredible research in which she found that most people were only able to identify three emotions. Happy sad and pissed off in her latest book. And the accompanying TV show Brunei, makes a very compelling, evidenced based case for getting better acquainted with the full spectrum of your emotions. Instead of imbecility. She uses the more positive term emotional granularity that she says, is what we
Should be striving for she argues and I fully agree with this, that the better, you understand yourself. The better, you will be at surfing, rather than drowning in your emotions. And then of course, by extension the better you will be at relating to other people and given how important relationships are to human flourishing. This can become an upward spiral brene Brown. I'm sure most of you know her but just for the uninitiated here, a little bio. Renee is the author of six. Number one, New York Times bestseller.
Her latest book is called atlas of the heart, which is also the name of a five-episode HBO. Max series that debuted on March 31st. She 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. She is the host of the 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. And this conversation. We talked about why she decided to map, 87, key emotions and experiences, how she was deeply influenced in this endeavor, by the Buddhist concept of the near enemy, why she no longer believes. It's possible to read other people's emotions and why consequently she says we should believe other people when they tell us,
What they're feeling, although she does not. And this is interesting. She did not rule out the possibility of manipulation in this regard. We also talked about what she means. When she says she has created a, I'm quoting here, new framework for meaningful connection and why meaningful connections require boundaries one note, before we get started here, as you will hear, Brunei is delightfully, profaned least in my opinion, and we have chosen to let burn a do her thing, and not bleep her butt.
You should know that if you're listening with kids or you have sensitive ears, a clean version of the episode is available on our website www.engvid.com and also over on the 10% happier app. We've adopted this two-pronged policy because we got some sharp, but I think very fair, very helpful feedback on an episode. We did a few months ago with the actor and activist. Jameela Jamil where we did bleep her swear words, a lot of people.
Did not like that choice on our end, the bleeping. So now we decided that when we have guests who like to swear, by the way, no judgment here. I love to swear. When we have these kinds of guests. We're going to release two versions of the episodes so you can pick your poison. Okay, we'll get started with brene brown right after this.
Hey gang, quick. Heads up on a podcast, you might like or relate to. It's called 24/7 podcast about caregiving. And it looks at what happens when you become a parent to your parents, something. I can relate to just a little bit. It's hosted by Kitty Isley, a journalist who moved back home to care for her beloved dad who had dementia. The experienced was physically emotionally and financially draining. And now Kitty is determined to put conversations about caregiving.
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Hybrid a
brown. Hello. How are
you doing? Great. Thanks for coming back. On the show. I do want to say the several of the things. You said the last time you're on the show, pop up into my mind all the time. So I'm really happy to have you
back. Well, thanks. I'm happy to be back.
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?
Oh my God, I'm still processing that. You said and 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 my I like? I'm turning red. Like, it's, yeah,
stepping out of your lane requires courage, which is on-brand for you.
Yeah, I guess so. But I didn't even put my blinker on. Like, I just did it and and not used to it yet. The cartography stuff. I can talk to you about more easily because I am a
a cartography fan. I love Maps. I collect old Maps. When I first visualize this book and thought about you know, I'm a metaphor a holic. So I was like, what metaphor am I going to work? I'm going to use an epigraph 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. 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 with the show does, I hope it helps ground us, and kind of tether us to Solid Ground around where we are, what we're feeling, 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. We're always looking on the outside of us, to figure out. How can I find my way back? How can I get re tethered? How can
I get grounded and all of that especially when we feel very adrift. And so for me, it was a research has taught me is that the anchoring happens within. There is nothing external that's going to offer us a way home. And so I think the combination of feeling untethered personally after covid. And I think it's after I don't know what preposition to use anymore during between and in the midst of she's been a very hard couple of years and
Taught me and what I'd really like is some kind of map for myself just to find my way back home.
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?
Yeah, you know, I'm 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 are 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. 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, 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 is 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 are all are
Our love. And I have to just say I'm happier. I'm sad, well, anguish and sadness or not the same thing, you know, and bitter. Sweetness and sadness are the same thing and resentment and pissed off or not the same thing. And so I really want to try to put together some kind of glossary of the emotions and experiences and I say emotions and experiences. I must say this right off the bat because there's real pissing match and academics around.
And what constitutes an emotion and what doesn't and so just to cover my bases? I say emotions 87, emotions and experiences because some of them actually I know are not emotions. Some of them I'd be willing to go toe-to-toe some folks on others. I'm not sure. Not actually don't care. I don't 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 a name? And so it became a really big project. I had no idea. I thought it would take
Year, and it took
four. I want to hear more about the project in 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.
So in the research, they refer to kind of being able to with Nuance name, emotions as emotional granularity. And what we know is that if we can name, something are accurately label it, we are much more likely to be able to ask.
For what? We need. Move through it, productively, in the case of positive emotion. We're able to replicate and seek more of those experiences. Like, I'll give you two examples, you could have a moment in your life where you kind of walked away and said, oh man, that was cool. That was really cool and not know. Oh, that was AA. That I experienced those goose bumps that feeling of being small compared to the world. But at the same time, I see
On this is connected to the world in this inextricable, way. That's all. And if I understand all, what I know is that these are the kind of experiences nature beauty art being outside my dog. These are the kind of things that bring that, and I want more of that in my life and Osgood. 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 and that's not all that's wonder. And what all 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 Peaks are curiosity and we want to learn more. And so to me having
Language around in boy. You think we're bad at labeling, negative, emotion or hard, emotion or whatever you want to call it. And we have really no language for positive emotion. Other than that was good. That's cool. Had some Goose Bumps, but I'll tell you why. It's also important. And this was the thing that was just like, I did not know this going into the research to the extent that I understand it. Now language does not just communicate, emotion it shapes emotion.
It changes language changes, our bodies are neurons. And so the best example I can give and it's kind of like a solid C+ 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 him at your house a couple times during credible. And you said great and you made them exactly the same way you always made them. But instead of using the Blue Bowl, you use the white bowl. And this time they tasted a
A bit different. And it had a little cinnamon taste to them language, doesn't just carry the emotion. It actually changes it. So, first of all, let me just go on the record as saying someone who 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 I was, 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.
What I learned in this research is there's a difference between stress and overwhelm and overwhelm is a very intense kind of stress. We're 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 because the only cured a recovery from overwhelmed.
Actually nothingness.
So now when I feel like, oh my God, I don't, it's too much. It's too much. I always say to myself. Now. 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% the time, I'll just say, wow. I'm stressed and now I do not allow myself to say overwhelmed without
What I'm doing and going outside and walking. 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 cheese. What does that even mean? It's ludvig vidkun Stein 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.
This fascinating, I hear two benefits to the 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 all. 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. I mean, that's a hundred percent, right? And if you look at the research on emotional granularity, have you
Talk to Susan David.
I believe she's on our list. Emotional agility is her
book. Yes. Yeah, you should really talk to her. She does a lot of research on emotional granularity and it's not just the correlation is not to just 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. I'm so overwhelmed. I've got a twenty three-year-old in graduate school and I've got a 16 year old in high school. I'm so overwhelmed. I beg. 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 do 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 different, not only for myself, but as a parent or a partner and as a leader, we do to word check-ins, if someone checks in and says, you know anxious and overwhelmed as soon as that meetings over I Circle back and say let's talk about the overwhelm. What's on your agenda? I've got back-to-back meetings of jail for well pick the next one because you're going to reschedule it. You're going to have to walk away from everything for a while. It's just you.
Makes no sense and the data on the kind of decisions. We make and overwhelm therefore shit, right, you know, it's so funny because I used to have this list of like speaking request incoming, speaking requests, and, by the, like, the end of the first page, I 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 to get the list over. Then. I'd be like you're flying out tomorrow. No, I can't fly out tomorrow. My son's got a water polo game tomorrow. Now you're fine.
You agreed to this for months ago. You're like, yes. Yes. Yes, you said for sure. So you have I just said for sure because overwhelmed and I like well, we got contracts now and you're flying out tomorrow morning then cry out to 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. So you can you. 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 overcome it, but
Also, like I'm a jerk and that really hurts
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 to. 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.
Coming up Rene 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.
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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 entree to the research.
Yes. 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. So I co-taught a course with Oprah about. 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. And so we D identified. Everything took it through human subjects, and then did a Content analysis, asking what are the emotions are 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. Therapist who worked in a still working a very diverse settings, 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. Post it up and then they got stickers of different colors to indicate the importance. And they had to
Sir, when my clients can language this, at helps them move through it or in the case of positive emotions, replicate it when they can't, it causes pain and suffering. 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, in terms of the best. That's why they should be paid. Here's our list will 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. And we're like, why? And they said, because we learned them through comparison. So when you taught us, shame guilt humiliation, embarrassment as part of our onboarding which is kind of my central work. They've been doing forever. We understood what shame was by understanding. What shame wasn't and what guilt was and then humiliation how humiliations different from shame and guilt. And then how embarrassment, which is one of the four self-conscious, fx's different altogether.
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, while schadenfreude it comes up a lot in clinical work because people feel a lot of Shame around it actually.
They're like, I feel so happy that Bernie has taken this great fall publicly. And then I feel shame about feeling happy about it. And so one of the things I thought was interesting as let's talk about Freud and Florida, which is the opposite of schadenfreude. So fraud in Florida, 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
But irreverent, I thought was an interesting word because it is a very loaded word for people, because people have a very natural tendency to connect reverence with church, or synagogue, or Temple, or mosque, just religion in general, but then they feel guilty about enjoying irreverent things. One of the number one algorithm categories and on Netflix. So irreverent, comedy irreverent, cartoon, irreverent, series irreverent Act,
Being irreverent drama. And so we added some words just to help give color and context to some of the main words
and the headline of all of this. I assume there were many headlines, but maybe the Uber headline, was ignorance, is not Bliss. We need to understand the map here, the maps plural.
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
I can sign and you think about the limits of your language being the limits of your world. It's very powerful for someone to say, I mean, 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. Shame works when it convinces you that you are alone, and then when you name it and wrap words around it,
And then speak it. When I call and say to Han 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. 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 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, toilet paper. Stuck on your shoe or something. Like, if I called you, and said dance, Renee. Listen, can't tell you. This really embarrassing thing that happened at work. 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. Yes. Yes. I, I would think the latter would be more
grave. Yes. Yeah, it's different. We have to be able to
To name it. If we want any chance of regulating it, what
are some other examples of emotions that we can get confused with?
Yeah, so I never to this day and I haven't decided yet if I'm going to 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.
Dying to travel again. It's been so long since I've been anywhere. I'm not actually jealous. I'm actually envious in the and jealousy, or very different constructs. 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 where jealousy is normally a three-person experience. 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. Santorini's beautiful. I really Envy. I would never happen. Never say that, because the problem with Envy is, I think, one reason we stay away from it is, it's like one of the big seven sins, right? Like it, Cindy 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 MV is that there is malicious Envy.
There is kind of benign MV. But there's also malicious in B, which means not only do I want what you have, you should not have had it. And so then I feel like, if I'm going to use the word in VI to say, wow, then I'm really envious of your trip. 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. So, there are times we yes, you're calling for a Precision in language, but you're also saying, let's not take it so far.
We have to like tie ourselves in knots.
Yeah, I think with the jealousy and everything. I'm like y'all go first. Once he 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. It doesn't quite roll off the tongue. It's not a thing we say
no. And then I can make jealousy really cute by saying. Oh, I'm so jelly. That sounds really like friendly, but there's no fun word for envious. So I'm
To try to think of one but those two are ho, let me tell you one more change 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 is. So Mark bracket, who heads up the Yale Center for emotional studies. I'm doing a talk with him on his book and we're doing a podcast and before we go on and I start recording, I said, hey, can I just ask you a personal question? I got a little freaky repeat here and he goes,
Shoot I said resentment is from the anger family, right?
Because I really struggle with resentment and he said, no, I'm not at all. Resentment is part of the Envy family. I was like, what? He was, no, resentments kind of a function of Indie 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 our sixteen of my day and people have gone home or the house is a mess and people are coming and
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,
but wouldn't that be comorbid with anger on the regular immediate? I can see them a rising?
Yeah, I think they are kind of morbid 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. Can I missed a gift? And then they're going to say that and then I'm going to come back with this and then, hey, gonna 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 what do I need. Like rest play?
Bleep time away. What do I need that? I'm not asking for and it's been a crazy change for some my life.
That's fantastic. And it does remind me of the researcher. Christopher, germer was 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?
Oh my God, it's so good. And I tell you what, Chris groomers work along, with cornfield with, along with Kristin Neff. I would not have been able to finish this book without it. Yeah, about their concept of near. Enemy changed everything for me as a
researcher.
Coming up our night 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 gonna talk about something that I struggle with all the time. How to give good feedback after this.
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Can you say more about the concept of near enemy?
Yeah, so my dissertation working on my PhD, I study 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, you know, professional helping and one of the properties that
George from the data was this idea of disruption to connection 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 had a lot of clarity about what just happened, like, I made a bid for connection and that's not going anywhere. But there's something that happens every day in relationships. Every hour in relationships, every kind of relationship that just corrodes connection that 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 near enemy.
It's a Buddhist concept of this thing that masquerades as The Virtue that you're seeking to embody or be. 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 talked about
At this new framework for meaningful connection. And the linchpin is literally the near enemy concept. So let me grab this kind of read you something. This is Jack cornfields 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 and 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
Our Miss used to separate us from life.
Like the near enemies depict, how spirituality can be misunderstood or misused to separate us from life. So I flip over to jack, hornfels 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
Let me back. I love you. But only if you will change and be the way I want, this isn't the fullness of Love 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 near. Enemy is the near enemy of compassion.
Is pity. So think about this if I called you and sad 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 a support look like right now. And so I offered to take some action that's compassion. Right? But if I told you what happened, you said, oh, bless your heart. You poor thing that 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? Because near enemies Drive separation. When someone says you poor saying or like in
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. The far enemy of compassion is cruelty or indifference, you know, the far enemy of love. May also be indifference the far enemies. I
The foreign armies, 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.
But 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 near enemy and I did it with Glennon Doyle and Abby, Wambach. And Lennon 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 and you know, we're only a block apart.
You know, if you get sick of one, you got, you know, 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 subjects or kids therapy? Like, not me. Like I'm like, I'm so much better than my parents around some of the shit. You can't talk about me in therapy. Like I've come so far but you know, but yet 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. He's not being an emotion with, he's leveraging emotion, you know, and so even on a macro level, it fits 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 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 to apologize for being District know like, that's my training. 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
With other people. I did not know that before this book. I got that
wrong.
This seems crucial. So I'm just going to sit in this for a second. Hmm, understanding your own inner Maps. Uh-huh. We'll 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.
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?
Did it seems so Ghazi. Just as 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 on 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. The second thing that I think that 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.
Years. And I've heard many, many other emotions researchers. Say it as well. We in a very kind of very fast way. Say, you need to understand emotions in yourself and others. You need to be able to read emotion and self and others. I no longer believe it is possible at all to read emotion. In other people. I don't believe it.
Yeah, that seems like an article of faith that we can read emotion. In other people. I feel like, I've yes. Yeah. What changed for you?
Because too many emotions are effects present in the
I'm 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 were 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 and that pushes a ton of buttons because around race or
around gender around poverty around class or around difference. Every 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 you, what is my part in that experience of for you it gets very hard, but it is truly to
Yourself to say Jesus that shit hurt my feelings. Oh, God, Renee. Come on, suck it up. Like, you're tougher than that. Now. No, I'm not. And I need to believe myself when I say that hurt my feelings and reading these comments or being on all the social media. All 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.
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. I'm trying to control the level of discomfort. What I'm saying is my comfort is more important that hard shit. You just said to me and so, you know when the things that was so fun.
About the HBO special is after. I had a total freak out at the last minute and said, I can't do it. I changed my mind, you know, and everything set up like we're getting ready like action of like, no, I can't. They said you play football will do the rest which speaks to me because I'm a big Sports person and I'd already convinced them to bring an audience and just let me teach because that's him in the classroom for 20-something years so I can teach. And so what's so funny about that is as I was teaching
Ching. The audience kept asking me all these just hard great questions 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 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 that. Have you seen the movie
Chef?
I am a familiar with it, but I have not seen it.
Okay, my one of my all-time favorite movies, well, there's a scene. Where Jon Favreau plays the chef, who Dustin Hoffman owns this restaurant. He's forcing him to make this food that's been popular for 20 years where the, you know, the chef wants to make great staff. A Critic comes in and just makes fun of the food and then John favorite as the chef comes out of the kitchen and loses his mind, a few and, you know, but you know, and so I played the clip for the audience on the edge.
So 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 and other people. If we really care about connection and compassion, we have to be curious and ask we have to be Learners, not know hours.
We have to believe people,
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 and curious. Because if you're exhorting us to believe, people are you saying there is no such thing as
As emotional Warfare or manipulation or anything along those
lines? No. No, I think they're 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
Are not asking for it in a straightforward way, what's getting in your way of asking for what you need right now.
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 meat here and maybe it's being expressed on skillfully. And can I get it? Whatever is underneath all of
this? Yeah, if our goal is Meaningful.
Shit. Any one thing I can tell you for sure is that boundaries is a prerequisite for good relationships. I mean for 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. And if you think that's the only way you
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.
I've heard you do this before where you play act, how you would give somebody feedback in a workplace or in this case 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.
No. Well, you know what? I don't know if I'm good at sometimes. I'm good at sometimes I'm shit. Sometimes I, I mean, you have no idea. The number of times. I have to Circle back and say 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 to family members, three, family members.
One that was on the court when we played because my sister and I should not play doubles with her husband's against her husband 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 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? 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. Doesn't feel good to me. And I'd like for you to think about what you need for 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.
Well, I don't want to create discomfort around holding you longer than your what I would assume to be very demanding schedule. Can bear however in our remaining minute or two. Here. I'm going to give you some discover because I'm going to remind you again that you are now a TV star. And can you please plug your show and book before we go?
Yeah, I'm really excited. That book is called atlas of the heart 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
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 that debuts on March 31st, where we tackle and the first season, 30 of the 87 emotions, and using a lot of film television, and pop culture Clips to kind of dig into emotion. It's a fun way to teach because it gives us a little bit, a permission to spectate, and kind of step back and watch.
Ocean unfold with somebody besides that. So it's neat and it's basically me with a live audience teaching and it's weird and different for me, but you're not doing something that scares you a little bit. What's the point, right?
But 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. Thank you.
Thanks again to brene Brown. By the way, I did check in with my team and it turns out we do indeed, have Susan, David author of emotional agility lined up for an interview on this show. So I'm looking forward to that even more. Now given Bernays, hearty endorsement. The show is made by Samuel John's Gabrielle Zuckerman. DJ cashmere, Justine Davey can buy camera Maria were tell and gent plant with audio engineering from the good folks over at ultraviolet. Audio will see you all on Monday for a brand new episode.
I sewed with a great Dharma teacher by the name of a John suchitoto. He's a British guy who trained under the time Master John Chacha, and he's got a great phrase, unseating, the inner Tyrant, which we're going to talk about coming up on Monday.
From laundry. I'm Nicky, boy, our host of the new podcast, call me, curious. Look, we're all on 24/7 information overload on our news, feeds our inboxes on Tick-Tock. That's why I'm bringing you call me. Curious a podcast that finally gives you definitive answers to Life's burning questions, like does intermittent fasting really work. Should I buy crypto every week on? Call me curious? I'll dive into all the things you've heard about but don't really know about, we'll both learn and
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