Once we master this, we’ll have the ability to better connect with ourselves and, in turn, each other. However, there are 30 identifiable emotions that Brené sets out to define, and not all emotions are equal.Īs Brown goes on to say, language is the portal to correctly identifying how we’re feeling. Asking her intimate live audience how many emotions they can name, the median number falls around 5.

We can feel many things at once, but putting a singular name to those feelings proves more difficult in practice. “We are emotional beings rather than thinking beings,” she states–evidenced by the fact that we neurologically process emotional pain the same as physical. Using film and TV clips to aid in the process, Brené’s thesis statement in this new series is to identify and name the 30 emotions we routinely feel in our lifetime. A Herculean task indeed.In this special sneak peek of the upcoming HBO Max series Atlas of the Heart (based on the book of the same name), social researcher, TED Talk celebrity, and all-around incredible human being Brené Brown takes center stage to discuss what she knows best: emotions. Brown’s solution to this lack of emotional attunement was to pull together a research team of professionals within the mental health field to distill down the most fundamental basic emotions we all experience and to define them. A pretty sobering statistic that she pokes fun at by quizzing the audience on how much time they spend trying to find just the right emoji while composing a text message. On average the participants could only name three feelings: sad, mad, and glad.

This work began for her by asking 7,000 participants to identify what they were feeling as they were experiencing those feelings. Sounds pretty straightforward right? Let’s just say that there isn’t a feelings wheel on the planet that’ll help prepare you for what you’ll learn from Brown’s astounding research. Human beings are fundamentally feeling creatures that think, and if we don’t have the correct words to express what we are experiencing, we cannot make meaningful connections with ourselves or others. The central question posited at the outset of the series is “how do we cultivate meaningful connection with ourselves and each other?” While it’s daunting to try to distill five hours and 18.5 pages of notes down to one article, I wanted to provide a summary that would encourage people to watch the series.

Atlas of the heart hbo