Atlast of the Heart

I had seen this book on several lists across 2022 and in 2023 and I grew curious about what this was about. I had never heard of Brené Brown or her works before this. This book is quite literally an atlas of all the emotions we feel. It explains and carefully defines the various kinds of human emotions and how to differentiate between them. It has been said that being able to label the emotions we feel is a transformative experience and so, the language we use to define those experiences is important. This book aims to do just that.

I possibly can’t explain everything I noted down while I listened to this book but some of the emotions that resulted in an Aha! moment for me were comparison, resentment, awe, curiosity, loneliness, and humility among countless others. For instance, I never knew or made an effort to know, how significantly different empathy and sympathy are from each other or how shame and perfectionism are related to each other. I think more awareness regarding the human emotional vocabulary would help develop a more empathic population.

Apart from the amazing content, I especially loved the narration done by the author herself. She just had a jolly good time reading this to the listeners and would do double takes and express herself using all kinds of vocal interjections, it was so much fun listening to this. Recommended.