Is there a particular conversation you’ve had with someone, that keeps resurfacing as you grow and get older? In difficult moments, you find yourself traveling back to that day at the cafe or whatever it was, sitting down for a conversation you didn’t know would shape you as much as it has. For me, it’s my talk with Brené Brown, all the way back in 2019.
In case new listeners need an introduction, she holds the Huffington Foundation Endowed Chair as a research professor at the University of Houston. You might know her best as the writer of Daring Greatly, or The Gifts Of Imperfection, or as the speaker for one of the most popular TED Talks ever. When we spoke, she had just released her Netflix special, The Call To Courage, and it was a conversation that reminds me even today to appreciate the meaning that emerges from the human condition.
I want to bring back that conversation today in light of her most recent book, Atlas Of The Heart – all about the thousand different ways our body generates emotion. Like Emma McAdam says, stop trying to feel better, and get better at feeling – that’s something I’m still working on today. Brené’s work on the link between emotion and the meaning we make for ourselves is just as important today as it was in 2019.