Heart Language

#Bloganuary Writing Prompt: What book is next on your reading list?

There are many vying for attention, but I’ll tell you about the one I’ve just started reading and that was alluded to yesterday – Brené Brown’s Atlas of the Heart: Mapping Meaningful Connection and the Language of Human Experience.

I had a book gift voucher to spend and wandered into the chain store pondering what on earth I might spend it on. And there it was – calling out my name! And only 5 bucks more than the value on the gift card.

Why did it call to me? My life long disposition, as people focused as it is, has been a bit dyslexic as far as “feeling” language is concerned. I have trouble accurately naming the emotions depicted above, even though I feel empathy with anyone experiencing them. Of the head, body and heart centers, I live primarily in my head and am adept at “thinking” language. I gradually learned to spend some time in the “body” center, my secondary preference. There I can discuss how I experience something, no longer limited to my thoughts. This has been a gift in connecting with others. Most remote to me, but important for the continuing journey of integration and communication, is my heart center, where nameless emotions roil and churn.

Maybe Brown’s book is the primer I’ve been ready for for sometime (I’m in my 70s!) – why it called my name when I went browsing. Maybe the juxtaposition of experience in the subtitle had something to do with it. Maybe Brown’s 13 clusters of 87 emotions will open up that next frontier of unexplored territory where phenomena recognised and experienced can be felt and named.

Whatever, it represents a beckoning forth and I am always up for that! Now back to some reading …