In this episode of Around the Circle, Jeff continues through Brené Brown’s Atlas of the Heart, exploring the places we go when we search for connection: belonging, fitting in, insecurity, invisibility, disconnection, and loneliness.

This time, we're not just talking Enneagram, but Spiral Dynamics, and Aristotle’s three kinds of friendship—asking what separates relationships built around usefulness or pleasure from those rooted in genuine care for one another’s growth. This episode explores why authentic belonging requires both a strong relationship with ourselves and the vulnerability to be truly known by others.

Lastly, it turns toward loneliness and the importance of investing not simply in more relationships, but in a few relationships of real depth: people who see us, know us, challenge us, and genuinely care about who we are becoming.

What happens when falling short becomes a verdict about who we are?

In this episode of the Reading Room, Jeff continues through Brené Brown’s Atlas of the Heart, exploring shame, guilt, humiliation, embarrassment, perfectionism, and self-compassion. We look at Brown’s distinction between “I did something bad” and “I am bad,” why empathy can disrupt shame, and how perfectionism can turn achievement into a measure of our worth.

The conversation also pushes into Enneagram territory: Do different types experience shame differently? When does healthy striving become perfectionism? And if we are not what we accomplish, where should we locate our value?

A conversation about failure, empathy, connection, achievement, and learning to make room for being imperfect.

Empathy is harder than we think.

In this episode of Reading Room, Jeff continues through Chapter 7 of Brené Brown's Atlas of the Heart, exploring the emotional landscape of compassion, empathy, pity, sympathy, boundaries, and comparative suffering.

Along the way, Jeff connects Brown's research with Aristotle, Wittgenstein, Buddhist thought, and the Enneagram, asking what it actually means to accompany another person in pain without trying to fix, rescue, or distance ourselves from them.

The conversation explores why empathy is a skill rather than an instinct, why compassion requires both courage and restraint, how pity and sympathy quietly undermine connection, and why healthy boundaries are an essential part of loving others well. Jeff also reflects personally on how these themes challenge him as an Enneagram One and considers whether genuine maturity requires moving from individual achievement toward shared human experience.

Join us for the live Reading Room discussion each Tuesday at AroundtheCircle.org