Atlas of The Heart Book Review

The Near Enemies of Health: Awareness, Buddhism, Emotional Granulation, Near Enemies, and Brené Brown

Stop being your own “near enemy.” Life will throw you enough lemons—you don’t need to bamboozle yourself with an avalanche of fruit.

All terrible lemon jokes aside, too many of us (often unknowingly) get in our own way. We are our own near enemies—we engage in self-talk and behaviours that sneakily undermine our progress.

The goal of this blog is to help you learn how to spot when you are unconsciously sabotaging your own success!

Okay. Let me back up.

Enter Brené Brown’s Atlas of the Heart and the Buddhist concept of near enemies.

I just finished Brene Brown’s most recent book, Atlas of the Heart. According to Audible, in Atlas of the Heart Brown “takes us on a journey through 87 of the emotions and experiences that define what it means to be human… showing us that accurately naming an experience doesn’t give the experience more power, it gives us the power of understanding, meaning, and choice.” In Kathleen-speak, Atlas of the Heart is a map that allows us to find, name, and navigate the world of emotions.

Why would Brown spend an entire book breaking down the world of emotions? What does this have to do with your health quest? How does this pertain to near enemies.

All good questions! Let me answer them one at a time.

Question #1. Why spend an entire book on the world of emotions in Atlas of the Heart?

As humans we too often buy into the myth that we are thinking beings who feel, but really, we are feeling beings who think. Thus, it is critical to both understand our emotions and have the language and skills to communicate our needs, boundaries, and fears.

Emotional granulation (i.e., knowing the difference between our emotions) and emotional regulation (basically, the ability to talk ourselves off the emotional ledge) are not nice-to-have skills—they are absolute musts for life and health.

Question #2. What does Atlas of the Heart have to do with our health quest?

Creating your fitter future you requires you to understand what you are thinking, feeling, and needing; you must learn to ask for what you need, set boundaries around your time, and course correct quickly. Reaching any health goal requires you to speak the language of emotion.

You must be able to state things like, “My walk at lunch is a non-negotiable” or, “It is not okay to shame me about my body. I am not okay with you mentioning my weight in that way.” You need to be able to state what is and is not okay.

You need to know how to emotionally regulate and recalibrate. You will fall off your health horse; health wobbles are an inherent part of life. The question is not “will you fall?” but “how quickly will you course correct?” You will never reach your goals if you continually let the desires of the moment derail you from your long-term goals.

In short, physical fitness requires emotional fitness. Your health quest is not separate from the rest of your life. How we treat our bodies is inextricably linked to how we understand and connect to others and ourselves.

Question # 3. How does this pertain to near enemies?

Enter the Buddhist concept of near enemies. Near enemies is one of the 87 emotions and experiences that Brown walks the reader through in Atlas of the Heart.

A near enemy is a state of mind that appears like or similar to the desired state while undermining it. A near enemy is the opposite of a far enemy. Far enemies are easy to spot. They are the opposite of the desired state. They are upfront with their disconnection.

With health we often let our near enemies—things that masquerade as healthy but are actually unhealthy—sabotage our journey. More on that in a bit. I want to focus on understating the original Buddhist concept first.

Take “compassion” as an example. Compassion, when executed properly, leads to mutual connection. The far enemy of compassion is cruelty. Cruelty obviously undermines a compassionate connection. Pity, on the other hand, is stealthier. Pity is a near enemy of compassion. Saying “dear, dear” to someone in pain may sound compassionate, but when you pity someone, you see that person as inferior. A “dear dear” interaction separates the two people.

Near enemies are a greater threat to connection because they are harder to recognize. Near enemies seem kind but are anything but. Since they are so stealthy, we often internalize the pain caused by these enemies and think that something is wrong with us.

Near Enemies of Health

A near enemy of health is any choice, belief, emotion, or behaviour that could be mistaken for helpful and healthy but in reality, separates us from our fitter future selves. Do you see the trend? The common denominator is that all near enemies pass as experiences that take you closer to your health goal but actually undermine your overall health process.

In the words of Stephanie Tanner from “Full House,” “HOW RUDE!”

A near enemy can be a food that masquerades as healthy. I call these foods “unhealthy healthy” foods. A near enemy can also be a thought pattern we think is helping us but is undermining our self-confidence and self-respect, and thus derails our health consistency. Near enemy thought patterns include perfectionist and shame-based self-talk, a misrepresentation of need, and/or porous boundaries.

(Note: I want to flag that the “near enemies of health” is a Kathleen concept. The Buddha—to my knowledge—never talked about things like “unhealthy healthy.” I am expanding the original Buddhist concept because I think it fits the world of health perfectly.)

The opposite of a near enemy is a far enemy. The far enemies of health are the obvious roadblocks: the Doritos we regularly binge on, the sleep we don’t prioritize, the workouts we routinely skip. Most of us can recognize the large roadblocks standing between current us and our fitter future selves—we don’t need help pinpointing them. I am not arguing that eliminating these roadblocks is easy or that these roadblocks are not exceedingly damaging. I am just saying that we don’t really need someone to point out that that Doritos are full of preservatives or that it is almost impossible to get fit if you miss 90% of your scheduled workouts. These types of choices are obviously unhelpful—they are far enemies of health. They are so far removed from being and becoming healthy that you can’t even pretend that doing them aligns with your health and wellness goals.

Today we delve into unhealthy healthy foods.

(I am going to write a separate blog post that delves into near enemy self-talk and thought patterns. I couldn’t get all the juicy discussion into one blog post! Sneak peek: a perfection mindset is a near enemy to health. We think working for “perfect” makes us more conscious when in reality, a perfectionist mindset drives life paralysis and is positively correlated with loneliness, eating disorders, depression, and anxiety.)

Unhealthy healthy foods: Examples of near enemies of health

Near-Enemy Foods #1
Think of foods high in sugar and/or salt that masquerade as health food: store-bought muffins (just cake in the shape of a muffin), juice (liquid sugar), most store-bought granola (sugar and fat), frozen “healthy” dinners (preservatives and salt), most gluten-free desserts (just because they don’t have gluten doesn’t mean they are healthy), and fat-free snacks (usually devoid of nutrients and full of artificial crap and sugar).

Challenge yourself. Journal your food and/or your inner dialogue. Become aware of sneaky foods that seem healthy but that end up stealthily sabotaging progress. Become mindful of what, how, and why you eat! Don’t try to “scam the system”— a gluten-free cookie can be made of as much crap as a regular cookie. Cutting out sweets and fried food is hard work, but knowing they need to be eliminated (or at least reduced) is usually a no-brainer. The less obvious culprits—unhealthy health foods—tend to slide under the radar and inadvertently sabotage progress.

Near-Enemy Foods #2

Think foods that are healthy in moderation (as in, if you eat one or two portions) but not when consumed willy-nilly: almonds, peanut butter, crackers, high-glycemic-index fruits (e.g., mangos, pineapple), and hummus.

This category is especially significant for people who want to lose weight. The key to weight loss is not only food selection, but portion control. Too often, when one knows something is healthy, one is less mindful and doesn’t worry about portion control. It is true that nuts, such as almonds, are healthy but too many of us grab handful after handful in a day. An entire large bag is not part of a nutritionally balanced day. Copious amounts of almonds—although, yes, more nutrient dense than copious amounts of potato chips—are still not helpful to your health quest, especially if one of your goals is to lose weight.

No matter what you are eating, portion control is key! Don’t stand at a party or at your kitchen counter and snack mindlessly. Sit down and enjoy what you are eating. If you decide to have an amazing piece of cake, great. Enjoy your treat. Just have one small slice, not seven.

Two Main Takeaways

1. You are not going to reach your health and wellness goals by finding the perfect diet, fitness hack, or health guru. You must work on your emotional fitness and your physical fitness. How we navigate our health quest is inextricably linked to the other parts of our lives.
2. Pinpoint your personal near enemies. Awareness is key. You can’t fight your enemies until you are aware they exist! (Maybe eventually you can even learn how to befriend your enemies, but first things first: you have to know who they are.) You need to be aware enough to know what is throwing you off your health path. Then you need strategies to manage those situations. Sure, awareness is not the answer in and of itself, but without awareness nothing is possible. You can’t decide to make a change if you are not aware that the change is needed in the first place.

Final Thoughts

Being human is messy. As Brené Brown would say, make your goal not to “be right” but to “get it right.” Don’t aim for perfect. Work towards mastery and growth.

Health is a process. You don’t need to know your destination; you just need to know your orientation. Have your compass calibrate to “growth mindset.” Think “everything is just data.” Know that you are working to become a fitter, happier, healthier version of you but that there is not one right way to get there.

Learn to recognize your near enemies. Learn to recognize your emotions. Work towards emotional regulation and granulation. Take one step at a time!