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22 step 4. lower Cortisol with the power oF Your presenCe

FEAR AND FURY BOTH RELEASE CORTISOL.

Instinctual responses are part of life. Sometimes they’re good, but not when you
don’t like the results.

It’s hard to control your own response to emotional pain. It is PAIN, after all.
It’s especially painful when the other person isn’t loving you. It’s even harder
if they’re actively firing hate darts in your direction and don’t care that you’re
hurting. CRH, ACTH, cortisol … they’re all so ready to flow. It’s about to
happen inside you. No escape.

But there are ways to escape. You don’t have to hurt or hate. You can find a new
place to go in your head and your heart. And respond from there.

Lots of books have been written about how to change your response. It can take
a lifetime to figure out. But this is about shortcuts, simple steps to get away from
cortisol’s claim on your head, your heart, and your appetite.

This tool is for a very specific kind of pain: instant reaction pain. The event
hurts, but your reaction can hurt you even more.

To use this exercise, you don’t have to change that much. It’s a small adjustment,
like adjusting a rear view mirror.

TWO HANDS, ONE HEART.

There are plenty of people who are more comfortable expressing anger and

frustration than any other feeling. It’s a primitive, lizard brain reaction to threat.
They are living from their adrenals. They are always at one extreme or the other.
Cortisol is always flowing. Either they’re defensive and blaming you for their

pain, or they’re angry and trying to inflict pain onto you. They can change. And
one day they probably will. But it hasn’t happened yet. So you’ve got to realize
what’s going on. And deal with it in a way that protects you and might even help
them.