Lori Pannell is a leadership coach certified in Conversational Intelligence, and she is an Energy Leadership Index master practitioner. She is also a valued leader in our Echoes of Recovery program, and she joins Sheri and Matt to talk about how thoughts lead to feelings which drive our actions. Lori shares some really practical advice about managing feelings and emotions that is applicable to both alcoholics and loved ones working through recovery. For access to the Feelings Inventory, please click this link.
If you are or were the partner of an alcoholic, please check out our Alcoholic Intimacy Survey.
If you love or loved an alcoholic, and your recovery could benefit from connection with people who understand, please check out our Echoes of Recovery program.
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So I will add a personal note about my own experiences with cortisol. In 2020 at the height of COVID19, burnout from nursing and the stress of dealing with my spouse’s spiraling alcohol addiction I sought out the services of a naturopath. Basically they will talk to you, run a bunch of lab tests, and then make personal lifestyle prescriptions including exercise, routines, supplements etc. One of my top complaints was fatigue and morning sluggishness. They ran the cortisol saliva study (twice because the initial results were so dismal). The results essentially indicated that my cortisol levels were quite low and there was no cortisol spike in the mornings when I was waking up. Which initially made me think “wow, great, I am as cool as a cucumber”. But what was posited by the naturopath was actually a deficiency of a necessary hormone due to adrenal fatigue, which can be caused by any number of medical or psychiatric conditions, just one of which is chronic PTSD. So my take would be to not dismiss certain hormones like adrenaline or cortisol as “bad” or unnecessary to a modern life swaddled in relative comfort free from actual lions, tigers and bears. All of these hormones and neurotransmitters are vitally important to well being and to our ability to function as healthy humans.
Excellent point, Lisa. Thank you for the correction. You are right. Assigning definitive labels to hormones with a purpose is a bad idea, and we will be careful how we discuss cortisol and others in the future. Thanks for helping us learn and grow!