bodily harm in one way or another. The emotional center doesn’t distinguish between physical threats or personal ones, which means it perceives insults, harsh criticism, and condemnation with the same level of alarm that it would with a fist, a bear attack, or an oncoming truck. It’s responding to a danger to our well-being, and to do so, it hoards the chemicals we’d normally use for other brain-driven activity—such as learning. So motivating someone to learn by threats or reproach isn’t just ineffective—it’s impossible. If one is feeling hurt or mistrusted, or if they’re dealing with
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