Taming the Red Brain and Understanding How Fear and Anger Shape Our Lives
- Apr 2, 2025
- 5 min read
Written by Clint Adams, Mental Health Advocate & Coach
Clint Adams is an author who wrote a book on suicide prevention. He has appeared on numerous podcasts and has been a guest speaker on mental health and promoting resilience.
We often speak of mental health as a fragile thing, a delicate balance easily disrupted. But what if we reframed it? What if we understood that our minds, like our bodies, possess an inherent capacity for resilience? This isn't about ignoring the pain but understanding the architecture of our emotional responses and how to build stronger foundations.
My journey, from the stark realities of police work to the intricate landscapes of psychology (counselling) and human resources, has shown me one undeniable truth: We are not born with emotional mastery. We learn it, or we don’t. And far too often, we don’t. Far too often, we actually stumble around in the dark and let emotions take us where they want to go, not taking control and moving where we want to go. I have interviewed so many people when researching my book to understand how they literally end up where they do. The most vulnerable people have poor role models, and it leaves them so far behind people who have great role models.
Let’s talk about the brain not as a clinical diagram but as the engine of our experience.
We have the Blue Brain (Prefrontal Cortex), the architect of reason, the home of conscious thought, creativity, and analysis. It's the part that says, "Let's think this through." Then there's the Red Brain (Amygdala), the ancient sentinel, the seat of fear and anger, the "fight or flight" responder. It’s primal, instinctive, and powerful. Think of it like a fire alarm, great if there is a fire, but if it goes off all the time and there is no fire danger, it is an annoyance and unlike a fire alarm that is defective, we don’t ignore it, our body and brain responds like it is a real emergency every time. Is that good for you? No, it creates many long-term health issues if it is a pattern.
The Red Brain isn't the enemy. It's a survival mechanism, a legacy from our ancestors. But when it dominates, when fear and anger become the default settings, we're living in a state of constant reactivity, not responsive living.
As children, we absorb the world unconsciously. Every interaction and every experience writes code into our emotional operating system. This is where the seeds of fear and anger are often planted. If we grow up in an environment where these emotions are prevalent, they become our default settings. Adverse Childhood experiences or ACEs are good predictors of people who will struggle with their health in general, but largely because they develop patterns of fear and anger that leave a lasting impression.
Dr. Joe Dispenza describes it as the body becoming its own mind. Our thoughts create chemicals, which create feelings, which create more thoughts, in a self-perpetuating cycle. We become addicted to our emotional patterns. This isn’t bad if they are good patterns, but they can be harmful if you get stuck in ones that keep you stuck in a defensive mode.
My view on what skills are vitally important for schools to introduce and to provide regular opportunities for the children to practice is “crucial conversation” skills. The reason this is important is that if done well, it can allow the children to overcome any fears of having any type of conversation. Being able to address issues early on is extremely important to calibrate behaviour. It needs to be deliberate by the school in terms of what behaviour is expected and what will not be acceptable.
In the book Crucial Conversations, the team at Vitalsmarts introduces the Dialogue Model (below). In a nutshell, when we have a conversation, we throw information into a pool for anyone listening to hear. Each person sees or hears that, tells themselves a story, feels a certain way, and then acts. If both parties are feeling comfortable in the conversation/ dialogue, then they will continue to put information into the pool. But if there is some element of safety not being present, they can then go outside the pool and be in the red zone, which takes them to silence or violence.
Again, fight or flight comes into the equation. If the person goes to violence, it ultimately ends up in an aggressive response by one of the people, and then if the other person also responds that way, we have an argument, and no one is having a constructive conversation. If one of them goes to silence, they essentially “clam” up and won’t say what they really mean. If you follow the sequence from See & Hear to Act, this is essentially based on that pattern of behaviour we developed leading up to school. In a child’s world, they are clearly scared if someone is aggressive and will form some form of this defensive mechanism.
As students start at school, teachers should be made aware of the dialogue model and how they help create safety for the students to have conversations in the pool to address issues and focus on solutions. Essentially, my suggestion would be to allocate specific time each day, preferably towards the end of the day, for students to talk about things that happened to them, which they may not have been happy with, including someone else’s behaviour. These should be facilitated by the teacher, who is looking for anyone getting defensive or aggressive. The key here is to make it regular and get the students used to giving and receiving feedback.
But here’s the crucial point: we are not prisoners of our past. We can rewrite the code.
The first step is awareness. Understanding the interplay between our thoughts, feelings, and actions. Recognising when the Red Brain is hijacking the controls.
Then, we need to cultivate the Blue Brain. This isn't about suppressing emotions, but about building the capacity for conscious thought, for reflection, for choice.
I believe that “crucial conversations” are a vital tool. They teach us how to navigate difficult interactions and how to create safe spaces for dialogue. They help us move from reactivity to responsiveness. Schools, families, workplaces – we all need to learn these skills.
We need to teach our children and ourselves how to consciously shape our thought patterns. We need to practice courage and challenge the narratives that hold us back.
Emotions are not inherently bad. Sadness, shame, and anger are part of the human experience. But we cannot let them define us. We cannot let them trap us.
My work has shown me the incredible power of the human spirit to heal, to grow, and to transform. We are not victims of our emotions. We are the architects of our resilience.
This is not just an article; it’s a call to action. Let’s rewrite the code. Let’s build a world where mental wellness is not a privilege but a fundamental right.
Read more from Clint Adams
Clint Adams, Mental Health Advocate & Coach
Clint Adams is a former Police officer turned counselor who has worked in numerous industries promoting better mental health and resilience at the school and work level.
He has a background in psychology and behavioural science and is the author of Lighting the Blue Flame, a book aimed at suicide prevention, which is an interactive book with numerous QR codes linking to various sites and additional information.
