Full Mental Jacket Series: Chapter 1

Chapter 1: Understanding Fear & Anger

Over the years, a combination of factors, including my studies in psychology and rehabilitation as well as my experience as a police officer, injury management consultant and HR professional has led me to the view that we do not teach our children key “vital behavioural skills.” More specifically how to take control of our thoughts, because without doing that it can then lead to a significant number of issues later in life.

There are certain key behaviours which involve enhancing self-awareness, and how an individual then chooses to deal with situations as they arise. If parents and schools were more aware of the physiological and social psychology, they can certainly help them to grow up and deal with life in a much more robust way.

I am going to cover off some basic psychology for ease of explanation, but acknowledge that there is a greater complexity involved, which includes neurotransmitters and hormones etc., but in this context, we do not need to go to that detail.

I will focus broadly on 2 areas of the brain (see image below to show size differences)

1. The Cerebral Cortex (which I will refer to as BLUE BRAIN)
2.  The Amygdala (which I will refer to as RED BRAIN)

Blue Brain is quite a large part of the brain. It is:

• The reflective part of the brain.
• Linked to where we do our conscious thinking and analysing.
•  It involves our imagination, creativity and labels our emotional state
• The blue brain requires a lot of blood to function.

Red Brain on the other hand is:

• Linked with Fear the Primary Emotion and the Secondary Emotion Anger
• Responsible for the Emotional Component of a memory.
• Activates bodies response to danger.
• Involved in emotional learning.
• Memories of emotional experiences are imprinted in synapses in this area

In this instance I am going to focus on how fear and anger can have a negative effect on us. While the emotions themselves are not bad, they can be extremely limiting and dangerous if we allow it. As a police officer I have seen many angry people who have done things in anger that have left their lives and others destroyed because of their actions.

Fear is another component which can be limiting and dangerous. Fear at its extreme can lead to phobias and high levels of anxiety that prevent people from even venturing out of the house in some instances or have such irrational thoughts and worries it affects their lives in a very detrimental way.

As we grow up this “fight or flight” instinct (Red Brain) can become a big component of unconscious learning and this forms an undercurrent of the type of lens that we look at the world through.

The way we are wired affects how we learn when we are young. it is important to understand that there are 4 parts involved in what we learn and how we make decisions over time in terms of what we have learned and “how” we have learnt them in the past.

The 4 components are:

1. Conscious Thoughts (Blue Brain)
2. Unconscious Thoughts (Includes various parts of the Brain)
3. Body (Physical)
4. Emotions (Feeling/Physical)

As a baby most of what we take in is quite passive and because we are not able to “consciously” make sense of the world from our experiences and surroundings, we are mainly taking things in unconsciously, even the physical experiences although tangible, are processed on an unconscious level.

Young children don’t yet have an analytical mind to edit and make sense of what happens to them, so most information they absorb comes in at a subconscious level. As children we are more highly suggestible so if something happens with high emotion, on a subconscious level we build a subconscious association with whatever caused that emotion, which is how early childhood experiences become subconscious states of being.

It is also important to understand what actually happens when we have a thought and how the body, brain and emotions all become involved. According to Dr. Joe Dispenza in his book You are the Placebo. When we have a thought, the brain creates a neurotransmitter and it creates a neuropeptide which sends a message to the body, which reacts by having a “feeling.” The brain then generates a thought matched to that exact feeling that will create chemical messages that allow you to think the way you were just feeling. As we complete this process for the first time as babies, we are greatly affected by what is happening around us.

If you are unfortunate enough to be born in a violent or angry environment you make sense of the world through the experiences you have, and you have thoughts and “feelings” that go with that experiences. Ultimately the more you repeat the pattern of thoughts, and go through the same process described above, it becomes hardwired and eventually the body subconsciously becomes conditioned to become its own mind or decision maker.

We have this view that we make decisions with our conscious and rational brain (blue brain) but in reality, we make it with how we “feel” and how it has been hardwired into our body through the experiences and emotions we have attached to it. How we react in situations is also dependent on the others around us. The social aspect of us as humans plays a huge part in our behaviour.

To illustrate, I would use the following example. If I fall over in front of my group of friends, they will laugh and point at me, and more than likely I will laugh too and probably not worry about it too much. But let’s say the same thing happens in front of a girl or boy I really like or complete strangers? Suddenly the context is different even though the event is the same. Now there might be an element of embarrassment or shame. This can turn into something if we “choose” it to.

As we grow up and interact with others, we constantly get feedback on how we should behave, and we learn the rules of the society or culture that we live in. Often, we use fear as a way to get people to comply. The laws of the land often have penalties associated with any breaking of those laws. This is intended to create a fear of punishment to create law abiding citizens.

In a smaller way and at the family level, parents and other family members will also use fear to get their children to be obedient and conform to what that society considers acceptable behaviour. This can be subtle but is intended to make the person fearful. Comments about body image or not being good enough or wearing the wrong clothes from a parent can have lasting effects and the child has that thought patterns hardwired and feel an emotion associated with that thought in the body.

This is all quite unconsciously learnt, and the child will have their thoughts and behaviour shaped. This is also not a bad thing as we want our children to be accepted within society and follow the rules and become strong citizens that contribute to the world in meaningful ways, but sometimes the intention causes negative patterns. So, if someone is continually “feeling” fear, they can develop that undercurrent of fear and then they develop that fearful lens. Fear and anger do go hand in hand as the survival instinct is either Fight or Flight, so over time some people can develop an anger pattern, which plays out in them being bullies or just aggressive as their undercurrent.

In my roles in HR I have come across patterns of behaviour that show the impact of this undercurrent of Red Brain. The Human Synergistics https://human-synergistics.com.au/ research gives some insight on this, as it compares managers across the world based on 3 styles, one, which is the constructive style (Blue) and the other 2, funny enough is based on an Aggressive Defensive style (Red) and a Passive Defensive style (Green). https://www.human-synergistics.com.au/about-us/the-circumplex Those with high scores in these 2 styles tend to be less effective. Those with the aggressive styles in short have more people related issues, while those who are highly passive, and defensive tend to be highly compliant and people pleasers and tend to worry more.

So, what has all this have to do with helping with mental health and resilience, I hear you ask? I believe that the reason a lot of people don’t ask for help if they are struggling with mental health issues is because there is a fear factor attached to them discussing the issue. Possibly the fear that they will be considered weak or of being laughed at or many other fears, but ultimately it is our home life and society that has instilled that “pattern” in us, so we don’t talk about things in a good constructive way.

The reason people don’t raise issues at work is for the same reason. There is a fear factor with raising poor behaviour with a colleague. There are common factors in a lot of these social interactions, but it is actually the mental struggle and the understanding of this Fear and Anger and how it can dominate how we interact and how we can either choose to act or choose not to act. Making a decision to not do something is also an action.

Understanding Fear and Anger and how it shapes the individual, especially in a social context is the key to helping children to grow up into healthy, mentally and socially strong individuals. I will now refer to the 4 components that really makes up a person:

• Conscious Thoughts (Blue Brain)
• Unconscious Thoughts
• Body (Physical)
• Emotions (Feeling/Physical)

If you think of the person in this context, most of our initial thoughts have been quite unconscious and the emotions and how we feel is already hardwired into the body and taken place mostly unconsciously. Regardless of what is hardwired, the only way to make changes if Fear or Anger has been a dominant factor is to consciously think our way out of it ourselves, or parents and schools can help provide an environment and opportunities to develop better patterns of thought, which can then be hardwired and diminish the effect of fear and anger.

You don’t drown by falling in the water, you drown by staying there!!

Edwin Louis Cole

While I am mostly focusing on Fear and Anger, because it is a survival instinct and can have a significant impact on us, doing this work can also assist with others helping us deal with other emotions. As the quote above suggests, our emotions aren’t bad, but being stuck in a consistent pattern of an emotion can be devastating. Sadness, shame, fear and anger can all have a negative impact if we let it.

My view on what skills is 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 by the team at Vitalsmarts they introduce the Dialogue Model (below). In a nutshell when we have a conversation we are throwing information into a Pool for anyone listening to hear. Each person sees or hears that, they tell themselves a story, they feel a certain way and then they act. 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 have developed leading up to school.

As students start at school, teachers should be made aware of the dialogue model and how they help create the 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.

Over time it gives them the skills to effectively talk about issues and it also allows much better calibration and feedback on each person’s behaviour, because each student also hears what behaviour is and isn’t acceptable. It also allows the individual to hopefully stay calmer in those situations and develop less fear at the “Feel” phase before they act.

The other component for the teachers to understand is how they develop “courage” in their students. Setting up those conversation opportunities is helpful but to accelerate the process and get them to overcome negative unconscious patterns they have developed before they got to school they need to understand the importance of the Conscious Thoughts power.

Dr. Joe Dispenza likens our unconscious thoughts as like riding a wild horse. It can take us to great places, but if we let it, it can take us into bad places as well. He says that in order to get it to work for us, we need to take control of it. The only way to do that is through the Conscious Thoughts. As described earlier you understand how our thought patterns develop early on, but we can proactively develop good thought patterns as well and these get hardwired and become habitual as well. The key is around using our Conscious Thoughts to do this if there are any habitual negative thoughts.

Through my work with people with PTSD we can obviously develop negative patterns of thought through a number of different ways, even from 1 very bad experience. The key again is to Consciously do something to change it and then use that Conscious Thought patterns to develop plans to change the old habits into better ones and make them become hardwired, so that the “Story” we tell ourselves is a more positive one and our feelings are better which lead to better actions.

In the next instalment I will cover off on strategies to help with those who are struggling with mental health issues.

Clint Adams is a former Victorian police officer who studied psychology and later, Rehabilitation Counselling. His police, counselling injury management, senior HR roles and working with asylum seekers have made him develop insights into the psychology and social interactions of individuals in trying conditions.

He has developed various behavioural and leadership programs to help people deal with various issues from PTSD to bullying and harassment. He is a keynote speaker on Suicide Prevention and Diversity and runs programs on mental health and wellbeing for corporate organisations and sporting organisations for teens.

 Below are some links to interviews, podcasts, articles and videos I have done

Interview on the Informer: https://theinformer.tv/education/saving-kids-lives-one-page-at-a-time/

 Book review and interview: Employ health https://blog.employhealth.com.au/book-review-lighting-the-blue-flame

 Tim Krass: Podcast on Mental Health Time Out For Mental Health: Police Officer To Mental Health Awareness | Clint Adams on Apple Podcasts

 The Virtual Campfire Podcast The Virtual Campfire's Podcast: Preventing Suicide and Coping with Trauma with Clint Adams (libsyn.com)

 Suicide Prevention Summit: Keynote Speaker https://www.youtube.com/watch?reload=9&v=whQcxANqjwQ&feature=youtu.be

 Body Science Podcast https://www.bodyscience.com.au/blog/post/175-suicide-prevention-and-building-mental-resilience-with-clint-adams

 Leader Flow Podcast: Red Brain Blue Brain Part 1 https://player.whooshkaa.com/episode?id=725420

 Leader Flow Podcast: Red Brain Blue Brain Part 2 https://player.whooshkaa.com/episode?id=728049

 Promotional Page: https://www.all-about-psychology.com/lighting-the-blue-flame.html

 Changemakers Podcast https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8HE0ENjY8a8

 The Voice on Fire Podcast: https://anchor.fm/terri-mitchell/episodes/The-Voice-on-Fire-Interview---Series-2---Clint-Adams-eknb6a/a-a3fetls

 Article in Front Runners Innovate Magazine: https://www.frontrunnersinnovate.com/full-mental-jacket/

Full Mental Jacket Part 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HWwrGUirlBk&t=2s

 Full Mental Jacket Part 2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E6vkaLL4mYc&t=7s

 Podcast: The Stigma Around Suicide with Clint Adams - The Mental Health Show with Mark Aiston - Auscast Wellbeing - Omny.fm

 Podcast: Social Mission Revolution: https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/clint-adams-preventing-teen-suicide-and-bullying/id1467081193?i=1000483204494

 Podcast: How not to think about…… https://www.buzzsprout.com/730841/4617590

 Podcast: Men are nuts: https://podcasts.apple.com/qa/podcast/clint-adams-speaker-author-lighting-blue-flame-looks/id1496480241?i=1000476263033

 Panel Discussion: Child Sex Trafficking https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4cTMO6Y0E34

 Article in Smart Healthy Women Magazine: https://smarthealthywomen.com/importance-of-selfawareness/

 Radio Interview: BBS Radio: https://bbsradio.com/podcast/sudden-i-impact-july-29-2020

Protectcorp Linkedin Promotion: https://www.dhirubhai.net/feed/update/urn:li:activity:6703458739011354624/