3 Zones

From Ana Maria Diaz Tirado

(Revised 14 September 2025 by Clinton Callahan)

The usefulness in distinguishing 3 Zones is that each of them requires a different path to continue walking in the Learning Spiral.

'The Green Zone' is when the person is feeling their feelings, meaning, in High Drama, experimenting at the edge of their Conscious Incompetences, receiving feedback from the Universe, shifting and GOing again with a new experiment, Discovering and on the Path of Evolution. The Green Zone can then be regarded as 'The Learning Zone'.

'The Red Zone' is when the person is highly in survival, there is very little space in them to be Here and Now, Present in their Adult Ego State. It is often very noticeable when someone is in the Red Zone, because their survival strategies are at play and one or more of their 5 Bodies is likely unbalanced as a result. They experience being 'overwhelmed'. The Red Zone is a survival zone and not a learning zone.

It is neither 'good' nor 'bad' to be in any particular Zone. Being in a Zone is mostly a mechanical result of the design of your Box (for example, the "I'm okay" Box, and "I'm not okay" Box) and your Gremlin working in cahoots with your Survival Strategy.

When you or whoever you are relating with is in the Red Zone, there is no reason not to stay there. For certain, you (or they) have been in the Red Zone before. What is interesting is to discover why you (or they) are in the Red Zone now, e.g. the benefit you (or they) receive from being there, and also, what Story you (or they) used to get yourself (or themselves) there this time. The world is rich in evidence. There is evidence to support any Story you (or they) wish to create. Whatever Story it is, it is not true. It is a Story. You just created it using very flimsy evidence. Believing that a Story you just made up is true is a sign of a weak Inner Structure.

As a Survival Strategy, putting yourself into the Red Zone using a story (e.g. "I am overwhelmed." "You are stressing me out." "This is too much for me, and it is your fault!" "I don't know how to do this." "I'm a loser." "I will never get this." "Nobody really cares about me." "I don't fit in here." Or any of the other 100 Loopholes...) is not a problem. It is not wrong or stupid. It is simply what you are doing to yourself right now. It has consequences that take you out of the current 'game' or gameworld, and make you seem harmless enough that no one has to attack you. Going into the Red Zone has succeeded for you before. It can 'succed' for you again, depending on how you define the term 'success'.

The relevant question is, "What do you want to do about it right now?"

"I want to do nothing about it," is an acceptable answer.

One way to navigate out of the Red Zone, if you want, and into the Green Zone is through creating a vacuum, creating an inner space in order to become more Present in the 5 bodies. WARNING: Creating an inner space does not mean running away from the fear. Creating an inner space might mean Practicing a Basic Inner Navigation Skill such as using a Listening space, a 5 Body check in, letting your Heart Speak, Centering Grounding and Bubbling, or perhaps Completing an Incomplete Emotion. Some people unconsciously spend a lot of their lives in the Red Zone, thinking they have no other choice about it.

The 'Grey Zone' is when you (or someone else) feel 'bored', or says, "I am bored." Either you (or they) are Unconsciously Incompetent in sourcing what you (or they) actually want to create, or, your Survival Strategy is to be 'bored' to create confusion and use this to attack the Spaceholder (such as your parents, or the teacher at school). Being Bored is a powerful Survival Strategy. Going into the Grey Zone is similar to going into the Red Zone in that it takes you (or them) away from the edge of Aliveness and Discovery in the Learning Spiral by creating Low Drama. You may think you are making yourself 'safe'. It could be that you are simply entering the Fantasy World that 'security' is possible.

When you, or whoever you are relating with, goes into the Grey Zone, they may have spiraled up into Unconscious Competence in a skill that has taken considerable energy and attention, leaving sudden space for them to discover a new dimension of practice they do not yet know that they are hungry for. What they need in plain lenguage might be a simple 'kick in the butt', an energy and information impulse from the Universe (a.k.a feedback) about a part of themselves that they don’t know that they don’t know could potentially unfold, which would require starting over in Conscious Incompetence in the next level of the Learning Spiral.

(NOTE FROM ANA MARIA: I extracted this from my last newsletter. To read the whole thing: https://mailchi.mp/fcf2bba53307/the-villaging-bridgehouse)

From Vera Luísa Franco

It seems that the Grey Zone is the zone in which most people in the world live. This might not have anything to do with unconscious competence of a particular skill from say, a musician, or a dancer, unless you might be talking about unconscious competence of the Box.

I love that many people are talking about 3 Zones, I guess because it seems to be needed. And I think I have heard of at least 4 different maps of the 3 Zones, all with different distinctions.

One map has a Green Zone, a Yellow Zone, and a Red Zone. On this map, the Yellow Zone is the Learning Zone, the Green Zone is the Comfort Zone (similar to your Grey zone), and the Red Zone is the danger zone, where people do not learn.

Another map locates the Red Zone beyond reactivity, where people avoid being present in any way. In the Red Zone a person stops listening and learning. They stop Building Matrix.

The Green Zone is just at the edge of the Box where new experience and learning can happen. The Pink Zone is when a person leaves their body and goes into a Fantasy World, or 'zones out'.

(EDITOR'S NOTE: The 'Pink Zone' is represented by the 'pink cloud' in the 3 Zones website logo...)

From Gabriel Hudrey

I heard something about the Pink Zone. It is when a person is not aware of their danger zone (Red Zone), pretending that all is okay, or else thinking they are okay, because they have the habit of living in the Red Zone so much that they're not aware that they are currently in a Survival Situation.

I heard about the Pink Zone in Radical Collaboration, and the image is a watermelon which is colored Green Zone on the outside (pretending it is okay) but Pink Zone in the inside.

I love the Calrity of your Maps! @AnaMariaDiazTirado !

From Sarah Von Helden

I experienced this distinction of the 3 Zones in the Women Of Earth Lab last week. I was totally numb and the words from @VeraLuisaFranco and Anne-Chloé could enter my mental body, but then there was a gap to understand what they say. So I started with the latest program I had which was, "I feel fear," but I was so afraid that I wasn't able to feel anything. I was waiting for an order that my brain could get, something known. I saw myself trying to produce the experience of sadness as a Survival Strategy because this helped my body to relax and release when I was a child. For this I also need a known story. That helps me experience something familiar again so I feel 'safe'.

My energetic body was still offline a day before in another process, but I didn't know this. I was stuck with, that I would need connection but in a way I could not tell. I asked a woman to sit at my side. Later she went away and didn't come back. I didn't reach out to someone else and went into my robot mode. I thing that I was trying to 'put myself back together again' so that I could pretend to go on with the training like a robot, instead of being in contact with somebody about how crushed I was feeling inside. I could only function.

Thank you for the map with these 3 Zone distinctions.

I now understand that I am, since months, in the Red Zone, and that I really need deep connection and intimacy with other human beings if I want to create something different. I need a step-by-step going with what comes up in the processes of creation. My strategy has been to try to let my Being unfold in the doing, and when those things are all done, then I finally have a space where I can unfold. The things to do never get all done.

I need more time to create than I was aware. Actually I have been researching about how to unfold my Being in joy when I open a door for spaceholding. To invite my son, my friends, my relatives into a space. I need fewer spaces for connection because now I deepen the relating where I actually am.

That also relaxes my nervous system. It's creating in creation. Thank you @SandraMathes for your spaceholding and bridging me back into my body, being the Love, Clarity, and Integrity I needed to land again and again.

Love,

Sarah

From Christine Dürschner

I use the following thoughtmap for Scanning and categorizing the capacity, the availability to work, of clients so I can decide what is needed from my approach.

It differentiates from the perspective, which I love by the way, what Ana María was bringing, which gathered the behaviors and actions and the resources which are used or not used from the client. The map colors are: Green Zone, Orange Zone, and Red Zone.

Green Zone

The person is available to receive and is open to jump into the pool of transformation.

They are Present, Centered and Grounded. Their nervous system is relaxed to the degree that they have choice to do the work, to be open to practice skills and expanding the capacity of embodying the natural resources available as feelings and energetic tools. Building Matrix is possible.

Clarity, Healing, Transformation, Empowerment, Possibilities are possible.

Orange Zone

The person is in the midst of a Liquid State. They are riding an emotional rollercoaster, or a grief process is happening, where they move through all the feelings in a disordered way. Unconscious groundedlessness and not knowing is present. More input is not possible and also not useful.

Integration, Healing, Acceptance, Caring is necessary

Red Zone

The nervous system is fully activated into the flight, fight, or freeze mode. The focus is on trying to regulate the body to a degree that it is possible to build inner resources with baby steps, while regulating a gentle learning how to get out of fight, flight or freeze mode is happening.

Presence, Tenderness, Slowness, Possibilities is needed

Love, Christine