This blog is an excerpt from my up coming online hybrid course. Please read my previous blog, A Window into Managing Emotional Outbursts and Numbness, first, which will give you context for these concepts.
We know a bigger Window of Tolerance helps you feel a wider range of emotions and sensations. But how do you achieve this expansion?. Some of the tools we’ve covered can provide immediate relief and offer new pathways for your nervous system, lasting change occurs through consistent practice over time.
Initially, you may think this breathing practice isn’t working, but suddenly, five minutes into it, you do feel calmer. It’s common to feel discouraged after weeks or months of daily meditation without noticeable changes until suddenly, something clicks, and you find yourself in a chronic state of gratitude instead of experiencing panic attacks.
When I first started doing grounding practices, I really couldn’t tell the difference because anxiety was constantly running through me. Somatic bodywork had me feel the terrifying experiences and emotions I had dissociated from. It felt worse before it felt better, but I also began to develop an observer who could hold and talk to those scared parts, planting a seed of safety within me. Feeling terrified didn’t destroy me; feeling the anger I’d avoided for a decade didn’t destroy anyone else.
Clearing old stored trauma from my body created space for new feelings and perceptions. Daily meditation helped create a perception of more space, slowed me down, and gave my nervous system a much-needed break. I was in chronic overdrive with the stress hormone cortisol flooding my body. Grounding practices anchored me in the present moment, reconnecting me with the physical sensation of the ground beneath me and empowering me to make conscious choices instead of succumbing to dissociation.
Having a guide and one-on-one support person can make all the difference, especially when healing from the trauma of being unheard, unprotected, or treated unkindly. Learning to re-parent yourself is even more essential, offering the soothing and validation you may have lacked as a child. Just as you won’t see results from physical training if you neglect your diet and lifestyle habits, true transformation requires interrupting and addressing internalized patterns of abuse and minimization that hinder your progress.
While we won’t be able to engage in bodywork together in this course, you do get the introductory tools to cultivate internal continuity, more awareness, spaciousness, and regulation.
Now, let’s explore what it means to be resourced and clarify what memories, objects, sensations, or situations best support you. We cover the concept and practice of titration, also known as pendulation in somatic experiencing terms. How do you know when something feels good or right to you? How does your body signal this?
We get to know what your predictable triggers are and how we can begin to manage them in the moment; we go deeper into identifying the things that pull you off center, study your response, and slow it down so you can see that you actually can feel the internal space so you can respond differently.
And finally, there’s so much to learn about developing embodied boundaries and self-confidence, but that is it’s own course. We will just touch on this a little bit this week in the form of getting in touch with what pace works for you.
There can be the tendency to rush to fix things, get impatient, and go faster than your nervous system can handle. This is the result of a culture and society, and usually a family, that minimizes, dismisses, pushes, and values more/faster/better.
We don’t learn to listen to our own unique pace.
We are all supposed to do the same yoga pose despite what our particular hips and hamstrings need, and all do the same work in school. It then becomes hard to know when enough is enough. We also value catharsis and may think intense crying is the way to get through it all.
I’ve had so many clients over the years say, well, sure, I was raped, but I already told that story and did a year of therapy in college. And my response to that is, you may have told that story, but did your body get to speak as well? We talk over and ignore our most vulnerable parts.
Even if you don’t identify as having had trauma, safety is paramount, and respecting your youngest or most wounded parts will ultimately get you more of what you want. We want to strike a balance between not letting the youngins run the show, having boundaries with them when needed, and also holding them as precious in ways they likely never were before.
When you override your boundaries, force yourself to do something to please others, or because your critic is riding you hard, you will likely an outcome opposite from the one you wanted. It is counterintuitive to support the part that wants to go slow. In doing bodywork, if someone’s shoulders are scrunched to their ears, if you take over the scrunching for them and support this so they don’t have to do it, the body will naturally relax on its own, and their shoulders will drop away from ears. That’s what we want to do emotionally as well.
One way we will do this is by paying attention when you start to get overwhelmed by an emotion or state. When it starts to feel like too much, it’s important to focus on something else that feels good, calming, even neutral is okay, to regulate and orient. Sometimes we focus on a different part of the body or on a memory that feels soothing. We need to first identify what those things are.
Titration helps you experience utilizing your resourced parts to better face your challenging parts or challenging circumstances. When you titrate you move in between two different states: First, connect with the resourced parts of your body and then gently shifting your focus to parts or emotions that are more difficult to confront. You go back and forth, feeling into a part of the body that feels good, calm or strong, then moving to an emotion that’s harder to be with.
Sometimes I’ll even set a timer for a client to let them know we will only be with his hard feeling for one minute, and then we might reset the timer to go for another minute if that feels okay. This offers a clear time boundary. You can use this strategy, or you can explore on your own and see if your body can tolerate being with harder states. Some people struggle with entering them, and others push themselves to stay too long and get overwhelmed.
First, let’s find the resourced space:
Think of a memory where you felt strong, comforted, or proud. This could be something like petting a dog, dancing, spending time with a beloved relative or friend, receiving back tickles, or floating in warm water. Choose something from your past or present that feels soothing and pleasurable and can serve as an ongoing anchor when hard feelings come up.
Next, tune into your body:
Is there a part of your body that feels good, open, flowing? Expansive, streaming, tingling. It could feel like there’s a wide-open window versus like you are tight and stiff. It feels like a deep exhale versus hard to breathe. Does it feel good to touch a certain part of your body? Your hair, your inner arm, your feet? Notice how you touch this part of you. What is the quality of touch? Is it firm or feathery? Can you feel how other parts of your body respond when you touch this spot?
Use this any time hard feelings start to feel overwhelming or like it’s too much. It may take time to recognize the beginning signs of overwhelm, and there may be instances where hypoarousal completely takes over before you even know why or what you’re feeling.
Part of aging and healing is knowing what to add more of and what to avoid or expose yourself to less. Some people love festivals, while others feel way too stimulated and overwhelmed. If some people drink, their self-care falls apart—they don’t sleep well, can’t get up to exercise or meditate, and then fall into depression. Some people need to take extra care with this, while others have more wiggle room to play with.
I’ve had clients who berate themselves for being too sensitive and compare themselves to their friends. We are different beings. A banana tree wouldn’t shame a cactus for needing less water.
Let’s also recognize again that, generally speaking, we do not get to control our environment or the people in it; it’s more about our internal state. But we do get to be discerning. COVID taught us this.
You get to be very selective about how you spend your precious energy. When you cut everything away and then add things back in, see how your system reacts. During quarantine, what did you miss? And what were you relieved to have enforced boundaries around? Of those things, what helped regulate you, and what dysregulated you? If you imagine adding back 20% or 50% vs 100%, how would that feel?
As you consider what you need to cut out of your life or do less of, also think about what you’d like to do more of.
What are the consequences of continuing to do the things that dysregulate you? Is it a relationship ending, not being the kind of parent you want to be, feeling dead inside, never having a fulfilling sex life, living in terror, feeling cut off from the creative self you were connected to as a kid?
Make a list of triggers and figure out strategies for how you will relate to them or reduce exposure. If it’s your kids or ex-husband, then clearly, you need to establish ongoing practices to regulate yourself and grow your window and capacity. If you’re underage and living with an abusive parent, you are not always at choice, and I’m so sorry.
Look for resources outside your home and keep building your resilience and sense of self apart from what you are actively being told. It may be hard to take this in, it may be hard to believe me, but that bully is not telling the truth about who you are. Try to find proof of the opposite based on how beloved friends or teachers treat you and what you can observe about yourself.
If it’s drinking or a job that is crushing your soul, look at what’s at stake. Is continuing to drink or stay in your job worth the gains? What does it compromise? If a harm reduction approach is not possible, quitting the activity or the person may be necessary.
Identifying Your Pace
We’ve worked on titrating and not expanding too quickly, so now, let’s take a minute to identify your pace.
There are people you may know who, under stress, put the brakes on and hunker down. Others mobilize into action, overgiving or overdoing until they collapse. Everyone is doing their best to regulate their nervous system. It helps if you remember that we are not all elks, lions, or armadillos. We are different animals, and it’s likely you are in a relationship with a different species that needs different things to feel safe. It’s necessary to be patient with yourself as you learn to choose new reactions and patient with others when you don’t understand their habits.
But also remember, internal parts may want us to go at conflicting paces, which can be crazy-making because when they want opposing things, it usually creates a feeling of being stuck. Some people hate change and need a lot of warning to make something new happen. Do you have a hard time getting moving, literally? Do you live in a state of perpetual “maybe,” deliberating and weighing every possible outcome before saying “yes” or “no”? Getting started or moving at a faster pace could feel unsettling. Getting out of the house or even getting out of the car could take you forever while your friend is waiting outside or already walking to the movie.
Do you drive in the fast lane, impatient with those in front of you? Are you like a car without brakes, speeding along, and only once an object stops you or you run out of gas do you stop to rest?
Over the past twenty years, I’ve witnessed with clients that some people are eager to change and counterphobic. This means they often speed towards the outcome they hope to get but override their boundaries and the pace that would serve them most. Going more slowly helps your system catch up to increased stimuli or change.
In my early years of seeing clients, before I could identify this tendency, some clients might come in insisting on bodywork immediately and then never return because it was too much too soon. This is when there is a split between what a young, scared part needs to feel safe and what your present-day adult part wants and is impatient about having. Some are speeding recklessly at 100 miles an hour, while others are trying to drive with a foot on the gas and brake at the same time. These latter folks are fearful of change and the new responsibilities or expectations from others that come with it and are often paralyzed by stress rather than taking action to gain control.
Remember, titrating is a process of being willing to feel into the hard feelings and memories, but not overwhelming yourself by going too fast or doing too much all at once.
At 21, I did not know moderation or titration. My way was go, go, go, collapse, then go, go, go, collapse. Even ten years ago, I would go on writing benders. A famous author I spoke with told me the key to finishing your book is to have daily writing practice so you don’t burn yourself out.
Even if you are someone who tends to be counterphobic, and hyperaroused, and do what scares you, there will be times when your system gets so overwhelmed you may go into hypoarousal. When Staci Haines’ book Survivors Guide to Sex, renamed Healing Sex, came out, I cracked the cover and started dissociating. I was paralyzed by memories and feelings that flooded my subconscious. I got so tired I had to place my face down on the table. This was comparable to a computer with 30 tabs open crashing. Meanwhile, I had a client who was more numb but also counterphobic, who read the whole book in a week.
Remember to manage your expectations for yourself and keep building a listening and self-responsive muscle. Identify what feels good or like a responsible pace, and then respect it rather than dismiss and override it. We often have to learn by trial and error.
