Somatic Healing for Wellness-Focused Women

(#89) Expanding Your Window of Tolerance and Understanding Fight, Flight, Freeze & Fawn for Nervous System Healing

• Rae The Somatic Coach • Episode 89

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Have you ever wondered why you freeze in conflict… overwork to avoid discomfort… or find yourself people-pleasing to keep the peace? You’re not broken. You’re likely outside your window of tolerance, operating from an old trauma response.

In this episode, we explore:

🌱 What the Window of Tolerance is and how it impacts your emotions, behavior, and relationships
🌱 The Fight Response: signs, root causes, and how to soften into safety
 🌱 The Flight Response: anxiety, busyness, avoidance & how to regulate it
 🌱 The Freeze Response: shutdown, indecision & why it’s not laziness
🌱 The Fawn Response: people-pleasing, over-apologizing & how to reclaim your truth
🌱 How to expand your Window of Tolerance over time with somatic tools

You'll also receive simple, grounded practices to support nervous system regulation.

This episode is a must-listen for anyone ready to better understand their inner world and build resilience from the body up. Whether you’re anxious, overwhelmed, or navigating stress and emotion, this one is for you.

💌 Join the Somatic Healing Newsletter and get instant access to Breathe Easy, a free library of trauma-informed breathwork and meditations.

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Disclaimer: Please remember that the information shared on this podcast is intended to inspire, educate, and support you on your personal journey. It does not substitute for professional mental health advice. I am not a psychologist or medical professional. If you are experiencing distress, mental health challenges, or medical conditions, please seek help from a qualified professional.

Speaker 1:

Welcome back to the podcast. If you are new here, I'm Rae, I'm a somatic coach and breathwork facilitator, and if you aren't new here, welcome back. I'm so glad that you're tuning in for today's episode. So for today's episode, I wanted to build off of the last few episodes that I've released. So if you haven't had the chance to check out the past two episodes about nervous system regulation and breathwork, you can check out the show notes and sign up for the newsletter, the Somatic Healing newsletter, which gives you access to Breathe Easy, and that's where you'll find last week's breathwork episode as well. So for today's episode, I wanted to bring you an episode about the four trauma responses and the window of tolerance, and I talk about this with the nervous system a lot. This is a perspective that I find has been extremely helpful in the work that I do with my clients and also in my personal life as well. I remember the first time that I, you know, discovered the window of tolerance and the four trauma responses in a visual image, I was. It was so impactful for me. I was like, oh wow, this happens so much that they have this image for it, like this is great. I was like, oh wow, this happens so much that they have this image for it Like this is great. So I try and share about this as much as I can, because wherever you may be on your healing journey and however you are showing up, whatever you might be struggling with emotionally or even from a self-compassionate lens, this material is really helpful for understanding yourself on a deeper level, and I think that just brings such a sense of wholeness, a lot easier to be self-compassionate towards yourself and, yeah, greater understanding of ourselves, which I think is a piece of you know what it's all about.

Speaker 1:

So first I want to talk about the window of tolerance, about the window of tolerance. This is a concept that was created by Dr Dan Siegel and I will link an image for what the window of tolerance like, a visual reference for it, in the show notes, so you can definitely check that out. But what it describes, or what the window of tolerance describes, is basically there is an optimal zone where we are feeling regulated, we're feeling safe, we're feeling capable of responding to different stimuli in our life from within this window of tolerance. So this is when we can think clearly, we can feel a variety of emotions without feeling overwhelmed, we're able to clearly connect with other people and we're able to make decisions from a grounded place. And when we shift from being within our individual window of tolerance to moving outside of it, we can move into what's called hyper arousal or hypo arousal. And this is a biological, very human response as a form of protecting ourselves from different stress, from different trauma triggers and from different emotional challenges or things that make us feel activated in some way. And although this is a very human response, what happens when we move outside of our window of tolerance is our nervous system shifts. So this is a very human response. What happens when we move outside of our window of tolerance is our nervous system shifts. So this is when people are talking about nervous system regulation. This is one piece of what they're talking about. They're talking about the window of tolerance, and so our nervous system shifts, maybe becomes more sensitive, maybe it becomes more alert. We can start to live from a past trauma response so we can go into these patterns that we've had previously based on our past lived experience, and we can also start experiencing chronic stress or anxiety. So our body's just kind of in this like consistent form of dysregulation because we're outside of our window of tolerance, and we might not even be aware of it, especially if this is like one of the first times you're hearing of this concept. So we're in a chronic state of stress. We're not exactly sure, you know, maybe we don't know why, and the idea here is that bringing the awareness to it, understanding what's happening in the body, can help to, you know, shift our minds, shift our body, shift our state, and we're going to talk all about, you know, what that might look like and how to do that.

Speaker 1:

The other idea here is that you can expand your window of tolerance. So a lot of the work that I do and a lot of the work that I do with my clients and a lot of what we discuss here on the podcast, the idea is that we are expanding our window of tolerance through, you know, mindfulness practices, breath work, movement, time in nature, meditation. So there are a large and I'll get into that as well a lot of different things that you can do to expand your window of tolerance, but that's the idea. We have the one that we are, you know, used to, the one that may perhaps even we've like, fallen into over time. You know, we have that version of our window of tolerance. And then we have the version that we get to grow into and we get to expand and we get to, you know, heal and move forward and expand our window of tolerance, get to heal and move forward and expand our window of tolerance. So as we shift outside of our window, we can move into what's called hyperarousal.

Speaker 1:

And on the image, if you look at it in the show notes, you'll see that this is kind of north of the window of tolerance is what I like to say and that is when we move into what's called fight or flight. So this is part of our sympathetic nervous system and it's a response when our body thinks that it's in danger and it prepares to defend itself, it prepares to escape, and that is when we are moving into the fight or flight response. So the fight response, this is when we're trying to confront something we might be trying to control or we might be trying to dominate, and this can feel like anger or rage, it can feel like defensiveness, it can feel like a lot of tension in the body. So sometimes we hold so much tension in our mouth and in our jaw and we don't even really recognize it. It can be the need to be right or be in control, and it can also be irritability or having like impulsive reactions. And what's happening when all of this happens is that really your body is trying to eliminate some kind of threat by overpowering it.

Speaker 1:

And this can stem from many different things it can feel. It can stem from, you know, a past experience. It can stem from maybe feeling even a bit of powerlessness in the past, but in real life it comes out as yelling during arguments, criticizing others harshly or picking fights when we feel unsafe, maybe emotionally. So it can come out in a variety of different ways the fight response, but ultimately it's a form of moving outside of our window of tolerance. Something happens, we move outside, north of our window of of tolerance and we move into the hyper arousal state. The other form of hyper arousal is the flight response.

Speaker 1:

So this is the second trauma response and this is when we try to escape or avoid something or run away from something or kind of taking flight right. We're moving away and this can feel like anxiety, this can feel like panic or even racing thoughts. This can feel like restlessness or being hyper, hyper productive, like always trying to be busy, constantly on or overwhelmed, and it can even look like avoidance of certain people or places. And so what's happening is our nervous system is saying get away from this thing, get away, protect ourselves and do it fast. And it's often stems from overstimulation, chronic overstimulation or even a fear of failure or rejection. So in real life, this can look like overworking to avoid feeling uncomfortable, overworking to avoid feeling uncomfortable. It can look like canceling plans due to anxiety. Or it can look like, if you're constantly scrolling, like you're constantly scrolling, trying to escape the day-to-day life it's really uncomfortable to be present, and so this is how your nervous system tries to self-soothe. So that's fight or flight.

Speaker 1:

And then, when we are looking at that same image of the window of tolerance, if you move south of the window of tolerance, so now instead of going north, we're going south, and that is when you can move into what's called hypoarousal, and that is a freeze or a fawn trauma response. And so this is a response when maybe fight or flight doesn't even feel possible, it doesn't feel accessible, and so we move into a freeze or a fawn. And these are, you know, default trauma responses that we've had from really our past lived experiences. And again, although these might sound challenging and you know they're obviously not ideal. Our nervous system is doing the best that it can and it's doing what it. You know it's actually quite brilliant because it's doing something that it's trying to protect us from something. Whether that what it needs to protect us from is, you know, accurate or not, it is doing something that is quite brilliant. So I always like to like put that in there, that there's nothing like bad or wrong. It's more. Right now we're just, like you know, observing maybe where our default responses may lay or may come out.

Speaker 1:

So the first one for hypoarousal is the freeze response. So the freeze response is really when we become numb, we shut down. It can feel like a disconnection, it can feel like brain fog or maybe, you know, paralyzed and indecision when it comes to making decisions, so like an inability to make decisions. You might feel stuck or you might have like no motivation, and this can happen a lot when we feel like super overwhelmed, like there's so much going on so we just shut down. So it's when your system decides that it's really safer to just play dead, basically, and it can often, sometimes even feel like depression or like a very deep sadness, but it really is a protective state again, like your, your nervous system is doing what it thinks it needs to do to survive. So in real life this can look like maybe you avoid opening up your emails or you're really bad at responding to text messages for days because, again, you're overwhelmed, you're in a freeze response, you're feeling stuck. This can look like having a tough time getting out of bed in the morning because you're feeling overwhelmed. It can look like dissociating during hard conversations and it can often sometimes get confused for being quote-unquote lazy. But it's actually, again, your nervous system is trying to protect you from overwhelm, so it's a protective mechanism. Again, it's trying to find safety and oftentimes a lot of these trauma responses can be misinterpreted as other things.

Speaker 1:

And then the second piece of hypoarousal is the fawn trauma response. So fawning the fawn trauma response can look like really trying to appease others and please them. It can look like really adapting to your surroundings, but not so much in a healthy way, in a way that you're trying to like, replicate or mold and merge with other people's needs. So this can look like people pleasing. This can look like saying yes when you really want to say no. It can look like having a fear of conflict or rejection, and it can look like over apologizing, so constantly apologizing for things that you don't actually need to apologize for.

Speaker 1:

And this one is, you know, particularly common in people that have been survivors of trauma, because fawning is again. It's about staying safe through connection and finding approval from others. So this can look like staying in a toxic friendship to avoid being alone. It can look like really overextending yourself to avoid conflict with somebody or feeling disapproval from somebody else, and it can feel like a responsibility for other people's feelings. So, as I'm, as I'm talking about this, I'm realizing that some of the past few podcast episodes actually speak to some of these um, some of how fawning can show up in real life. So that's interesting. So you can always scroll back and listen to a few of the past um uh episodes, if this one in particular is jumping out at you maybe where you tend to go, like how your personal nervous system is wired, and if something is speaking to you more than another.

Speaker 1:

And what's really great about all this information is that your nervous system can learn how to find safety and you can widen your window of tolerance without going into one of these trauma responses. So it's not about like avoiding being dysregulated, because that's going to happen. Things are going to happen in our lives that are going to trigger us and activate our nervous systems and activate us emotionally. So it's not about never feeling dysregulated that wouldn't be real. It's about understanding ourselves and being able to come back to that place in our body that feels really safe and feels like we can handle what's happening in our lives. So we don't default into one of these coping mechanisms and disclaimer if my voice sounds a little bit funny, it's because I am coming off the tail end of a summer cold. I forgot to mention that in the beginning, but I think I'm doing okay. I don't know if it's too obvious, but just disclaimer there if I sound a little bit funny. So what's great again about this is that you can widen your window of tolerance. There are tools that we can do. We can learn.

Speaker 1:

Safety in the body, which is really foundational when doing somatic work is building on this exploration of the body in a way that feels safe to you, that feels at your pace, that feels regulating for you. So some of the key things that I love to suggest if you're looking to learn more about nervous system regulation or learn to self-regulate breathwork. That is one that obviously I talk about a lot, and last week's episode was a guided practice breathwork that is, you know, trauma-informed, at your pace, self-regulating, especially the ones that have like long and slow exhales. You're going to engage what's called the parasympathetic nervous system and that's going to help you to self-regulate, bring your body back into your window of tolerance and really feel connected to that place of safety. Different forms of somatic movement so this can look like somatic shaking, even forms of dancing, walking, stretching, moving the body in a way that, again, is based on what you need and is going to bring you back to that place of safety.

Speaker 1:

Different forms of touch so placing your hands on your chest, or one hand on your heart, one hand on your belly. You can even do like a butterfly hug, just placing both of your hands across your chest so that your thumbs touch in the middle, and tapping on each of your shoulders. So this is a form of grounding touch that can be regulating. You can press your feet into the ground, so really feeling your body weight on the ground and feeling the ground supporting you underneath you. There's also different forms of co-regulation. So oftentimes that's something that you're doing when you're with somebody else, so that can be in a structured setting like a therapist or a coach or a facilitator, but it can also be calling a friend or calling someone in your family that feels really safe, and being with somebody where your energy together it's called co-regulation, so in a way that, yeah, feels safe and nourishing to you, not something that would obviously be like triggering.

Speaker 1:

And then two others that I'll mention journaling. I think that's really helpful for you know, understanding what's coming up for you, seeing things from new perspectives, getting things out. So if you're having, like you know, racing thoughts or you know something that, like, you need to express in a different way, I find that writing is really helpful and orienting. So naming what you see in your environment, allowing yourself to adapt to the space that you're in in that moment, with the intention of it allowing you to come back to the present moment. So these are all different tools and there are so many, but these are the ones that I always like to speak to Breathwork, somatic movement, grounding, touch, co-regulation, journaling, orienting.

Speaker 1:

So, again, it's not about never feeling dysregulated, it's about having the tools and understanding your nervous system so that you can come back to your window of tolerance in a way that feels really supportive for you, and so I always like to say that, just like you know training for a marathon and running, running as much, as as much as you can, to get a good time, or you know lifting weights in the gym so that you can get bigger muscles, this is similar to that in the sense that it is like a muscle and it is something that you can return back to over and over again. You can expand your window of tolerance, you can find these places of safety and you can build, over time, different forms of resilience. Yeah, so just reflecting, uh, as we close up today's episode um, on all the information that we shared here, like what is standing out to you, do you feel like you know fight or flight, it speaks to you freeze or fawn? Do you find that you, you know you avoid conflict often? Or it's hard for you to relax because you're, you know, constantly in this activated state? Do you feel like you shut down if you feel overwhelmed? So there's so many different ways that you can take this information and see what lands for you, and it's helpful to just know this information, learn about it, know the language and the patterns of your personal nervous system because ultimately, everyone is wired differently, everyone has different lived experiences. So it's like how can you learn as much as you can about what feels supportive for you and what feels regulating for you and then use that to widen your window of tolerance? Yeah, so that is what we have for today's episode. If you enjoyed it and you want some free breathwork practices, you can check out the show notes to sign up for the newsletter. It gives you access to this resource. It's called Breathe Easy. It's like a free living library that I add to and it's all different breathwork practices, meditations, things that would definitely help with nervous system regulation and the window of tolerance, and that is right in the show notes.

Speaker 1:

So I hope that you enjoyed today's episode. I hope that you have an incredible rest of your week. I that you have an incredible rest of your week. I hope you have an incredible rest of your day and I will talk to you soon. Thank you for being here and tuning in to Somatic Healing for Wellness-Focused Women podcast. If you were moved or inspired by today's episode, please take a moment to leave a rating and review on Apple Podcasts. It truly helps the podcast grow and helps more people find me on their healing journey. Make sure to check out the show notes, to sign up for the monthly newsletter, links to more resources, opportunities to work with me and ways that we can stay connected. If we aren't already connected on social media, head over to instagram to follow me at ray the somatic coach. Send me a dm. I'd love to connect with you and I answer each note that comes in. I am so happy you're here and I cannot wait to talk with you on our next episode of the podcast.