The Sensational Experience of
Having a Body (Part 2)
Last week, we talked about separating our identity from our thoughts. A big
takeaway is recognizing, "I am not my thoughts."
This is difficult for many of us, and understandably so. It can be pretty difficult to
separate ourselves from the internal experiences that our thoughts elicit. And we get
confused on what is us vs. what is noise.
This week, I want to talk about the window of tolerance and start pointing us toward
attuning to that window so we can better understand what we are capable of.
The window of tolerance describes our internal capacity to cope with stressors in our
environment.
At the top end of this window, we have hyper (high) arousal. Think of sensations like
anxiety and panic attacks.
And on the bottom, we have hypo (low) arousal. Think depression, dissociation, or
total collapse.
We all have different capacities to cope with our internal states depending on our
history and exposure to trauma.
For some of us, it is very easy to get ramped up into a hyper-aroused state, and for
others, we live in a dissociated, lulling, hypo-aroused state.
Take a moment to check in with yourself. Do you tend to fall into hyper or
hypoarousal?
Most of us pendulate between the two, depending on what is happening. We have
our tendencies, and many run hot or cold more often.
Once you understand your tendencies, you can better attune to your window of
tolerance and plan accordingly.
For me - I tend to run hyper-aroused. I get anxious, my mind starts running, I have a
to-do list a mile long, and I start to spin out. Once I am in this state, I begin to see
problems EVERYWHERE.
In my hyper-aroused state, my mind grabs onto anything and everything to make it a
problem. I begin to argue about things that don't matter, and I get caught up in
minutiae that do not matter.
So, my practice is to now recognize when I am beginning to get ramped up. The
sensations that I frequently notice are these:
- tightness in my jaw
- shoulders pulled up toward my ears
- clenching my teeth
- tightness in my chest
- shallow breathing
When I notice these sensations (symptoms of stress), I know it's time to step back
and calm my body back into its window of tolerance.
This is nervous system coping 101, but it is essential to revisit it regularly.
This week's invitation is to begin to notice your sensations and see if you can
identify what that says about your internal state. This is learning the language of the
body.
The example I provided is pretty overt and a great place to start. As you develop
fluency in this language, you will be surprised to find out that your internal states and
sensations tell you far more than just being stressed or depressed.
But we'll get to all that later!
Next week, we'll dive deeper into cold, dissociated states and discuss how we work
with that!
Thank you for your time and attention; I am immensely grateful for your support!
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