Window of Tolerance

I find that lack of information about how the mind and body function in response to threats can lead to traumatized individuals with a sense of guilt or shame for how they behaved or didn’t at the time of the event(s).

So, in the coming days I am going to be posting about the Window of Tolerance (WOT), which is a concept developed by Dr. Dan Seigel, to describe the “optimal zone of arousal” for a person to function in day to day life.

When we are in our WOT, we are able to deal with our lives and emotions and appropriately deal with stressors as they arise. When we are in our WOT we are both “feeling and dealing.”

When we are in our WOT we are in the present moment, we are grounded, we’re able to self-sooth, we are able to be curious, we are calm, our emotions are regulated, and we are able to connect with others.

Being within our WOT, our ventral vagal complex is active which is responsible for social engagement and our ability to downregulate our sympathetic nervous system’s defense reactions.

Stay tuned for more on the WOT, hyper-arousal, and hypo-arousal.