runaway trains and windows of tolerance
“Autonomic listening is inextricably linked with the need for self-compassion."
–Deb Dana
Earlier this year we got on a runaway train of busyness. Going going going. Doing doing doing. To give you a taste, I was out of state 5 weekends during a 7 week stretch. And it wasn’t fun getaways, but work trips, track meets, and college visits.
As the train rolled on and picked up speed, I watched what was happening in my body, mind, and nervous system. Awareness is great, but it doesn’t solve everything. Sometimes, it does little to stop or slow down what’s happening around you. However, you can always work with what’s inside of you.
That’s more powerful than it might seem so I’ll say it another way: knowing didn’t create a lot of change. But it gave me space. Space to adjust actions, energy, and focus. Which wasn’t a one time thing! It was regular wrestling with what was happening, mustering inner resources, and persistently practicing.
If you expect knowing to automatically change things, you’ll get discouraged quickly. If you expect a single practice, meditation or affirmation to stop the runaway train, you’ll be terribly disappointed. But if you’re realistic about what you’re dealing with and the tools you’ve got to work with, small shifts can get you to a totally different destination.
Because here’s the thing about the runaway train: I bet you’re on it for a good reason. You’re rising to the occasion for family, work, or community. You’re stepping out, leveling up, or digging in. It’s rarely a failure in planning or a lack of balance. It’s almost always crisis, change, or need.
Here are 3 case studies:
COVID was a runaway train for everyone. Especially in the beginning. Nervous system dysregulation is an understatement. Because the stress was collective (everyone had it in some way, to some degree), external (coming from an outside influence), and undesirable, the need to be compassionate (with ourselves and others) was obvious.
When the source is harder to identify, internal, and/or positive, we’re less likely to be gentle. For example:
Our wedding. We got married in a barn, at a park, with close friends and family only. It was still 10x more than I bargained for. The mental and emotional expenditure, the endless logistics, moving and blending households, there were many nights of waking up at 3am with a stock-ticker of details running through my head. I started sleeping with a clipboard beside my bed.
Here, the runaway train was fueled by excitement more than anxiety, good stress rather than bad stress, conscious choice instead of act-of-God circumstance… annnnnnnnnnnnnndddd…. the body doesn’t see much difference. Last example:
Lotsa little stuff. The busyness this winter was a flurry of little things. No major life changes. Nothing overly exciting. Stuff just piled up. Eventually leading to that runaway train experience.
In this situation, there were sneaky stress-creating stories about how I should and shouldn’t feel. But years of studying the nervous system has taught me that story follows state. Why you feel how you feel is much less important than what you do about what you’re feeling. If the body says “runaway train”, you can respond (and it will shift) or repress (and it will persist).
When you’re willing to respond, if you recognize that it’s reality, necessity, you’re choosing it, you engage with it differently. And you can grow tremendously. By widening your Window of Tolerance.
Window of Tolerance is a concept I learned from Dan Seigel. When you’re well within your Window, things are comfortable and easeful. You’re solid, open, receptive. Your pre-frontal cortex is online, higher mind is humming, you respond gracefully.
As you approach the edge of your Window, things get challenging, hairy, clunky, wonky. You start to feel frazzled, rushed, irritable, “in the weeds”. Things are too fast, too much, unmanageable and unwieldy. The margin of space, possibility, and ease is closing.
Here’s the good and bad news: only at the edge of your Window of Tolerance can you expand it. And expanding it… means being with it. No magic button, emergency exit, getting out of it. It’s the wrestling, contending, practicing that wedges your Window farther open. And runaway-train-times are prime opportunities for Window widening.
So. When you find yourself at the edge of your Window, practice for 1* shifts. It may not seem like much in the moment but it nudges you in new directions and wedges your Window open. And when I say practice, I’m referring to all corners of the Practice Compass - movement, stillness, resilience, reflection.
Before we close, here’s something to keep in mind, when you’re on the runaway train, and you desperately need some space, you’re often perilously low on mental/emotional/physical energy. It’s hard to make practice happen. I know this. I feel this. So we built an App to make practice more accessible and more powerful, especially when you need it most. The App is called 20 Minute Miracles and based on the short, sweet, super focused sequences you’ve come to know and love.
You can download it now through Apple or Google and start playing with the free content. The full arsenal of practices - the 20 Minute Miracle Toolkit - will be available in a few weeks.
May your practice widen your window of tolerance,
Alison
