I’ve been thinking a lot lately about something that comes up in therapy spaces all the time, but doesn’t always feel very lived-in when it’s talked about.
The “window of tolerance.”
It’s this idea that there’s a range where our nervous system can hold what’s happening - where things feel manageable enough to stay present, to feel, to respond.
And then there are the edges of that window.
Above it can feel like overwhelm. Anxiety. Everything moving too fast, too loud, too much.
Below it can feel like shutting down. Numbness. Disconnection. Like drifting somewhere far away from yourself.
Grief, at least in my experience, doesn’t stay neatly inside any of those places.
It moves.
After my son died, I didn’t have language for any of this.
I just remember how inconsistent everything felt.
Moments where the pain was so sharp it took my breath away, followed by moments where I couldn’t feel much of anything at all. And somehow both felt equally unsettling.
There was this quiet wondering underneath it all -
how can both of these be true?
What I’ve come to understand over time, both personally and through the work I do now, is that this movement… it wasn’t random.
My nervous system was shifting in and out of what it could hold.
Sometimes there was capacity.
Sometimes there wasn’t.
And it changed constantly.
The idea of a “window” can sound like something steady, something to stay inside of.
But grief hasn’t felt steady.
It’s felt more like stretching - like the edges themselves are being tested and reshaped over time.
There are still moments that feel like too much.
There are still moments that feel far away.
And there are also moments now where I can notice what’s happening while I’m inside of it, which wasn’t always the case before.
What’s changed for me hasn’t been about keeping everything regulated or contained.
It’s been in the noticing.
Noticing when things start to speed up.
Noticing when everything goes quiet.
Noticing what helps me come back, even slightly.
Sometimes that looks like something simple, like putting my feet on the ground and pausing for a second.
Sometimes it looks like stepping away without needing to explain why.
Sometimes it’s reaching for something steady - a routine, a texture, a familiar space.
And sometimes it’s just recognizing, “this is where I am right now.”
One thing that keeps coming up in both my own life and in the spaces I hold is how much pressure there can be to process, to make meaning, to stay connected to feelings in a way that feels productive.
But there have been many moments where reflection wasn’t accessible.
Where the body needed something different first.
Something quieter. Slower. More grounding.
And over time, it’s started to make sense why.
I still move in and out of that window.
There are days where everything feels closer to the surface, and days where there’s a little more space around it.
Not in a linear way.
Not in a way that feels finished.
Just… differently.
There’s a kind of capacity that has grown, but it doesn’t erase the moments that still feel like too much.
They coexist.
Lately I’ve been holding this more gently -
the idea that maybe it’s less about staying within a certain range, and more about learning the shape of my own edges.
Where they soften.
Where they tighten.
What helps them widen, even a little.
And how all of that continues to shift.
If this is something you’ve felt too, that back and forth, that movement between intensity and distance… you’re not alone in that experience.
It’s something I keep coming back to, both in my own grief and in the way I sit with others inside of theirs.
Still learning it.
Still noticing it.
Still inside of it.
If you’re curious to explore the “window of tolerance” a bit more from a stress-and-nervous-system angle, this Psychology Today article offers a grounded, accessible walk-through of the idea: What Is the Window of Tolerance, and Why Is It So Important?.psychologytoday
With you in it,
Jamie
If you’d like to keep exploring grief, nervous system stuff, or just have a place to land when things feel a bit much, I’ve gathered everything in one spot:
All of my current offerings, gatherings, and grief resources live here: https://linktr.ee/TheGriefTable
Past letters and reflections (if you want to wander back through the archive) are here: https://thegrieftable.substack.com/archive
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