Teaching Within the Window: A Reflection on Trauma, Mindfulness, and the Nervous System

As yoga and meditation teachers, we often speak of presence, grounding, and the breath. But one of the most essential tools we can develop is a deeper understanding of the nervous system, especially the concept of the Window of Tolerance.

I’ve recently been immersed in Trauma Sensitive Mindfulness training with David Treleaven, and it’s been both mind blowing and deeply humbling. This work is helping me to refine how I offer mindfulness and movement, and what I’ve come to see is this: whether or not you describe your teaching as trauma-informed, if you are teaching yoga or meditation, you are teaching people with trauma. Full stop.

That means we carry an ethical responsibility to be aware of what we’re inviting people into when they practice with us. 

The basic principle? Do no harm. 

Trauma is present, often just beneath the surface, in every room. Are the practices we offer helping people feel more regulated, more connected, or are they leaving people spun out, dissociated, or overwhelmed? Just like learning to drive, we wouldn’t put someone on the motorway without first teaching them how to brake. Similarly, in practice, we need to help students recognise and use their internal "braking systems",  tools for grounding, pausing, and returning to safety. 

What Is the Window of Tolerance?

The Window of Tolerance refers to the optimal zone of arousal where a person can function effectively. Within this window, we’re able to self-regulate, stay connected to our experience, and respond rather than react. We might feel stressed or challenged, but we still have access to our resources.

When someone has experienced trauma, their window tends to narrow. Stress, triggers, or internal experiences can push them outside of this window into states of hyperarousal (fight or flight -  anxiety, panic, anger, racing thoughts) or hypoarousal (freeze - numbness, dissociation, exhaustion, flatness).

It's important to remember, moving outside of the window of tolerance isn't something that only happens to people with trauma. This is also just part of human life. Anyone can move out of their window due to things like daily stress, lack of sleep, emotional overwhelm, or even intense joy. The key is learning how to recognise when we’ve moved outside of our window, and developing the tools to return and to self regulate. 

There’s a classic teaching from the Buddha known as the Middle Way, often explained through the analogy of tuning a sitar. The Buddha asked a musician how he tuned his instrument. The musician replied, “If the string is too tight, it snaps. If it’s too loose, it won’t play.” This simple truth captures something essential about meditation and nervous system regulation. We’re not aiming for extremes,  not so effortful that we strain, and not so lax that we drift into numbness. Instead, we look for that sweet spot of balanced tension where growth, presence, and resilience can emerge.

Expanding the Window And Why It Matters

One of the most powerful benefits of mindfulness practice is its capacity to help us expand the window of tolerance. There's a quote I often share from Viktor Frankl in my classes: "Between stimulus and response, there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom." Mindfulness helps us access and widen that space, so that with practice, we can meet stress and challenge with greater clarity, calm, and choice. Over time, consistent, compassionate practice helps us stay more present with challenging emotions and sensations, without being overwhelmed or shut down by them.

But, and this is key,  to expand the window, we must first be inside it. You can’t build capacity for regulation while dysregulated. This means our job as teachers isn’t to push people past their edges, but to offer tools, pacing, and choice so they can safely remain within their window and learn tools to support remaining regulated through whatever arises. 

Practical Tools to Help Stay Within the Window

(as teachers or a student)

• Offer the option to keep eyes open

• Invite students to open their eyes or change focus if they feel dysregulated

• Allow & encourage changes in posture or movement

• Encourage breaks and self-pacing

• Include self-touch practices (hand to heart, tapping, or hand to back of head)

• Normalise grounding techniques 

• Utilise multiple anchors when you teach / practice (breath, sound, feet, smell etc)

• Pendulate Attention - shift attention away and then come back

• Use external objects of attention (could look out the window or find an external anchor to ground)

When working with trauma,  especially if PTSD or complex trauma is involved, it’s vital to stay within our scope as a teacher. Trust the freeze response. Respect dissociation. These are the nervous system’s intelligent survival strategies.

As teachers, our role is not to treat trauma but to create safe containers that honour where people are at. Trusting the wisdom of the body and the nervous system, remembering these states of arousal are not flaws or failures. And if someone is actively processing trauma, they should also be working with a licensed mental health professional. 

The Window of Tolerance framework has become one of the most supportive concepts in my toolkit as a teacher. It’s a lens I come back to again and again. My intention isn’t to become a therapist, but to hold safer, more inclusive spaces where healing is possible, and where harm is less likely.

Whether you’re a student or a teacher, I hope this offers a helpful entry point into understanding your nervous system and approaching your practice with more compassion and awareness.