You might recognize the feeling: you wake up already tired, scroll the news before you’ve even had coffee, and your nervous system feels like it’s sprinting before your feet ever hit the floor. You reassure yourself, “I’m fine” But your jaw is tight, your chest is buzzing, and the smallest request — an email, a text, a child calling your name — feels like the thing that might tip everything over.
Or maybe it’s the opposite. You move through the day in a fog. You lose track of conversations. You stare at the laundry or your inbox, willing yourself to start, but your body won’t cooperate. From the outside, you look “calm.” Inside, you’re barely keeping yourself upright.
For many people, it isn’t just personal stress that overwhelms the nervous system — it’s the world.
One news alert about violence or political instability, one story about climate anxiety, one headline about rising costs, and suddenly your chest tightens. Your mind races. You wonder how you’re supposed to work, parent, study, socialize, or sleep when everything feels so heavy.
Others have the opposite response: they shut down. They stop reading the news altogether, not because they don’t care, but because their system can’t absorb one more piece of pain or uncertainty.
This is what it’s like to live outside your window of tolerance — not because you’re weak, but because you’ve been surviving for a long time.
Hyperarousal and hypoarousal are not personal failures. They’re signs that your nervous system has hit its limit. We can see it in other cases, when “small things” become big things.
Sometimes it’s not the big trauma that pushes people out of their window of tolerance — it’s the accumulation of “small” things. For example:
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A partner’s tone that feels sharper than usual
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The coworker who contacts you at 9:03 a.m. asking for something “urgent”
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The unexpected bill
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A child melting down
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A parent texting, “Call me when you can”
Individually, each moment is manageable. But together? Your threat-response system interprets them as danger, and your body responds accordingly — with fight, flight, freeze, fawn, fix, flop, or fib. Before you know it, you’re snapping, shutting down, people-pleasing, or disappearing into work because it feels safer than feeling anything.
If you’re reading this, you may be exhausted from coping—always holding it together, researching different therapists, hoping one of these tabs you’ve opened will finally lead you to the support you need.
Maybe you’ve been feeling on edge, overwhelmed, shut down, detached, or stuck in patterns that don’t make sense even to you. Maybe people keep telling you to “just breathe,” “let it go,” or “move on,” but none of those suggestions actually shift anything inside your body. In fact, they don’t usually work at all.
If this sounds familiar, you’re not alone — and you don’t have to keep doing this on your own.
One of the most helpful tools in trauma therapy (and one that clients often find deeply validating) is the Window of Tolerance. It’s a simple but powerful way of understanding what is happening inside your nervous system — and why you respond the way you do when life becomes too much.
What Is the Window of Tolerance?
You may have heard the terms fight, flight, or freeze before — the classic ways our bodies respond to threat. Think of a deer freezing in headlights, a person running from conflict, or someone snapping defensively when their system senses danger. Over time, trauma therapists have expanded this understanding to include other responses such as fawn, fix, flop, and fib.
All of these belong to an ancient, automatic threat-response system designed to keep us alive. The problem is that this system often reacts to today’s stressors as if they are yesterday’s dangers.
The window of tolerance is the range where your nervous system can manage emotions and stress without becoming overwhelmed. When you’re inside your window, you can stay grounded, think clearly, problem-solve, and stay connected to yourself and others.
But trauma — whether developmental, relational, acute, or chronic — can shrink that window. When that happens, people often shift into states such as:
Hyperarousal
— anxiety
— panic
— irritability
— emotional overwhelm
— racing thoughts
— difficulty sleeping
Hypoarousal
— numbness
— shutdown
— fogginess
— disconnection from yourself or your emotions
— trouble starting anything
And beneath these states are the different survival responses:
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Fight: irritation, defensiveness, explosiveness, feeling cornered
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Flight: overworking, perfectionism, escaping into tasks, addictions, running from discomfort
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Freeze: shutting down, feeling stuck, “I can’t move or think”
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Fawn: appeasing others, people-pleasing, avoiding conflict to stay safe
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Fix: trying to solve or manage everyone else’s emotions
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Flop: collapse, exhaustion, feeling like your body has given up
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Fib: masking, minimizing, smiling through pain to avoid threat
From a neuroscience perspective, these states are rooted in the brainstem and limbic system — parts of the brain responsible for survival, not logic. When these systems take over, the prefrontal cortex (the part of the brain that helps us stay present, measured, reflective, and relational) goes offline. That means even ordinary stressors or perceived threats that aren’t actually dangerous can feel unbearable.
This is also where relationships get impacted. When someone goes into fight, flight, freeze, or fawn, they’re not trying to be difficult — their nervous system simply isn’t within its window of tolerance. That might look like withdrawing during conflict, becoming overwhelmed by a partner’s needs, snapping under pressure, or over-accommodating to avoid upsetting someone.
Clients often say, “I don’t understand why small things feel like too much,” or “I feel nothing at all and I hate it.” These are not character flaws. They are nervous system responses.
How Trauma Therapy Helps Expand Your Window
While every person’s therapy is unique, there are some common elements clients in my practice experience.
1. Stabilizing the Nervous System
Together, we work gently and collaboratively to help your body feel safer and more regulated. That may include grounding practices, breathwork adapted for trauma, body-oriented awareness, or noticing subtle cues that signal when your system is shifting out of your window of tolerance.
2. Understanding Your Patterns
Instead of clichés like “just be present,” we slow down and explore what’s actually happening for you.
For example, a client who shuts down during conflict might learn that they’re not “avoiding” — their nervous system is slipping into hypoarousal because early experiences taught their body that conflict was dangerous. Recognizing this often brings relief, self-compassion, and a sense of agency.
3. Gradually Working with Root Causes
Trauma therapy is not about reliving the past. Instead, we build enough internal safety to gently examine old wounds, relational patterns, or stuck places — so the past stops running the present.
4. Practical Strategies You Can Use Right Away
Clients often learn:
— how to recognize early signs of overwhelm
— small regulation tools to expand or return to the window of tolerance
— ways to communicate needs in relationships
— strategies to ground during anxiety or shutdown
These are always adapted to your nervous system, not one-size-fits-all advice.
Working Together in Hamilton, Burlington, and the Niagara Region
While I offer secure online psychotherapy across Ontario, many clients prefer in-person sessions. My practice in the greater Hamilton area offers a grounded, private space for trauma work — especially for those who find that face-to-face therapy helps them settle into the room, regulate more easily, or feel more connected.
Whether you’re in Hamilton, Burlington, Stoney Creek, Grimsby, Niagara or the Greater Toronto Area, trauma therapy can help you reconnect with your body, widen your window of tolerance, and move toward feeling more steady, present, and whole.
If You’re Ready
If you’ve been searching, scrolling, comparing different therapists, or telling yourself you should “figure this out alone,” consider this your invitation to pause.
You don’t have to keep holding everything together.
If you’re ready to begin trauma therapy — online or in person — you can book a consultation at ontariotherapist.com.
Disclaimer
This blog is for general information only and is not a substitute for psychotherapy, mental-health assessment, or medical advice.
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