Ep88 The Window of Tolerance

"If you find that you have wandered away from the shelter of God, lead your heart back to Him quietly and simply."
~ St. Francis de Sales

What is wrong with me that I feel so overwhelmed sometimes?
Why do I freeze up and struggle to process stress?
How can I get back to my authentic self and respond instead of react?

In Episode 88 of This Whole Life, Pat & Kenna dive deep into the concept of the “Window of Tolerance” — a foundational model for understanding emotional regulation and navigating stress. Blending faith and mental health insights, they explore how our window of tolerance shapes daily reactions, especially during times of stress or change. Kenna breaks down Dr. Dan Siegel’s model, describing the differences between living within and outside our window, and offering practical strategies for getting back to our authentic self. The hosts share personal stories about family, parenting, and marriage, making the science relatable for listeners. They discuss how to expand your window, respond with compassion (to self and others), and why reflecting on your patterns is a game-changer. Perfect for anyone feeling overwhelmed and seeking practical, soul-nourishing ways to regain balance, this episode is both insightful and encouraging.

Episode 88 Show Notes

Chapters:

0:00: Introduction and Highs & Hards
12:38: What is the Window of Tolerance?
22:55: The place of authentic choices & actions
30:36: Getting back in my Window of Tolerance
38:22: Growing in resilience & expanding my Window
52:56: Challenge By Choice

Reflection Questions:

1. What is one specific thing that stuck with you from this conversation?
2. What do you think of the Window of Tolerance model? How do you see it in your life?
3. What pushes you out of your Window? How do you know when you're above or below the Window of Tolerance?
4. How do you get back in your Window when you find yourself outside it?
5. What does God have to say about the moments when you're overwhelmed and outside of your Window of Tolerance?

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Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction and Highs & Hards
• 12:38 What is the Window of Tolerance?
• 22:55 The place of authentic choices & actions
• 30:36 Getting back in my Window of Tolerance
• 38:22 Growing in resilience & expanding my Window
• 52:56 Challenge By Choice

Transcript

Pat Millea [00:00:00]:
There is likely some level of sin there that needs to be confessed. It needs to be repented of, and it needs to be healed by the mercy of God. And also, there is something to that that is really healthy to investigate and to ask the question, what could I have done earlier in the day to be able to be in a place to respond to that particular situation?

Pat Millea [00:00:34]:
Welcome to This Whole Life, a podcast for all of us seeking sanity and sanctity and a place to find joy and meaning through the integration of faith and mental health. I'm Pat Millea, a Catholic speaker, musician, and leader, and I'm here with my bride, Kenna, a licensed marriage and family therapist. This is the stuff she and I talk about all the time. Doing dishes in the car on a date. We're excited to bring you this podcast for educational purposes. It's not therapy or a substitute for mental health care. So come on in, have a seat at our dining room table and join the conversation with us. We are so glad you're here.

Kenna Millea [00:01:21]:
Welcome back to This Whole Life. It is so good to be with you all. And to be with you, my darling one.

Pat Millea [00:01:26]:
Great to be with you.

Kenna Millea [00:01:28]:
It is another episode with just the two of us, for better or for worse.

Pat Millea [00:01:33]:
You gonna sing the song?

Kenna Millea [00:01:34]:
No, I'm really. Oh, I'm really not.

Pat Millea [00:01:37]:
Just the two of us.

Kenna Millea [00:01:39]:
Yeah. Who is that again?

Pat Millea [00:01:40]:
You and I. I want to say Will Smith.

Kenna Millea [00:01:42]:
Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It is. Is it with his son?

Pat Millea [00:01:46]:
That's where my trivia runs out.

Kenna Millea [00:01:48]:
Show notes show that's. There's space for that in the show notes.

Pat Millea [00:01:51]:
Text to the number below. Who is the other person Will Smith is singing about?

Pat Millea [00:01:58]:
I'm gonna google it 5 seconds after we get done recording, but I would still like to know if you know.

Kenna Millea [00:02:03]:
So just an episode of the two of us. We are talking today about one of the, like, probably the thing that I go over with all clients, and we. We were talking about whether we had done this before and kind of are aghast that we haven't covered the window of tolerance before because we teach.

Pat Millea [00:02:21]:
Eighty seven episodes without talking about it.

Kenna Millea [00:02:23]:
We teach it everywhere we go. I talk about it with every single client that comes in my office, particularly couples and families and parents with their kids. And we haven't yet done an episode. It's just that that thing that we do all the time, and so it got overlooked. So here we are at 80 something.

Pat Millea [00:02:39]:
Better late than never.

Kenna Millea [00:02:39]:
We're talking about the window of tolerance, but before we go there, let's do Our highs and hards. Let's check in. I feel like I've been with you a lot lately, but not really like, been with you. So I'm curious. Not in like the married sense, but like, I'm curious what's going on with you? How are you? Where are you?

Pat Millea [00:03:00]:
That's a great question. Good to see you too. Yeah, it'd be good to catch up. I'm glad that everybody else can be a party to you and I actually catching up for the first time in like two weeks.

Pat Millea [00:03:11]:
My high is. I could say a lot of things.

Pat Millea [00:03:18]:
The season that we're in right now is one of my favorite ones. We are in the Advent season, so we're prepping for Christmas. And yes, I am taking Advent seriously, but I'm also not shy about Christmas music this time of year. I think both things can be true. It's the great both. And I'm preparing for Christmas and it's Christmas music. It's the kingdom of God. It's here, but it's not yet.

Pat Millea [00:03:40]:
So I'm trying to live into that. So that's great. A goofy high is just. The final season of Stranger Things has begun and I've had almost no time to watch any of it. But I've watched a little bit at the gym and things like that. It is such a fun show.

Kenna Millea [00:03:55]:
Yeah. What season is this?

Pat Millea [00:03:57]:
Season five.

Kenna Millea [00:03:58]:
Okay.

Pat Millea [00:03:58]:
Yeah. It's the final season, the grand finale. And it is just so. Especially for people. I don't know why people who are younger than like 30 enjoy it. I think it's a great show, objectively. But the nostalgia factor of it being like set in the 80s, the whole thing is like a very Goonies Stand by Me kind of vibe. It's just so fun.

Pat Millea [00:04:18]:
I was on record as a child of hating scary things. I famously sat in the car with my friend's mom when I was like nine because I was too scared to go into a haunted house. So all my friends went into the haunted house and I sat in the car with the mom because I was too scared. I famously slept on my parents bedroom floor when I was like 14 because I watched Jurassic park and I thought the raptors were gonna come get me for real or something. Anyway, I don't like scary things. I still don't watch horror movies. It's a little. I just don't enjoy that.

Pat Millea [00:04:47]:
But this is like the perfect level of scary enough to be interesting, but so fun and goofy and hilarious and whatever. Anyway, so there's that. The actual high is that we had our first seventh grade basketball game on Monday evening and our son has, you know, he's played basketball. It's like a third year, probably something like that. I coached last year and this year, so I know some of the boys that are on the team already. We've had a couple practices, but still really early. Both teams were just, you know, a little raw because it's the first game of the season. They're trying to figure it out and we won a tightly contested battle.

Kenna Millea [00:05:23]:
Oh, the whole game.

Pat Millea [00:05:24]:
That barely beat us last year. The whole game. I don't think any team was ever winning by more than five points. Right down to the wire. They were. It's the bit where they were down by two shooting a free throw. So they tried to miss a free throw on purpose to get the rebound. And we were able to get the rebound and kill the clock.

Pat Millea [00:05:42]:
It was.

Pat Millea [00:05:44]:
The coach's heart was beating for an all important 13 year old basketball game.

Kenna Millea [00:05:50]:
Catholic Athletic association basketball game.

Pat Millea [00:05:52]:
But it was really fun. Yeah. The heart, I think, and you and I have talked about this is just, it's the past week or so and part of it is like we're coming out of Thanksgiving. So anytime that you're on vacation, it's totally worth it and you should always take a break when you need it. But it's always tricky to come back from time away because everything feels like it's piling up while you're gone, you know, and, and especially right now, like I told you yesterday, it feels like I ran an eight hour sprint yesterday and somehow lost ground in all of the things that are required of me at work and at home and just feeling overwhelmed at the moment. So just nothing to do but keep plugging away. But it's a challenge. Yeah.

Kenna Millea [00:06:35]:
Thank you for plugging. Thank you on behalf of all of us.

Pat Millea [00:06:37]:
You're very welcome.

Kenna Millea [00:06:38]:
Children who got taken to the dentist.

Pat Millea [00:06:40]:
Yes, they did.

Kenna Millea [00:06:41]:
The bills that are getting paid. Thank you for plugging.

Pat Millea [00:06:43]:
Eventually they will. Yep. Yep. And you.

Kenna Millea [00:06:46]:
Yeah. So I would say in this season, right. It's winter. This is the classic, like the Christmas concerts and the potluck dinners and the, you know, all it feels like any social circle I have is like making, making plans right now to hang out, which is so fun. Like it's a time of being aware of how richly blessed I am with people. The buying of the presents. You and I have two nights this week, you know, mapped, set aside to just map out Christmas and figure plans out.

Kenna Millea [00:07:16]:
But I would say the hard within that is, is also the illness factor. And just the surprise. There's just more anomalies, more last minute tasks and asks that get piled on. And so it's living in this place of pivoting, which I'm actually realizing connects well to our topic today of the window of tolerance. But that's, that's a hard. And it's not like, it's not a crazy heart. It's not a hard that I'll never see again. It's not a hard I've never known before.

Kenna Millea [00:07:42]:
Like, it's just this like living on your toes and kind of living in a, in a greater state of hyper vigilance. And spoiler, I'd say like living closer to the edge of my window. And I'll explain what that means a little bit. But, but just. And that takes energy, like to live in that place it, that in and of itself. If that's your baseline, like that requires more energy than being able to trust that, like the plan is in place and we're ready to go. So that's the hard.

Pat Millea [00:08:06]:
Yeah.

Kenna Millea [00:08:07]:
And it's not as hard as it would be if not for my high, which is that through someone I follow on my personal Instagram. I do a lot of like mom and professional stuff on my personal Instagram. I got introduced to actually a Minnesota native, but she's known around the globe. Her name is Kelly Nolan and she's a former attorney and now like basically trains women in a time blocking time management system. It's meant for working women, but I would say it's good for anyone because and I'm not a paid, like I've actually not even done her paid program. I've only done her five day free like trial deal. I haven't actually worked with her, but it's been amazing on a couple points. So the high for me is doing the bright method has helped me see just how hard I am on myself.

Kenna Millea [00:09:00]:
And I think I, I noticed this in my clients. I noticed this in you, Pat. Like how hard we are on ourselves, how quickly we can shame and blame ourselves when we don't get it done.

Pat Millea [00:09:08]:
Yeah.

Kenna Millea [00:09:09]:
When we do notice that we are behind when we have dropped a ball. And the bright method has like opened my eyes to that. And just that alone has helped me to really like question, like, yeah, am I confusing my being with my doing? Like, am I, am I getting the cart before the horse? Am I forgetting where my value, my worth comes from? And it's like one thing to go, oh shoot, I didn't do that thing. I need to figure out where that's going to fit today. And that is very different than what does the matter with me. Like I must not care. There must be something wrong with me. I.

Kenna Millea [00:09:41]:
I'm an idiot for being over committed. I'm selfish for taking the time last night to go on a date with you instead of working on this project for like it. Yeah. So that's been one big piece. The other thing is it has helped with and I. Someday maybe we'll interview Kelly on the podcast around the idea of mental load because that's a huge piece of what prompted her to create the bright method.

Kenna Millea [00:10:03]:
But the mental load is real and we, we put some of that on ourselves when we download our brains, but in many places. And so one of the elements of the bright method is really finding your. Your calendar, your electronic calendar is what she wants you to use is the home for all of your thoughts and all of the things that need to get done versus that one post it. Note the back of that envelope, that note in my phone, the draft in my email. Like literally I store the whiteboard in the pantry. Like I store things.

Pat Millea [00:10:33]:
I'm laughing because all real examples for you.

Kenna Millea [00:10:36]:
It's true. And, and then that requires a certain level of energy to remember. Like, I know I wrote what we needed from Costco somewhere. Where did I put it? So I will stop there because I really do think someday we should interview her. But that has been just a high. And, and even today you said like, oh my gosh, you prepped this episode last week. Like, what? What the heck? And I was like, yeah, that's the bright method for you. Like, I just am feeling more on top of it.

Kenna Millea [00:11:02]:
So as much as I'm pivoting right now, it's. It feels doable. The pivots feel doable and less catastrophic because of the right method. So thank you, Kelly Nolan. And we'll put the link to her website because you too can take the five day free trial and see what I'm talking about. So we'll link that up in the show notes.

Pat Millea [00:11:19]:
That's awesome. That's so cool. Oh my gosh. Well, I'm glad that your mental load is a little bit decreased. Congratulations. You need all the help you get and so do I in this world. I am, as you said, excited about this topic because I'm shocked that we made it this long without talking about it. We train people with this all the time.

Pat Millea [00:11:37]:
You talk to clients about it all the time. It definitely has helped me understand what I need and what's going on Inside me when I feel totally wigged out and like the walls are closing in and I'm spinning out of control. You know what I mean? So it's this idea of the window of tolerance. First of all, I know that tolerance has bit of a loaded connotation in the culture today. We are not talking about that kind of tolerance. This is not a bumper sticker with a bunch of different symbols on it. This is not just tolerating behaviors of the people around you. That's not what this kind of tolerance means.

Pat Millea [00:12:13]:
When we're talking about tolerance, we're talking about how I internally can tolerate my response to the world around me, how I can tolerate the data that I'm presented with, the things that happen outside of my system, and how I respond to that, and when my response feels like it's maybe getting out of control, what I can do about that response. So that's the kind of tolerance that we're talking about.

Kenna Millea [00:12:39]:
Like a neurological nervous system based tolerance.

Pat Millea [00:12:42]:
Bingo. Yep, exactly. So, yeah, how would you kind of introduce this topic to somebody who has never heard of it before in their entire lives, like many of our listeners, probably.

Kenna Millea [00:12:51]:
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So first of all, to say that this comes out of Dr. Dan Siegel's work, and again, we'll link up in the show notes to his website, but he's done a lot of work around, like, what is the mind?

Kenna Millea [00:13:05]:
And then this window of tolerance. He's a great model of the mind of the brain that you can share with children that helps them understand their nervous systems and the ideas of regulation and dysregulation. So the idea of the window of tolerance is, let's say we're looking at a number line from 1 to 10. And Siegel says all of us humans have a sweet spot, and it actually varies from human to human. But let's say something in the 4 to 7 range. There can be stimulus coming into my system, right? Information. Things are happening to my senses. My senses are being presented with things, and I can process that.

Kenna Millea [00:13:42]:
And I can stay in this place of regulation, of I am in the driver's seat, let's put it, of making choices, engaging my will, engaging my intellect around what's going on. Let's call that 4 to 7 then he says, from 1 to 3 then. So. So if we look at this number line going from like high to low, so 10 at the top, one at the bottom. For those of you who are only listening and not watching on video.

Pat Millea [00:14:07]:
Your hands are very descriptive, though.

Kenna Millea [00:14:09]:
Yes, yes. I'm gonna hold them Right here. So if the window of tolerance is in the middle, right? And if you truly think of a window being placed in the middle of a wall, the space below the window, he calls going down. I say down and out. Down and out of my window. And he says that space is characterized by, by a lack of energy. And we, we will see it usually in rigidity, rigid thinking and rigid behavior. So this is if we're thinking about going into our brain stem, into that more reptilian brain that fight, flight, freeze, brain.

Kenna Millea [00:14:51]:
This is a freeze. When someone freezes, sure, they get stiff, right? And they stay there. And you can't move them. You can't make a kid come out of freeze as much as you try to push them. It usually makes them even more rigid, Tighten up. Yeah, yeah. So, so he says that is the down and out. It says like 1 to 3.

Kenna Millea [00:15:10]:
Then if we go above the window. So from the top of the window to the ceiling, let's say that's the 7 to 10.

Pat Millea [00:15:16]:
Yep.

Kenna Millea [00:15:16]:
Or 8 to 10. 8 to 10. That's going up and out of the window. And that is characterized by chaos. So again, in contrast to maybe the rigidity, the frozenness of going down, up looks like frenetic flight, flight, fight and chaos. So to, to put examples on that, this morning I. We just both got to the office. It's.

Kenna Millea [00:15:44]:
It's actively snowing in Minneapolis. We're in the city, St. Paul, Minneapolis, where, you know, just the lore is like, it doesn't ever get shoveled or plowed, like in a timely fashion. So the drive was dicey. And I felt myself like living very, very much at the top of my window. And it didn't take much to flip me out, right? One kid pitching a fit, one kid yelling at me about how they couldn't get their coat on, like, and I was up and out of my window. And what I look like is barking orders, you know, I'm like, you grab that bag, you shut the door, you grab her hairbrush, you know, just that kind of chaos. Whereas the down and out.

Kenna Millea [00:16:24]:
I think of this more like when I get home from work or school, like picking up the kids, and before I've got to like do the next load of the dinner, bedtime, kind of long haul, you know, that three hour, again, a marathon at a sprinter speed. And I can kind of have these moments of just being like stuck on the couch or just standing at the kitchen island and kind of like overwhelmed and unsure, like, what to do next. So the, the up or the down actually what they share in common, we could say they're two sides of the same coin. Because what they share in common is that our prefrontal cortex has gone offline. Right? So that's. That's the most sophisticated. That's the front. I'm pointing to the front of my brain.

Kenna Millea [00:17:01]:
For those of you who can't see. That's the front of our brain. That's the most sophisticated part. It's the last part to finish cooking, so to speak. Right in our mid-20s. And it's the part that's in charge of all of our executive functioning. So that's the part that we need to be creative, to be flexible, to problem solve, to, you know, to. To.

Kenna Millea [00:17:20]:
To recognize that my child, in their rigidity, doesn't need me to get chaotic and big and demanding that they come out of their rigidity. They need me to, like, soften and give them signals of safety. That's what's. That's what's we. What blue. That is what we need. And that's precisely what we're not getting in those moments, because that has shut down and we are in that survival brain. That is that fight, flight, freeze.

Kenna Millea [00:17:43]:
So what am I missing?

Pat Millea [00:17:45]:
Yeah, I like that a lot. I think. Can you put maybe a little bit more meat on the bone of. When you talk about data in and a response out. So.

Pat Millea [00:18:01]:
When someone is receiving data in, when there are things, stimuli in the world happening around them, what does that look like? What does that do to us? And when you talk about being either above or below that window, why is it that those kind of things can kind of set us off and make us get out of that zone of authenticity, creativity, kind of comfort?

Kenna Millea [00:18:24]:
Yep, yep. Okay. So a couple things. One is, what kind of stimulus are we talking about? Like, what are the things that contribute to where we're at in our window? So first of all, there's just what we're born with, right? So there are certain, as I said, each of us have a different window. Different things are going to push me up and out. Different things are going to push you down and out. And so for each of us, we've been given maybe a narrower or wider window than the person next to us. And that just is what it is.

Kenna Millea [00:18:54]:
So there's. There's the nature, then there's the nurture, Right? So we've had experiences. Our history tells us that certain things are to be feared, certain things are to be surveyed and to be kept vigilant about. So if you are the classic is like, if you are a veteran who has been in active combat. There are sounds, there may be even smells or sights for you that are going to activate you and maybe get your nervous system churning more than for me, who has always been a civilian and has never been in a war.

Pat Millea [00:19:26]:
Right.

Kenna Millea [00:19:27]:
So. So there's nurture in that way. Right. Our experiences contribute to where we're at in our window. Then on the daily, there are things that come in through our environment. So experiences that I'm having, again, through my senses or through my emotions, what they activate in me, that adds to where I'm at within my window. Whether I'm. Whether you come into a room and say to me, hey, honey, what do you.

Kenna Millea [00:19:53]:
How do you want my help today that is going to help me stay in my window versus you coming in, you know, in a huff, dropping your bag down. And I say this because I'm the one who does this, but dropping your bag down and going, how can I help?

Pat Millea [00:20:05]:
Right.

Kenna Millea [00:20:05]:
And things.

Pat Millea [00:20:06]:
What do you need now?

Kenna Millea [00:20:07]:
Yeah, things look like they're out of control. You clearly need me. You know what? That is going to push me to the edge of my window. If not, send me right out of my window.

Pat Millea [00:20:16]:
Help is finally here.

Kenna Millea [00:20:17]:
Yes, yes, I'm here to save you because you are incompetent and can't handle this. Okay, so those are things that can contribute. Then there's the reality that relationally. Right. The space between me and someone else is also going to contribute. It's another type of stimulus. It's another type of input that's coming into my system. And then there's the stuff that happens inside of me.

Kenna Millea [00:20:41]:
So intrusive thoughts. My. My emotional reaction to things. We've kind of already covered that. But those are things that aren't necessarily sparked by something outside. But it still adds up. You know, kind of thinking this is like a math equation of sorts. Like.

Kenna Millea [00:20:55]:
And all of this adds up. So whether I take the steps it takes, and we'll talk about this in a minute, but to come back down, to be securely kind of in the center of my window, or whether these things keep adding up. Your tone, a kid coming in crying because his brother just smacked him in the head with a baseball bat. Like, you know, whatever. Just in theory, like a plastic one.

Pat Millea [00:21:20]:
Thank you for clarifying. That would send me out of my window and to the hospital pretty fast.

Kenna Millea [00:21:25]:
You know, whether I'm in the middle of dinner time, that all this is happening, and I open the fridge and I realize nobody defrosted the chicken for dinner. You know, like all of those things. It sounds so silly, but all of those things add up to pushing me, you know, up and out on top of the fact that I didn't get great sleep last night, so already I was naturally riding on the margins on the edges of my window. Did I answer all of your questions?

Pat Millea [00:21:46]:
I think so.

Kenna Millea [00:21:47]:
Yeah.

Pat Millea [00:21:47]:
Yeah. And what's really helpful about that is, you know, we'll talk oftentimes about how there's a relationship between the window of tolerance, of being able to remain in that sweet spot where I am able to be my most authentic self. And that is related to the idea of choosing my response to the world around me, that when I'm in that sweet spot, let's call it like you said, three to seven, four to seven. Somewhere in that range, in the middle, between the two extremes, I am able to take in the stimulus that's from the outside, and I'm able to process a response and make an active choice. It's not just a reflex. I'm not just acting on instinct. It's participating with the will of God by using my free will to align with his and making a choice that's authentic to who I am. It's a choice that I'm going to be proud of five minutes or five years later.

Pat Millea [00:22:40]:
And when I'm either above or below my window, that's when I am out of free choice. There's always some free will. Our free will is never totally taken away. But I'm acting way more on reflex, on instinct. I'm not thinking before I act on impulse. Yeah. Thank you. Right, right.

Kenna Millea [00:22:57]:
So, yeah, I want to talk about that more. I want to go back to what you're saying about knowing when we're in the window. And that's something that. That we work a lot with clients on, is helping them to recognize when it's happening and all of kind of the ancillary pieces that contributed to them being able to stay in their window. You know, when a client comes back and says, oh, my gosh, my son who freaks out, and every morning that whatever I make for breakfast, he hates it. He doesn't want it. And normally we get into this, like, power struggle, this yelling match, and this morning I didn't. And so we talk about.

Kenna Millea [00:23:33]:
We break it down of like, okay, tell me all of the components of that. Like, how did you let yourself be in the window when normally you go up and out and you join him in the meltdown, you join him in the screaming match. So Siegel has recently said that he would identify Being in the window. Like the. The aspects of being in the window with the acronym FACES. And so again, we'll put this in the show notes, but FACES stands for when I recognize I'm flexible, I'm adaptive, I'm coherent, I'm energized, and I'm stable. So I love this because he. He's really showing us this balanced, integrated perspective of the person.

Kenna Millea [00:24:16]:
And he actually says, when we're in the window, we are living in an integrated. Uses that word. And he says, the different parts of my brain are connecting, and they are sending messages to my body, to my words. I. I am the whole person. So if we can just talk about FACES for a second and just. Yeah. Look at these aspects and consider how important they are and.

Kenna Millea [00:24:40]:
And how we can see that when we act with these traits, we are, as you said, proud of our response five minutes, five days, you know, five weeks from now. So to be flexible and adaptive. Right. That again, back to my point. My low earlier or the heart of. Of pivoting. Like, when I'm in the window, I am able to move and to be more nimble with whatever comes my way. I made oatmeal.

Kenna Millea [00:25:03]:
Kid says he wants yogurt. That doesn't have to be the end of my world. When I'm in my window, he talks about being coherent and energized and stable. And I think about this particularly for me, because I am like the. I'm like a cartoon mom, like, in the morning, like, running around, you know, like, you see her as, like, this tornado or like the. The wind, like, that blows past you Tasmanian devil.

Pat Millea [00:25:28]:
Yeah.

Kenna Millea [00:25:28]:
Yes. And so when we are coherent, energized, and stable, it's. Yes, there is moving the ball forward. Yes, there is productivity and getting us out the door, you know, in this situation, but it's not leaving everyone in your wake like, holy buckets, what did I just experience? You know, that was kind of scary. And so I love that he's given us these really concrete factors to consider, these traits so that we can notice. Yeah. What. When it.

Kenna Millea [00:25:57]:
When it's showing up when we're in that window.

Pat Millea [00:25:59]:
Yeah.

Kenna Millea [00:26:01]:
So. So back to your point, Pat, of, like, making decisions that we can, like, put our name on. Right. That we'd be proud to stand by when we are responding to maybe a demand at work or responding to a complaint with requests for change from our spous. Responding to a tantrum from our kid.

Kenna Millea [00:26:21]:
When we think about it, our regrettable decisions come from being outside of the window. And again, to, like, Talk about that theme of shame. Like, we can, especially as people of faith, I think go, like, what is the matter with me that like, I a follower of Christ, Right. Someone who's trying to model the love of Christ. I just like screamed at my kid about the fact that he couldn't find his shoe or whatever. And so I think this can also help us even on a deeper level of being able to have to tap into some self compassion of like, it's not that I'm a bad person that I made that choice, that I said something really critical to my husband or said was dismissive of my son's upset feelings or my daughter's like, needs for more tenderness for me, but like, wow, it was really outside of my window. And it doesn't, it doesn't exonerate us from like, needing to make amends and from needing to be different going forward, but it makes it feel more possible because it's less about some character defect. It's less about like, I'm just a hopeless jerk and it's more about like, oh my gosh, like, I think I'm not slowing down enough.

Kenna Millea [00:27:29]:
I think I'm letting life be at such a pace that I can't track where I'm at in my window and make some really thoughtful choices when I notice myself creeping up or creeping down. Yeah, to get back in.

Pat Millea [00:27:43]:
Well, that was my thought too. Is the, you know, in your example of, I lashed out at my kid and I screamed at them about something that is not objectively bad, they made a mistake, but I was outside of my window because of a thing that happened at work, so I lashed out at my kid that needs to be brought to confession. So there is likely some level of sin there that needs to be confessed, it needs to be repented of, and it needs to be healed by the mercy of God. And also there is something to that that is really healthy to investigate and to ask the question, what could I have done earlier in the day to be able to be in a place to respond to that particular situation better? It doesn't mean that the sin wasn't a sin. What it means is I may be able to take concrete steps now to avoid that situation down the road. Like when something stressful does happen at work, maybe I don't listen to the news on the radio on the way home from work and just get more riled up about how terrible the world is. Maybe I need silence and I just shut everything off in the car and I can take some time to decompress and go from an 8 to a 5. Maybe I need to listen to a podcast like This Whole Life.

Pat Millea [00:28:53]:
And I need to be calmed by the voices of two lovely people, one lovely person. And then also me. What do I need to be able to get back inside my window so I can avoid the near occasion of sin like that in the future? I think that's. That's really valuable.

Kenna Millea [00:29:09]:
Yeah, can we, can we stay on that for just a second? Because when. When you and I are teaching this particularly, like in a large group setting, we. We do the psycho education, like, what is the window of tolerance? And then we hit two topics, right? One is how do I get back in my window? And the other is how do I widen my window?

Pat Millea [00:29:26]:
That's where I was going to go. So feel free to what you need to do.

Kenna Millea [00:29:28]:
Yeah, so let's stay with the how do I get back in my window? Because that's what you were just talking about. So we discussed earlier that going down and out of your window is really characterized by rigidity, right? It's characterized by this freeze. And what we want to think about is getting back in requires an opposite action, right? So if I'm at a two and I want to get to a five, I need to add three more, right? So. So to get to consider what is the opposite action of the rigidity of the frozenness, right. Of this like, kind of stagnation of activity.

Kenna Millea [00:30:07]:
So to stimulate and to activate, to move your body, to kind of reawaken the senses, to re-engage, you know, the whole of you. The experience of you would be something that if you're finding yourself kind of chronically going down and out of the window, that would be your course. So what can I. I'm standing at the island and kind of just in this frozen state. Cause I'm like, I don't know what to do next. I don't know if I should clean up the wet, gross, muddy puddle of the snow boots that just got tracked in through the house. I don't know if I should go sweep from breakfast that never got cleaned up this morning.

Kenna Millea [00:30:41]:
I don't know if I should start making dinner. I don't know if I should unpack the lunch boxes. I don't know if I should harp on the children who have not played the piano. Because I can hear that it's not being played like, right, this is all going on inside of me.

Pat Millea [00:30:51]:
Hypothetically.

Kenna Millea [00:30:51]:
Looks like outside of me. This is gonna be me circle four o'clock today. But what's going on outside means I'm just frozen.

Pat Millea [00:30:57]:
Yeah.

Kenna Millea [00:30:57]:
And what do I need? I just need to move. So maybe I roll out my neck. Maybe I literally stretch, like, reach for my toes. I had a client, and he noticed that he went down and out often and was getting ready for some family holidays where he knew he was going to be dysregulated. And so the choice that he made, the plan that we made for him, was in these moments, he would step out into the cold and just take some deep breaths and kind of counteract the frozenness with this sharp cold air, this really stimulating shock to the system a little bit. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So. So that's one.

Kenna Millea [00:31:36]:
For those of us, when we find ourselves going up and out of the window, we want to slow down, Right. If going up is characterized by the chaos, it's characterized by this. This. This flight and fight. It's very active. We want to slow down. The other day, I had one of these moments where I was trying to do 85 things at once.

Pat Millea [00:31:57]:
Yeah.

Kenna Millea [00:31:58]:
Spoiler. It did not go well. And I was trying to, like, sweep under the island while barking out orders of kids to get stuff going on their routines while cleaning up all the kajillions of writing and coloring utensils that happen on our island, like, on a daily basis. And so I was stacking all of the. The. The bins of, like, markers and colored pencils.

Pat Millea [00:32:17]:
Oh, yeah.

Kenna Millea [00:32:17]:
And I dropped the whole thing. Like, I was. I was finished. I was, like, ready to walk them down to the basement.

Pat Millea [00:32:22]:
Oh, it hurts. My heart. I wasn't even there.

Kenna Millea [00:32:25]:
Drop them. And I'm not kidding you. It was like a scene out of a movie. Like, everyone stopped and just looked at me like, what's she gonna do? Because they had already. They already knew I was pushing up against my window, right? There was already, like, too much energy to be. Let's go back to energized. Stable and coherent. My actions were none of those things, right? And so, like, while I was, quote, being productive, everyone was like, she's gonna blow, like, any moment.

Pat Millea [00:32:50]:
And just watching the volcano from afar.

Kenna Millea [00:32:52]:
Oh, my gosh. And, like, I just vacuumed. I mopped or not mopped. I'd swept. I cleaned the counters. And all this comes tumbling down. And I just, like, look at our son. Our.

Kenna Millea [00:33:01]:
Our third born was standing next to me, and he was like, he's backing away slowly. And I was like, put my hands on the counter, and I just.

Kenna Millea [00:33:12]:
Took some, like, deep, like, guttural, like, labor. Breath, breathing. And was like, okay. And just started to clean up again. Right. But. But I had to slow down because if I kept moving, I was going to be out of 10 and people were going to be in my path or an 11. Right.

Kenna Millea [00:33:28]:
It was not going to be cute. So. So that's when we think about getting back in our windows. And there are many times when we need to choose to self soothe, to either come out of that down, to come out of that operate, come out of that place of chaos or rigidity, to get back in the window, to be in that place of faces, flexible, adaptive. Right, all those things. Okay, so that's that then. We want to think about widening our window. Did you want to say something?

Pat Millea [00:33:53]:
Can I frame this a little bit? Yeah, yeah. Because just the idea of widening the window is so fascinating to me and so doggone relevant. So like you said, everyone has a different window. Me and you, although we are married, have a different range of things that push us out of our window and make us respond to the world in ways that we wish we wouldn't have. It's also true that no one has a fully open window. No one.

Kenna Millea [00:34:22]:
Clients try to tell me that they do. And I'm like, I'm sorry, we're going to discover really soon here that you don't.

Pat Millea [00:34:26]:
Okay, interesting. Let me think about this for a second. Did Jesus have a perfectly open window of tolerance?

Kenna Millea [00:34:34]:
I have had people ask me that question.

Pat Millea [00:34:38]:
Really? Yes.

Kenna Millea [00:34:40]:
My hunch is that he had moments of like overwhelm or being frozen, but didn't sin in this, like overwhelm, like a.

Pat Millea [00:34:52]:
Natural human reaction to the world.

Kenna Millea [00:34:54]:
He doesn't cease to be human.

Pat Millea [00:34:55]:
Correct, Right, yeah. Full emotions, full will, you know, but never sinful. Interesting. And then Mary as well. Okay, topic for a different day. But no one has a fully open window outside of possibly the two sinless humans in the whole world. All of us have something on the top and bottom. We have a range that we lose sense of our authentic self.

Pat Millea [00:35:17]:
So, you know, this was more popular, I would say, a few years ago in the midst of COVID and some like political questions, things like that. You would get language thrown around on one side about things like safe spaces. Right. That because the world is so distressing to me, I need to have a safe space. So there were literally universities in the United States and maybe beyond that had literal rooms that were called safe spaces. And they were essentially like, it was like the college version of maybe like a sensory room in elementary school, something like that. So like a regulation room. And for all of the ways that sensory regulation is really good and crucial for every human being that that image became a little bit of a mockery of this idea of people's window being so small that the smallest little thing would set them off and, quote, unquote, trigger them.

Pat Millea [00:36:14]:
Right. Like that was the word they would use. And on the other side, you get folks who could lean in the direction of being really uncharitable, frankly, and just kind of cruel. You get terms like snowflake thrown around of somebody who's so weak and so pathetic that they can't deal with the stresses of the world. You know, so like a fragility. Like a fragility. Right. Like, if someone's window is only a five and anything, like, seemingly something that would not be a big deal to somebody else sets this person off for hours and they can't come back from it easily.

Pat Millea [00:36:48]:
So, again, there's no shame in the idea of having a small window. It's likely that someone has a narrow window of tolerance because of things that were out of their control. Maybe it was a lot of the things that they inherited through nature, through their upbringing, through events in the world and then their life that have really taught them that they're not safe and that things can be really scary out there. So.

Pat Millea [00:37:14]:
If I have a very narrow window, what can I do to try to expand that window, to tolerate the circumstances of my life more easily? And if I'm in relationship with someone, if I'm near someone who has a narrow window, how can I relate to that person in a way that's loving but also helpful?

Kenna Millea [00:37:33]:
Yeah. Yeah. So a couple things, you know, I would say I want to take the qualifier off of it of, like, very narrow. And I would say it's up to each person to decide, like, if your life is such that you cannot function in the way that you want to, we would say the glory of God is the human person fully alive. If you are finding that you are not fully alive. Right. That. That you're living in a, quote, safe space, trying to bring your bubble with you all the time.

Kenna Millea [00:38:00]:
You know, little things set you off, you're finding that, yeah, it's hard to be in a relationship with many people. That I would say is good reason to consider, gosh, how can I actively pursue widening my window? How might I challenge myself to step into situations that are on the edge? Right. Even in therapy, we say, I don't want to take you out of your window. Certainly there are moments that it happens and we don't see it coming. Something gets activated, a memory gets triggered, a trauma Gets triggered and it happens. And then we have to work together to bring that client back into their window. But what I do want to do in therapy is I want to take you to the edge. I want to take you up against the window frame, and I want to stretch that just a little bit more.

Kenna Millea [00:38:44]:
And so I will truly practice. Right. This is why role plays and experiential therapy are so big, because we get to simulate that. That conversation again with your spouse. And you're going to practice responding from within the window instead of a defensive, guarded, high walls place, like up and out of your window.

Pat Millea [00:39:04]:
Yep.

Kenna Millea [00:39:05]:
So how do we. How do we do this? I mean, we've kind of talked about it. Like, I want to intentionally choose activities. I want to notice the things that seem to take me out, and I want to take the time to reflect on, like, gosh, what do I. What do I wish that would look like? When son comes down for breakfast and loses his cool over whatever I picked? Which, by the way, we talked about it last night, and he picked this thing, but in his sleep, he changed his mind.

Pat Millea [00:39:33]:
Yep.

Kenna Millea [00:39:34]:
This may or may not be a real thing that happens in our life, but I want to think in advance of, like, what do I wish? How do I wish I would respond to that? Maybe even practice that, Even script myself a little bit of a narrative and then be able to use it. Like, that stretches my window and then I turn around and go, oh, my gosh, I just did that. I just did that thing that, like, I think an ideal, an ideal response would be in that situation. I just did that thing.

Pat Millea [00:40:02]:
Yeah.

Kenna Millea [00:40:03]:
And we're adding that muscle memory. We're flexing that. We're stretching it, we're growing it.

Kenna Millea [00:40:08]:
For myself, I know I have this, this group of folks that I am connected with. And sometimes I. I feel very outside of that group for a whole lot of reasons. And yet I want to be connected to them. And so when I think about stepping into those social. That, that circle and into those social situations, I have to be intentional about my mindset going in. For me personally with this thing, I tell myself, like, I can just be present and receive whatever comes of this gathering. This doesn't have to be something that really grows me.

Kenna Millea [00:40:43]:
This doesn't have to be, you know, I don't have to receive a lot from this group. I can just enjoy their company and that's okay. I can have friendships that aren't super deep and, you know, stretching me and growing me and challenging me and all these things. And. And when I'm there. When I'm present, something gets said that maybe, ooh, pricks a little bit of a wound. But this isn't a group that I feel comfortable talking about that with. I can remind myself, like, yeah, I'm just.

Kenna Millea [00:41:07]:
I'm just going to receive. I'm just going to let myself be in the moment. I don't have to take things too personally. I don't have to take them to heart. I can really just enjoy it for what it is at face value. Yeah, but we have to choose those things. And I think, to your point earlier of maybe what can happen in the broader culture is I experience something that's like, oh, I didn't like that. Oh, that was really dysregulating for me.

Kenna Millea [00:41:31]:
That really sent me down and out. Or that sent me up and out. I'm going to cut myself off from those kinds of experiences going forward. And what I say to my clients is like, man, you are painting yourself into a very small world. Right.

Pat Millea [00:41:42]:
You are painting yourself and into a small window. Like, that's a good way to shrink. My window is to avoid anything that might cause me discomfort.

Kenna Millea [00:41:50]:
Yeah, yeah. And. And so it's an active choice, and it's a higher level. It requires the prefrontal cortex because my. My brainstem, my limbic system, like my fight, flight, freeze. Part of me is not going to choose that. That is not. That doesn't make sense to my survival instinct.

Kenna Millea [00:42:08]:
That only makes sense to the most sophisticated part of my brain that says, we want more than a small life. We want more than a small circle. We want more than only being able to hang out with that one person. Like, we want to be able to tolerate more distress and discomfort. We want it to be less taxing. Like. Like, that only comes from the front of my brain, and so I have to work on it in an active kind of call. I have to actively choose it from a place of calm.

Kenna Millea [00:42:38]:
That's not something I can choose in a state of alarm, in a state of dysregulation. And so we've got to be making the time, making the space to be reflective, which is maybe the hardest part in a world where it's so easy to not. It's so easy to not think about what are the things that cause me to stress which spoiler is gonna be part of our challenge by choice.

Pat Millea [00:42:58]:
But, yeah.

Kenna Millea [00:42:59]:
But, yeah.

Pat Millea [00:43:00]:
So I remember talking about this principle when we talked about the Anxious Generation and training kids for technology and ourselves for technology, that technology is a very. All the different forms of it but especially social media is a very effective means of avoiding discomfort. So if I'm waiting in line at the grocery store and I'm bored, and I don't want to have the discomfort of talking to somebody nearby, God forbid.

Kenna Millea [00:43:28]:
Or just the discomfort of boredom or.

Pat Millea [00:43:30]:
Just the discomfort of standing there of being bored, it's natural second nature now just to whip out my phone and just start scrolling, you know? And one of the things that Jonathan Haidt talks a lot about in The Anxious Generation, and he doesn't connect it to the window of tolerance, but I think it's exactly what he's getting at, is almost requiring our kids to get into difficult situations. That part of parenting is putting your child in a situation that is a challenge, number one. So that we would say in this episode, they can grow their window so they can expand their window so they're. You know, we talked about with Dr. Katherine Posch as well, related to OCD, one of the. The most reputable treatments for obsessive and compulsive disorder is ERP Exposure and response prevention. So you expose someone to the thing that triggers the kind of obsessive and compulsive behaviors, but then you challenge them to not respond in the way that they're used to, and to see that even if I don't respond, the terrible thing that I expected did not come.

Kenna Millea [00:44:36]:
We literally have a child who feels very overwhelmed, which I've learned is a really common thing. Actually, this child feels very overwhelmed ordering food or, like, speaking to, like, clerks in a store. And this child says, I feel like I'm inconveniencing them. And we say it is literally their job. They literally get paid to take your order or to help you find the Scotch tape. But we've been challenging this child to do so.

Pat Millea [00:45:04]:
Right.

Kenna Millea [00:45:04]:
Setting this child in safely. But, like, sending this child into a store with a credit card and being like, can you go get the thing? And it always helps when this child wants the thing.

Pat Millea [00:45:13]:
Totally, Right? Yep.

Kenna Millea [00:45:14]:
The other day, this kid wanted a snack from the gas station. Yep. I think the kid was, like, craving French fries or something.

Pat Millea [00:45:19]:
French fries.

Kenna Millea [00:45:20]:
And we were like, okay, here you go. Here's the credit card. You were pumping gas. I was in the front seat. We're like, here's the credit card. Go get the French fries. And this kid was like, wait, what? And we're like, yeah, go fumble, futz.

Pat Millea [00:45:29]:
How bad do you want it?

Kenna Millea [00:45:30]:
You have to ask for help on how to insert the card if you don't know how. It's literally what they're there for. And the child came back and was like. Like, oh, my gosh. I did it, like, proudly, I think, carrying two. Two things of fried potatoes, gas station fries. By the way, it was actually gas station hash browns from that morning.

Pat Millea [00:45:46]:
That's true.

Kenna Millea [00:45:46]:
It was actually really gross. But anyways. But I was like, you're so proud of yourself, and I'm so proud of you. Right. Like, but actively choosing that, making the willful choice to go. Okay, I'm gonna. Like you said, erp, exposure and response. Like, I'm going to step into this situation that I know can make me feel uncomfortable, but I have an idea of how I can do it differently from my faces, right.

Kenna Millea [00:46:06]:
From a place of flexibility, adaptability, coherence. Yeah, Love it, love it, love it.

Pat Millea [00:46:11]:
And for many of us as adults, we don't have to go looking for exposure. Right? Like, when I walk in the door of my house, there is going to be exposure to discomfort. There are going to be smells. Yesterday we were getting ready to go out and give a talk, and I walked into our bedroom, which is a decent. You know, it's from the. The toilet of our bathroom to my closet is a good 30ft. And standing in my closet, I was like, did the sewer back up? This is terrible timing. We have to go give a talk, and the babysitter's here.

Pat Millea [00:46:40]:
Did the toilet back up? Nope. A child just used the toilet, and for the umpteenth time, did not flush. All I'm saying is the Milleas have room to grow, but there's no lack of exposure for us as adults.

Kenna Millea [00:46:51]:
Right. Because you could have flown off the handle. No pun intended.

Pat Millea [00:46:54]:
Right.

Kenna Millea [00:46:54]:
Could have flown off the handle at the child. Instead, you were like, daggone it. We have room to grow still. I'm gonna flush the toilet, and we're gonna walk out the door.

Pat Millea [00:47:01]:
So it's about my. How can I think ahead? And what do I need again, like, to get back into my window, either stimulating with movement or kind of calming with. With deep breaths or with kind of attunement to get back into my window so I can prevent the response that I don't want to have.

Kenna Millea [00:47:20]:
Yeah, yeah. We've talked about this before. I can't even remember what episode we talked about it. Maybe in the OT episode, the Senses and regulation episode with Caitlin Russ, we've talked about sensory. That a lot can. Can be helped in terms of getting back in the window through the senses. So for me, sound is so big. And lights.

Pat Millea [00:47:42]:
Yeah.

Kenna Millea [00:47:42]:
Like, being able to dim the lights. At night when I'm like, the day is done and I have just been like, surfing on the edge of my window for the last four hours through bedtime and dinner time and homework time and piano time and a la. But being able to turn off music right. There are times when maybe you being out of down, maybe low, want music to, like, energize you and to jazz you up and to come in and make dinner and do the routine in a joyful way. And I'm like, I cannot handle more on top of this right now. So you asked a question a little bit ago about what do we do when we're in relation with someone who, yes, maybe is outside of their window and what have you. And this is one of those tricky moments where it's like you can't control it for them. You could ask if there's openness for feedback and put it up on the fence post of like, hey, I've noticed that when you.

Kenna Millea [00:48:34]:
I think this happened to us recently. Yeah, this happened to us recently when. When we were both home after school one day and I observed that you, who don't often get very up and out of your window, that I felt like you were like a little barky with the kids, if I can say, and just seemed a little bit chaotic and a little bit frenetic. And you said to me, I feel so much pressure to get the routine done, to get the kid to push the kids through all the things, all the chores they need to do, all the tasks, all the homework. Like, it's just.

Pat Millea [00:49:04]:
It.

Kenna Millea [00:49:04]:
It's crazy. And I said to you, could we let go and make dinner? I think he said, and make dinner and have it ready by five. And I said, could we let go of that expectation then? Like, I agree that getting the kids through the routine when they get home from school because once you let them play, it kind of.

Pat Millea [00:49:19]:
It's over. Yeah. Yeah.

Kenna Millea [00:49:21]:
But I said, can we. Can we be okay with dinner being a little bit later? People are older now than they used to be. I think we can wait. You know, they have a healthy, big snack after school. Like, they can wait. And you're like, okay, I think that will help. So, you know, to. To be able to put it up on the fence post and God willing, you're in a relationship.

Kenna Millea [00:49:38]:
You're in a space with a kid or a parent or a roommate or whatever, a colleague, where there. There can be that behavioral, objective feedback and that freedom to say and that freedom to receive without it feeling like an attack. But outside of that Just managing your own window is really what it takes. Right? And our kids are a great example of that. They are up and out or down and out of their windows in a flash, and it's constantly being presented to us like, how am I going to respond? How am I going to stay securely in my window even in the presence of you losing sight of yours so that I don't go with you, and I'll go up and out or down and out with you.

Pat Millea [00:50:15]:
And the window language, I think for us in our marriage and I think even with our kids, sometimes the window language actually can be really helpful because it's less critical shaming and villainizing than a lot of the ways that we humans sometimes speak to each other. Right. So you coming into the kitchen with me and saying, hey, it seems like you're out of your window right now. Is there something that I can do, or is there something that you need that is way better than, stop screaming at the children again, or what's your problem? Like.

Pat Millea [00:50:50]:
The window language takes it off of the person as you are the problem. You're making this active choice that's hurting people around you, and it puts it on their response to the world around them. Sure, they may need to make a different choice in behavior, but that is likely not going to happen if all I'm doing is speaking to them as the person and not speaking to the behavior itself.

Kenna Millea [00:51:11]:
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Piling on the shame that the person is already feeling. Right. Because none of us want to be acting outside of our windows. None of us want to be, you know, in a place of chaos or in a place of rigidity and. And obstinate. Like, none of us want that.

Kenna Millea [00:51:26]:
Nobody listening. None of us who are seeking to live an integrated life desire that. But we find ourselves in that place. And. And I do. I love the window of tolerance because I think it's more hopeful than coming at this as, like, it's a character defect or it's just the temperament I've been given, and there's nothing I can do about that. Like, no, we can stretch that. We can challenge that.

Kenna Millea [00:51:45]:
We can. We can flex the muscle.

Pat Millea [00:51:47]:
Yeah, yeah. You hinted at a challenge by choice earlier.

Kenna Millea [00:51:51]:
Let's. Let's do it.

Pat Millea [00:51:52]:
Pay off the tease. What do you got?

Kenna Millea [00:51:53]:
I know this is gonna be. Speaking of challenge, it's gonna be a challenge for me to explain it, because usually I'm with someone in my office or we're giving a presentation in person, and you can see me. So this is one of those moments Where I'm like feeling a little stifled by the audio only format. But just, just roll with me here. I'm gonna try to explain it. So imagine that on a, on a piece of computer paper, you've drawn a box in the center, right? That is your window. In the center of this, quote, wall, you've drawn the window, and that is your window of tolerance. That's your 4 to 7 sweet spot, let's say.

Kenna Millea [00:52:27]:
And on the left side of the window, the left frame of the window is when you woke up this morning. The challenge by choice I want to give is like mapping out the day as it has unfolded relative to the window. So again, I said to you this morning, I woke up, I got great sleep last night. I'm coming off of a couple nights of kind of inexplicable insomnia that made me feel truly just.

Kenna Millea [00:52:53]:
Just gross. And so I woke up this morning and I felt awesome. And so I was like square, firmly, securely in my window of tolerance. Then we started to get ready for school and I couldn't find socks for the girls, which is like a perennial issue and my gosh, it just needs to be St. Nicholas Day because they are getting so many pairs of socks. But so I would say I went up and I crept up toward. I'd say, like, I was.

Kenna Millea [00:53:16]:
Yeah, a couple inches more toward the top of my window. Then we were driving. We were driving. We were listening to Christmas music. Everyone was getting along. It was actually a really smooth process figuring out what playlist we were going to use today. All those things. I came kind of back down out of my state of maybe more dysregulation.

Kenna Millea [00:53:33]:
A squirrely back in the window. Then there was traffic on the highway and we have a friend who we pick up and take him kind of part of his leg of his journey to work.

Pat Millea [00:53:41]:
Yeah.

Kenna Millea [00:53:42]:
And I thought not only about him being late, but him waiting in the cold because he gets off of the train and waits for us.

Pat Millea [00:53:47]:
Yeah.

Kenna Millea [00:53:47]:
And so then I was up at the top. I went, right, so. So map that out. And notice in particular, I was thinking of like an ekg. Like, notice the peaks and the valleys and like, what are those? And do this for a week. I challenge my clients. Of course. I see my clients every week.

Kenna Millea [00:54:02]:
So I say, like, okay, I taught you this today. Now I want you to a map of your window. So everything. Like, every day I'm going to have one of these boxes. Yes, every day you're going to have a box because the left side is going to be When I woke up. And the right side is going to be sometime in the evening. Whenever you decide to map out your day.

Pat Millea [00:54:16]:
Sure.

Kenna Millea [00:54:17]:
And then look at the patterns over time. What are those trouble spots. So to pick on you again, Pat, I would say, cool. If we were mapping out your window, we maybe would have noticed there was this spike up every afternoon. Right. Every afternoon that you were doing the afternoon routine and making.

Pat Millea [00:54:32]:
What a weird coincidence. What goes on at 4 o' clock every day?

Kenna Millea [00:54:35]:
And so we get this in insight of like, okay, what, what. Back to that faces. Right. What kind of flexibility, what kind of adaptability do I need so that I can be in a place of stability at 4 o' clock every day? This happens to me. Or, gosh, you know, bedtime, I'm squarely in my window. I love tucking the kids in. They are so cuddly, they're so sweet. They're chatty, maybe too chatty, but they want to share about their day.

Kenna Millea [00:55:01]:
I love that. Okay. Maybe I want to actually make more time for the bedtime routine because that's really a moment of connection for us as a family or for me with my kid. I want to make more space for that. So looking at what helps me get back in the window, what are the moments where I have sustained experience in the window? What are things that pull me down? What are things that pull me up? Just notice those patterns and consider what. What kinds of adjustments need to be made or how can I prolong my experience in the window? So that's the challenge. By choice. So let me know how that feels coming in just as you're listening, graphing.

Pat Millea [00:55:33]:
Out your window days. That's perfect.

Kenna Millea [00:55:34]:
Maybe I'll make an Instagram reel about.

Pat Millea [00:55:36]:
It, but that's great. Beautiful. Thanks for that.

Kenna Millea [00:55:38]:
Yeah, Great.

Pat Millea [00:55:39]:
Shall we pray?

Kenna Millea [00:55:40]:
Yeah. Are you gonna pray for us?

Pat Millea [00:55:41]:
I'm happy to pray for us. Yeah. Why don't I do that? Let's do it. Name of the Father, Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Pat Millea [00:55:49]:
Lord God, you made us in your image and likeness, and you created us fully human. And you desire for us to be fully alive, to be united with you, to be connected to one another, to be integrated within ourselves. We ask for your blessing on each of us, Lord, that you would watch over us and guide us, help us to grow and develop in the ways that we respond to a fallen world. Lord, help us to grow in resilience, to widen the window of tolerance that each of us has so that we can make more free and holy and authentic choices. Lord, we ask for your forgiveness for the ways that we have responded to the world in ways that are outside of your will when we were above or below our window. And we ask for the grace to have the wisdom to know what we need and to have the humility to take the steps necessary to get back into our window whenever we're outside of it. Lord, bless us, guide us, help us to continue to grow in love for you and love for one another. And help us to live lives of virtue and clarity in the way that we respond to the world.

Pat Millea [00:57:09]:
We ask all this, Jesus, in your name, Amen. In the name of the Father, Son and the Holy Spirit, Amen. Get out there and stay in that window to the best of your ability. And when you get outside of it, like everybody does, to get what you need to get back in it. Yeah, it's going to be great. Super blessed to talk through this with you, dear listener. We would love to hear any of your feedback on it. You can always keep up with us online at thiswholelifepodcast.com you can connect with us on Instagram and Facebook @thiswholelifepodcast.

Pat Millea [00:57:40]:
Maybe Kenna will make a reel about this visual window charting that you can check out and glory in the visual example of it. And we will see you next week for the next Storytellers episode. Right? God bless you, friends.

Kenna Millea [00:57:57]:
This Whole Life is a production of the Martin Center for Integration. Visit us online at thiswholelifepodcast.com.

Pat Millea [00:58:22]:
Master of the Arts in Theology.

Kenna Millea [00:58:28]:
Now you sound like the commencement address guy who like the guy who announces what degree is being conferred.

Pat Millea [00:58:35]:
Does he talk like that?

Kenna Millea [00:58:37]:
Yeah, I think so. I'm pretty sure.