01/26/2026
I had the opportunity to sit in a workshop with Carlie a couple days ago. We learned about her family's beautiful community work including this image below. I love this Indigenous shift from Window of Tolerance to Window of Choice. Two-eyed seeing offer such a beautiful way of walking with others. 💕💕💕
So many people have been asking for more about the We Al-li Window of Choice, so I wanted to share a little more of the thinking that sits underneath the diagram.
The Window of Tolerance (from Western neuroscience) talks about a narrow band where the nervous system can function. It’s helpful but it mostly centres survival, individual regulation and pathology.
The Window of Choice shifts the story.
It moves us:
from tolerance → to agency
from symptom management → to relational presence
from individual nervous systems → to people-in-relationship-with-Country
from staying within limits → to moving with awareness
Choice here isn’t just thinking.
It’s embodied, cultural, relational choice held by ancestors, community, and land.
Inside the Window of Choice, we can:
– feel without being overtaken
– sense our bodies without disappearing
– respond instead of react
– stay in relationship with self, others, and Country
– access memory, humour, story, creativity, ceremony
And this window isn’t fixed.
It widens and narrows depending on cultural safety, collective presence, connection to Country, rhythm, ritual and relationship.
We also name what Western models often miss - Feign / Fawn.
Not weakness. Not failure.
But appeasement as protection.
Feign/Fawn tells a story of relational danger where survival depended on staying connected at any cost. Healing doesn’t shame this response. It thanks it… then gently creates the conditions for choice to return.
In the We Al-li lens:
Too much activation → Country calls for grounding.
Low activation (freeze, shutdown, feign/fawn) → Spirit calls for safety and reconnection.
And most importantly…
Choice is collective, not individual.
It is held in yarning circles, shared rhythm, cultural authority, being witnessed without fixing, ceremony and time.
So instead of asking,
“Am I regulated?”
we ask,
“Am I connected enough to choose?”
Because tolerating pain is about endurance.
Choosing is about sovereignty.
This is the heart of the Window of Choice.
Always shared with respect, care and deep gratitude to the old knowledges that continue to guide us.
💛
Carlie
We Al-li
