In trauma-informed coaching, language shapes conversations. It influences not only clients’ understanding but also their immediate nervous system experience with us.

Many coaches know the Window of Tolerance, described by Dr. Dan Siegel. It defines the range within which a person stays regulated and engaged without tipping into overwhelm or shutting down. This framework clarified why people become reactive, numb, disconnected, or stuck.

In my work, we noticed more. Clients often struggle with presence, staying oriented to the here and now. Our goal is for them to reflect, feel, and stay connected without bracing, collapsing, rushing, or overriding themselves. This difficulty can emerge before overt signs of dysregulation.

The Window of Presence is useful in trauma-informed coaching. It describes the space where a person can remain present and connected without urgency or collapse—having enough internal room to think and feel at once. From a nervous-system lens, this is where capacity becomes available.

Within the Window of Presence, coaching feels more spacious. Curiosity emerges, complexity is held without forced solutions, and insight can arise naturally. When presence narrows, capacity does too—time feels tight, and questions may feel like pressure. Coaching skills such as reframing and action planning can, in turn, unintentionally activate survival responses. This is often a matter of timing, pacing, and capacity, not a failure of skill or care.

To make this even more complete, I find it helpful to include a Polyvagal-informed view of what is happening beneath the surface. Polyvagal Theory, introduced by Dr. Stephen Porges, offers a framework for understanding how the nervous system continuously scans for cues of safety or danger, often outside of conscious awareness. In this lens, presence is not simply a mental skill. It is a state-dependent capacity shaped by autonomic pathways. As humans, we are always seeking safety on the unconscious level. It is the organism’s intrinsic work.  

When regulated in a ventral vagal state (social engagement), the window of presence widens. Clients stay connected internally and relationally. Flexibility in expression and access to curiosity and reflection increase; emotions can be held without urgency.

With sympathetic activation, presence narrows into urgency. Clients think faster, feel pressured, loop, and push for solutions.

With dorsal vagal collapse, the presence narrows to numbness, fog, or shutdown. Compliance appears without true availability. Language and agency may fade, leaving a sense of not being fully present.

In other words, presence is not just psychological—it is physiological and relational.

Why Presence and Tolerance Are Not the Same

The distinction matters: tolerance can imply endurance, while presence suggests enough regulation and safety for choice. Sustainable change is more likely from the second. A client may be “within tolerance” but lack the ventral safety needed for reflection and relationship. Presence can signal capacity earlier than dysregulation alone.

What This Shifts for Coaches

This lens changes the work. Instead of “What’s the next step?” ask, “Is there enough presence for a next step to emerge?”

From an ICF and MCC perspective, working within the Window of Presence supports core competencies such as trust, safety, deep listening, and partnering with client capacity. A trauma-informed coach also tracks: Is the system oriented toward connection, protection, or collapse, and how might that shape what’s possible now?

Noticing When Presence Is Narrowing

These prompts are not diagnostic and aren’t meant for quick answers. They invite us to be curious, to slow down and reorient to safety, pacing, and partnership—before acting.

When a client begins to speed up or loop.

• What might this pace be protecting right now?
• What would happen if less needed to be resolved at this moment?
• Is the nervous system asking for containment rather than insight?

When responses become more conceptual than embodied.

• What sensations, emotions, or lived details may be just outside awareness?
• Would naming what’s happening in the room support presence?
• Is this a moment to invite noticing rather than meaning-making?

When there’s urgency to “figure it out” or “fix it.”

• Whose urgency is this—mine, the client’s, or the nervous system’s?
• What pressure might be shaping this moment?
• What becomes possible if understanding is allowed to come later?

When a client agrees quickly but feels less available.

• Is consent happening at the level of the nervous system, not only verbally?
• What would a slower or softer yes sound like?
• What space might be needed to restore real choice?

When you notice yourself tightening or working harder.

• What am I responding to in my own body right now?
• What would support me in returning to presence?
• How can I model regulation rather than effort?

Re-orienting to the Window of Presence

• Is there enough safety here for both of us to stay present?
• What would help widen the field: less pressure, more time, or clearer grounding?
• What is the smallest shift that might support capacity in this moment?

Presence is not something we can fake. It is something to feel, practice, protect, and notice. When presence widens, even slightly, capacity often follows. Not through force, but through safety, relationship, and time. That is often where the most meaningful coaching happens, and when we are in our Window of Presence, we are doing our best work. For the client and for ourselves.