QUOTE : Providing choice was an indispensable part of my work with Gina. Any time that we did a mindfulness practice, I gave her a number of options: having her eyes open or closed during practice, for example, or working with anchors of attention besides her breath. The problem was that Gina believed there was a “right way” to practice mindfulness. She felt like a failure if she wasn’t sitting cross-legged with her eyes closed, attending to her breath. She wanted to heal so desperately that she was often hard on herself, pushing herself in ways that didn’t aid her healing. Over time, however, Gina began to see that being self-responsive—and respecting her window of tolerance—was a way she could honor her body and still work with mindfulness. Emphasizing choice and autonomy isn’t about coddling trauma survivors. As I mentioned earlier, there’s still room for structure and rigor in trauma-informed practice. But while we want to encourage people to stick with structures that will support their transformation, we never want to force structures upon them. We can extend survivors the trust that they know what is best for themselves at any given time, conveying an attitude of curiosity and respect in our instruction.