Most of what we talk about on this show is what happens after. After you recognize the pattern. After the damage has already moved through your family line.

But what happens when you see it coming?

Dr. Rondalyn Whitney has spent her career studying exactlywhat protects children from the harm trauma causes. When she was widowed in 2020—her husband Bill killed instantly in a car accident—she didn’t just grieve. She applied everything she knew to protect her son Alex before the damage could take hold.

That is not a story about healing after the fact. That is a story about interruption before the damage is done.

IN THIS EPISODE

— Losing her father at 15—and how that loss threaded through every professional choice she made

— What a protective factor actually is, and why every risk has one on the other side

— Antonovsky’s sense of coherence: the three things that predict health even in the face of life’s inevitable stressors

— Why grief is not just an emotion—it is a full physiological insult to the body, and what that means for children

— The single thing that most reliably protects a child from being permanently shaped by a devastating experience

— How Rondalyn applied her research in real time with Alex—and what she got wrong

— “Burnt toast is still toast”—what parents in the middle of something hard actually need to hear

CONTENT NOTE

This episode discusses grief, loss, the death of a spouse andparent, adverse childhood experiences, and protective factors in parenting. Please listen at your own pace.

In the U.S., call or text 988—free, confidential, 24/7. Outside the U.S.: findahelpline.com. You do not have to navigate this alone.

FIND RONDALYN

rondalynwhitney.com

Instagram: @rondalynwhitney

Facebook: rondalyn.whitney.3

YouTube: @rondalynwhitney1695

LinkedIn: Rondalyn Whitney

X: @DrRDub_writes

Habits of Widows available on Amazon

GET THE BOOKS

The Fan in the Window: How We Inherit Trauma—And How We Interrupt It

and

You Can Interrupt It: A Practical Guide for the Parent Who Inherited Trauma and Swore They’d Do It Differently are both available now on Amazon.

If the memoir gave you the story, the companion book gives you the roadmap—built around the Interruption Model™, practical tools for doing the work one pattern at a time.

amazon.com/author/tressalbell

FOLLOW TRESSA

thefaninthewindow.com

Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, YouTube: @tressalbell

Substack: tressalbell.substack.com

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/tressa-l-bell-31830440a

If this episode resonated, please leave a review on ApplePodcasts—it takes less than two minutes and helps new listeners find this work.

This didn’t start with you…but you can interrupt it.