You loved your children. That has never been in question.

But love and presence are not the same thing. And there are seasons of parenting where survival takes everything you have — leaving very little for the kind of presence your children needed and deserved.

This episode is about that season. What it looks like from the inside. What your children are absorbing, even when you don't realize it. And what becomes possible when the crisis finally ends.

In this episode, I cover:

• What survival mode actually is physiologically — and why it shuts down the very things parenting requires
• What hypervigilance looks like as a parenting posture — and the message it sends to children without a single word spoken
• The difference between a child stepping up and a child acting out — and why both are the same overwhelmed nervous system communicating the same thing
• The loneliness of performing normalcy when nothing is normal — and how your children absorb that isolation too
• What changes after leaving — and why a different survival mode is still survival mode
• The grief of seeing your adult children carry what they absorbed — and how to hold that without letting it become a verdict
• What becomes possible for a parent whose nervous system is finally no longer in crisis
• A letter to the mother I was — and an invitation for you to receive it for yourself

This episode also includes a grounding practice and closes with what I believe is the most important reframe in all of this work:

Your healing is their inheritance. Not the trauma. The healing. That is the interruption.

CONTENT NOTEThis post discusses trauma, family systems, and emotional healing. If anything here brings up strong feelings or memories, please take care of yourself and reach out for support. In the U.S., you can call or text 988 to reach the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline — free, confidential, 24/7. If you are outside the U.S., international crisis resources are available at findahelpline.com. You do not have to navigate this alone.

ABOUT THE SHOWThe Fan in the Window: Interrupting What We Inherit is hosted by Tressa L. Bell, MBA, BSN, RN — author, podcaster, registered nurse, and former forensic nurse. This podcast is about trauma, nervous systems, generational patterns, and the complicated, imperfect work of healing. Each episode blends personal story with research-backed frameworks to help you recognize and interrupt what you inherited — so the next generation doesn't have to carry it too. This didn't start with you…but you can interrupt it.

GET THE BOOK📖 The Fan in the Window: How We Inherit Trauma — And How We Interrupt ItAvailable now on Amazon → amazon.com/author/tressalbellA companion self-help book is also in the works. Stay connected for updates.

FOLLOW TRESSA🌐 Website: thefaninthewindow.com📸 Instagram: @tressalbell👤 Facebook: tressalbell🎵 TikTok: @tressalbell▶️ YouTube: tressalbell🐦 X / Twitter: @tressalbell39905📩 Substack: tressalbell.substack.com

LISTEN & SUBSCRIBE🎙️ Apple Podcasts 🎙️ Spotify 🎙️ iHeart Radio 🎙️ YouTube 🎙️ SubstackNew episodes every Tuesday. If this episode resonated, please leave a review on Apple Podcasts — it takes less than two minutes and helps new listeners find the show.

DISCLAIMERThis post is not therapy, medical advice, or psychological treatment. Tressa L. Bell is not your therapist. Content is for educational and informational purposes only. Please seek professional support if you are experiencing a mental health crisis.

You've done the work. The therapy. The reading. The healing. You've built language for what happened, found forgiveness, made peace with things you couldn't change.

And you still jump when a door slams.

That is not a failure of healing. That is your nervous system doing the job it was assigned a very long time ago — and nobody told it the threat was over.

In this episode, I go underneath the mind work and into the body. Because trauma is not stored as a story you can retrieve and resolve. It is stored as sensation. As muscle tension. As a heart that races before a single thought arrives. And until we understand that, we will keep wondering why we are still reacting to things that should no longer have power over us.

In this episode, I cover:

• What dissociation actually is — and why it is not weakness
• What I did to survive years of domestic violence, which I am still making peace with
• What I recognized in every survivor I sat with as a forensic nurse — and what it cost me to not be able to fix it
• Why the startle response lives in the body long after the mind has moved on
• What the research of van der Kolk, Porges, and Levine tells us about why healing has to happen at the level of the nervous system — not just the mind

This episode also includes a body-based grounding practice to help your nervous system learn what your mind already knows.

Your body kept you safe. Now we help it rest.

REFERENCES

van der Kolk, B. — The Body Keeps the ScoreKey concept: Trauma is stored as sensation, not narrative. The body holds what the mind cannot fully process.

Porges, S. — The Polyvagal Theory

Key concept: Neuroception — the nervous system’s automaticthreat-detection system that operates beneath conscious awareness.

Levine, P. — Waking the Tiger: Healing TraumaKey concept: Somatic Experiencing — the incomplete discharge of threat energy and how the body holds unresolved survival responses.

Walker, L. E. — The Battered Woman SyndromeKey concept: Impression management in domestic violence survivors — the protective curation of a public self

CONTENT NOTE

This post discusses trauma, family systems, and emotional healing. If anything here brings up strong feelings or memories, please take care of yourself and reach out for support. In the U.S., you can call or text 988 to reach the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline — free, confidential, 24/7. If you are outside the U.S., international crisis resources are available at findahelpline.com. You do not have to navigate this alone.

ABOUT THE SHOW

The Fan in the Window: Interrupting What We Inherit is hosted by Tressa L. Bell, MBA, BSN, RN — author, podcaster, registered nurse, and former forensic nurse.This podcast is about trauma, nervous systems, generational patterns, and the complicated, imperfect work of healing. Each episode blends personal story with research-backed frameworks to help you recognize and interrupt what you inherited — so the next generation doesn't have to carry it too.This didn't start with you…but you can interrupt it.

GET THE BOOK📖

The Fan in the Window: How We Inherit Trauma — And How We Interrupt ItAvailable now on Amazon → amazon.com/author/tressalbellA companion self-help book is also in the works. Stay connected for updates.

FOLLOW TRESSA

🌐 Website: thefaninthewindow.com📸 Instagram: @tressalbell👤 Facebook: tressalbell🎵 TikTok: @tressalbell▶️ YouTube: tressalbell🐦 X / Twitter: @tressalbell39905📩 Substack: tressalbell.substack.com

LISTEN & SUBSCRIBE🎙️Apple Podcasts🎙️ Spotify🎙️ iHeart Radio🎙️ YouTube🎙️ Substack

New episodes every Tuesday. If this episode resonated, please leave a review on Apple Podcasts — it takes less than two minutes and helps new listeners find the show.

DISCLAIMER

This post is not therapy, medical advice, or psychological treatment. Tressa L. Bell is not your therapist. Content is for educational and informational purposes only.

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

Tressa Bell introduces a Mother’s Day episode of The Fan inthe Window: Interrupting What We Inherit focused on the complexity of maternal relationships, including grief, estrangement, and mixed feelings, and clarifies the show is not therapy while providing crisis resources.

She explores generational patterns of harm and distinguishes between an apology and a “real apology,” drawing on Harriet Lerner’s ideas: a real apology names the harm specifically, avoids “but” and explanations, doesn’t demand forgiveness or reassurance, allows time, and is supported by changed behavior.

Bell shares an example of repeating a hurtful name with her daughter and returning to repair as part of interrupting inherited patterns. She also addresses ambiguous loss (Pauline Boss) for those whose mothers never apologized and offers reflective questions and a brief grounding practice about being seen and deserving repair.

00:00 Mothers Day Is Complicated

02:30 Holding Mixed Feelings

03:46 Generational Wounds Travel

05:44 What Makes Apologies Real

07:01 How To Apologize Well

10:07 When Apologies Fall Flat

12:00 Receiving An Apology

13:58 When No Apology Comes

16:52 Modeling Repair Forward

18:58 Reflection And Grounding

22:02 Closing And Next Steps

CONTENT NOTE

This podcast discusses trauma, family systems, grief, and emotional healing. If anything in this episode brings up strong feelings or memories, please take care of yourself and reach out for support. In the U.S., you can call or text 988 to reach the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline — free, confidential, 24/7.

If you are outside the U.S., international crisis resources are available at findahelpline.com.

You do not have to navigate this alone.

ABOUT THE SHOW

The Fan in the Window: Interrupting What We Inherit is hosted by Tressa L. Bell, MBA, BSN, RN — author, podcaster, registered nurse, and former forensic nurse.

This podcast is about trauma, nervous systems, generational patterns, and the complicated, imperfect work of healing. Each episode blends personal story with research-backed frameworks to help you recognize and interrupt what youinherited — so the next generation doesn’t have to carry it too.

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

GET THE BOOK

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

Available now on Amazon → amazon.com/author/tressalbell

A companion self-help book is also in the works. Stay connected for updates.

FOLLOW TRESSA

🌐 Website: thefaninthewindow.com

📸 Instagram: @tressalbell

👤 Facebook: tressalbell

🎵 TikTok: @tressalbell

▶️ YouTube: tressalbell

🐦 X/ Twitter: @tressalbell39905

📩 Substack: tressalbell.substack.com

LISTEN & SUBSCRIBE

🎤 Apple Podcasts

🎤 Spotify

🎤 iHeart Radio

🎤 YouTube

🎤 Substack

New episodes every Tuesday.

If this episode resonated, please leave a review on Apple Podcasts — it takes less than two minutes and helps new listeners find the show.

DISCLAIMER

This podcast is not therapy, medical advice, or psychological treatment. Tressa L. Bell is not your therapist. Content is for educational and informational purposes only. Please seek professional support if you are experiencing a mental health crisis.

The Fan in the Window: Interrupting What We Inherit

Hosted by Tressa L. Bell, MBA, BSN, RN

thefaninthewindow.com | My Sweet Nurse Life, LLC

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