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!

Tressa Bell introduces her podcast, The Fan in the Window:Interrupting What We Inherit, explaining how surgery created the stillness that led her to build a book, podcast, business, and platform rooted in her frustration that it took until age 50 to understand what happened to her at five.

In this episode, “The Grief of Losing a Role,” she explores howfamily-system roles formed in chaos become identity, and why stepping out of them brings grief, confusion, and relief at once. Sharing a childhood moment of learning her father wasn’t biological, she connects role-based identity tosurvival, nervous systems, and generational patterns. She reflects on smoothing over her mother’s deathbed apology, defines forgiveness as the absence of anger, and offers grounding, journaling prompts, and the idea that healing is“the accumulation of Tuesdays,” with a preview of an upcoming episode about mothers’ apologies.

Learn more at thefaninthewindow.com.Grab the book at http://www.amazon.com/author/tressalbell.

The podcast is available anywhere you listen, new episodes drop every Tuesday.

Follow Tressa on Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, and YouTube.

00:00 Why Now

01:26 Podcast Mission

01:45 Episode Setup

02:18 Listener Safety Note

03:18 Grieving A Role

04:20 The Girl At Window

05:55 When Roles Become Identity

06:52 What The Role Cost

08:23 Role Relief Begins

09:39 Grief Beyond Death

10:47 Mother Deathbed Moment

12:43 Redefining Forgiveness

14:31 Grief And Relief Together

16:01 Surviving Versus Healing

17:46 You Are Not Late

19:17 Weekly Reflection Prompt

20:26 Grounding Exercise

22:04 Healing Is Tuesdays

23:15 Next Episode And Resources

24:23 Closing Message

If you need support:In the United States, you can call or text 988 to reach theSuicide and Crisis Lifeline—available 24/7, free, and confidential. Outside the U.S., visit ⁠findahelpline.com⁠ for international mental‑health hotlines and crisis services in your region.

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

Host Tressa Bell introduces The Fan in the Window: Interrupting What We Inherit and explores what happens when someone tries to step out of inherited family or workplace roles and the surrounding system pushes back through silence, anger, manipulation, or guilt-inducing questions.

Referencing Murray Bowen’s Differentiation of Self and Family Projection Process, she explains how systems seek equilibrium by pressuring members back into familiar functions, illustrated by her experiences setting boundaries in a relationship, at work, and with her family of origin.

Drawing on Lindsey Gibson, she emphasizes that lasting change must be rooted internally rather than aimed at eliciting others’ approval.

Using Steven Porges’ concept of neuroception, she frames both others’ reactions and one’s own guilt as nervoussystem responses to unfamiliarity, not moral wrongdoing, and offers reflection prompts and a brief grounding exercise before previewing a next episode on grieving lost roles.

00:00 When I Finally Spoke Up

00:51 Podcast Intro and Episode Theme

01:44 Safety Disclaimer and Support

02:40 Family Roles and The Pushback

03:38 Family Systems and Differentiation

04:53 Work Boundaries Saying No

06:01 Change Must Start Within

07:05 Silence From Family

08:26 Nervous System Safety Neuroception

09:32 Guilt as a Signal

11:46 Attachment and Fear of Abandonment

12:55 What to Remember When You Change

14:07 Weekly Reflection Practice

15:05 Grounding Exercise

16:37 Closing Next Episode and Resources

If you need support:
In the United States, you can call or text 988 to reach theSuicide and Crisis Lifeline—available 24/7, free, and confidential. Outside the U.S., visit findahelpline.com for international mental‑health hotlines and crisis services in your region.

Learn more at thefaninthewindow.com Subscribe tothe newsletter for early access and updates. Follow Tressa on Instagram and Facebook.

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

Host Tressa Bell introduces The Fan in the Window: Interrupting What We Inherit and explores how children in chaotic, emotionally unpredictable homes adapt by organizing themselves into survival roles—responsible one, peacekeeper, protector, invisible one, performer, or mascot—often without realizing it.

She connects this to family systems theory (Murray Bowen) and parentification, describing instrumental and emotional forms and noting research links between emotional parentification and adult anxiety, depression, emotional regulation difficulties, and boundary struggles.

Bell shares a teenage memory of protecting a younger sister and explains, using Lindsey Gibson’s concept of the “Internalizer,” how these roles persist into adulthoodand across relationships and work because the nervous system keeps running “old programs.”

She observes different roles emerging in her own children, reflects on Bruce Perry and Oprah Winfrey’s “what happened to you” lens, and invites listeners to identify their role, practice awareness, and use grounding to begin interruption and repair.

Bell also mentions her book releasing April 21.

If you need support:
In the United States, you can call or text 988 to reach the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline—available 24/7, free, and confidential. Outside the U.S., visit findahelpline.com for international mental‑health hotlines and crisis services in your region.

Learn more at thefaninthewindow.com.

Subscribe to the newsletter for early access and updates. Follow Tressa on Instagram and Facebook.

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

00:00 Unchosen Responsibility

00:58 Show Intro and Episode Theme

02:05 Safety Disclaimer

03:03 Family Roles Explained

04:34 Parentification Defined

06:04 Common Survival Roles

07:58 A Protector Moment

09:55 Internalizer and Letting Go

11:34 Roles Follow You

14:03 Seeing Roles in My Kids

17:29 What Happened to You Lens

18:50 Awareness and Reflection

20:44 Grounding Exercise

22:42 Next Episode and Closing

Tressa Bell introduces her podcast, The Fan in the Window:Interrupting What We Inherit and the episode “What Children Carry,” exploring how children absorb tone, tension, silence, and adult nervous-system states without needing explanations.

She argues that children make meaning from patterns in their environment, learning not only how adults fight but whathappens after conflict, and that lack of repair teaches rupture, hidden feelings, and unsafety, while accountability and apology teach resilience in relationships.

Bell describes moments with her grandkids, noticing her stress and the impact of returning to name and repair a sharp interaction, emphasizing that healing is often in what happens after mistakes.

She offers reflection questions and a short grounding exercise, previews a future episode on family roles, and mentions her book releasing April 21.

If you need support:
In the United States, you can call or text 988 to reach theSuicide and Crisis Lifeline—available 24/7, free, and confidential. Outside the U.S., visit findahelpline.com for international mental‑health hotlines and crisis services in your region.

Learn more at www.thefaninthewindow.com.

Subscribe to the newsletter for early access and updates. Follow Tressa on Instagram and Facebook.

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

00:00 Children Sense Everything

01:16 Podcast Welcome

01:46 Episode Focus

02:14 Safety Disclaimer

03:16 Tone Over Words

04:01 After Conflict Matters

04:57 What Kids Carry

06:49 A Grandchild Notices

07:40 Nervous System Research

09:26 Repair Changes Everything

11:53 Reflection Invitation

13:42 Grounding Pause

16:20 Next Episode Teaser

17:13 Closing Message

Host Tressa Bell introduces The Fan in the Window and explores how growing up around conflict, emotional unpredictability, and unresolved intensity can become “normal,” shaping adult templates for love, attraction, and resilience as conditioning rather than health.

She explains that children prioritize attachment over accuracy, adapt to survive, and often can’t name dysfunction even when they perceive tension, power dynamics, and harm.

Using a dinner-table memory where her mother cruelly told someone she hoped he would choke, Bell describes how normalization can trigger "management mode” instead of clarity and how lack of repair teaches that relationships are destabilizing and damaging.

She discusses how the nervous system builds expectations, making familiar chaos feel more trustworthy than calm safety, invites listeners to notice “familiar vs. safe,” and closes with a brief grounding exercise, resources, and a preview of the next episode on what children carry.

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

🔗 thefaninthewindow.com

This podcast is for educational and reflective purposes only and does not constitute medical or mental health advice.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. If you’re outside the U.S., you can find international hotlines at findahelpline.com. You don’t have to navigate this alone.Listener discretion is encouraged.

00:00 When Chaos Feels Normal

02:01 Show Intro and Disclaimer

04:10 Why Kids Normalize Chaos

06:54 A Dinner Table Memory

09:30 Conflict Without Repair

11:54 Harm That Looks Ordinary

14:33 Familiar Versus Safe

16:45 Roles We Learn to Survive

19:53 Body Knows First

22:16 Rewriting the Template

23:52 Calm Can Feel Wrong

25:25 Questions for the Week

26:28 Guided Grounding Exercise

29:00 Closing and Next Episode

Tressa Bell explains that leaving an unhealthy situation can create external safety without bringing internal nervous system regulation, sharing how she left her marriage after escalating conflict and unpredictable self-harm threats and still stayed in survival mode, scanning for danger.

She describes dysregulation as cycling between fight (irritability, reactivity) and freeze (numbing, dissociation), and distinguishes safety as external versus regulation as internal patterns that persist after danger ends.

Citing Bruce Perry’s “four-lane highway” analogy from What Happened to You?, she notes healing builds new pathways through repetition rather than erasing old ones. She emphasizes that regulation happens in relationships and through rhythm, movement, community, and ritual, not insight alone, and highlights the importance of repair over perfection in breaking generational patterns.

The episode ends with a brief grounding exercise and a preview on how chaos can feel familiar.

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

🔗 thefaninthewindow.com

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. If you’re outside the U.S., you can find international hotlines at findahelpline.com. You don’t have to navigate this alone.

00:00 Leaving Isn’t Regulation

01:02 Show Intro and Safety Note

02:50 The Night I Left

05:07 Fight Freeze Cycling

06:51 Safety vs Regulation

08:46 Healing Needs Community

12:32 Repair Over Perfection

14:17 Notice Your Patterns

15:04 Short Grounding Practice

16:23 You’re Not Broken

17:01 Why Chaos Feels Normal

17:46 Next Episode and Wrap Up