7 Fears Prevent Spiritual Growth

It is human to have fear. However, at the level of the subconscious, fears have the potential to determine human behavior, all outside conscious control. Lisa will identify 7 key subconscious emotional fears that prevent you from experiencing healthy relationships, peace of mind, mental clarity, and success in your career. Oftentimes, childhood emotional neglect and trauma arrest the psychic mind and keep us stuck reenacting subconscious patterns.

Transcript

Welcome to the breakdown to breakthrough podcast.

My name is Lisa a Romano.

I am a life coach best-selling author YouTube vlogger meditation teacher and expert in the field of codependency and narcissistic abuse I am a believer in the power of an organized mind My aim is to help people learn what it means to live above the veil of consciousness Rather than living a reactive life May your heart feel blessed your mind feel expanded and your spirit find hope as you spend time with me here At the breakdown to breakthrough podcast.

So today we're going to be talking about seven fears that prevent spiritual growth So many of our fears are subconscious and so much of what prevents our personal growth and our spiritual growth are Things that we're not even aware of We tend to be people that run from our fears It's almost like we don't think that we should have anxiety or we should experience a negative emotion It's almost like we're built to run from our fears rather than to process them to just stand there Take the hit figure out what these fears are all about Challenge them and overcome them.

I know that was me for much of my life I would go as far as to say I wasn't even aware that I had the fears that I had These fears were subconscious.

They were subliminal and yet they were running my life And I wanted to share some of the fears that so many of us have that prevent our growth Fears that really make it difficult for us to find love Fears that make it difficult for us to succeed in our careers to put ourselves out there Fears that make it impossible for us to end a toxic relationship Fears that make it impossible to love ourselves and to tell our truth Fears that keep us small fears that actually keep us in the box of the subconscious mind and Prevent our ability to step into awareness and consciousness and to use the invisible power within To move our life in the direction that we want it to go.

Most people never think about the way that they think I Read a study once where it said that only 20 people out of 100 people are doing what they really want to do in life And if you were asked people at the age of 20 or 30 or 40 What is it that they aspire to achieve?

Oftentimes the goals are very small It's almost as if human beings are conditioned to think that greatness is not within them and yet Nothing could be further from the truth Greatness is within each of us.

However,

It is an invisible force It is an invisible power that we have to activate if we don't activate this invisible power Then by default the subconscious mind will run the ship Nature has no other recourse but to allow whatever is in the subconscious mind Whatever beliefs are rooted in the subconscious mind Even if they go against you,

Even if they keep you small nature has no other recourse But to manifest that which you believe we've all heard the term a man is what he thinks he is And I would say that that's true when I believe that I was unworthy I attracted relationships that made me feel unworthy When I did not believe that I was worthy of love when I did not know that I was loved When I did not know that my emotions mattered when I did not know that my experiences Were supposed to matter to the person that I was spending time with when I thought that my experiences were invalid I attracted people who invalidated me when I say that we attract what is the sum of our subconscious mind?

I'm also taking into consideration What happens when we have been groomed by a manipulative?

Narcissist when we have bumped into a sociopath or we have come in contact with a psychopath Who is using mind control techniques whether they're aware of it or not?

To control the mind of their victim if I am controlled to believe that I have no right to speak up for myself Or if I am controlled to believe that I have no right to say no if I am controlled to believe that My feelings are irrelevant and I am worthless then I will continue on that path until something happens to shift that reality and That is why I love working in this niche specifically with adult children of alcoholics adult children of narcissists men and women who have been in coercive controlling relationships who have been tangoing with a narcissistic personality of one type or another and who have struggled to regain their mental mind Who have struggled with cognitive dissonance and who are coming out of the brain fog of crazy-making communication?

It is a blessing and an honor to watch someone Regain conscious control over the contents of their mind and to find the courage to become bigger than their past To find the wherewithal to challenge what it is they have been programmed and conditioned to believe and it's fabulous and it's miraculous to watch that person rise up out of the ashes and step into their invisible power and to Take control over their minds.

So I hope what you hear me saying is that you can grow up and be conditioned to believe that your feelings are worthless and attract people who treat you that way and Have your life run by all of these subconscious fears and or you could live with someone who is highly narcissistic and that person can control the way that you think and and unfortunately until you change the way that you think and until you challenge what it is a Narcissist for instance has conditioned you to believe about yourself because they generally blame shift.

They deflect everything's your fault as You begin to question whether or not that's actually true You have an opportunity to change what's in your subconscious mind and when you change what's in the subconscious mind That's when you gain control over your life so the top seven fears that prevent your spiritual growth which will also prevent your psychological growth and your emotional growth are the fear of abandonment the fear of not being good enough the fear of making a mistake the fear of hurting others the fear of Failure the fear of the unknown and the fear of painful emotions.

So let's break this down the fear of abandonment Why would the fear of abandonment prevent your spiritual growth?

When you have the fear of abandonment it is like you were telling the universe.

I'm not okay all by myself and yet That goes against what we believe in terms of our own spirituality and our own spiritual worth you are enough unto yourself There is no one that you need to prove your worth to but when you have the fear of abandonment You sacrifice who you really are for the sake of crumbs you attach yourself to relationships you turn into someone who is fear-based you fear losing control over this person and You also see abandonment even when it's not there.

So you're living in a lack vibration You are living in the space of having faith that you will be abandoned Rather in this in the faith that you are enough even if you are abandoned to overcome the fear of abandonment is quite courageous because you're saying to the world and you're saying to Other people and you're saying to yourself that I am enough even if this person doesn't want me anymore Even if this person discards me even if this person goes no contact with me.

I am enough I am enough just as I am and I have the power to love myself When we align ourselves with that type of thinking we are aligning ourself with the energies that create worlds There is nothing that can stop someone who believes in themselves There is nothing that can stop someone who recognizes that they are enough unto Themselves.

So if you have the fear of abandonment dear one,

This will prevent your spiritual growth the fear of not being good enough Let's break that down when you struggle with the fear of not being good enough Oftentimes that's because you never felt good enough Oftentimes it's because there's been childhood emotional neglect.

There's been severe emotional trauma and worse Never feeling good enough implies that you were not given what you needed like enough maternal warmth Enough positive reinforcement as a child you were taught to stuff your emotions So you don't think that your emotions are valid if you don't think that your emotions are valid Then you can't identify an ego boundary and you can't love and respect or revere the self because as children we identify with our emotions and so if we are raised by people who challenge our emotions consistently and invalidate our emotions or shame our emotions or Teach us that their problems are much more important than our problems and our problems are subordinate to the problems of the adults in Our lives then we don't ever get to form a healthy sense of self So we grew up feeling not good enough and worse.

We grow up feeling very ashamed of whoever we think we are One of the problems that evolves from that is that we can become an underachiever When you don't feel good enough you sort of develop this attitude of like why should I try?

You can also develop Perfectionism so because you don't feel good enough you go into overdrive and become an overdoer you become codependent You become a people pleaser.

You don't love yourself.

You love everyone else You see yourself as an extension of other people who you are isn't really a 3d Autonomous human being because you don't know who you are You don't know how to communicate your needs and so your needs go unmet and that leads to frustration and that leads to resentment Because while you're scurrying around trying to figure out how to be good enough for someone else's approval Resentment is being built internally anger is being built internally because you feel invisible And when you don't realize is the way that you're showing up in your life You are invisible to the self So you're not revealing yourself to other people because you feel not good enough and you're afraid of not being good enough And so why would you reveal a part of yourself if you feel like what you are is shameful or not good enough?

It really is a mind twister and it really can wreak havoc on your spiritual growth your mental growth your cognitive growth And even your emotional growth the fear of making mistake is huge So what is the fear of mistake tied to the fear of mistake is also tied to shame.

It's the fear of embarrassment It's the fear of criticism when I deal with clients who have this fear of making a mistake when they're they just Refuse to get outside their comfort zone and when we break it down they say well,

What if I make a mistake?

My question is well,

What do you learn if you make a mistake?

Learning comes from making a mistake if you did something perfectly you didn't learn anything Learning comes from making a mistake But oftentimes what we figure out is that it's deeply rooted into feeling embarrassed as a child Feeling criticized as a child Parents who are toxic are not beyond shaming their children when they make a mistake children who are considerably emotionally abused because they wet the bed or They forgot how to tie their shoes Children who are mocked when they are learning about their environment They're finally learning to explore their environment But just as they are gaining autonomy parents and even older siblings family members and even teachers are toxic teachers Shame a child as they're learning about their environment If you've trusted someone that you've loved while you were trying to learn something and this person harassed you and made fun of you It's not uncommon for you to develop the fear of miss of making a mistake It also means that you weren't encouraged to make a mistake to get up and try again If you were raised by parents who put you down if you were raised by parents who didn't encourage you or who kept pushing You and pushing you and pushing you and no matter what you did.

It wasn't good enough You have a fear of trying too hard because even if you try hard,

What's the point?

It's never going to be received.

The fear of making mistake is tied to being afraid to embarrass yourself in public You're afraid of what other people think of you and that's because you were shamed at a point in your life When you should have been encouraged to not be afraid to make a mistake and actually be encouraged to make a mistake So that you can learn from those mistakes feelings one of the things that I hear codependent men and women say often is I Did not want to hurt their feelings.

This is often the response I receive when I say What were your thoughts around a boundary at that point in time?

Because oftentimes when people offend us and when a boundary has been crossed those of us who have a hard time setting boundaries We default to well,

I didn't want to hurt their feelings.

I didn't want to embarrass them It's almost like we over empathize with the person who has crossed the boundary and the fear of hurting other people's Feelings will prevent our spiritual growth because we aren't speaking up for ourselves We aren't telling the truth We aren't being authentic and if you have a really hard time speaking up for yourself You have to recognize that you are much more likely to be someone who tolerates the intolerable You are far more likely to be somebody who tolerates Narcissistic behavior the fear of hurting others is tied to you feeling like what you have to say is Invalid perhaps you don't love yourself Lots of people who don't love themselves don't realize it lots of us who think we love ourselves Think we love ourselves,

But we actually don't we're operating from below the veil of consciousness from a place of fear From a place of not being good enough and we think just because we're talking that we must love ourselves But upon reflection,

We're always trying to prove ourselves or we're always walking in the shadows of other people We're always afraid of hurting other people's feelings.

It's okay if they hurt our feelings It's okay if they cross our boundaries,

But we would never cross their boundaries and we're very very uncomfortable with speaking up We're super uncomfortable with telling people the truth It's like we don't want to hurt them.

The problem is by protecting them.

We are hurting ourselves I hear this a lot with clients of mine who have children who are struggling with alcoholism They don't want to hurt their children's feelings by telling them they can't have the car or they don't want to confront their alcoholic wife Or alcoholic husband because they don't want to embarrass them They don't want to remind them of how drunk they got at the party So it prevents your spiritual growth when you have this fear of setting a boundary This fear of hurting other people's feelings because it means that you're living in the shadows of experiences It means that you're not being authentic.

It means that you're not being honest.

It means that you're not taking risks You're not being your true self It means that you are taking care of other people oftentimes to the detriment of yourself And that will definitely prevent your spiritual growth.

The fear of failure is also a big big fear That keeps us back.

It prevents our spiritual growth in order to attain success And in order to attain each even spiritual growth you have to be willing to fail Ask anyone who is highly successful and they will tell you that they failed many many times I love the quote by Wayne Gretzky you miss 100% of the shots You never take and that's super profound and those of us who have this big fear of failure We end up living very small lives Even though like I said earlier There's this invisible power within us that we have to tap into it is our birthright to tap into it And we know super successful people.

We know happy people We know people that ended that toxic relationship.

We know people that got that divorce from that toxic person We know people who are living their best life after a divorce or after a huge blunder or after a big failure We know these people they're the comeback kids of our lifetime People who took their failure and said well,

What am I going to learn about this?

I just watched an interesting Netflix documentary about a young Irish woman who was jailed in Peru And I found her story absolutely fascinating this was a young woman that wanted to escape Ireland flew to Udawabiza and Got involved as a bartender and unfortunately got trafficked as a drug mule She was drugged.

She was put on a plane and she was told it was going to be really easy All she had to do was show up and this man's crew was going to take care of her Of course,

You can figure out what happened.

She was caught.

She was arrested and she was thrown in jail in Peru But what I found really fabulous about this young woman was initially she lied She lied to the authorities and said that she had been coerced that she was threatened and that she was told that her family would Be killed if she didn't do this She finally copped to the truth and while she was in jail people back in Ireland and people who had Donated to this fund for her to get a lawyer and to fly her brother to Peru were very angry They felt like they had been misled and rightfully so but what I found really interesting about Michaela This was the name of the young woman was how she turned it around While she was in jail,

She learned to speak the language.

She began to speak Spanish.

She became very friendly with the cellmate She taught another cellmate English and she began to run a beauty salon within the jail she she was able to speed up a parole hearing on her behalf and She was released much earlier than she would have been had she not taken these steps Here is a young woman young young woman in her early 20s who has she had a fear of failure?

Had she allowed public opinion to diminish how she felt about herself?

She probably would have succumbed to the guilt and the shame and the embarrassment,

But she didn't she rose up out of the ashes She got a little job in jail.

She saved her money she learned the language and she defended herself before the court and Here she is out of jail.

She is now the mother of twin boys and she's living a wonderful life.

She made a mistake She forgave herself So Michaela is the example of what you can do if you face the fear of failure and you don't let it control you You don't let public opinion weigh you down you follow your own footsteps You let people who are going to judge you judge you you can't change a judgmental person There are just some people who feel better about themselves By never letting you forget your mistakes and you don't owe anybody an explanation Explanation for the mistakes that you made during the worst time of your life.

So don't let the fear of failure Prevent your spiritual growth.

The fear of the unknown is another fear that keeps so many of us stuck in toxic relationships Keeps us stuck in jobs that we hate Keeps us stuck living in neighborhoods that we wish we could escape The fear of the unknown is like we are saying to the universe I don't know what's out there and I hate where I am.

But at least I know this devil At least I know this path and I'm familiar with this path and it makes sense Neurologically and psychologically because the brain doesn't like the unfamiliar your brain is designed to keep you safe I always say it your brain is not an adventurer Your spirit is adventurous,

But your brain is really taking clues from your spirit from your consciousness but the brain itself prefers the familiar even healing the brain is designed to avoid pain and The unknown is painful.

So unless you activate a higher state of consciousness Unless you're operating from a place of awareness Your brain is going to keep you stuck But when we think about the fear of the unknown most human beings are more afraid of the light than they are the dark They're more afraid of what might happen than what they know will happen And I definitely suffered from this before I actually filed for divorce I was so afraid of making the step forward of Changing everything when you get separated when you get divorced you're letting go of complete control and that is terrifying when you were in a relationship and Even if you found this balance of toxicity where it's at least doable You're not happy But you know how to avoid your husband or you know how to avoid your wife you stay extra hours at work You are only intimate once a month.

You don't talk about truly deep things.

You don't try to have intimate conversations You don't speak during dinner.

You invite lots of people to be around when you do go out as a distraction So you don't have to talk to your spouse I mean there are so many ways that people find to tolerate unhealthy relationships And I get that because the fear of the unknown is so overpowering for some people But I can tell you as someone who took that leap of faith I got to a point in my life where had I stayed I'm not sure that I would be here today I would have imploded so I can tell you with authority that Sometimes it's best that you don't know where you're going because the world is wide open to you there are innumerable potentials that you can latch on to or Experience,

But if you stay where you are,

Which is unhappy you are destined to experience only that Unhappy experience so the fear of the unknown Not challenging the fear of the unknown will prevent your spiritual growth.

This is also a Little known fear that I think most human beings experience But it's not talked about a lot and that's the fear of feeling painful emotions I think that many human beings think that there's something wrong with being Anxious or there's something wrong with being sad.

There's something wrong with being angry There's something wrong with not having elevated emotions all the time even as a society We can hear the message that there's something wrong with you If you don't feel good all the time and the answer is that you should feel good all the time That you should not feel this way and I can tell you that I think that is just the wrong message I think that a healthier message is that your feelings matter Especially the painful ones because they are offering you information If you are anxious,

Then you're probably dishonoring yourself on some level if you're anxious You're probably not lining up with your core values.

So anxiety has a lot of good information The problem is that we don't listen to our anxiety.

We don't honor our anxiety We don't respect our feelings.

We run from our feelings,

Especially the painful ones when we are sad We don't know how to embrace sadness,

Especially in this culture.

We push sadness away We think that there's a time limit on grief.

We think that people should grieve all the same way That's certainly not true Grief is a very valid mental and emotional experience It represents you acknowledging that life has changed dramatically in some way I don't know about you,

But I know many people who exist by Shoving everything under the rug as long as we're not talking about it.

It doesn't exist There are many people who raise their children to believe that they shouldn't talk about their feelings That if they have nothing nice to say they shouldn't say it Plenty of people who have painful experiences within their families and they're given the message that we don't talk about this We don't talk about the fact that mommy is losing her mind over daddy's alcoholism.

We just don't talk about it We don't talk about daddy raging.

We just don't talk about it We don't talk about mom falling asleep on the staircase again And we had a party going on in the kitchen and she embarrassed the kids.

We just don't talk about it We don't talk about dad's affair.

We don't talk about mom's affair We don't talk about our brother our brother's heroin issue.

We just don't talk about it.

We don't talk about Things that upset us.

We just keep shoving things under the rug and If you were raised to suppress or repress or deny your emotions The problem with that is that it will manifest in your body some way Because emotions are energy and they're meant to be processed.

They are indicators and they are information We have to get better at embracing our emotions talking about our emotions The problem that you'll have if you are codependent specifically is that codependents have a very hard time identifying what they feel Ask a codependent what they feel and they don't know Ask a codependent to communicate what they feel they don't know But ask a codependent person what they think their husband feels and they'll tell you Ask a codependent mother what she thinks her child thinks and she'll be able to tell you Ask a codependent friend what she thinks her friend thinks and she'll be able to tell you But ask the codependent person themselves.

How do you feel about this?

This is terrible.

What's going on in your life?

Like what's your opinion about it?

I don't know.

It's like their mind is scrambled and that's because as children they were taught to sweep everything under the rug So they have a fear of painful feelings As a little girl I was raised to do just that And so I was conditioned to think that there was something wrong with not feeling good So I had shame about not feeling good And that really drove so much anxiety in my life to the point where I was suffering from panic attacks I had a panic attack so bad while in nursing school I had to leave the floor I literally had a complete meltdown from anxiety And there was no one in my life that I could talk to at the time to help me work through that And on top of it I was conditioned to think that if I had anxiety If I was experiencing negative emotions that meant I was weak And so I had a fear of criticism as well I had a fear of abandonment Certainly if I tell my parents this is how I feel they're going to see me as weak And that's not going to go over well They might criticize me But they might even be meaner to me and ostracize me even more And so to protect myself I just stuffed these feelings even more Until they surfaced in my marriage when I could not lie to myself anymore And it literally became a matter of life or death Because as a result of suppressing my feelings And thinking there was something wrong with the way that I was feeling I developed asthma,

Migraine headaches,

Rashes all over my body Stomach issues,

And I even had severe uterine bleeding And needed a hysterectomy So I can tell you that the fear of acknowledging painful emotions is real And it will prevent your spiritual growth I hope that this session has been enlightening I hope that it has empowered you to investigate what might be some of your subconscious fears What are some of the fears that are preventing your spiritual growth I hope that it has given you the courage to dig a little bit deeper into some of the fears that might be preventing your spiritual growth You have come here to fly You have come here to acknowledge the light within you And even if you can't feel it,

The light within you exists And it is your right to let that light shine And fear prevents your light from shining Be brave enough to think,

Dear ones,

It is the one thing that most people don't do Namaste,

Dear ones,

Until next time As I bow to the love and the light that is absolutely in you Bye for now

Reviews

I’ll have to listen to this one several times. There’s a lot of information packed into this 30 minute talk. Good stuff!

Always great information from Lisa. 🙏

Wow! Hit every nail!

Thank you 💗

Always insightful. Thank you!

Wow, this is excellent. I always get so much out of your talks but this has to be one of my favorites. Thank you so much ❤️

That was so helpful. Thank you Lisa!

I really enjoyed this discussion. It offered clarity for me. I do have a question. You mentioned the fear of hurting others. Mine was the fear of retaliation ( inktimidation, threats, verbal abuse) if I spoke up or set boundaries. It kept me silent for years. So when I feel attacked, I freeze or walk away. In case you’re wondering, I had a malignant narcissistic father and a self absorbed mother.

Your work is amazing,always learn something from your podcasts. Thank you very much.