Breaking Free From Shame And Codependency

Growing up in a toxic family system wires you to live in shame and codependency—and often leads you to attract narcissists or relationships that repeat the cycle. In this episode, Lisa A. Romano explains how childhood trauma programs your brain and nervous system for survival, and how you can begin breaking free from people-pleasing, guilt, and self-abandonment. If you’re ready to reclaim your self-worth and step out of survival mode, this is your wake-up call.

Transcript

Welcome to Breakdown to Breakthrough,

The podcast that empowers you to transform your life by awakening to your true,

Authentic self.

I'm Lisa A.

Romano,

Your host.

As an award-winning author and certified life coach,

I've dedicated my life to helping others understand the incredible power of an organized mind.

I believe that true empowerment begins with awakening to our false self.

My mission is to support you on your journey toward mental and emotional regeneration through conscious and deliberate awakening.

In this podcast,

I'll share insights,

Tools,

And transformative stories that illuminate the path to healing and self-discovery.

When I really understood codependency,

There was no shame.

And if anything,

Understanding codependency rid me of my not-enough stuff because I began to realize that I was programmed to feel not good enough,

And how could that be my fault?

I was a little kid.

I didn't get what I needed from this outside environment to feel good enough.

So why should I feel ashamed of feeling not good enough?

And then it was like,

My consciousness blew open.

And then it was like,

Well,

Why should I feel guilty about attracting people that mirror back I'm not enough?

It could be no other way.

And my mind just kept expanding,

Expanding,

And expanding.

I want to use my little anatomical brain to understand that your mind and your brain are not your consciousness.

So consciousness exists outside the brain.

When you live below the veil of consciousness,

You live in this area here,

Or you live in the limbic brain and you project your eyes are,

Your eyes are seated before the amygdala.

And what ends up happening is you operate from below the veil of consciousness as a little child,

All from the hippocampus,

Which is the memory center,

Basically watching these home movies.

And Amy's like,

Yep,

That's the way I felt.

Yep.

My mother made me feel not good enough.

Yep.

It's scary outside.

Yep.

If you say no,

They're going to leave you.

They're going to abandon you.

Don't do that.

Thank you very much.

This is all stored in the sub subconscious mind and we react to it.

And we think that we're thinking,

But we're actually not thinking our programs and our patterns are thinking us.

We just don't know it.

And that's why what I offer people is an opportunity up and out of the subconscious mind through the methods that I have created to help me save myself,

To help me be the best cycle breaker I could be to help put my children on a different path.

Because obviously as the grandchild of an alcoholic and the,

Uh,

Adult child of a dry alcoholic mom and a highly narcissistic father,

I had some issues.

And before I awakened,

My son was about 11 or 12,

A lot of damage had been done and going through a very toxic,

Difficult divorce,

Lions and tigers and bears.

Oh my,

I was barely surviving and really like not being as present for my children as I could.

Whereas today as a grandmother,

As like,

What a difference in the grandmother that I am,

The maternal figure that I am for my grandchildren,

It's just absolutely incredible.

Sometimes I like feel super guilty about it,

But then I remind myself that it could have been no other way.

And this is a really important conversation to have because people are below the veil of consciousness and they don't know it and they're screwing up their lives and they don't know it.

Like they know they're screwing up their lives,

But they don't know why they're screwing up their lives.

That's because they're,

They're caught.

If we think about the brain again,

What ends up happening is you don't realize that you're in a feedback system and you're projecting out into the world what you expect to see.

And we have,

The brain actually operates with predictive coding.

And basically that means that you are going to remain in unconscious patterns,

Seeking resolution,

But you can never find it.

It's a definition of insanity is doing the same thing and expecting a different result.

So you're codependent.

You attract people that shame you because your base is codependency.

Your emotional vibration is codependency,

But you don't know it.

And so you keep trying to seek approval from this outside person,

But you never get it.

And you're frustrated.

You just keep changing and trying to change and you tone yourself down.

You acquiesce,

You anticipate their needs.

They tell you that you're too much,

So you try not to be enough.

And then you start to get angry about feeling suppressed and that doesn't work because once you hold a boundary with someone outside of you who's abusing you,

They get ticked off.

So your attachment trauma gets activated.

I mean,

Lions and tigers and bears are mine.

So we end up living and operating from this area of the brain,

Which is the temporal lobe.

Now when you operate from the temporal lobe,

You're not activating higher brain function,

Which is pre the prefrontal lobe and the neocortex.

You're operating like a child,

Feeling very powerless.

You don't,

It's sort of like you get,

You're 13 years old and you want to get from point A to point B,

But you don't have keys to the car,

But you're sitting in the car and you're,

You're pressing on the gas and you're banging on the steering wheel like,

Why won't the car go?

Do you want,

It's not you,

It's your programming.

You need keys.

And once you get the keys,

Once you ask for the keys with your higher mind and you stay on the path to enlightenment and conscious recovery,

Then all of a sudden,

You start to get these keys and then you start to unlock yourself from living in the dungeon of the prefrontal lobe.

Really,

Really fabulous.

And you know,

I spend most of my time in this space where it's just like,

What else is possible now that I've broken free?

The opportunity that we have as we begin to awaken is to learn about ourselves.

What am I doing wrong?

What am I reacting to?

What am I saying yes to that I want to say no to?

So it really is like a full year of coming back to the self,

Learning how to emotionally regulate.

So I feel the trigger,

But I can learn to live above the trigger and observe the trigger and not react to the trigger.

So maybe the first time you try to do this,

You,

You know,

You,

You curse your brother out.

Okay.

Okay.

Like,

But the next time you have a civil conversation and the next time you end the conversation and the next time you don't even pick up the damn phone.

Like so it's this slow progression of maturing from the inside out it's,

And it really is us living within the temporal lobe,

Reacting to the people in our families and they're all below the veil of consciousness.

And we,

This is this,

The front of your brain,

Or think about your eyes in the front.

You're just still,

Still seeing outside of you.

What's being projected from Harry the hippocampus.

And the good,

The good news is that you can be taught neuropsychology.

If you will,

You could,

You could be taught how to understand yourself at a neurological level,

Which explains who you are on a psychological level.

It's just so incredible.

I also wanted to use what I think is one of the best visuals that I've come up with to explain abandonment or attachment trauma,

Which if you're abandoned,

Abandoned,

You have abandonment issues,

You're going to have attachment issues.

Let's explain why.

So in utero,

Mom and child are naturally,

See,

This is mom.

And for those of you who are listening via my podcast,

I want you to imagine that I have these like,

Uh,

Stick figures and they're all labeled mom,

Dad,

Sister,

Brother,

Coworker,

Partner,

Friends,

And so on.

And between them as little toothpick and is acting like an extension cord or cord that binds them to one another.

Now,

During utero,

A mother is naturally connected to her child through the umbilical cord.

And that's a beautiful divine connections.

That's not something Mary Sue said,

Oh,

It's time for me to grow me a placenta today.

And then,

Oh,

It's time for me to grow an umbilical cord.

Oh,

It's time for my umbilical cord to breathe for my developing fetus,

Because the fetus is actually a fish right now,

Rolling around some amniotic fluid.

I mean,

For people that don't believe in an infinite intelligence,

Like it blows my mind that you could think like,

There isn't something greater than the human mind that's come up with these patterns and programs to create life itself.

Anyway,

I digress.

So in utero,

Mom and child are naturally connected.

Now,

If this divine connection stays intact,

What happens is over time,

The child gets closer and closer and closer to mom.

Now for about nine months,

The child can't tell the difference between the mother and the self,

Which is why around nine months,

There's a separation anxiety,

Which you go.

That's why the games like peekaboo are so important for a child because,

Oh,

You can go away and I can see you go away and I can see you.

That builds the child's confidence.

Now,

If this continues,

If the bond continues and the mother and the child,

What does that mean bond?

The child has to feel consistently safe.

So moms,

Dads,

You can't like,

You know,

Wail on your kids on Monday and tell them that you're sorry and be nice to them on Wednesday and take them out to a movie on Friday and start the whole crap all over again.

Like you're doing more damage than you could actually realize.

So it has to be consistent warmth.

You can't curse at your child on Monday and then be kind to her and play with her playdough on Tuesday.

It doesn't work that way.

Okay.

The child's brain is being neurologically mapped.

So if you're not safe,

You're not a safe person all the time,

Then that child feels unsafe all the time.

And that child will struggle with abandonment issues the rest of their life,

Unless you wake up and you start dealing with your abandonment trauma and stop thinking that you can get away with this with your child being mean to her on Monday,

Nicer on Tuesday,

Read her book on Wednesday and be frustrated and angry with her on Thursday and be verbally abusive or push her away.

And I get it.

I get it.

I get it.

I get letters from moms all the time saying,

Lisa,

I'm overwhelmed.

I get it.

But deal with your trauma.

Deal with your trauma.

Meditate.

Oh,

But I,

I start my day so early or I need more sleep.

Well,

I,

You know what I did?

I'm just saying,

Dear ones,

I got up extra early.

I got up first.

I began getting up an hour early before my kids,

Which was like at five o'clock.

Then it was like,

No,

No,

No,

I need more time to meditate.

So I would get up at four o'clock.

These days I'm out of bed between three and three 30,

Because as I've lived with my husband,

He's getting up earlier and earlier.

Like our,

Our circadian rhythms are getting so similar,

So I keep getting up earlier,

But I don't complain about it because it makes my life flow.

And so we have to get past this thing where we're making excuses for not finding the time to take care of the self.

This is radical self-love recovery is what abandonment trauma and codependency recovery is all about.

So now that I've given you a little bit of tough love,

Let's continue.

So if the mother and the child have a really good bond and the child feels safe,

Then when a sibling comes along,

That first child will be able to bond with the second child.

So let's say mom and mom has another child,

Let's say let's call,

Let's call her sis.

So sis is now,

Now remember there's this one bond that's connecting everybody,

Right?

So now the brother and the sister are bonded.

The first child is able to tolerate these,

These bonds.

As the child goes off into kindergarten,

First grade,

Whatever,

They make friends pretty easily.

They're able to share,

They have their ups and their downs because you can't control the friends,

The homes of the friends where your friends come from.

So you don't know if you're going to meet friends that are ornery and jealous.

You don't know.

But the child that has a healthy attachment to their mom,

They're not going to go down a rabbit hole because the kid across the street isn't nice to them or doesn't want to share their toys.

They're going to rebound pretty quickly.

That's going to represent like self-reliance and emotional resiliency.

And the child doesn't have shame,

Which is everything.

So as the child now grows and gets a job,

Could be working at the local,

You know,

A grocery store,

Whatever.

But as this child grows and now is part of another aspect of society,

Which is what growth is introducing children to various levels of society.

So eventually they can fly the coop and be self efficient adults and be responsible for what they attract into their life.

If they love themselves,

If they don't love themselves,

They're,

They're always going to find excuses for not taking care of themselves.

They won't take accountability in general,

It always be someone else's fault or they'll feel like they just,

They're,

They're,

They're ineffective,

They're deficient in some way and they won't go after their dreams.

That's how important the first initial bond is.

But as they age,

They'll be able to have formed bonds with coworkers.

So now you could just see that this child's,

The,

The initial bond just allows a child's life to become so rich and rich and rich as the,

The child ages now attracts a partner.

The child will be able to withstand vulnerability and intimacy and the child will have really good boundaries.

So you see like all these little stick figures,

There's a little bit of space,

But they're still all invisibly connected.

That's how important the divine connection to a mother is.

Like you have their DNA inside of you,

Your energy,

You're mostly energy.

Every cell in your body is 99.

9%,

99.

9% space and it's energetic and it is vibrating at a frequency of your maternal parents and that's not your fault and you will feel that and psychologically your brain will try to make sense of this,

Uh,

Urge or this desire.

Um,

And you might feel guilty about it,

Especially if you have great parents,

Great parents who adopted you.

You might feel like I should just be grateful again,

That's a little bit of shame.

So this initial and the best case scenario,

You are,

You,

Your mother,

Your natural mother raises you.

She's healthy.

If she's not healthy,

When she gives birth to you,

She works on her trauma,

She becomes a cycle breaker and we can reestablish these bonds.

Your brain flows with oxytocin versus cortisol.

Your corpulot,

Corpus callosum is intact.

So the left and the right hemispheres of the brain can actually,

They're,

Uh,

Coherent.

They can speak to each other.

So you're emotional as well as logical and your logical brain can,

Uh,

Observe your emotions and that's where emotional,

Emotional resilience and emotional regulation comes from.

When you're in the limbic brain,

You basically bypass the ability to think logically about your emotions.

So that's really important.

But as this child ages and has a partner,

They're attracting healthy partners.

They can set boundaries and not lose themselves in the relationship.

They're certainly not codependent,

That's for sure.

So if their,

Their partner does something unacceptable,

They're able to say that was unacceptable.

And if that doesn't change,

I'm out of here because I'm not living a life of subjugation or something along those lines,

Like healthy people don't tolerate people who abuse them or people who abuse themselves and don't care about that consequence when it comes to the rest of the family system,

Right?

So that's not what this is.

This session is about,

But along those lines,

A non-codependent child who's been loved since the beginning of time,

Their time is not going to tolerate a lot of things that a codependent woman or a codependent man would,

Would tolerate.

Now let's say that this initial child decides with their partner to have children,

A beautiful thing happens.

Now they can bond with their children and then they could bond with,

If their children have children,

They can bond with their children's spouse.

They can bond with their children's children.

And you can just understand that if you think about all these little tiny stick figures,

There's this invisible cord that connects them all.

Now,

This visual is me pulling this little toothpick.

And when I pull this toothpick apart,

What ends up happening is all of these people,

All of these bonds are insufficient,

They're fractured.

And so we have this child now who feels like they are floating in outer space.

They feel alone.

They're afraid to go out.

They're afraid to mingle.

That is not their fault.

That is the consequence of trauma.

So I really hope that this little visual has helped you.

And if you are struggling with codependency,

I highly recommend that you learn everything that you can about codependency.

Understand that is,

It is the disease to please.

It is not funny.

It is a manifestation of CPTSD.

Never let anybody shame you because you're codependent because people like to say,

Oh,

You're just too much with your partner.

It is so much deeper than that.

And you have to understand that.

And I would also say,

Don't cast your pearls before the swine.

People that are not interpersonal development,

People that are not introspective.

Why are you wasting your time?

Do not have conversations with them.

You do not need their permission to investigate what it means to be codependent.

You do not need their permission to investigate what it means to be raised by a toxic mother.

You do not need their validation or their permission to take care of yourself.

And I would say,

I wish I took this advice,

Although no one gave it to me 30 years ago,

I'm giving it to you.

I used to seek validation.

I asked for permission to go to a therapist and everyone told me,

You're just too much.

You're too much.

Like you're selfish for even wanting to spend $60 at a therapist's office.

Right?

And I believed him.

I almost choked on codependency.

Well,

When my life imploded and a doctor told me that if I fell asleep,

I might die.

And I thought,

Oh my God,

I can't leave my babies behind in this,

This mess that I've helped create with my ex-husband.

All I wanted to do was change it.

It was so hard in the beginning.

It was,

They knocked me down so much,

So many times.

My ex,

His family,

My family,

And even my own subconscious mind,

I kept getting knocked down.

I kept,

It was so hard,

Especially in the beginning,

But I kept going.

And every time I've,

I fell down,

I just decided I'm getting back up again.

I'm not living below the veil of consciousness anymore.

To think that I was so below the veil and I got knocked down so many different times to think that that fortitude and that the guts and the tenacity to keep going,

Keep going.

This is where I am today.

If it could happen for me,

It can happen for you.

And it is an honor to present you with this incredible information to you today.

And I really hope that it's helpful.

It was never you.

It was just your programming.

Bye for now.

Reviews

I love you Lisa!! You, your passion and insight are such a gift to this community. And thankyou for this raw and honest talk, especially that you say what needs to be said but others avoid, when really it should be broadcast in the streets! Self accountability, no more blaming is what I took from this. Stand up and take charge of my life.

So true. I was raised in a codependent family. I learning I don’t have to take it…