Welcome to the Breakdown to Breakthrough podcast.
My name is Lisa A.
Romano.
I am a life coach,
Bestselling 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.
We're going to be talking about money and trauma.
When we're talking about trauma,
We have to understand this reflexive action that our brains are designed to go into a primitive state,
A reactive state,
A stress response state.
So it's a state of survival rather than thriving.
If you've experienced tremendous trauma in your life,
Do not be surprised if your financial situation has left you exasperated.
So when we think about trauma,
We're talking about something that's happened to us that basically causes us to feel powerless in the moment or overwhelmed in the moment.
But trauma can also have long lasting effects.
In other words,
Like even though I had this traumatic experience,
I can still experience trauma and overwhelm in the future over this event.
We're talking about PTSD.
Then there's complex PTSD,
Which basically refers to this idea of being unable to escape a trauma.
Think about a child born to alcoholic parents who are not being attended to,
Are not being attuned to.
There could be terrible financial hardship due to the addiction.
There could be domestic issues happening in the home.
There could be police being called to the home.
So there's this sense of not feeling safe.
There's a sense of unpredictability.
A child in that situation or someone who is in a situation,
Perhaps in a war torn country where there are bombs overhead and bombs in the fields or close to home,
Someone who is born to an environment that is hostile,
They can't escape.
This produces complex PTSD.
This means I can't escape this trauma.
I am helpless.
I am powerless to escape this trauma.
And so that refers to complex PTSD,
Which is also trauma that I will experience in the future,
Meaning this overwhelm,
Which is normal because the brain is designed to respond to traumatic experiences,
Traumatic memories.
My body is basically the subconscious equivalent of a thought or a memory.
So what my mind recalls,
My body manifests.
We live in a 3D reality.
So that which is non-physical will manifest in the physical.
And when it comes to a memory,
This is a memory is non-physical,
But it manifests in the physical through physical sensation or somatic experiences.
We're not crazy because we came from dysfunctional homes or we've had some really tragic thing happen to us and our bodies are responding with these somatic sensations,
With anxiety,
With a racing heartbeat,
With panic,
With tunnel vision.
I have been told that there's something wrong with the way that I'm perceiving reality.
And I had no idea that I was being triggered by subconscious events.
And I had belief systems that were actually in direct conflict with the flow of love and the flow of life.
I had no idea.
That's why my work centers upon trying to really raise the consciousness of people around their trauma.
Because without this space and without this gap,
Without the ability to tap into metacognition,
Which is a process of the prefrontal lobe,
It is the ability to notice what I notice.
If I don't exercise that divine ability,
Then I am doomed to repeat whatever trauma that I experienced in the past because my brain in many situations is just primitive in the sense that it is reactive.
I could smell the cologne of a man that was abusive when I was younger as an adult and be triggered.
My body will remember and show me,
Oh,
This is how you felt when this terrible thing happened when you were three and you were powerless.
That's going to happen.
But if I can notice what I noticed happening,
Then I can gain some control over my triggers.
So we really have to appreciate this idea of trauma.
We have to appreciate that our brains have been pre-wired.
There's a default mode network sits behind the eyes.
And there is this hierarchy of trauma and the hierarchy of pain.
And below the veil of consciousness,
A default setting is pain versus pleasure.
So my brain is wired to avoid pain and to seek pleasure.
And even an infant,
An infant knows and reacts to stress through crying,
Through fussing.
They know when they're cold and they know when they're hungry.
They know when their skin has been pricked.
They know when their environment is hostile.
They know that,
Right?
Their brain has been pre-loaded with this information,
Allowing them to know that this is not congruent with safety.
And so the stress response system is activated and babies fuss.
And those of us who have had children and we weren't awakened when we had children think this baby's a pain in the neck,
You know,
Why is this baby crying?
I've already fed her.
And we sort of think as babies as not being intelligent,
And yet they are far more intelligent than we actually realize,
Right?
Because they're tapped into and they're attuned with the divine self and with their innate guidance system.
So they know when something's wrong.
And we know that they know something's wrong by the way they behave in the 3D world.
We know when they're happy.
We know when they're content by the way they manifest in the 3D world.
So babies who are fussing,
There's something up with that.
And if we honor the baby fussing and we don't judge the baby fussing and we can accept what's going on with the baby,
We could really become more attuned and help the baby become less distressed,
Which is really the whole goal.
We have to learn how to observe ourselves the same way we observe children in this type of a situation.
When we're talking about trauma,
We have to understand this reflexive action that our brains are designed to go into a primitive state,
A reactive state,
A stress response state.
So it's a state of survival rather than thriving.
If you've experienced tremendous trauma in your life,
Do not be surprised if your financial situation has left you exasperated.
Do not be surprised if you are someone who cannot accumulate savings.
Do not be surprised if you are someone who lives hand to mouth.
Do not be surprised if you are someone who finds it difficult to accumulate any financial wealth.
Or you might be someone who,
For instance,
We've all heard about people who win the lottery and in two years,
They bankrupt.
What is it about this inability to maintain this wealth in your life?
Or what is it about the mindset when it comes to accumulating wealth?
I have worked with hundreds,
If not thousands of people who struggle financially in their life,
Who struggle with feeling good enough,
Who struggle with making choices that are in their best interests,
Struggle with making bold choices in order to go for the raise or to they struggle with getting the type of training they need to be able to get to the next level in their career.
And I'm not surprised anymore how often this inability to accumulate wealth is tied to not feeling good enough.
Or it becomes tied to this idea that,
Well,
If I surpass,
And this is certainly my situation,
If I surpass my mom,
If I surpass her level of education,
If I do something my mother has never done,
Then she's really going to have an issue with me and whatever shred of attachment I have to her,
I am now threatening the last shred of attachment to her if I dare surpass her.
Or what happens if I dare to buy the second car dealership?
My father had one,
He was happy.
He talked about how difficult life was and how hard he worked and he could never go on vacation and really complained about owning a car dealership.
So now you come into the family business and you're thinking,
Wow,
With the internet,
Maybe I can open up another car dealership or another car dealership and you don't dare to do it.
So you're actually suffering under the blueprint or the diagram,
If you will,
That your father has created for you in business.
So there's this fear associated with breaking through what your father or your mother has set for you in life.
And in my case,
I absolutely believe with all my heart,
After doing some work around lack and money and energy,
Why don't I feel worthy of money?
Why don't I feel worthy of abundance?
Why do I feel ashamed for wanting to experience more in my life?
And when I did this recovery work through journaling prompts and really deep introspection and wanting to create an inner transformation within myself,
I had to come face to face with this idea that I had been programmed to feel ashamed for wanting more.
One of the things that happened in our dysfunctional family was our parents found a way because they were so fear-based and they had such a control issue around money and they were so afraid to release money because it made them feel safe to hold onto money that any time my sister or my brother or I asked for something outside of what they were willing to give us,
We were shamed and we were guilted.
So we were taught that it was wrong to want.
And yet,
If you think about it energetically and vibrationally,
And for those of you who are here for a spiritual transformation,
It doesn't make sense not to want,
Right?
It doesn't make sense not to desire.
Desire is what's pushing the universe forward.
And so here we are.
We come to thrive.
We come to want.
We come to ask,
Believe,
And receive.
If you're a life coach,
A psychologist,
Or some type of a healer in the spiritual community,
You may even be coaching your clients towards believing that you are worthy of receiving,
But you might struggle with believing that you're worthy of charging for your services.
Or you might feel angry that other people can achieve great wealth and you're having a difficult time doing it.
And that will keep you stuck.
So there is cognitive dissonance around so much in your life that without raising your consciousness,
Without noticing what you notice,
It's really hard to break through that ceiling.
You can't.
How do you break a ceiling you can't see?
How do you heal a hole in the wall that you can't see?
How do you fill a hole in a boat that you refuse to acknowledge?
You can't.
You can be on this amazing luxury yacht that has a very small hole and you're sinking,
Whether you acknowledge it or not.
The more toys you have on board,
The more distracted you'll be,
But you're sinking.
And so it's so important that we understand those of us who are here and trying to transform our lives,
We really have to take into consideration this inner transformation process requires a raising of consciousness.
The spiritual evolution within is going to require intellect.
You can't spiritually evolve without organizing your mind.
My podcast is called Breakdown to Breakthrough and the premise of the podcast is to help people organize their mind,
Right?
To recognize what's rational and recognize what's not rational,
Recognize what's possible,
Recognize what's fairly impossible so that you can make conscious decisions about the way you are moving your life forward.
When it comes to trauma and money,
We can't escape this idea that if there's lack in your savings account,
If there's lack in your life,
If there's lack in your world regarding your finances,
It's going to be in your best interest to investigate where is the lack,
Where else is lack in my life?
Do you feel not good enough?
Have you been shamed by past experiences to feel like you don't have a right to want?
Are you afraid to put yourself out there because you will be labeled as greedy?
You will be labeled as the B word,
Especially obviously if you're a woman.
Lots of women have been conditioned to think that it's wrong to go out,
To step out ahead of the norm and to ask.
So are you struggling with asking?
Are you struggling with believing that you have a right to receive?
We will look at other people and we'll think,
Oh,
They must be special.
And we won't realize that people who are receiving are asking and people who are receiving are asking and they're believing.
And people who are receiving are asking,
Believing,
And they're acting on the asking.
So if you want to upgrade your life,
Then you have to first believe that you're worthy of that upgrade,
But then you have to respect that you're in a 3D world.
So is there something that you need to do?
Do you need a set of skills that you don't yet have?
And are you willing to invest in yourself in order to make that manifestation happen?
For instance,
When I was married to my ex-husband,
I was completely financially dependent upon him.
I quit nursing school.
I believe very much so,
Sabotaged myself because there was a part of me that was terrified to surpass my mom.
She had quit high school.
She had given up her career as a telephone operator.
Back in the day,
It was,
I think it was Bell,
Bell Telephone Company,
At least in New York.
And my mom was a telephone operator at the time,
But she was also a supervisor.
And she gave that up to marry my dad and to have three children.
And I was afraid to become more than my mom.
I didn't want my mom to feel bad about her life choices.
And in addition to that,
My mother was emotionally and psychologically and verbally abusive and beat me down.
And so it was,
She projected her wounds onto me.
So if she wasn't able to divorce my father,
I shouldn't dare admit that I was unhappy in my marriage.
I should suffer the same fate that she suffered because she lacked personal self-awareness.
If she was happy with a man that went to work every day and wasn't connected to her or they lacked the ability to actually talk on an authentic level and she settled for that,
I should have settled for that.
If my mother settled for never buying herself anything and no self-care,
Then I should settle for that.
And she could not encourage me especially.
She couldn't encourage me to love myself because I believe that she sacrificed so much of herself as the adult child of an alcoholic,
Two alcoholics,
Who was unrecovered and was just stuck inside her own dysfunctional paradigm and generational trauma,
Generational karma,
And she just didn't know how to notice what she noticed.
And so she was stuck.
And I was stuck too for a long time.
I was suffering the consequences of her inability to heal herself until I realized that there's something really wrong with the way that my family operate,
Which was terrifying because I had to break through and literally cut every umbilical cord and every tie that I had to my parents in order to become myself,
Which meant I had to become everything that they taught me to be afraid of.
Right?
So my father infused me with this idea that I had a big mouth.
I was a woman with a big mouth because I didn't always agree with him.
And my mother infused me with this idea that I was selfish because I wanted more or I was selfish because I didn't go along with the program or I was over emotional because I cried or I would confront an uncle who said something that I thought was over the line.
So I was seen as the difficult one.
I recognize now the scapegoat,
But also recognize I was the most emotionally honest.
So my brother and my sister watched me get really emotionally verbally abused and they were like,
I don't want that to happen to me.
So through conditioning,
Through repetition,
Observation and consistency,
They learned to shut their mouth and they learned to fall into line more than I did.
Right?
I didn't have an older sibling,
So I was just like responding to what was happening.
And so very much in my life,
I was subconsciously or unconsciously afraid and driven by the need to feel connected with my mom because I never felt that with her.
And so this idea of me graduating from nursing school,
Moving out,
Having an amazing salary,
Being able to no longer need them and be able to want more threatened my connection to my mom.
And so the last semester of nursing school,
I actually had a complete meltdown and the nursing professor that was on duty at the time told me to leave the floor.
She said,
You're not a nurse,
You're a social worker and you need to get out of here.
I always told myself I'd go back to school,
But I never went back to school.
And what did I do?
Not long after that,
I met my first husband.
Well,
Actually I was dating him at the time and he was the one who said,
You don't have to go back,
I'll take care of you.
And there it was.
My life had been set.
So I had done exactly what my mother did.
My mother gave up her career as a supervisor in the telephone company where she could have just continued to climb up the ranks.
She didn't do it.
She gave up her career.
She got married.
She had three kids.
She had one boy,
Two girls.
What did I do?
I gave up my career.
I had one boy and two girls literally followed my mother's pattern.
I'm lucky that I was able to see the dysfunction in what she was doing because I actually went into therapy,
Which was a very difficult thing to do because back then my ex husband,
My mother,
My father,
Even my siblings insinuated that me spending money on therapy was selfish.
Think about how backwards that is.
You're trying to better yourself so that you could create a better life for you,
Your husband,
Your family,
And just be a better human being and you're being labeled selfish for daring to go into therapy.
And worse,
My ex husband called me crazy.
He would say things like,
Well,
If you're crazy,
You should go into therapy.
I'm not crazy.
I don't feel crazy.
You feel crazy.
You need therapy.
But the important thing to take away from all of this is how trauma from the past really affects your ability to be able to manifest any type of wealth when you are an adult because you have to feel like you're worthy of accumulating a savings account or making an investment or believing in your right to go speak to someone who knows a little bit something or more than what your parents knew about money.
So believing that you have a right to surpass what your parents were able to achieve in their life.
You have to understand that this will threaten you emotionally.
This might kick you into survival if you dare want to surpass where your mother is or where your father was.
And this will prevent you from being able to become the master of your own reality.
It will prevent you from being able to leave a relationship that was daunting,
That was negative.
And it will be very,
Very difficult for you to override this stress response,
This amygdala attack,
If you will,
Because when you are confronting this desire to want more or you're trying to embrace the desire to want more and you're triggered into survival because doing so means your family is going to call you selfish.
Who does she think she is?
I heard it all.
When I wrote my first book,
I heard it all.
When I got divorced,
I heard it all.
All of the labels that I was afraid that they were going to use,
They did.
And it was a terrifying and yet transformative,
Exciting time.
And although I probably wouldn't want to have to do it again,
I would to be where I am today,
To be able to break through and to break free these negative paradigms,
I would do it all over again.
And so we have to recognize that sometimes,
Oftentimes,
I would say all the time,
If we have trauma from the past that's tied to our worth,
It's going to be difficult for us to override that without consciousness,
Without recognizing like,
Whose life am I living?
Am I living my paradigm,
The paradigm I want to live,
Or am I living out this paradigm because I'm afraid,
Or I feel unworthy?
If you are taught that you are selfish,
It's very difficult for you to step out boldly and to invest in yourself,
Which is what I did after my marriage dissolved.
I didn't tell anybody,
But I decided I was going to be.
.
.
I had the nursing background,
Anatomy,
Physiology,
Chemistry,
Biology,
I had it all behind me.
And so I decided to invest in myself.
So even though my ex-husband didn't know it,
And I didn't tell my parents,
No one,
I became certified with three different certifications.
I became a fitness trainer,
A sports nutritionist,
Certified sports nutritionist,
And I became certified in training geriatric patients,
People who had cardiac issues and so on,
But I didn't tell anybody.
So I invested in myself.
It wasn't like I just sat back and said,
Oh,
I'm going to get divorced,
Now what?
My ex-husband sold my house,
Well,
He sold the house,
He sold the business.
I had no source of income.
I didn't take alimony.
I walked away from alimony,
Anything to get out of the marriage.
I didn't get health insurance from him.
I wanted out.
And so I knew that once I was out and I couldn't rely on my parents,
I had to invest in myself.
So rather than tell anyone who would just put me down for doing it anyway,
I spent the money.
I invested in myself.
I became certified.
Then when the house was sold and I bought the second house with the proceeds of the first house,
I was ready to rock and roll.
I went to the local facilities and said,
These are my certifications and I'm ready to work,
Please.
When that wasn't enough,
I became open to cleaning houses.
And when that wasn't enough,
I began selling tents and so looking for ways to sell tents to people who were having events.
And so it was,
I deserve this,
I want this,
These are the things that I'm willing to do to get it.
So I stepped out of the paradigm that my parents had created for me and I just closed my mind to all the negativity and I focused on what I wanted to experience.
I did so well back then that I was able to not work the full month of August and I was able to take my children on vacation.
And this was something that my parents would look at me like,
Why aren't you working?
Like you should be working your finger to your bone.
How dare you take your children on vacation?
This is something that my mother and father always said they were going to do,
But never did.
So here I was saying,
You said you were going to do it and you could do it and you didn't,
But I'm going to do it.
And if it makes you feel bad about what you didn't do for us because of your childhood programming,
That's not on me.
You're going to have to work that out.
So it was sort of like literally cutting these emotional and vibrational umbilical cords to the past so that I could recreate or create something that was new in the future.
I wanted to program my children for resilience.
I wanted to program my children to be able to invest themselves so that the world could invest in them,
So that others could invest in them.
That's the way it works.
The more willing you are to invest in you,
The more people invest in you and your world will shift.
But getting past the shame of that.
I've had the waitress shouldn't get paid,
The nurse shouldn't get paid.
It doesn't even make sense.
But when you have these paradigms,
When you feel bad about taking care of yourself,
Sometimes you resent people as an ego defense mechanism for actually doing what it is you want to do that you feel you can't do.
So it's not uncommon to resent someone for having what you want,
But you're too ashamed to ask for.
You need a paradigm shift.
You need to break through.
And so it's important that we investigate the negative experiences and negative ideas we have tied to our wealth.
Because if we don't feel like we're good enough,
So if you don't feel like you have worth for who you are as a soul,
It's going to be really easy for you to settle for the crumbs in life.
It's almost like you have all of this gold and you've just got to tap into it in your pockets.
But you walk into a restaurant,
You open up the menu and you ask for the breadcrumb.
I'll have a plate of breadcrumbs,
Please.
Meanwhile,
There are people over to the left and the right and they're asking for this and asking for this.
They've tapped into their right to want more.
They've tapped into their right to ask more.
But I would have to say that the people that I know that are doing well,
They've invested in themselves.
So you have to ask yourself,
Am I investing in myself?
Am I investing in personal development?
Am I learning to feel better about myself so that I can invest in myself so people have confidence in investing me?
This is the way it works.
Or am I settling or am I making excuses because I'm afraid,
Which is normal?
It takes a lot of bravery to break out and to break through an old paradigm.
If you have family members who think you're selfish,
I was taught that it's selfish to want more.
I was taught,
My parents put people down that had.
So I thought,
Well,
The answer is to be a have not.
And then I thought,
Well,
That just doesn't even make sense because flowers lean towards the sun.
Flowers naturally lean towards the sun.
Flowers naturally want to drink up the rays of the sun.
They naturally want water.
If I'm organic and I've come from the stars and I'm an heir to the universe,
Why am I playing it small?
I'm playing it small because of this dysfunctional programming,
Which is neurological,
Which is chemical,
Which is somatic because my body responds to what I think.
And so my mind creates this auric field and it's in that auric field that I have to operate outside of mind through consciousness in order to effectively change what's going in so I can change what's manifesting on the outside.
Healing is an inside job.
So if you're settling for less than what you deserve,
That's because you received less than what you deserved as a child.
But that's not the end of the story.
And I can tell you as someone who continues to work on my ability to love myself and see worth in myself,
In spite of feeling so invisible,
If I can do it,
You can do it too.
And so I encourage you to really begin investing in yourself.
Create the connections to worth,
To value of the self,
To your savings account,
Your checking account,
Where you live,
How you live,
How you eat.
What do you settle for?
Are you someone who refuses or is afraid to ask for more?
And if so,
Why?
Are you afraid to invest in yourself because your mother relied on your dad and it's terrifying to be completely financially responsible?
What is it?
I know that was my fear.
How am I going to do this?
But when everything fell apart,
When the floor fell out from underneath me,
When my parents moved to a different state,
When my ex-husband said,
No,
I'm not doing this for you.
No,
I'm not getting that for you.
No,
No,
No.
I'm taking all this away.
Bare minimum,
This is what you're getting.
And I had three little kids to take care of.
It was like a windup.
Someone winded me up.
I was like,
I got to do what I got to do.
And I began to invest in myself.
When I published The Road Back to Me,
It was between $6,
000 and $8,
000 that I had to invest.
But I thought,
If I don't invest in me,
Who's going to have confidence to invest in me?
This is the way it works.
So if you are stuck,
Consider whether or not you're investing in yourself because everything's energy.
I know that when you start to invest in yourself,
You create a ripple out into the universe.
And that's all it takes to begin the process of inner transformations that eventually manifest as the physical transformation you deserve and you are entitled to as an heir to the universe.
