Stop Apologizing For This: Codependency Recovery

How often do you look within and hear yourself asking the only questions that have any real potential to change your life, such as, "Who am I?, or "Why do I feel not good enough?" If you're like most people, you may never question whether or not you question the quality or validity of your thinking. That's why Lisa A. Romano, Breakthrough Life Coach, wants to activate higher consciousness within you so that you have a chance at changing your life outcomes. While going through the early stages of recovery, Lisa realized she had an authenticity problem. Being raised to fear her mother's gaslighting, rejection, and emotional neglect, Lisa felt as if her authentic self needed to be abandoned.

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.

So today we're going to be talking about some of the things that you need to stop apologizing for and why this is going to be the secret to your breakthroughs.

Learning to be your authentic self is truly the path to emotional freedom.

It didn't work in my life and it probably is not working in your life.

Trying to be someone that you're not,

Trying to fake happiness,

Trying to make mommy and daddy happy,

Trying to not upset your brother who you know can discard you on a dime,

Trying not to upset your sister who has a high conflict personality,

Trying not to get criticism from the uncles that have a sharp tongue,

Walking on eggshells.

It's not going to work,

Dear one.

It's just not.

So when you come from this faulty programming and you don't realize it,

We don't always look at it as a mindset,

But we should.

Now the reason we don't look at it as a mindset is because it's so emotional.

It activates Amy,

The amygdala,

Which is the limbic system.

So yes,

If you have trauma,

Your limbic system is already hypersensitive,

But there are ways and strategies to override that and to soothe Amy,

The amygdala,

And to calm down Harry,

The hippocampus,

Almost to anesthetize them,

Which is what I teach.

And so I'm not going to apologize and neither should you for being myself.

What does that mean?

And how does it apply to codependency and how does it apply to attracting narcissists in your life and staying stuck in narcissistic relationships?

Let me explain.

When I finally made the connection that I was living below the veil and my subconscious patterns,

My neurological pathways,

My habitual thoughts,

Did you know that you think the same thoughts over and over and over and over and over?

So whatever thoughts that you had like yesterday or last year,

That the same thoughts you're having today and you wonder why you don't have a different outcome.

Just think about that.

I mean,

Einstein says you cannot solve a problem from the same level of intelligence that created the problem.

So what I'm saying is actually scientifically proven.

The greatest mind in the world,

The greatest scientific mind in the world was saying,

Dear one,

If you have a mindset that was created due to childhood trauma,

You have to change that mindset in order to escape the consequences of that problem that has been caused by childhood trauma.

What are those problems?

Problems,

Codependency,

Lack of self-worth,

Feeling invisible,

Assuming everybody's right and that you're wrong,

Or assuming that everybody else has more innate value than you do,

Feeling not good enough,

Toning yourself down,

Being attracted to people who are absolutely,

Should be intolerable,

But we tolerate it,

So we tolerate the intolerable.

We fake it.

We pretend that we're happy.

We laugh at jokes that we don't think that are funny.

People violate our boundaries,

But we act like we haven't been violated.

We live in excruciating pain of feeling like we're not good enough,

And we're always trying to.

.

.

We're hypervigilant.

So if we see that someone's upset,

We go right into taking care of them,

Or I would say malignant caretaking,

And we don't realize that we're abandoning the self over and over.

Why?

Because it's a pattern,

And we can go really into it.

I'll just briefly touch on it,

Because like I said,

I'm obsessed with this stuff.

I think I figured it out.

So I'm going to be obsessed with keeping you calm,

Because really,

What's really going on is I'm upset when you're upset.

Why?

Because it's tied to abandonment,

Because I realized,

Or I have the association,

My amygdala and my hippocampus have made the association that when I upset you,

You abandon me,

And abandonment is tied to death as a child.

So I'm in my abandonment survival loop,

But I don't know it.

And so that's basically what's happening when you're codependent,

And you feel all of these traits and symptoms,

And you get stuck in codependent narcissistic relationships.

You're not attracted to the narcissist.

You're attracted to the energy of the narcissist,

Which is very similar to the energy of your narcissistic mother or father.

That's why you're attracted to this person.

You,

Rational you,

Peaceful you,

Grounded you,

Prefrontal lobe you,

Neocortex you,

Would not be attracted to this mofo banana.

You would not be attracted to this person.

You would be repulsed by this person.

But the codependent you,

Which is the you that's learned to be nice and worry about everybody else's feelings,

The you that has been gaslit so much that now you worry about what this narcissistic person thinks about you.

And let me tell you,

If you haven't already figured it out,

The narcissist knows that you're worried about what they think about you.

Oh my God,

My ex had me there for so many years.

You're crazy.

You're a flake.

You're just a negative person.

You hold onto the negative.

You just can't get over things.

It's you,

Lisa.

It's you.

No one thinks like you.

And I was so wrought with shame that he had these negative impressions about me.

And below the veil,

What did the little girl inside of me do?

Because adult me wasn't doing that.

There was a pattern in the program that was controlling that.

The adult me would have said something entirely different to the inner child,

Lisa,

That showed up,

The person that had all of these inner wounds that had yet been healed.

The little girl in me said,

Oh no,

Mommy and daddy are going to reject me because they think I'm bad.

I'm being melodramatic.

That's bad.

Shame covers me.

And so what do I do?

As soon as all of the anger comes up or as soon as I acknowledge my frustration,

When I hear the disapproval,

I quickly squelch that and I go into fawning behaviors.

I go into caretaking behaviors.

Are you hungry,

Babe?

What do you feel like having tonight?

Spaghetti and meatballs?

Ugh.

I want to gag myself now when I think back.

But that's where I was then.

And you know what?

I feel sorry for that person.

I feel sorry for that being,

That entity,

That experience,

That person inside of me who since she was a little girl felt invisible and felt not good enough.

And no matter what she did,

Could not gain the approval long-term and consistently,

Especially of her mother.

Now,

My father,

On the other hand,

The narcissist that he was,

God bless him,

Whatever,

He was a narcissist.

I say it like it is.

OK?

I'm not apologizing for saying like it is.

I can't.

I'm not going to.

I'm sure there are family members and friends and family that know my parents are thinking,

Who does she think she is talking about her family that way?

They're dead.

OK.

Whatever.

That doesn't mean that I wasn't affected by the ignorance.

It doesn't.

It doesn't mean that I wasn't wounded because they were wounded.

I'm speaking to the truth.

You know why?

The truth set me free and it's probably going to set you free.

But the narcissist,

My father was,

It worked out this way.

So mom was obvious that she had issues with me and she just couldn't connect with me.

And so she persecuted me unfairly.

She called me names.

She was verbally abusive.

It was almost like she enjoyed me being uncomfortable that she couldn't love me and she wouldn't accept me.

So she would go over the top with fawning after my sister.

She would talk about how they had blue eyes and how she waited to have three children before she had a baby with blue eyes.

So she went over and above and she would coddle my brother because he was so sensitive as a little boy.

And me,

I was the drama queen.

I was Sarah Bernhardt.

I had no clue who the hell Sarah Bernhardt was.

I was dramatic.

I was just looking for attention.

And so I was obviously overtly abused by my mom as far as I was concerned,

But here was the kicker.

Here was the kicker.

Oh my God,

I feel so sorry for my inner child.

On the flip side of that,

I had a father who offered approval as long as I smiled,

As long as I acted,

As long as I pretended,

As long as I knew,

Make daddy feel good about daddy because daddy was very upset if you were upset because you know why?

It made him feel like he was failing and it wasn't your job to tell your truth.

It was your job to pretend that he was awesome.

Okay.

How do you survive as a child like that?

A mother who is overtly abusing you,

A father who knows she's overtly abusing you and not protecting you,

And then on the flip side of it is only offering you validation when you wag your tail like the puppy that's just been rescued from the pet store.

Okay.

How do you survive?

Thank God I did.

And I think I survived because like I said,

There is something innate within me that I don't have an off switch.

So it's like,

Okay,

I'm all in.

So if you're not going to be nice to me,

I'm the off switch.

I'll be the scapegoat.

You could abuse me and I'm not going to let you see me sweat.

I'll be dying inside,

But you're not going to see me sweat.

I'm not going to cry in front of you.

Now that turned into eating disorders.

That turned into panic attack.

Panic attacks that turned into like I had ADHD or CPTSD that comes off like ADHD.

I had a lot of really serious interpersonal issues that I was struggling with that no one knew about.

I was hair pulling.

I was counting obsessively on my fingers and I was also very obsessed about keeping friendships.

And so it boiled over and it was terrible.

But eventually after losing my marriage or walking away from my marriage,

Thank the Lord,

I found the courage to do that.

And what was amazing was I found the courage to face familial rejection.

And I realized that if I stay here,

It's guaranteed suffering.

If I don't divorce my ex-husband,

If I don't learn about this thing called codependency,

If I don't find my true voice,

If I don't find a way to break through,

My children are screwed.

They're going to be like me.

And God,

I love them so much.

I don't want them to have eating disorders and panic attacks and marry narcissists and feel like they can't leave and feel like they can't speak their truth and set a boundary.

That's tyranny.

That's slavery.

I didn't want that for them.

So I was able to see that if I left,

At least my children and I had a shred of potential of something better than what we had.

That was a huge mindset shift for me.

Staying,

Impending doom,

Absolutely impending doom.

It's not going to work out right.

Leaving,

Even though Amy the amygdala is screaming,

Don't go,

Lisa,

Don't go.

And Harry Hippocampus is coming up with all these reasons as to why,

Danger,

Danger,

Danger,

Don't do it.

You don't have a college degree.

You quit nursing school.

You don't have any business to fall back on.

He sold your business.

You don't have a job.

The kids are little.

What are you doing?

Your family won't support you.

It was screaming.

Harry the hippocampus was screaming.

And Amy and Harry were correct.

But you know what?

I did it anyway.

I did it because staying was a guaranteed suffering.

It's only going to get worse.

And leaving was,

There's a chance you might do really,

Really well.

I had no idea that that very difficult decision,

Which was one of the hardest decisions I've ever made,

But what I've learned in my journey is that the hardest decisions are always the best decisions.

And avoiding hard decisions doesn't do anything for you.

I thought,

How am I going to help people break through the veil of consciousness if I don't invest in myself?

How am I going to get this message out there?

And again,

A very hard decision,

But I decided I'm putting the money down.

I'm going to invest in myself.

I'm going to invest in therapy.

I'm going to invest in programs.

I'm going to invest in reading and digesting this material and creating an opportunity for other people to learn from me.

I'm obsessed with it.

And I'm so grateful for that trait.

But once I saw that what got me into trouble was inauthenticity.

But here's the thing.

When you're codependent,

You're inauthentic,

But you don't know it.

You don't know it because Amy and the amygdala are screaming at you to remain inauthentic.

Why?

Because authenticity is a threat to your survival.

So guess what?

You're not broken.

Guess what?

You're not crazy.

Guess what?

There's nothing wrong with you.

I will go one step further.

Your brain is actually doing everything that creator designed it to do,

Keep you safe.

But here's the thing.

You need to be inauthentic in a relationship with a narcissist or narcissistic family.

Because you know what?

Until you get the ability to leave that environment,

It's very painful when you speak up.

So it is a good strategy to like,

You know what,

Shutty,

Shutty,

Gray rock them,

Namaste,

Walk away,

Smile,

Do your due diligence in the middle of the night,

Like a little mouse gaining information,

Squirreling your money away until you can get out,

Right?

That's smart.

That's a smart strategy.

But we don't know that we're inauthentic when we're codependent.

We don't know that we're under the spell.

And what will break the spell is,

Well,

A couple of things,

But we want to learn how to not be apologetic for being the self.

Now these are,

I would say,

Like little steps that you can take.

So if you're new to codependent recovery,

And if you are in a relationship with a toxic person,

Just understand that,

Or just explore,

How am I abandoning the self?

In how many ways a day am I not being truthful about how I feel,

About what I want,

About what my boundaries are?

How often am I inauthentic in my energy at work?

How much am I settling for crumbs when it comes to pushing myself into being myself so that I can bring what is innate within me to the public?

Because trust me,

There's something inside of you.

You know about something.

Maybe you've developed an incredible recipe that is gluten-free that will help people who need a gluten-free diet,

And you know that better than anybody.

You can market that.

You can share that.

You can create an entire business around this gluten-free cookie and develop an entire business around this gluten-free product or products that you've been created,

And why?

Because it comes from pain.

Who knows how to make gluten-free products more than someone who has suffered because they have a gluten allergy?

Nobody knows more than you do.

My point is that the key to making it in life is going to be your ability to find the courage to be authentic,

And you take it in micro doses.

For instance,

When you're learning about codependency and narcissistic abuse and the connection to inauthenticity,

Now just invert it.

That's what I do.

It's like,

Okay,

Inner child wounds to inner strength,

Right?

What's the key?

I teach you how to be more authentic,

More truthful,

Little by little by little to the point that you're able to wake up and say,

This is what I think.

This is how I feel.

It's okay if mom doesn't agree with me and dad doesn't agree with me,

And my narcissistic husband throws a fit.

It's totally okay.

Now,

Of course,

There's a caveat here.

It depends on what type of narcissist you're living with.

If you've got someone who's physically abusive,

You've got to be really careful,

But I think the majority of us are with garden snake variety narcissists who don't know that they're narcissists,

Who are incredibly self-focused,

Lack empathy,

And who are pathologically self-indulgent,

Pathologically obsessed with what they think and what they feel and obsessed with minimizing you and devaluing you so that they can maintain control in the relationship.

Why?

They can't negotiate.

They can't be kind.

They can't be nice consistently.

They're only nice to certain people,

But to their people,

To the people that are closest to them,

You're going to be treated like crap.

It just is what it is.

Now,

When you gain enough objectivity,

You can see that,

And yes,

When you decide to rock the boat,

When you decide,

I'm going to be myself,

When you decide to say,

You know what?

You're not going to get away with twisting the conversation today,

Or you know what?

You're not going to get away with saying something that actually isn't factually true today.

You know what?

I don't like the way you just twisted the conversation.

You know what?

I'm not going to stand here and be devalued by you,

Right?

When you find the ability to be authentic,

That's you creating a completely different mindset around who you are.

When you create a different mindset,

From that new mindset,

You're going to have a different goal.

So your mindset,

Codependent mindset,

Might have been,

Don't rock the boat.

Don't ask for having your needs met.

Don't tell the truth about what you feel,

Right?

Placate everybody.

Always smile.

Worry yourself to the bone about everybody else.

That's your goal.

Your goal is to keep everybody happy.

Then you develop strategies.

Well,

You know what?

I'll get up early,

And I'll go take care of my mother,

Then I'll go take care of my cousin,

And then I'll write a bunch of emails to make sure all the people in my family are okay.

If I'm a business owner,

I'll go into work early,

And I'll sit there for half an hour and talk to my employees so they feel good about themselves,

So they don't get mad at me.

I'll work my finger to the bone so no one's mad at me.

And what are your outcome?

Inauthenticity,

Exhaustion,

Depression,

And no one respects you.

Everybody sees you as a doormat.

Now,

When you have a complete mindset shift,

And it goes from being afraid to rock the boat to minimizing yourself and living inauthentically to,

I need to be more authentic,

You've had a mindset shift.

Now what happens?

You have a different goal.

So today,

If my narcissistic husband walks into the kitchen,

And he says something sarcastic,

Today,

I'm just going to say,

You know,

That wasn't very nice.

I don't like the way that makes me feel.

And you're going to walk out.

You're just going to leave it there.

Just leave it there.

Accept how you feel.

You told the truth.

So now you have a different strategy.

The strategy that you're building,

Well,

You have different goals too.

I need to be more authentic,

Little by little by little.

So now you have a different strategy.

So now your strategy is,

I need to be myself more often.

You want to go to that movie?

Or you want to go to that movie?

Now,

You know your narcissistic husband doesn't want to go to that movie,

But you do.

So now,

Instead of going,

OK,

Let me just go with what he thinks.

I don't want to upset him,

Because I know I'm going to get it.

If I go against,

I'm going to get it.

Now you say,

You know what?

I realize you probably want to go see that film,

But you really asked me my opinion.

I prefer to go see this film.

Boom.

Different strategy.

You're going to have a different outcome.

You might get pushback.

But if you don't give up,

And if you continue on this path,

And you stop apologizing for being yourself in this world,

Because we're all going to croak,

Dear ones,

And every day,

You lose another opportunity to be authentic,

To be who you were born to be,

I say that's just not worth it.

I'm not going out that way.

I will live well so I can die well,

And I will feel good about myself,

Because every step of the way,

Once I figured out what was wrong,

I was all in on,

And like I said,

Don't have an off button,

I was all in on figuring it out and figuring it out and figuring it out,

And I've created an entire business for people who are like,

I want to figure it out.

I want to figure it out,

Because there is a way out.

It's a paradigm,

And what you need to do is break through it,

And you need to practice these tools and practice this way of life,

And I promise you,

Your life is only going to get better and better and better,

And my life is proof.

I went from being almost to literally at the doorway of death when my doctor said,

If you fall asleep,

You're going to die.

I had no life force left.

It was so sad,

And I just want to go back in time and hug that young woman who had three children and just had a baby less than a year old,

And was struggling with severe asthma,

And was still trying to take care of everybody else,

And was seeking the approval of her husband and her abusive husband,

Emotionally abusive husband,

And seeking the approval of her discarding mother and narcissistic father,

And worrying about what her sister and her brother thought about her,

And I think,

Wow,

Did anybody ever worry about you?

Did anybody in your family that you wasted the sacred energy on,

This energy that should have been keeping your lungs healthy,

The energy that should have been infusing your immune system with the ability to fight back bacterias,

And germs,

And viruses?

No,

All I did was give that to people who weren't willing to give it back.

So I had those breakthroughs.

I'm continuing to have breakthroughs,

And it is an honor to be able to share this information with you in this way,

On this platform,

In the hopes that it inspires you to stop apologizing for being you.

It is one of the major keys to lifelong transformation.

Namaste,

Everybody.

Until next time,

As it bouts at 11 light,

That is absolutely in you.

Until next time.

Reviews

Honestly changed my life, led to a breakthrough moment for me and I am so grateful 🙏

Lisa, your stories resonate so much with me. What an awakening! Thank you so much. 🙏

Excellent.

Thank you! 🙏🏽

Always authentic. Thanks 😊 for sharing.

Yes!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!