The Metacognitive Science Of Letting Go Of The Past

Do you feel stuck? Have people told you all you need to do is let go? Have you been shamed by others because you find it hard to stop thinking about how a narcissistic parent has wounded you? Do you ruminate, and find yourself clinging to old memories, plagued by negative self talk? Are you codependent, a people pleaser, who finds it hard to let go, even when you know you should walk away?

If so, this episode is for you.

Inside you will learn Lisa A. Romano's 3 step metacogntive process that teaches her private clients and members of her conscious healing circle, inside the Breakthrough Warrior Membership. These are also the types of logic and neurological based trainings she offers those within her coaching courses. Today, she shares her insights with those in her podcast community in the hopes of inspiring them to believe that the power to change and heal their lives has been within them all along.

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. Namaste, Everybody. My name is Lisa A. Romano, The Breakthrough Life Coach, And I teach metacognitive skills to people who are stuck in the past, Who want joy in their life instead, With logical brain science. That's the trick. And today, We're going to be talking about three metacognitive skills to help you let go. We hear this term a lot inside the healing communities. Ah, You just have to let go. And if you're anything like me, When you were stuck in trauma, Stuck in the past, When you were unaware that you were unaware, When you were operating under the guise of codependency but didn't know it. And let's just say this. Codependency is not loving someone too much. It is not clinginess. That's a symptom. Codependency means that I do not have a sense of selfhood. It means my very identity, Scary stuff, Is tied up in how well I am able to please another person, How well I am able to convince this person of my worthiness. I am seeking praise. I am addicted to validation. Fear is running the ship. I'm afraid of rejection. I'm running from my inner child's core wounds. I'm below the veil of consciousness. I do not know how to access the experiences that have now been downloaded into my nervous system, The actual energy of the pain and the suffering, The terror of abandonment from childhood. I don't know it's there. I don't know how to access it. I am in the throes of autopilot-type thinking, The default mode network, Which is the area of the brain that stores all of your beliefs and all of your habits and patterns of thinking is running the ship, But you, Dear one, Are below the veil of consciousness. You're in the throes of this addiction. You don't even know it's an addiction. Codependency is an acceptable addiction. You're the kind one. You're the people pleaser. You're the person in your life that has no needs. You're the perfectionist. You're the clean freak. You're the person who always over functions and over gives. You're the first one at a party to help the hostess set up and the last one to leave. You have an acceptable, Desired addiction. Wrong. Wrong. You just don't know that you have this addiction. And so if you're in the healing community, You may or may not have heard, But I'm sure you have, The term, Just let it go. I remember before I understood what was wrong with me, People saying, Oh, Just let go. Your mother was this way towards you. Maybe she had high narcissistic traits, But just let it go. Your father knew what was going on in your home, And he did nothing about it, But shake his head like he was the victim. Just let that go. Just you were the family scapegoat. Just let that go. You can't. You can't just let that go. It's not neurologically possible. It's not psychologically possible. So in today's session, I'm going to give you three action steps that are going to help you break through this, Okay? And I hope that you have a pen and paper ready. If not, Come back to this session later on, Rewind it so that you get these steps. You really want to practice these steps. Remember, Your neurology matches your psychology. First it was your psychology, Meaning what you experienced as a child that was responsible for molding and shaping your neurology, And now your neurology has got you by the tail. You just don't know it. So now how you're presenting in life with your thoughts, Your feelings, Your behaviors, Your beliefs, Your relationships, Everything, Even your career choices, How you feel about your house when you wake up in the morning, And your kitchen. Do you freak out because there are dishes in the kitchen? Are you someone like me that can't even go to work unless the kitchen is spotless? There's a reason for all that. So you want to understand that these everyday automatic responses that you're not even aware of represent your neurology. So this is what we're concerned with. We're concerned with metacognition, Which is the ability to think about the way that you think. Once you are able to see how you think and you can see how your brain processes information, Which is just a reflection of your neurology, Then you can pattern interrupt. But without systems in place that allow you to anchor to the observer within you, It's impossible to do this work. So first we have to encourage people to understand that this is a metacognitive journey, Healing from codependency, Healing from narcissistic abuse, Healing from childhood emotional neglect, CPTSD. It's about training, Retraining your nervous system, Retraining the observer within you, Actually activating the higher, More metacognitive observer within you. This isn't just hokey pokey stuff that I'm talking about. Neuroscientists have now determined that the highest form of intelligence is metacognition, The ability to think about the way that you think. Most people are not thinking about the way they think, They're reacting to the way that they think. And what they're thinking comes from the subconscious mind and the default mode network, Yada yada yada, And autopilot. So let's see if in today's session we can help you break through. So most people misunderstand what letting go actually means. They think it's about forgetting, Forgiving prematurely, Or pretending something didn't hurt. But that's spiritual bypassing and not healing. Real letting go isn't about releasing anything external. It's about accepting what you cannot control without resistance. This is a metacognitive practice. You can't just have will and say, I'm going to let this go. You must consciously and deliberately, Through a more conscious path, Which is metacognition, Practice what I'm trying to teach you today. It requires you to observe your thoughts and feelings in real time without judgment and consciously redirect your mental energy. So today I'm going to walk you through three distinct steps of true letting go. I'm going to help you reframe what letting go actually means and why being able to do this is one of the clearest signs that you're accelerating on the healing path. So here are the three metacognitive steps to letting go. Number one, Accept the external circumstances completely. So this is where you fully acknowledge what is. My mother's a narcissist. I've never had a healthy relationship with my mom. She's probably going to die without ever really seeing me. Okay. Accept that reality. I hate to be so blunt about it, But a little stoic philosophy here is, Is as good as any medication you could take. I have to accept that reality. Our suffering comes from, There's a reality and I don't like that reality and I'm going to push against that reality. You're trying to change something you can't change, That's maddening. So take a good look at it and just accept whatever reality is in front of you without judgment. And this is where you acknowledge what is, Regardless of whether it's fair or your ego, Your subjective ego thinks it should or should not be happening, Regardless of what you think from your subjective perception, What's right or what's fair, What's wanted or unwanted. It's just, Okay, The tree fell on my car. Okay. It's not about whether or not that's fair, Why did it happen to me? None of that. It's just the tree fell on my car. Just accept that reality. An example of that might be my parents don't see me. My parents will never apologize. My husband is cheating on me. My best friend never returns my phone calls. I'm always the one that has to reach out. I didn't get the job. My partner refuses to change. I don't have enough money to pay the rent this month. We're going to accept everything without attaching a story to it. This is the metacognitive shift. This is observing reality, The facts of reality without attaching a story to it. The ego is the storyteller in your life. We're trying to bypass the ego because the ego is tied to the past. And so whatever story you've been telling yourself in the past, That's the story that ego is going to repeat because it's the only story ego has. That's the metacognitive shift. So here's what it sounds like internally. This is the reality right now. I cannot control their choices. Fighting what is only creates more suffering. Here's the key insight. Acceptance is not agreement. You're not saying it's OK. You're saying it's real. You stop arguing with reality. You stop arguing with what is. Narcissist is trying to bait me into a conversation. Accept that reality. Don't argue that reality. This is where when I'm coaching someone, This is where their shift happens like, Oh, Shutty shutty. Exactly. Wow. The narcissist is trying to bait me into a conversation. Just call it out. Put some space, Metacognitive space between you and what's happening in reality. Do not attach a story to it. Step two is you have to accept your thoughts and feelings about the circumstances. Now do you want you have to accept the internal reality? What happens inside of you mentally, Emotionally, Psychologically? What happens physiologically? Like what sensations do you have? Do you have a CPTSD response, Right? They're just going to observe it. This is the hardest step for most people and where most people get stuck. You must observe and accept all of your emotional responses without judgment or resistance. You have to accept all of the thoughts. If ego pops up a story, You say, Okay, I can, I can accept that that story. When I say, Oh, This is the ego story, I don't attach to it. So we're talking about non-attachment, A very spiritual concept, But not in some like foo foo, Um, New age kind of way in a very neurological way. When I say this is the ego story, I create metacognitive shifts because I am not the story and a caveat here is you think about how many times your story has changed. I once believed that I was not good enough. I was once afraid of my ex-husband. I'm not afraid of him anymore. What changed my perception, My story. I could never be here today having attracted such an incredible conscious healing community. Had I not done this work, Had I not shifted, Wait a minute, I'm not my story. No, My ex-husband was a mirror for my mother. He spoke like her. He treated me like her. I attracted my mother. I attracted my mother because I was below the veil of consciousness thinking that I needed to prove myself worthy of love. I didn't attract someone who loved me. I attracted someone who really believed that I was supposed to prove that I loved him. Like I was just supposed to live in that marriage being unhappy. It's craziness. It's actually crazy making when you think about it. But that was the reality and I didn't think that I had a right to choose. I didn't even think I had a right to my feelings. I was so, My identity was so wrapped up in what does he think about me, Which was what happened to me as a little girl. My identity was crushed by my mother. The little girl that I was decided at three years old that I had to convince her that I was worthy of love because she made me feel so unworthy of love. And she did. God rest her soul. But that is the truth. It is what it is. So you have to, And number two, You have to accept what's going to show up. You're going to learn to, It's going to happen naturally if you do this work. You're going to suddenly see a pattern. You're going to hear language. You just don't attach to it. Like I said, This is the hardest step. So here are some examples. I feel angry that they won't take accountability. No problem. I'm sad this relationship ended. Okay. Be sad. I'm disappointed in myself for not seeing this sooner. Okay. Disappointment is just a state of being that is not indicative of who you are. In this place, In this state, You're the observer of these feelings. I resent that I have to grieve this alone. Okay. No problem. You're resentful right now, Or you're sensing resentment. Just like I can sense my hand if I bring my two fingers together, My pointer finger, My thumb, And I press really hard, I can sense that feeling. That's okay. No problem. So I can sense resentment. I can see where my ego is going. I can sense the lens by which I'm viewing this reality right now. No problem. This is the metacognitive shift. You're witnessing your thoughts and feelings as data and not as threats or proof of failure. What this sounds like internally once you make the shift and you have to practice this. Of course I feel this way. This hurt me. These feelings are valid, But they won't destroy me. I can feel angry and still choose peace. This is the middle way. No matter how far you go back in history, The greatest teachers of all time have been trying to teach us to walk the middle way. Trauma victims have black and white thinking. Narcissists have black and white thinking. They lack whole object constancy. What does that mean? They lack the ability to see the bad in themselves. They only see the good in themselves. When they're idealizing you, Which is really what love bombing is, Some narcissists, Especially if they're more like a psychopath or a sociopath, They know that they're lying to you when they're trying to bring you into their lair. They know that they're going to take advantage of you and they enjoy it. It's part of the hunt. But there are some people who idealize you. There are some narcissists who idealize people, You're great, You're amazing, Because it makes them look good. Not because they really think you're amazing. It's because you're amazing, They have to convince themselves that you're amazing to justify why they're hanging out with you, Because they're just so amazing. And then that wears off, Right? It's like a diamond that loses its luster. You're making meatballs and you're making pasta and the diamond gets all dirty that's on your finger. That's how they treat you over time, You lose your luster. It's not fun for them anymore. Their addiction has worn out. They need a new supply. And so this is what we have to understand is happening in those relationships. So when you get to a point where you're trying to let go of this relationship, Where understanding this is really an acceptance of whatever the dynamics are, As well as what's happening inside of me. So if I'm crushed, I'm crushed. If I'm angry, I'm angry. No problem. It's all valid. Another one, Another metacognitive shift would be my thoughts are not facts. They're my brain processing pain. So when you're in pain, Your mind is going to process that pain as data. And it's going to be representative of what's been stored in the reticular activating system in the default mode network. Nothing wrong here. We're just becoming more metacognitive of how we've stored information. For example, When I was going through this work and I was doing these shifts like 25, 30 years ago, I was taking apart every thought process in my mind. And I noticed that what was happening was if my ex-husband didn't respond to me the way I wanted him to, I felt like a failure. So there was the story. And I was able to say, Huh, Here I am acting very codependently, Trying to be a good little girl to seek his approval. And he didn't pat me on the head. Like he just ignored the fact that the house looks great, Hit the perfect deodorant for him that he's always wanted, That he couldn't find is on the kitchen sink, And cooked his favorite meal. Like there's nothing that he has to do. The kids have all been bathed. Their homework is done. And certainly he'll see that I'm worthy now, Uh-uh. And when I saw the pattern in myself, That's when I had the metacognitive shift. Lisa, Your feelings are valid, But they're not facts. You might feel not good enough, But that's not true. Right? So you feel not good enough, But that's not a fact. So my feelings weren't facts. And that's where a lot of shifts started to take place. Here's a key insight. When you resist your feelings, You stay stuck in them. When you observe them with compassion, They're able to move through you. This is self-editing in real time. And this is also giving your body somatic permission to feel whatever it feels so that these gremlins and this pus that has been festering and marinating in your emotional body has a way out. It's like lancing a wound. It's absolutely incredible. Now number three is when you redirect to gratitude. So this is the conscious shift. Once you fully accepted both the external and internal reality, You consciously redirect your mental energy to something you can appreciate in your present moment. This is not toxic positivity. It's neuroplasticity in action. You're training your brain to hold both pain and gratitude simultaneously. Because when you have CPTSD, When you have codependency, So you have CPTSD when you have codependency. More likely than not, You have some form of emotional dependency if you have childhood emotional neglect and abandonment trauma. So you can see that it's just like one octopus. Childhood trauma is like the head of the octopus. You have all these different tentacles. That's pretty much what those of us who are trying to understand are experiencing. So codependency is a symptom. Low self-worth is a symptom. Trying to prove our worthiness, It's a symptom. The stories we tell ourselves at the subconscious level and we can hear consciously when we start to observe ourselves, That's a symptom. So what we're trying to do is to, We want to activate the ability to find the middle way. So I can hold the darkness and the light within myself at the same time. I can look at the past and say, I wish it was different, But it could have been no other way. But look at me ebbing towards the light. There's the middle way. When we're narcissistic, There's only one way, My way. That's not the light. That's the darkness. Because that's from ego. That's what control, Domination, And power. And anybody that I pull into my reality, I'm going to suck them into the darkness as well. They're just not going to know what's happening. But you'll feel it in time. So here are some examples of this metacognitive shift. I'm grateful I now see the pattern and can choose differently. So when I started to see this pattern of acquiescing and subjugating and beating myself up because my ex-husband didn't pat me on the back, I felt so defeated, Like I was a bad little girl. I should be so ashamed of myself. I should have tried harder. What did I miss? And then I was just so embarrassed and ashamed of myself. Once I could see the pattern, I started saying to myself, There it is. I'm so grateful I can see the pattern. And that's where I came up with the phrase, Well, You can't fix a hole in the wall you can't see. So I started to associate pleasure with finding this gremlin-type pattern. It was like, Oh, There's the rat in the house. Now I can set a trap. Now I can finally see it. Another internal shift would be I'm thankful for my own strength in walking away. I'm thankful that I can see the pattern. I'm thankful that I'm meditating. I'm thankful that I didn't go back at the narcissist. I'm thankful that I'm using my brain power. I'm thankful that I'm focusing on neuroplasticity. I'm thankful. I'm thankful. I'm thankful. I'm grateful for this lesson, Even though it hurt. So here are the three steps quick. You accept the reality that's outside of you. You can't shift it. No storytelling. I just can't shift it. Number two is I have to accept what's happening inside of me. This is where you're turning on your instincts again. You're getting back in touch with your intuition. You're observing it. And in time, You're going to gain some consciousness, Conscious control over what's happening. As long as you don't react to it, You just accept it and surrender. And then the third step is shift. Once you see all of this, You want to associate pleasure with what's being observed. That is huge. So internally, This could sound like what else is true right now besides this pain? Where is there still beauty, Safety, And support in my life? Where am I going with this? What am I learning? Who and what am I becoming? How does my life benefit because I'm seeing this pattern in my life? This is complete non-resistance. This is me finding the path to joy. This is the truth setting me free. This is emotional freedom. The key insight is that gratitude doesn't erase pain. It creates space around the pain so that you're not consumed by it. So this isn't Pollyanna stuff. This isn't toxic positivity. This is neuroplasticity in action, You as the conscious creator. With enough practice, You're going to feel the shift. It won't happen the first time, And maybe it won't happen on the 10th time, But one day you'll notice that the heaviness feels lighter. It lifts. You get out of desperation quicker. You don't spiral as deeply. You can hold pain without letting it define your entire day. You feel more in control of your inner world, Even when the outer world is chaotic. You notice that you shutty-shutty when your mother tries to bait you. You notice that when your co-worker puts extra work on your desk, You're just like, Hmm, Okay. Well, There are only so many hours in the day, And she might want me to fix that or do that, But I'm not going to be able to. That's a metacognitive shift versus attaching a story to, I can't believe she just added more stuff to my plate. What's wrong with her? I'm the only one that works this hard in this office. Can you see the difference? In time, If you practice this, You have to practice this. Think about stinking thinking as a bunch of weeds in the subconscious mind. What does a gardener do? A gardener goes out there, And gardeners tend to be pretty peaceful people. They go out there, And they systematically, One by one, They pull the weeds out of the ground. That's what we're doing, And they know that it's not going to happen in 15 seconds. They know this might take a week or two weeks or three months to weed the garden, To plant a new seed, Which is what we're trying to teach you how to do here. This is where we're going when it comes to emotional recovery work. This is where we're going with trauma recovery work. We're going to push people for the highest form of intelligence, And rather than just talk about their pain and talk about why they're stuck, We're going to teach them to observe their pain, And observe why they're stuck, And give them the tools to get unstuck. This is cutting edge, And I so hope that you're catching the wave. Remember that healing is about making these shifts, This idea that you're going to feel more in control of your inner world, Even when the outer world is chaotic. I'm telling you, It's amazing. I will tell you that when I started doing this work, Before I started doing the work, The inner chaos was inside of me, But everything else looked okay. When I started doing this work, I was suddenly peaceful on the inside, And the outside looked chaotic, But I was still peaceful. It was absolutely amazing. What an incredible shift. This is not the absence of pain, But your ability to metabolize it using metacognition. The assignment that I want to leave everybody with is this. Think of one situation you're struggling to let go of right now. Write down the circumstance, Just the facts, No story. Write down all your thoughts and feelings about it without judgment. Let it all out. If you start to cry, Just let it go. This is neurologically sound. Journaling that allows you to tap into pain, I call it a pocket of pain. Journaling that allows you to tap into pain, And that creates this emotional release inside of you is actually very healing. You just want to make sure that after you get it all out, Get it all out, Get it all out, Get it. . . Write longhand. It's better to write cursive neurologically. That's proven. Not taking your hand off the paper tends to allow you to connect more deeply to these neurological processes that have been keeping you stuck like chains. Just keep going. Don't be afraid of it. Embrace it. Don't be afraid of it. Then give yourself about 15 to 20 minutes, Maybe half an hour, To just relax. Just relax. Just relax. Just relax. Then go about your day. Write down three things that you're grateful for in your life. After that, After you've released all of the internal narratives that you can find, You're going to write down three things that you're grateful for in your life right now unrelated to the pain. Now, The key here when you're writing down things that you're grateful for, You really want to try to muster up an emotional shift. Think about affirmations that are not emotional. There's no seed. There's a seed there, But it doesn't get planted into the ground. It's the emotion that allows you to plant the seed into the subconscious mind. You want to go for something that you can feel. When I'm doing this work, Sometimes I hold pictures of my children when they were little, So innocent when I was messing them up, But I didn't know I was messing them up. I can feel the gratitude of the work that I've done because I know that I'm doing so much better today as a mom and a grandmother. That moves me energetically. Understand that that's what we're going for, A gratitude shift. It could be your dog. It could be your toenail polish, But just go for something that activates gratitude inside of you. Notice how you feel after completing all three steps. This is a practice. This is the work. It's like trying to teach a five-year-old how to tie their shoelaces. It's a practice over and over and over. What are you doing? You're trying to give them and teach them the muscle memory, The neurological pathways associated taking their tiny little fingers with these tiny little shoelaces and tying a bow over and over and over again. It's a practice. Tying your shoes is the same as doing this type of work. It's a neurological practice. Letting go is a skill. It's not something, Oh, I'm going to let go of a sack of potatoes, Or I've had all these years of trauma. I've been raised by a narcissistic mother. I'm going to let it go. You can't. It's just not physically, Neurologically, Psychologically, Or emotionally possible. Think of letting go as a skill. It's not a one-time event. It's a metacognitive muscle you build through repetition. It's so funny. Once in a while, Someone will criticize me because my work is repetitive. Well, This is why, Because you can't fix what's wrong at a neurological level without repetition, Without repetition. Whatever. It is what it is. Every time you practice these three steps, You're rewiring your brain for resilience, Peace, And authentic power. My life is proof. You're not ignoring your pain, Dear one. You're just refusing to allow it to run your life on autopilot. That's what healed people do, And you're becoming one of them. The last thing I'll leave you with is, Think about The Wizard of Oz. Dorothy falls asleep. Think about you and I and everybody out there being asleep in their subconscious mind. There's a story that seems very, Very real. In The Wizard of Oz, You forget that it begins with Dorothy being knocked out and that she's dreaming. Dorothy doesn't know that she's dreaming, That the forest isn't real, That the witch isn't real. She doesn't know that. We have all of these goblins and gremlins that have been wired into the subconscious mind that keep us stuck in a true dream state, Even though we're awake or we seem conscious. We're not as conscious as we think. We're not, Carl Jung says, Until you make that which is subconscious conscious, It dictates your life, And you call it fate. We know neurologically that we are 95% subconscious. We know this, And we're only 5% conscious. The 5% conscious that we are, Very sad to think about, Is us listening to the 95% of us that is subconscious and reacting to what has been downloaded. Most of the thoughts we think on any given day are the thoughts we've thought last week and last week and last week and last week. That is not living consciously. I don't want to live that way. I will do what it takes to activate metacognition. If that means I have to meditate for two hours, Three hours a day, I'm going to do it. If that means I have to wake up early to do this, I'm going to do it. If that means I have to wake up early to write a gratitude list of 100 things before I can actually feel that shift, I'm going to do it. I will be damned if trauma from my childhood is going to run my life. I will be damned if I'm going to allow the traumatized inner child within me to raise my children. I will be damned if I allow the inner child within me, My trauma and the ego, The counterpart to my inner child's wounds, I will be damned if I let that govern my relationship with my grandchildren or I will allow that to interfere with my relationship with my darling husband, Anthony. I will be damned. I will not let it happen. And so this is mental resiliency. And I think that if people were given an opportunity to understand this in their language, They would be far more excited about moving into this direction. We would create intrinsic motivation for change. People would embrace the ability to change. They would embrace the opportunity to mind their mind, To manage their mind. It would be exciting to them. And their results would be trackable. So Dorothy taught us a lot. All she had to do was click her heels three times. To me, That represents consistency and repetition. Click them three times. You know, The good witch didn't say click them once. She didn't say, Oh, Go into your bag. She said, Click your heels three times. To me, That's repetition, Repetition and repetition. Turns out the ruby slippers were with us the whole time. Metacognitive skills are the way, Dear ones. No matter what the issue is, I believe that we can heal the brain once we are empowered by this information. Namaste, Everybody. Who knew? You're enough. You are enough. It was never you. It was just your programming. Bye for now. Until next time.