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.
Awakening in this podcast.
I'll share insights tools and transformative stories that illuminate the path to healing and self-discovery so what is codependency and do you have it and You can go to therapy for 10,
15,
20,
Heck,
Even 30 years and never be diagnosed with codependency because codependency,
Dear one,
Is not in the DSM.
If you are like most codependents,
You may have sought therapy such as marital therapy,
Because you keep having relationship issues with your spouse or your partner,
Or maybe even your children.
Or maybe you go into therapy because you feel anxious,
Or you are suffering from depression,
Or maybe you have rumination,
Or maybe even OCD.
But you feel like you have this loss inside of you.
You can't stop your mind from thinking the worst case scenario.
And you try,
You go into therapy and you explain all these things and you tell your friends and your family like,
Like how you're feeling,
But you can't figure anything out.
You can't make sense of anything.
If you are codependent,
You are,
You oftentimes see yourself as the good one.
You see yourself as a peacekeeper.
You see yourself as a people pleaser.
Your language is often one of constant and chronic complaining.
I can't believe my son is doing this.
I can't believe my daughter-in-law is doing that.
I can't believe my husband is saying that I can't believe my mother-in-law my Narcissistic mother is doing this.
I can't believe that I can't believe this.
I can't but there is this this constant complaining that you are in the middle of and it feels so real like and it is real and You however don't understand the true source of the complaint Here's if you are codependent.
This is really going to hit home because you are Unconsciously you don't understand the data the memory or the programming that's right residing at the subconscious mind or your inner child You are other focused So you don't operate from self.
What do I want?
What do I need?
How can I be responsible for my emotions today?
How can I hold onto myself?
In a midst of a three ring circus of an alcoholic husband or a narcissistic son or an emotionally avoidant mother or a narcissistic mother.
How do I,
How can I in this three ring circus that I call my life with craziness going on at work,
With a troubled manager,
With whoever how can I in the midst of a three-ring circus?
How can I hold on to myself and maintain?
Equanimity and peace forget that and codependence can't do that If you have a problem,
A codependent has that problem.
So let's say that you work in a hospital and you're a nurse and you have someone who that you work with is really struggling.
Maybe they have an addiction or maybe they have tremendous anxiety and they have a lot of family issues.
Well,
Their problem infects you.
It becomes your problem.
So you're at work.
You have a tremendous caseload for that day.
You have so many patients to take care of and now you find yourself Attached and enmeshed with this nurse that you can see is struggling And you don't know why you do it,
But you feel like you have to help her.
It's like innate.
I have to help her.
And so you give up your break at work to have to make sure that she's okay.
You stay late to spend 15,
20 minutes or an hour making sure she's okay before she goes home.
You text her as soon as you wake up,
Is everything okay?
You're tending to her emotions.
You are losing yourself in that drama.
You are trying to take care of her feelings because you're uncomfortable with where she's at because you are other focused.
Now.
That is the symptom.
That is not the cause.
So codependency is tied to your subconscious programming.
It is think about your inner child living below the veil of consciousness and your inner child has absorbed all the frequencies and the energies of your childhood home,
But your conscious mind is unaware of the root causes of these behaviors and what's motivating it.
And so that's why I do the work that I do because I feel like I am someone who figured this out.
This was me.
Your problem was my problem.
I could not let go and I was being dragged all over the place by this one's disease and this one's Addiction and this one's concerns and this one's worries and this one's fight with their mother and this one's fight with their husband You know eight nine months pregnant cleaning out the closet of a friend Who is having problems with her husband as she stood behind me and drank a cappuccino?
Like there's something wrong with that right and I was just it took me like what am I doing?
You know,
Like what am I doing?
I'm on my hands and my knees cleaning out her closet And she's sipping a cappuccino behind me and I'm talking to her about her husband's her and her husband's issues like So codependent.
That it took me so many breakdowns to finally break through codependency and trace it back to its original origins.
And I do not think that you can escape something as insidious as codependency because it's in you.
It's,
It's the perception,
It's your lens by which you view yourself and the world.
And you cannot break through that until you can trace it back to the root and you heal the experiences and the emotions that created that in the first place.
That's my story and I'm sticking to it.
I have been speaking about codependency for over 20 years now.
I'm still in the recovery process.
I still work this every day.
And I've trained thousands of people,
And it seems like that is the difference that people that trace it back to the root and do the emotional clearing and cleansing of those original wounds,
They're able to leave the codependency patterns behind.
They ascend into higher states of consciousness.
And they leave all this crap behind,
This lack of boundaries,
This enmeshment,
This your problem is my problem.
Like we eventually become people that can have compassion without trying to fix everything.
We are people who eventually learn through these experiences because we're breaking these generational curses.
We are healing this generational karma and trauma.
We get to a point where we understand like,
Oh,
Okay.
Like all of those experiences led me to finding my true authentic self and all of that pain was an opportunity for,
For me to see where I was still stuck.
It's absolutely amazing when you take a spiritual look at it or you see it through the spiritual lens,
Like,
Oh,
I've come here for growth and codependency.
Was me not growing.
Codependency was me and my inner child's mind.
Seeking approval,
Seeking validation,
Lacking boundaries and meshing with people because I had an abandonment issue.
All below the veil of consciousness,
Thinking I was supposed to fix everybody and make everybody feel better.
No wonder there was nothing left for me,
And I settled for scraps,
And I attracted narcissistic people into my life.
No wonder people used me.
No wonder.
And so if you are codependent,
And for the sake of really driving a couple of key issues home,
Because cognitive overload is a real thing,
If you throw too much information at people,
Then it's hard for them for it to stick.
Which is why I offer in my coaching programs tidbits of information so it sticks and each lesson works on the last lesson so that It goes from short-term to long-term memory.
And it's able to get into the subconscious mind and work with the feelings of your inner child and the experiences that keep you stuck in codependency.
And so if you're a codependent,
One of the things that you will absolutely recognize in yourself is that other people's problems just naturally become your problem.
So you don't know how to be in a room of people who you can sense have needs and not feel like I have to fix it.
I have to fix it.
I have to fix it.
So when you think about if you think about your love tank it you're constantly you're constantly taking from your love tank.
If you look around you there are very few people that are That are in your life that you allow to fill your love tank because you don't see the other people that can fill your love tank You're fixated on the people that you need to fix which means that you have to empty your love tank.
So number one Everybody's problem becomes your problem.
The second thing is that you will notice either in your current life or when you connect the dots,
Self-inquiry is super,
Super important,
Very important psychologically when we're trying to heal and break free of these patterns is You will notice that you've had a severe issue with boundaries.
Now this could have surfaced in you doing more for others than they would do for you.
It could surface with you putting up with intolerable experiences.
You could be a woman who compromised yourself in relationships.
You wanted to say no in a certain relationship or an experience with a man and you did not say no and you regretted saying no.
You just felt afraid to say no.
It could be as as innocuous as your sister asking you to Watch your kids and meanwhile you're exhausted.
You have a 12-hour day.
You've got to get up early you have a yoga class that you want to get to but She's coming to you and she wants you to watch the kids,
Which means you can't go to the yoga class Which means you can't rejuvenate and you say no,
That's a lack of boundaries It could be you as the daughter of an aging Narcissistic mother or an aging narcissistic father and there are five siblings or three siblings or two siblings But you're the sibling that the other siblings feel like is going to be the best at taking care of the aging Narcissistic parent and you are giving up your life at home.
You are traveling Hours and hours are out of state to take care of this narcissistic mom who is still abusive towards you,
Even though she's in the winter of her life and you're doing everything that you can.
And so you find yourself depleted by the experience,
Oppressed by the experience,
Complaining about the experience,
But you don't know how to say no.
You just keep doing it.
So there's a lack of boundaries if you are a codependent.
You might be in a situation with your husband that he gaslights you,
Or your husband has a wife that gaslights you or devalues you and minimizes you,
And you can feel it happening,
And you complain about it and you call her out on it,
But nothing really changes.
It's just rinse,
Recycle,
Repeat.
You're caught in the wash cycle inside the washing machine.
It's like Groundhog's Day.
It's like year one you saw red flags and then you saw them again in year two and you can see them But you don't know how to put your foot down.
You don't know how to make that decision.
Should I stay or should I go?
You don't know how to get at a neutral in your life and like make real changes in this relationship So you just end up feeling exasperated and powerless Codependence feel powerless and exasperated why because we are other focused and we think that the other person has to make a move Before we do so we are powerless.
We have a loss of selfhood We really do operate our lives that way like we are we are taking care of other people and we're waiting for the other people to say Okay,
You've done enough.
It doesn't happen dear one.
You will be used and abused by people in your life until you learn to have like recreate a stainless steel spine and you learn not learn how to hold on to yourself in a sea of people who You would otherwise jump in to fix so learning to have Have empathy and compassion.
Without having to jump in and fix and caretake,
Enable from a place of codependency and a place of lack,
Which goes back to childhood trauma,
Feeling unworthy,
And then in these acts of service,
Maybe I'll be worthy.
So we have to go back to the root.
If we don't go back to the root,
Then codependency is just gonna keep showing up in your life.
Relapse is a very common thing,
But there's also,
When it comes to relapse,
As long as you're in codependency recovery,
Then when you relapse,
At least you know what happened.
So it's not like you ever really slide back down to the bottom of the mountain,
Because you do have the recovery information at your back.
And the last thing that I want to leave everybody with is that if you are codependent,
You react to everything.
If your son is having a hard day or an issue with his wife or the kids,
You react as if it's you going through that.
So think about this transference.
I remember going through this with my son.
And it was in the beginning stages of the writing process.
It was back in 2019,
Right before COVID hit,
And I'm writing the book.
My son's going through this horrible divorce with someone who I think was has high narcissistic even sociopathic traits and I just remember losing myself in all of his pain and It was I was so enmeshed,
You know,
And and so below the veil the his his divorce triggered something inside of me and it was so complex because it was part of oh my god,
This is why I got divorced in the first place was to save from this experience.
So how I.
.
.
On some level,
Narcissistically,
Below the veil of consciousness,
Made his divorce about me failing.
Rather than being able to see a boundary and like this is his experience.
You know,
It's somehow it was I felt guilty because he was having this experience and Truth be told the sins of the father and the mother fall on the children He was only doing what him and his he but me and my ex taught him to do Right.
He was he only had that data in his subconscious mind.
Of course,
He was gonna marry someone like this Of course,
He was gonna be codependent.
Of course,
He was gonna sacrifice himself,
Which is what I did So,
Of course,
It was gonna be this way.
So there was some Accountability and awareness like oh my god I did this to my kid and that just crushed me and on top of it I think the narcissistic piece was like In my head,
I struggled with my ego because I thought,
All of that pain and suffering that I went through with the divorce,
I thought at the time,
Would save him and and I can't discredit that feeling because I believe that that was the hope that I needed to pull me through those dark nights of the soul Like by going you need a why when you're going through a deep dark night of the soul when you're going through a really hard Challenging time like a divorce you need a why why am I why am I suffering like why am I leaving this security?
Why am I leaving this house in this three-car garage and like these vacations and these nice cars like I Why am I leaving without a job and without a career?
Like,
Why am I taking these kids into the pits of hell?
And I have no idea what the next step is.
What the hell am I doing?
So I needed a huge why.
And the huge why was I have to teach my children something else and I will spare them.
I love them so much that I will walk through the pits of hell To spare them the hell that I'm in and here he was in that hell So it was a little bit of a mind screw,
You know,
It really was like what the hell was this?
So it was a little it was a clashing of realities for me a bit,
You know,
And I succumb to it.
I'm human.
I absolutely found myself recreating this in my own head and I was reacting to his pain and I was in the should phase.
And I always say,
If you should on people,
It's like you're shitting on people.
Like he should not be going through this by poor baby,
But he was.
So codependents have a really hard time with isness.
It is what it is,
You know?
And like,
It's his process.
So this,
This reactivity is actually us transferring our pain and his problem becoming our problem and wanting to fix it and having a lack of boundaries all tied up in this tiny little crazy ass bow.
Really losing myself like ugly crying like it was awful and I was really like So distraught like my kids going through this she lied to him for the first day they met and he's given her everything and now he's in financial debt of $40,
000 and you know,
He tapped into his annuity to keep her facade up and but but but I was just ruminating ruminating and room and giving Credence to why I felt so sad and bad,
Which is what the ego does,
The ego justifies the sadness and there you are in the pits of hell.
And so,
You know,
Codependency recovery has just saved my butt time and time and time again,
Because once I saw it,
And it was actually my husband who said,
Lee,
He's not you.
And I just looked at him and it was like a flash of like cold water on my face because I was like all heated up in my furry robe like And my husband's like he's not you when you went through this divorce Your family turns against you.
He's got your family.
He's got you like you didn't even you didn't have a mom like he's not you You know,
He's got me you didn't have a dad to help you through this like he's got a great job He's got an annuity.
He's got a pension.
He's got he's in a union.
You didn't have a job He's got health insurance.
You didn't have health insurance.
He has no children.
You had three babies.
And it really was just like I said,
This.
.
.
Flash of cold water on my face that was like,
Oh my God,
It's like,
What am I doing?
I'm doing the codependent crazy thing.
I'm making his problem,
My problem.
I'm wanting to fix it.
I'm wanting to rescue him from his experience,
Which is not spiritually sound.
He has to go through his own process.
I was spiritually out of alignment.
Like I have to let my children have their own process.
Yes,
I support them,
But me taking them out of the pain of their process denies them the ability to cultivate what they really,
Really want because it's only in the pain and the contrast.
And the suffering of a toxic relationship,
Do I ever even realize I'm in a toxic relationship?
That's a benefit of pain.
And it's only by going through this that I am then able to realize,
Well,
What do I want versus what I don't want?
But I couldn't get there.
I couldn't climb the subconscious ladder up and out of the subconscious mind into a higher state of consciousness of objectivity and clarity and discernment,
Which is what codependency recovery is all about,
Like discernment and detachment and like keeping other people's problems over there so you don't jump in and lose yourself and trying to fix it.
I couldn't do that without that.
Flash of cold water on my face so in that moment like my husband was my life coach he was like hey knock it off you know and it really did work and I immediately,
I immediately thank God for codependency recovery.
I immediately was able to say,
Ooh,
I saw how I relapsed.
Ooh,
This was a relapse.
This was mama bear.
Falling back into her trauma,
Feeling powerless and going into the enmeshment phase and I can,
I'll fix it.
But yet I couldn't fix it.
How do you fix someone's feelings?
You can't fix someone's feelings.
And how do you,
How do you help your child that didn't listen to you at all about,
Be careful about this relationship.
I mean,
We warned him like all the red flags were there.
You know,
I'm sure there are people I as a matter of fact I do I know one person that warned me if she was a nursing teacher of mine and she warned me about Getting married at 21 years old.
She warned me but I didn't listen I didn't listen and so I had to learn to detach and give him the grace to like be in his process so and that feels to a codependent like you're ripping off your skin because it's so innate because it comes from the subconscious mind and it comes from the fear of the inner child,
These collected memories within the inner child that know I have to fix it in order to feel safe because as children,
We felt so unsafe.
And what made us feel a teeny weeny,
Weeny,
Weeny better was fixing mommy's feelings or fixing daddy's feelings,
Which meant we had to disown ourselves in order to bring a little bit of peace or avoid a little bit of abuse or avoid a little bit of criticism from our parents.
We had to go into a fixing caretaking role,
Which meant we had to disown ourselves.
And this is how We trace it back to the beginning of the session.
We are other focused So I really hope that for all of my sisters and brothers out there that are struggling with codependency That this session about one of the three main characteristics and traits of codependency You're able to see yourself in it because my heart breaks to people who are trying so hard to figure out like why do I keep attracting a toxic relationship or Why why can't my siblings and I get along or why isn't no matter what I do for my mom?
It is never enough But I just keep trying like why why am I so anxious?
Why am I so depressed?
Why is my life not working out for me?
Like why do I try so hard to help everybody else?
But why do I feel so empty because this is Because codependency is in the DSM.
And so that's why I want to shout from the rooftops what codependency feels like in language and use my own life to help anybody out there who is going through a similar thing to like Investigate what this means for you Because the beauty of it is.
.
.
It's the path to self-enlightenment.
It is the path to autonomy and sovereignty.
It's you coming out of the matrix.
It's you breaking generational trauma.
I mean,
It's so beautiful.
I mean,
I'll go as far as to say it's us being able to experience a new level of consciousness or what Eckhart Tolle talks about the new earth.
You know,
We need people that carry this consciousness.
We need leaders that carry this consciousness.
We need moms and dads and spiritual We need social teachers.
We need everybody,
Especially those who have any authority at all or any pull at all to really understand that codependency recovery is you escaping the matrix.
It's you escaping the trauma of the past.
And really finding your homecoming,
Coming back to the self,
Which is enough.
And when you get there,
You radiate that enoughness to others.
You become a way shower and a pattern breaker for other people and people will come to you.
I hear this all the time from my students where they say,
I don't know,
People just started asking me like,
You look different or you feel different or how did you succeed?
How did you do all of that in like less than a year?
Well,
When you line up with who you truly are,
Your life starts to move.
Like it's the oppression of self that you don't realize that you are self-oppressing due to codependency and due to these roots that are in the subconscious mind.
You don't realize it.
Namaste dear ones,
It's a bow to the love and light that is absolutely in you and even though you can't feel it,
There's a light inside of you.
There's a light inside of you and it's waiting for you to find it and let it grow.
Namaste.
Until next time.
Bye for now.
