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.
I want you to understand that narcissists feed off your emotions.
If you have been raised by a narcissistic parent,
Chances are that you are locked inside the limbic brain or what some would call the reptilian brain.
If you think about animals,
Animals are purely reactive and instinctive.
My dog Alice cannot desire to become a peacock.
Take a class on how to become a peacock and become a peacock.
She's purely instinctive.
When you have trauma from your childhood,
You do not know that your nervous system has been locked and loaded.
And habituated because of fear.
You do not know that your ability to change your entire life.
Exists in your ability and willingness to connect with how you feel.
This is huge.
We miss this so often in trauma recovery where my entire ability to change my life Rests in on my ability to reconnect to stop dissociating to come out of denial and to connect with my emotions Narcissus feed off of your negative emotions Narcissus feed off your low self-worth they feed off of the projections that you hold inside of yourself and the projections that you are mirrored out in your outer world meaning that if you don't feel good enough as a child then you worry what people think about you in the outer world and this puts you into performance mode which is what codependency is.
Which is what so many people are doing which we now understand 40 million women for example are said to have been experiencing or experienced some form of codependency which is rooted in low self-worth,
Negative emotion,
And over-functioning,
Trying to be good enough.
And it's all happening below the veil of consciousness.
It's all happening within the subconscious.
So a codependent person is unaware that they're unaware.
What they might be aware of is that they're in,
Or maybe not.
It took me many,
Many years to figure out that my parents had high narcissistic traits.
It took me many,
Many years to understand that what I was experiencing in my marriage was a form of narcissism.
I would say vulnerable,
Covert narcissism manifested as withholding,
Gaslighting,
Putting me down,
Stonewalling,
Blame shifting,
Acting aloof,
Like,
I don't know what you're talking about.
I don't know what you're talking about.
Took me many,
Many years.
So even as though I was codependent and I was struggling with low self-worth and I was full of negative emotions and I was dissociated from my emotions,
The real emotions that could actually help me change my life.
I was running from the emotions of lack and fear tied to not feeling good enough.
And to also,
The flip side of that was being raised as a child of alcoholics and my dad was a gambler.
My mom was very passive aggressive,
Very shut down,
Was this idea that I could not trust my emotions.
And so the only emotions that I could feel really were anger and frustration and powerlessness,
Which mirrored my childhood.
So I eventually came to understand that I was locked inside this subconscious paradigm like a box.
Once I began to understand that it wasn't my fault it could be no other way and highly manipulative people benefit from other people who live trapped within this I'm not enough box.
If you have childhood trauma chances are you are suffering with a core belief I'm not good enough.
Another core belief is I have to prove that I'm worthy of love.
Another core belief is love cannot be safe.
Another core belief is the world is unsafe.
Someone's always out to get you.
And without going off on a tangent,
This is even being proven now in neuroscience through epigenetics.
That an experience of a grandparent can change how genes are expressed in offspring.
That is why what I always encourage my private coaching clients and those in my group coaching whatever you feel in the moment Let it come up for you.
Do not resist it.
It could be your great-great-grandma Josephine's feeling just let it be expressed that is you healing what has been left over from ancestral trauma really hard to do because the average person's mind is an ego mind and the minute it feels a negative emotion,
It wants to shut it down through repression and suppression.
But that's all below the veil and lower states of consciousness.
When you start to do this work consciously,
You begin to logically understand and rationally understand I have to allow this process to come up now.
Narcissists are going to continue to feed off of your negative emotions.
What you want to recognize this and you don't have to understand it to believe it.
You don't have to get it for it to be true.
It's true.
So a narcissist can be understood as someone who lives in the dark.
What is the darkness?
Think of the darkness as the ego.
Their childhood trauma,
Their experiences,
The darkness of the lack of light.
So when I am walking in light I'm able to experience other people's emotions.
I'm able to connect to those emotions inside of myself and I'm able to see maybe not the big big picture how we're all interconnected.
Hopefully that happens for you on your journey but certainly someone who is codependent has a much greater ability chance and willingness to have empathy for how their actions or their programs have impacted other people.
When you're dealing with someone who is highly narcissistic,
They don't have that light,
That little,
Think about a light bulb inside their head,
Where they're able to see and feel.
That's the key.
They might be able to see that they said something and that affected their partner or their child.
But they won't have the ability or the light bulb does not go off in the area of the brain that is tied to empathy,
Mirror neurons.
They're not able to connect to how their behavior affected the other person on an emotional level.
So consider them in the dark because they lack that awareness and that ability.
And even that part of their brain can be impaired.
This is referred to as empathy impairment.
You either got empathy or you don't.
And there's a big difference between knowing I cognitively hurt someone's feelings and that's their reaction.
Being able to connect to that feeling inside of myself and say I know how I made that person feel and I don't want to do that anymore big big difference So we want to understand that a narcissist is going to feed off of the dark emotions of another person Now when you come from trauma you have dark emotions.
You don't feel good enough.
You think everybody is more worthy than you and You live a very,
I would say,
Lack life.
You don't take risks.
It's too scary.
You don't believe in your potential.
You over function you might be envious and jealous How come other people get to have love but I can't look how hard I work and I still don't have what I want Or I'm too old,
I'll never be able to fix this.
Like you compare yourself to other people.
And all that is,
Is psychologically it's backwards rationalization.
Because once your mind gets this idea that you have no intention of changing In addition to that,
Your brain is designed to conserve energy and change takes a lot of energy.
Is what it is,
But our brains human brains prefer the familiar even if it sucks Even if it's painful because we can predict the next Circumstance and that conserves energy which really sucks,
But that also To me,
It's like it empowers me because I'm like,
Oh now that I understand that's what's going now I I can go into this healing and recovery with that understanding that it's not me.
It's neurology.
It's generational trauma Bye.
And as I align with truth,
I have much more ability and energy to change my life.
And so that's why I absolutely honor the people that I work with because they know their neurology is going to try to work against them.
They know that their ego is going to be like,
We're not going there.
Like don't let go of the log.
Don't let go of the log,
You know,
Stay waiting in this middle of the ocean.
It's too scary to let go of the log.
Meanwhile.
Once you let go of the log,
That's when the rescue boat,
The real rescue boat shows up because that's the light within you,
That's higher intelligence,
That's metacognition.
If you think about it neurologically in terms of what's happened over the centuries with society is that,
Think about it this way.
The prefrontal lobe and the neocortex,
They represent the executive function in your brain.
These are the areas of your brain that allow you to work on behalf of your true self with empowerment,
With decision-making faculties that actually push your life forward.
This is the area of your brain that is capable of discerning what you feel.
What other people feel.
And allows you to make decisions even though other people's feathers might get ruffled.
If it's in your best interest,
You're gonna be able to make those decisions because your brain is operating from the prefrontal lobe and the neocortex.
But think about over the centuries,
Especially with women,
Women have been taught that they have to suppress their emotions,
They're not allowed to feel their feelings,
And they should be afraid of their anger,
And they should be afraid to say no because their sense of survival is tied to how well they can please other people.
And certainly men go through this too.
I just wanna just,
If you go back centuries and centuries and centuries,
I think we'd all agree that it's really women who have been,
In terms of sexes,
That have really been oppressed and suppressed and taught that,
Uh-uh,
You live in a media amygdala.
You live in the area of the hippocampus.
You keep playing out the roles of your mothers and your grandmothers.
You stay in this very primal reptilian limbic part of your brain,
And you stay there in consciousness.
Until.
.
.
You're able to break through and awaken.
And once you do,
I believe that you heal generations and generations before you as well.
But this idea that a narcissist lives in the dark and preys on your emotions,
You want to understand this if you are a narcissistic abuse survivor.
You are perpetuating this dynamic so long as you live within the Amy,
The Amygdala,
The Harry,
The Hippocampus,
The limbic system.
The longer you anticipate Something negative happening those that's a negative emotion So a narcissist does not want you to be able to operate from the prefrontal lobe or the neocortex They don't want to and so the longer you sit in negative emotion Then the longer this narcissist is able to control you because the narcissist will feed off of your negative vibrations or your negative emotions and And this is why I can say in my own life,
It was when my mindset started to change and I started to self-love that my ex-husband started to get really triggered because he could see that I was not engaging.
That I wasn't going back.
And that's why there were 10,
20,
30 text messages or voicemails,
Because he was trying to engage me and activate negative emotion.
I remember one day I was dropping off,
Literally made him a chicken,
Right,
For him and my children to have for dinner,
Because he wasn't feeding the kids before he brought them home.
So hurting them,
He knew was gonna hurt me.
Really crazy,
But if you've been married to a narcissist,
You know these are the games they play.
You know if you have a narcissistic mother she says something to your daughter or your son it hurts them But she's really gunning for you or your narcissistic brother or sister Attacks your children,
But they're really gunning for you or they attack your career.
They're really coming for you You know this is the game that they play it's pathetic once you rise above it,
And you really see what's happening It's like they are predictable and very sad But it is what it is,
But that also Allows you not to operate any longer from negative emotions So you operate from above the veil,
Not from below the veil,
Where all this trauma,
All these emotions,
And all these habits and patterns exist.
You're rising above it.
And so you know this if you're dealing with someone who is highly narcissistic.
But I remember one day I was dropping off this meal for the kids and I had curly hair at the time.
My hair is still curly,
But I blow it out every day every day,
But whatever back then my hair was really long I was letting it go curly and he said oh,
Who are you today Mariah Carey?
Yesterday you were Cher today in Mariah Carey,
And I just remember looking at him going.
This is it this is it Now,
If I react negatively to him because he's going to feed off my negative emotion,
He wins.
And so I started to look at this almost like a video game,
Like,
You're not going to win today,
Dude.
No matter what you say to me,
You're not going to activate Amy the amygdala or Harry the hippocampus.
You're not going to activate my reptilian brain.
You want to live in your reptilian brain.
You want to feed off of other people who have low self-worth.
You want to attract people that think they're nothing without you.
Go right ahead.
Go right ahead.
But I'm done with this pattern.
I'm going to move forward,
And no matter what you throw at me,
I'm going to do my damn best,
Or I'm going to die trying,
Not to allow you to activate me.
And that's why I come up with the phrases,
Pass the butter.
Namaste.
Walk away.
Shetty shetty.
It is what it is.
You can't get water from a rock.
You can't expect a narcissist not to be a negative person and not to try to feed off negative emotion,
Which means they have to activate negative emotion.
That's where their passive aggressiveness comes from.
That's where their comments come from.
That's where their smear campaign comes from.
And I know how hard it is,
But I also know the empowerment that comes when you don't bite the cookie,
When you slide the candy bar to the left,
When you say,
Namaste,
I see you,
And I'm not going to step into the energy that you're trying to elicit within my brain and my beingness.
And I promise you,
Dear one,
That is the work.
That is the work.
I would say study yourself.
You've probably known more about narcissism than most therapists,
Most coaches.
You probably understand narcissistic abuse better than anybody in a crisis center.
If you're here,
Chances are you've studied this work.
You get it.
The goal really is to understand yourself.
The goal is to find ways to regulate your nervous system when you are around people who elicit this negative response.
The goal is to activate higher consciousness within yourself so that you can reconnect your brain from living in the limbic system to the prefrontal lobe and the neocortex.
And so I really hope that this has been helpful.
And do what you can,
Dear one.
Do what you can.
Do what you can to understand that unhealthy people prey on negative emotions.
And when you learn this and when you learn to focus on yourself,
When you heal and you get this and you refuse Allow other people to affect how you feel and how you think and of course it starts incrementally it starts with the tiny Little shifts in your consciousness like I'm just not going to react today.
I'm just not going to text back today I'm not going to speak up today.
I'm not going to defend myself today.
I'm not going to over explain today I'm going to bite my tongue today because I know when I bite my tongue I'm not allowing them to feed off my energy I can see that the bigger purpose is me managing my emotional set point point.
And this is going to help you long term change your energy blueprint,
Your vibrational signature,
Because the outer world doesn't respond to your thoughts as much as they respond to your baseline frequency.
The frequency that you're in when you're driving down the road.
It's not responding to the five minutes of affirmations that you do or the half-hour meditation you do.
The universe is literally responding to your dominant frequencies or dominant thoughts.
Now the thing is with thoughts is that you have to understand that every thought carries a vibration.
So start thinking about it pragmatically and from above the veil.
Am I thinking more positive throughout the day or do I have a negative expectation?
During the day?
Am I more loving during the day or am I more critical during the day?
Do I expect good things to happen or am I expecting bad things to happen during the day?
Am I imagining a brighter future or am I chewing over a conversation that I had with my narcissistic ex or my narcissistic mother?
Am I chewing over that today?
Where does your mind default to when you're vacuuming or when you're doing the dishes?
That's what matters the most.
Because a half hour of meditation or a half hour of affirmation,
A 45 minute better health therapy session is not going to change your dominant frequencies.
So you have to do this every,
Every,
Every day.
You have to be intentful about this.
First,
You understand the problem and then you figure out the why,
Why you want to change.
I personally,
I don't care how long it takes me.
I'm going to die trying not to allow manipulative people to control my energy.
I'm gonna die trying.
It doesn't care.
I don't care how old I am.
I'm going to always try to see my life as the glass half full.
I'm always going to be that person.
I'm always going to try to be an uplifter first to myself and my inner child then to others.
I'm not going to let reptilians or people that live below the veil of consciousness or people narcissists in particular who need me to be in a negative vibration to thrive.
So if there were people that refused to allow manipulative people to control their emotions,
If we all became people like,
No,
No,
We're not doing that.
We're not feeding off of negative news media.
I'm not going to let the media control what I think.
I'm not going to let my religion control what I think.
I'm going to be an individual thinker,
Not a group thinker.
I'm not going to be a sheep.
I'm going to be a sovereign human being.
I'm not going to let my sister and my brother or my aunts and my uncles or whoever,
Or my ex,
Whoever,
Or a really negative friend.
I'm not going to let them control my base point because negative people feed off of the negative emotions of other people.
I would dare to say that we could not have people in our life that weren't negative and tried to thrive off of us because they would find another source of narcissistic supply and eventually they would implode because narcissists can't exist without feeding off the negative emotions of others.
I so hope that this has been helpful.
Namaste everybody.
Until next time.
