Why You Fear Your Feelings

Do you find yourself afraid to feel your emotions, constantly overthinking, or trying to control situations so nothing goes wrong?

Do you say yes when you want to say no, avoid conflict, or feel anxious without fully understanding why?

If so, you are not broken. You are patterned. And patterns can be changed.

In this powerful live workshop episode, Lisa A. Romano explains why many codependent individuals are not just afraid of situations; they are afraid of feeling fear itself. With deep psychological insight and nervous system awareness, Lisa reveals how childhood trauma conditions the mind and body to suppress fear, creating anxiety, people-pleasing, and emotional overwhelm in adulthood.

This is not about weakness. It is about survival.

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. Awakening in this podcast. I'll share insights tools and transformative stories that illuminate the path to healing and self-discovery So today I want to help you learn to feel your feelings to eliminate your fear of fear If you are codependent you are running on fear. You might not know you're running on fear But if you're codependent, You're running on fear. Fear has become your baseline. And you might not even know consciously what it is that you were afraid of. But if you are codependent. What you have to understand is that it's not like you're codependent on someone. You are codependent. Co-dependent you require, Albeit outside of consciousness, Someone or something to help you feel safe. So this is where the dependency comes from. Many codependents are accused of being clingy. Many codependents are accused of being emotionally suffocating. We enmesh with the people that we love. We force our caretaking. We force ourselves to fix them, To get over-involved with their lives. We feel like it's up to us to give them advice and to fix their problem. That all comes from fear. What we don't recognize, And unless you've been there. And unless you've actually waded yourself out of the hell that is codependency. And I assure you that it is hell. It has taken me decades to figure out what I figured out. And to create processes that help other men and women like me. Get to the root. Of what codependency is. And how it keeps us stuck and how it keeps showing up in our life No matter how aware we are that we are codependent When you are codependent, You do not know consciously that your safety is reliant upon how well you are able to engage with something or someone outside of you to offer you a sense of safety. This is really deep. Many codependents believe at the subconscious level that they need others to make them feel safe. So they need a relationship. They need someone to agree with them. They need someone to take care of. Because they don't know it, But they're running from the fears of the abandoned and exiled inner child. That had to repress the energy of their fear in order to survive. It is dangerous when you are born to people who cannot see you. If you were born too narcissistic. Malevolent. Alcoholic parents, Parents with undiagnosed mental health issues. Parents who were rageaholics. Parents who were workaholics. Then you grew up living in fear. Your emotions were not attuned to, Yet you had buckets of emotions, But you had no adult to witness those emotions. Children need a witness. And when you are a little girl or a little boy and you were raised by people who are toxic, And dysfunctional. Below the veil of consciousness. And operate from their own levels of fear. Unconscious self-sabotaging beliefs, You have no recourse. You're like Raggedy Ann. You're full of this stuffing and you're stitched together by a seven-year-old sometimes a two-year-old or a three-year-old just trying to survive because there's no one else outside of you to help you handle the weight of these emotions. And so you want to understand that if you're codependent, You're governed by fear. You just don't know it. So when we think about fear as suppressed energy, Think about you had a feeling as a little girl. I remember, I'll give you an example, Our pet died. And my dad stuffed this animal into a black garbage bag and then one day just whipped it around and threw it in the back of a garbage truck. Never told the garbage man that our pet was in that bag. And I remember being so terrified. And my father with his Marlboro cigarette and his white t-shirt and his blue jeans and his black belt and his shiny black shoes saying, Come on, Let's go inside. Knock it off, Like. Everything that I felt was frozen in time. I wasn't allowed to express my emotions. I wasn't allowed to express fear. Those fears had to go underground. And they did. This is why I had stomach cramps and stomach problems. I would throw up on the way to school because I was so nervous and I had all these skin rashes. And even into adulthood, All of the. . . The gamut of physical problems that I had leading to migraine headaches and all sorts of terrible things that eventually happened. Were really a culmination of decades and decades, Probably thousands and thousands and thousands and thousands of moments in which I had to suppress my fear. As we get older, We actually have a fear of fear. And that arrests us. So if you're codependent, You probably have a fear of fear. You're probably afraid to upset your husband or to say no to your children. To disappoint your boss or to tell a friend, I'm so sorry, But I just can't take you to that doctor's appointment. I have something else to do. Codependents say yes out of fear. So they're afraid to feel the fear of saying no. I hope you're sticking with me. We don't do this consciously. This is a defense mechanism. The ego is a protector. And it's trying to protect us from feeling the fear that we felt as a little girl and a little boy that we had no way of processing with the limited mind that we had at the time. So we suppressed. In addition to that, We learned that feeling our emotions was bad. So below the veil of consciousness, We have this belief that says, Nope, Can't feel that. Nope, Don't show that. Nope, You're going to get mocked for that. Nope, Nope, Nope, Nope, Nope, All this pain. And so by default, The default self is suppressing and not allowing a natural expression of fear. When I finally figured this out. It was mind-blowing. And I remember manifesting my current husband, Anthony. We've been together now 16 years. I figured it out. I'm so grateful that I'm actually with him longer than I was with my first husband. But looking back, I had so many fears about fear, And that's why I ended up being such a controlling codependent, Doing for him, Wanting him. To give me a sense that I was worthy. Despite his personality traits, Which just compounded the whole toxic dynamic, I have to own it. I operated below the veil of consciousness, Hoping that if I took care of him enough, I could avoid the fear that I was not good enough. The energy of I'm not good enough or the energy of shame. And this is what I mean when I say, Codependents fear fear. When I figured out that I had a fear of fear. I needed to address it when I manifested my current husband, Anthony. Because I knew my pattern was to screw things up. I knew my pattern was to see things, To be hypervigilant around abandonment or potential rejection, And I just did not want that to happen again. I knew that that was my default self. And I understood, I studied. So much about the subconscious mind and codependency, Neuroplasticity, And neuroscience, Even quantum science, To realize that the subconscious mind is pretty much in control of our lives. And if I was going to be able to make my new relationship work, I had to move beyond the fear of fear. So I want to help you understand how you can do that and I'm going to use my life as an example to make it real for you. So I meet my husband Anthony And everything's going wonderful. We're in the honeymoon phase. I think this is amazing. The halo effect is in full bloom. Which means that I'm not seeing any red flags. I just see go, Go, Go, Go, Go. And I'm doing my best to keep the codependency and the love addiction. Within range. I felt like I was driving or riding a stallion, Like I had to regulate and modulate. The part of me that just wanted to. Move right into attachment and saying this is going to last forever, Which was really the little girl inside of me who was so wounded. Who never got to attach healthily to her mother or father or a family member. So I could recognize that. And through the work that I had done, I was metacognitive enough to be aware of that pull to cling. And to want to make things happen right away. And so that was good. But a few weeks in, A few months in, I felt the cracks happening, The fear start to surface, The what if thinking. What if he cheats on me? What if he moves away from me, Like he starts to pull away from me? What if I really can't trust him? What if he's lying to me? All of the what if anxiety thinking, Which is indicative of anticipatory anxiety. Which is the ego trying to protect from something bad happening. I didn't want to live in the energy of my fears anymore. That's the key. So up until that journey, I was very aware, Thank goodness, I was becoming more and more aware of my fears, My mental fears, Like the words I was using. So I was able to be the witness to that what if thinking, Which was terrific, Which was phenomenal. The next phase of the journey is what I address in the eight-week masterclass. We're talking about the energy of fear now. The energy that you've suppressed and stored into your body that your nervous system has wired itself for. And your belief systems are now protecting. And so as I saw the what if thinking coming up, I knew it was anticipatory anxiety. I knew it was my ego. Getting way too reactive, Way too protective, Like the ultimate mama bear like. You think you're going to leave her? Like, She loves you. OK, Well, We're going to get out ahead of that. And we're going to become hypervigilant and not trust you. And what does that do? That brings about a self-fulfilling prophecy, Because if I wasn't able to pull that back, My husband would have felt that. He wasn't my husband at the time, But Anthony would have felt that distrust. And as he felt distrust, He would have boomeranged that back. I don't trust her. Like she was so loving when I first met her. She was so trusting. Who is this Sybil personality? Like who is this other personality within this woman that I've just met? It would not have been good. And so. I knew that I had to feel the fear. I had to become non-resistant to the fear. And so the next level was to accept the fear. And when I say accept the fear, I mean witness the fear. I mean feel your feelings. Not just your feelings, But feel the body sensations. You have to be so attuned and so aware and so conscious of this journey if you truly want to break through. Because once you see the thinking process, You have to also understand that what you think your body experiences and physical sensation. And if you could get to a point where, A, I see the thought. Be I know that right behind the thought is going to be a physical sensation. There's going to be a manifestation of in my physical body because thoughts become things. You know, We talk a lot about thoughts becoming things in the consciousness community and the law of attraction community. When we're talking about thoughts becoming things when we're dealing with mental health issues, Such as codependency, Which is a mental health issue. You are running your life. Based off faulty cognition or you're basing your life on false faulty premises. At the subconscious level. But you just don't know it. You feel like you're a wreck, But everybody thinks you're fine because you're a very good liar. You're good at faking it. You're good at being a phony. You're good at pretending. You're a good chameleon. Why? Because you weren't allowed to be your true self. Why? Because it was dangerous when you were a child. You received more criticism, Or you were mortified, Or you were judged, Or your whole family spoke about you, Or people left you. Right, Which is the ultimate emotional collapse for a child, Which is so unfair. And so you develop codependency, Fawning and people pleasing and pretending that you're okay. When you're not, As a means to survive. You're not a bad person. You're not broken. You were just trying to survive. And you're unconscious. And you're operating from patterns. That's it. And so. You can work yourself out of this with the right mindset, With enough discipline, And I believe with the right methods and tools. Specifically that if this resonates with you, My tools were built for you. I built them for me. And if you resonate with my work, They'll work for you. Especially if you have the right mindset going in and you recognize that this is going to take time, A reconditioning and a repatterning. Of how you perceive yourself. Reorganizing your identity. When you're trying to break through, You have to understand that thoughts also become things in the physical body. You know that queasiness that you get in your stomach. You know that brainstem activation. You know that brain fog, The decrease in your cognitive ability? The short-term memory loss when you're really stressed over a family condition. You know that panic feeling you have when your daughter accuses you of you not being there for her when she was seven? Yeah, All that stuff. You know, The diarrhea that you get, The nausea that you get. When no matter how hard you try. When you go visit your narcissistic mom. She's still mean to you. You're the only child left that cares about her at all. But she's still talking about the golden child that doesn't really give a rat's butt about whether or not she gets a decubitus ulcer or whether or not she's fed. Every afternoon. Like, Come on, You know, That feeling that you get that anxious feeling, The cold feet and the cold hands. The racing thoughts, The rumination that keeps you up at night. Yeah. Those are thoughts becoming things. In the physical body. It's a manifestation. Because thoughts do become things. If you could just be able to, Once you get to the point where you can acknowledge a thought and you recognize like, Oh, That was a really fearful thought, If you could just stay there and not think. Not think as hard as that is. But Einstein says you can never solve a problem from the same level of intelligence that created the problem. Most of us are trying to figure out problems from the seven-year-old psyche. How to control people so they don't abandon us. How do people please so people don't discard us? How to pretend that we're okay when we're not okay. Going to school, Feeling so lost as a little girl, Pretending that you're okay, Or as a little boy, Pretending that you're not getting bullied at home. Carrying all of that weight inside of your stomach, Inside of your heart, In the back of your shoulders, Inside your head, And then going home and knowing that you can't even talk to your mom or talk to your dad about your feelings. That energy goes somewhere. And eventually, It's like just layers and layers and layers and layers of years. Of this suppression and repression of this fear and it gets to a point now where it manifests as even more physical symptoms like true disease or true depression or it manifests as a relationship or circling inside your mind. And so what you want to do next time that you notice that you're in fear, And even do it before the fear even shows up, Think about a time in your life when you were really afraid. Just think about a time when you were really afraid. Don't think and focus about the thoughts associated to the fear. Instead, Focus on how your body reacted to that fear. What was the first thing that happened? Increased heart rate. Okay. Give your body permission to have an increased heart rate. And you, What happens is it's almost like you're saying, I just got the image of a genie coming out of a lamp. Or smoke coming out of a lamp, You're letting the energy of that fear finally come through your system. So it has less impact, It has less. . . I would say control over you. And so you want to look back in your life and consider the times in which you were afraid, But focus on the symptom, The manifestation of the energy of fear. And then step back in your mind if you're at that metacognitive level. Many of my clients are and many of you are because you've been doing this work with me side by side for so long. Congratulations. But once you notice the fear, Don't focus on what you're afraid of. Don't focus on the words. And certainly don't jump into trying to figure it out. Because like I said, So many of us are trying to solve adult problems from the seven-year-old psyche. And that ain't going to work. And I think that's why 60% of marriages end in divorce. We come at relationships as our seven-year-old self, Dressed in these beautiful wedding dresses and our suits, Making a salary and buying homes. But at the core of it, We have tremendous fears and expectations that we've yet to discover. So think about a time when you had tremendous fear. Don't focus on the thoughts of the fear, And don't try to figure it out. Don't rationalize it. Just focus on how your body felt when you were in fear. Then imagine. Giving your body permission to feel those feelings. To feel beyond the feeling. The sensation. Be present with the sensation. Acknowledge the sensation. Tell your body that, Of course, My ego is very protective. And when this thing happened, There was a response to this thing happening that caused a fear response, An energy fear response. And my body is innocent. And it responded with a rapid heart rate. That's not my body's fault. It responded with ringing in the ears. That's not my body's fault. Focus on the sensation, The nausea. Focus on that. But through the lens of compassion, Through the lens of the compassionate witness. This is the key to being able to end your fear of fear and if the next time you notice that you're running into fear, Follow the same process. The minute you notice that you're in fear, Suspend thought. Put your hand on your belly. Take a deep breath. Observe your body's reaction to fear. Then give your body permission. To experience the natural physiological response and reaction to a fearful thought. At the end of the day, Fear is self-generated. There are lots of people who are. For instance, I've coached them, People who have a tremendous amount of money. But they're afraid of not having enough. Or they're afraid of what's going to happen in the stock market. So that fear is self-generated. I have people who aren't even sick. But they're afraid of getting sick like their mother. I have people who don't have problems with their children, But they're afraid that they're going to have problems with their children. Everything is self-generated based on the past. It's anticipatory anxiety. That's what anxiety is. I'm stuck in the past, Regret, Or I'm trying to control the future. We're trying to get anchored in the now. We're trying to teach our minds how not to freak out when We notice a fearful thought. By at least coming back as the witness and giving our body permission to feel the energy of those fearful thoughts. And I promise you that if you go from focusing on what you think and focusing on how to control. Not having that thing happen that you're afraid of if you suspend that, Which isn't easy. Which isn't easy. Wisdom is about letting go and not clinging. Incredible really. It's not about gaining, It's about letting go. But to do this work is mental Olympics. But I promise you that if you apply this lesson, If you apply this tool, The next time you find yourself anxious and feeling like you want to curl up into a ball and just like, Why does this keep happening to me? If you could just suspend your thinking and be thoughtless awareness, Just suspend your thinking. Observe the way your body is responding and then step in as a compassionate witness sort of like what you would say to You're frightened or a frightened little three-year-old little boy or little girl. It's okay. You're afraid of course you feel this way your tummy hurts And that's okay. Just complete complete compassion for your feelings and if you do that time and time and time again You will no longer fear fear fear you'll recognize that a fearful thought that's coming from your consciousness that's based on your past and based on stuff that you haven't healed yet. You haven't worked out consciously. Once you realize that that's the process, That's the thought that triggered this reaction, This physiological response. Once you step in as the witness and you help your body. Feel the fear, Acknowledge the fear, And embrace it just as energy. Then think about the transformative power that happens when all that you've suppressed your entire life. Is able to filter through you. So the next time that you're in a situation and you feel afraid, You're embracing the experience. You're not bracing for the experience. You're not in resistance to the experience. You're welcoming all of the emotions that you were taught to exile as a little girl or as a little boy. Truly, Truly transformative work. The cost of doing nothing is great. Because like all things, That which you ignore tends to get worse. And so I do encourage you to consider putting what you're learning into action because it is the people that put this knowledge into action that transform their lives. The Bible says faith without deeds is dead. Like faith without action, It doesn't mean anything. And I can tell you that I was a tire kicker for most of my life. I'd listen to things, Oh, That sounds interesting, And I'd let it go. The true transformation came when I started to apply this knowledge, When I became a doer of the word. So at a minimum, I really do hope that this session has inspired you to work with your fear of fear more consciously. And it is my promise to you that if you do, You're going to experience tremendous changes in your life. You will not fear fear. You will develop a stainless steel spine. You will be able to face a fear and stand tall and express yourself not attached to an outcome. You will be able to have the mental clarity as to how to respond to a child that is accusing you of things that you're not guilty of, Or a child that lives below the veil of consciousness, Or a partner in your life that is projecting onto you, Or a parent who continues in their narcissism or their alcoholism and is just speaking from their ego. You will be able to stand there victorious I wouldn't say completely undisturbed but you're going to be able to handle what's coming at you with confidence. With mental clarity and you'll be able to take the hit of that disappointment. It won't destroy you anymore. You won't ruminate for days or weeks or months. You'll be able to feel like you can handle what's coming at you. You will have the peace of mind. You will have the life skills. You will have the shift in perspective and you'll have the tools and the systems to to fall back on to help you truly lead emotional, Liberated life, One anchored in emotional freedom, Self-confidence, And self-love. Without needing to apologize for who you are. Truly truly truly transformative work. This is the path to self-actualization and enlightenment. Make no mistake about it. Namaste, Dear ones. Until next time.

Reviews

Grateful for the tools given. Now onto the practice.

Excellent. Thanks Lisa!

Truly inspiring & affirming. Thank you 🙏