Why You Keep Attracting Narcissists

Have you ever wondered why you keep attracting the same type of toxic person, even after therapy, self-help books, and years of healing work?

Do you find yourself repeating painful relationship patterns while consciously knowing better?

If so, you are not crazy. And you are not failing.

In this powerful live workshop episode, Lisa A. Romano shares her personal story of why she continued attracting narcissistic and emotionally unavailable people, even after becoming aware of her codependency. Through deep psychological insight, nervous system awareness, and subconscious healing principles, Lisa explains why awareness alone is not enough when childhood trauma patterns are still operating beneath consciousness.

This is not about blame. It is about understanding what is truly running the pattern.

Transcript

Welcome to Breakdown to Breakthrough, The podcast that empowers you to transform your life by awakening to your true authentic self. I'm Lisa A. Romano, Your host. As an award-winning author and certified life coach, I've dedicated my life to helping others understand the incredible power of an organized mind. I believe that true empowerment begins with awakening to our false self. My mission is to support you on your journey toward mental and emotional regeneration through conscious and deliberate awakening. In this podcast, I'll share insights, Tools, And transformative stories that illuminate the path to healing and self-discovery. So today I want to share a personal story about why it was that I just kept attracting narcissists after I had the understanding, The mental understanding, After I understood, Consciously at least, That I was codependent, After I read Codependent No More, After I read about love addiction, After I understood that my family was codependent. We came from a long line of dysfunctional people, Adult children of alcoholics, Depression. Anxiety, You name it, Undiagnosed, Untreated, And how it was that my life just became a repeat of the past. I've coached over 5, 000 people in my coaching courses. I see patterns. I've been doing this work one-to-one with people in some capacity for 25 years. I cannot unsee the pattern and I hope that by the end of this session, Something really resonates with you because what I see consistently with people who struggle with childhood trauma, They're looking in the wrong place for their recovery. And hopefully we can flesh out some of that today. I hope you stay to the end. And I hope that what you take away is this idea that you cannot fix a hole in the wall that you cannot see. So we want to understand that whether you accept it or not, This is a truth. Just because you don't understand it doesn't mean that it's not true. Just because you don't get it doesn't mean that this cannot be governing your life. That is because we all live unaware that we're unaware for the major part of our life. And if we are part of the lucky ones, We actually awaken and we begin to have this experience of self-enlightenment where, Holy Hannah, Lions and tigers and bears oh my, We actually develop the ability to think about the way that we think. Neuroscience is now saying this is the highest form of intelligence. Emotional IQ used to be the highest form of intelligence a few years ago. But now with all of the research in neuroscience, We know that the highest form of intelligence is someone who has the ability to think about the way that they think. Someone who can in real time see, Wow, Like that was a really dysfunctional thought, Cancel. I think I want to think this thought. If you find people in your life like that, Keep them close because they will empower you. They will not operate from projection. They will not operate from their programming. They will be aware that the past has impacted them. And they don't want to move that forward. They actually want to be the best versions of themselves. So if you find those people, Keep them close. Hopefully you become one of those people. This is what I teach. Metacognition. Through Above the Veil Coaching. This idea that what's wrong is not me. It's below the veil. Is my subconscious programming. And somehow, Outside of my conscious understanding, I don't understand how this is happening. This was never more obvious in my life than after I had come-to-consciousness moment where I realized it must be me. I keep attracting men. That are so similar. Just from different zip codes. They don't know each other. I am the common denominator. And if everything in the world is because of attraction, Then I am a magnet for this dysfunction. So this dysfunction is somehow in me. I thought. Foolishly and immaturely, That because I read the books and I watched the videos and I was reading all of these books, I was in support groups, That certainly, Now that my conscious mind had all of this data, That I was not going to make the same mistakes. Wrong. Wrong. Because I was still living below the veil of consciousness. The mind itself is 95% governed by the subconscious mind. Oh my god. I really hope you get that. Now, Here's the problem. What goes in comes out. Now, For those of you who are listening via audio, I want you to imagine that I'm holding in front of you an anatomical brain. And an anatomical head. And the reason I'm doing that is because I want everybody to understand that hippocampus and the amygdala are part of the recording system of the brain. So this is the seat and the perception of your inner child. The limbic system sits pretty equal to your line of vision. Now just imagine that what you see as a child is getting directly pulled in to your limbic system. Amy the amygdala. Harry the hippocampus. Harry is recording everything. Everything. What you see, The people, Their names, Time and space. Harry's recording everything. Amy is remembering how you felt. At the time of this event. So if you come from an awesome childhood and you felt seen and heard and loved, Not so bad. The memories and the experiences and the emotional memories, The somatic energy that is held within your body, Not so bad. But if you come from a dysfunctional home, Like most of us do, Whether your parents were emotionally immature, Whether they had addiction issues, Whether they were narcissistic, Whether they were aloof. Emotionally disconnected. In other words, You never had an attunement towards your parent. Whether your parent treated you with discard, Whether you were the scapegoat child, You have been downloaded with certain information. It's not only going to be belief systems. It's going to be tied to who you think you are. Who you think other people are, It's going to be tied to your decision making. It's going to be tied to your nervous system. It's going to be tied to your default operating system. So if you grew up behind the eight ball, So imagine that a dysfunctional family is you being born behind the eight ball, And dear one, It's not your fault. It could be no other way. If your brain wired to dissociating from the self with pleasure or with safety. You just don't know that what's running your life is your limbic system. Whatever information and data has been stored, At the level of subconscious memory. And emotional somatic memory. Below the veil of consciousness within your subconscious mind. It is not your fault that all human beings operate by default. Through this operating system. And that psychologically, We develop an entire ego identity. Around this information. So we think we are the culmination of our five senses, Even though we are not. So if you keep attracting narcissistic people in your life, I want you to understand that the universe is not responding to what you think. The universe is responding to what is running at the subconscious level. You could be a complete walking stick of cognitive dissonance. Wanting love, But not believing that you're worthy of love. Wanting to feel safe in a relationship, But feeling unsafe in your body and unsafe in relationships. You're a walking contradiction. So that cancels out anything that you think that you want. So here I was after my divorce and I'm thinking, I get it. I'm codependent. I just have to set boundaries, Have to hold onto myself, Yada, Yada, Yada. But I was attracting criminals, Literally criminals. And I was like, What is wrong with me? Like, Something's really wrong. And it hit me that the universe responds to whatever has been held in your frequency. That a thought is a particular frequency. This is why no matter what ancient tradition you go to, They say thoughts become things. This is why. I've studied quantum science. It's true. Wave-particle duality and I don't want to get too scientific here but before anything manifests into reality. What we think is solid matter, Which nothing is solid because everything vibrates. But before the human eye can see it, It was first a thought which can be understood as a wave. A wave of pure potential. Now, With consistent energy being tied to. Experienced or focused upon, Eventually that thing becomes matter. Don't believe me? Look it up. Research wave-particle duality. Understand that the Manhattan skyline was first nothing but wave potential. A bunch of people that came together and said we'd really like to see This skyline expands. Enough focus, Enough action, Enough intention. Thoughts become things and of course action is involved. And I feel drawn to this banana and he turns out to be a convict or someone who has a lot a lot of problems. I'm taking the action on the attraction. I don't know what's really governing that action below the veil of consciousness but it's happening. How can I have faith that I am still dysfunctional because of what's happening in my environment? And so what we want to understand is that where most people go wrong, It's not easy to see. But once someone who has gone through the veil and has gotten to the other side, Obviously I have. I've been with my husband for 16 years now. It's amazing. So I shifted. What shifted? It took me a while. It took me a long time to figure out what I needed to fix because I couldn't see the holes in the wall. Now I see them so clearly after coaching people for so long and offering these coaching programs, Group coaching programs, Where it's like, Even in the group, There's the pattern. And then once we're above the veil, We can all see it as a group. It's absolutely phenomenal. So what most people don't understand is that their mind just plays on loop. Subconscious, Conscious, Subconscious, Conscious, Subconscious, Conscious, Over and over and over. The same thoughts that you thought yesterday, You're thinking today. And if you would look at the quality of those thoughts or the energy of those thoughts. Many times, If you're honest with yourself, You'll realize that you were feeling the same thoughts when you were three. The same sense of powerlessness, The same sense of I'm not enoughness at 7 and at 12. Now imagine the energy or the frequency that that sends out. That doesn't shift overnight. But the beginning stages of the shift to live above the veil happen. Through introspection. Through stabilizing the energy that you're giving off. Most people don't do that work. They're not willing to look within long enough to like change what they're offering. And yet that is such an intrinsic key. And I can tell you. That if you keep attracting negative people into your life, There's a definitive reason. If you would just take the time to explore this idea that what you're giving off in terms of belief at the subconscious level is actually an energetic signature. So if you don't like what's showing up in the outer world, Don't do what most people on planet earth do. Don't try to stick your hands in the reflection in the mirror. Change who and what is looking at the mirror. You have to change yourself. Now, What a narcissist is never going to want you to do is do that. A narcissist is going to want you to stay in the ring. Overexplain. Over function. Doubt yourself. Get into crazy making conversations over and over and over. The narcissist is going to want you to stay in the trauma cycle where you are seeking approval and you can't get it and then something bad happens and you plummet into depression and this big explosion happens and then you both kind of like settle into oh okay after this big explosion we're just kind of like walking around each other and before long you're right back to seeking approval, Seeking approval, Seeking validation and they're pulling away and they say something that totally hurts you and you fall again. You're just repeating your childhood cycle. The this time it will be different. This time I'll say it differently. This time I'll be enough. So you are in essence as a codependent or wounded adult child don't feel good enough. Energetically, You don't feel good enough, But you're trying to feel good enough, So you only attract people who reinforce you're not good enough. When that finally hit me, I was like, I am done with psychopaths and sociopaths and narcissists. I'm done. Just a caveat here is that. And I don't know if everybody goes through it, But it's certainly what I went through. And I don't think that everybody has to go through this once they get this. My mother wounded me the most. I feel. But my father wounded me too. So my first marriage, I attracted my mother. The avoidant, The passive aggressiveness, The gaslighting. The dismissiveness, The actually enjoying of emotionally torturing me. And enjoying me seeking her approval and withholding it. Very sick, But that's what it was. Once I was able to let go of my ex-husband, It was like I had healed that mother wound. What I was not prepared for, And I didn't even see it coming, Was now I was attracting my father wounds. My father was arrested when he was younger. My father even got into trouble at almost 80 years old and was arrested. I mean, My father would steal anything that was not tied down. My father, In many ways, Was a crook. He stole from people. He was highly narcissistic. He would take advantage of people that were weaker than him. And so when I was really above the veil and I was doing all of this discovery work, Energetic discovery work, Family of origin discovery work, Mapping out the frequency and seeing what was showing up in my reality. It was like, Oh my God, There it is. There it is. The key to all of this is that if you are someone interested in this work, You want to understand that the true recovery to trauma getting above the trauma. Learning to observe your emotions, Your states of being, Your patterns objectively. That is the work. Emotional regulation as you are coming into this consciousness is key. But I promise you that if you stay on this path, You will get to the other side. This is the new Earth consciousness. We are in the revolution and evolution of consciousness, Dear ones. And the people who have been on the healing path, In my opinion, They are the wayshowers. They are the ones that know they need to break through. They are the ones looking to heal generational trauma. What is really happening is that these are the people that we need as a state, As a consciousness, As humanity. We need the people that are doing this work to help us all break through the chains of the past. So I hope that this has been enlightening. I hope that it has sparked your curiosity. It is an honor to still be doing this after all these years and be helping those interested on this path to help them find a way back to the true self. Because dear one, Everything that you've been seeking has been seeking you. Until next time.

Reviews

i’ve come to realize that all three of my older siblings are narcissist. And when I finally started setting boundaries with them and realized their behavior does not define my worth my soul, my whole being was much happier. These talks helped me so much. I recognize narcissistic behavior five or 10 minutes into a conversation with a new person. What a gift that is. 🌹🥰🌹🥰🌹

Thanks for the sharing of your past deep vulnerability, the sources of under-the-veil wounding, the resulting programming, and—most encouraging—the path that you’ve taken to find optimal healing. Kudos!

Your wave-particle duality explanation works.
For inquisitive minds seeking a further exploration of this admittedly mystifying phenomenon, check out the pseudo-scientific quasi-documentary, “What The (Bleep) Do We Know!” (I emphasize “pseudo” because the rigorous scientific method has yet to be applied at scale to the theories asserted in the film.)

It was gratifying to hear from you that meta-cognition is regarded as a hallmark of higher intelligence. However, a mind can become endlessly self-examining to the point of injurious rumination, so, a word of caution to the hyper-analytical cohort: don’t think yourself into oblivion, and then, seek out distractive or numbing agents to quiet down the noise.

Balance, and moderation, in all things.
Equanimity and mindful non-judgmental self-awareness (not, self-absorption) is of utter importance, I’ve found.

🙌🏼🙏🏼- a prospective “way-show-er”

Wonderful talk! 🩵

🙏