Your Heart Is Not What You Think It Is

Did you grow up in a home where emotional truth wasn’t safe?
Were you raised by an alcoholic or narcissistic parent, or in a family where compliance mattered more than authenticity?

Many adult children from dysfunctional homes learn at a subconscious level that it’s safer to stay quiet, suppress feelings, and abandon themselves than to risk conflict, punishment, or abandonment. Over time, this conditioning leads to survival patterns like codependency, people-pleasing, fawning, and chronic self-doubt.

In this episode, Lisa A. Romano explores the transformative power of the heart. While often thought of as a mechanical pump, the heart is one unified muscle that moves like a vortex. When we live in fear or chronic stress, the heart contracts—wringing out peace, self-love, harmony, and creativity.

Healing begins when we take our power back by shifting attention away from external chaos and returning to the heart space. Presence softens contraction.

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.

Today,

I want to explain something that I think is pretty profound.

Those of you who,

Like me,

Just feel yourself being pulled and drawn to self-understanding,

Looking within,

Trying to make sense of our emotions,

There are just some of us that are born this way.

And we know that because we can come from families where no one is introspective,

Where mothers and fathers or even siblings think that looking within is a bunch of hogwash.

My dad used to say,

That's a bunch of psychological mumbo-jumbo,

Lisa.

Don't listen to any of it.

And it was a long time,

Maybe close to 40,

35,

40,

Where I realized my father quit high school and that maybe he wasn't the smartest person in the world.

And maybe I should consider something outside of what he has downloaded me to believe.

And that is one of the reasons it was so difficult for me when I was struggling the most to go into therapy,

To ask for help.

Because when you grow up with adult children of alcoholics or parents,

And I think both my parents were probably dry alcoholics,

What happens is they grow up with the no talk,

No feel rule.

You're not allowed to feel,

You're not allowed to talk,

It's not safe to think,

It's not safe to feel.

And so yeah,

That's the way they grow up and that's really what they believe.

And it's very sad,

But what they don't realize is that that's wrong.

And they don't realize that that is what they teach their children to do.

And so they become very controlling in their ignorance,

In their unawareness that stems from their trauma.

Their trauma tells them it is bad and it is unsafe to feel as children.

And when they become adults,

They infuse their children with the same ideology,

Although they don't realize it.

And this is why they are frustrated with their children's emotions.

And this is why even well-intended parents will punish the child that is the most emotionally honest.

They will say that that child is willful,

That they are looking for attention.

It does not compute,

Does not compute.

My child is expressing her emotions,

That's wrong.

And what an immature parent will do in their unconsciousness because of their own trauma,

They will do whatever they can to try to get that child to not feel and to not express,

Which causes abandonment trauma,

Which is the reason children feel rejected and invisible and unheard and confused because we are born to feel.

We are born to express that which is within us.

And there is no such thing as a bad emotion.

Depression is not bad if it's honest.

If I've been banished from the kingdom,

If my family wants nothing to do with me,

If I fell into addiction and I'm shamed and I've lost all my money and my kids don't want to talk to me and I've been abused in childhood and I'm not allowed to talk about it.

If I'm depressed,

There's nothing wrong with me.

That's honest.

That's authentic.

What needs to be adjusted is the way that I think about my depression.

It's what needs to be adjusted is my programming or my concept of self,

Which takes time.

It does take time.

And this is why I map the healing processes out and I create systems because awareness around depression being an authentic space isn't enough to heal or cure the depression.

Awareness is a first step,

But there are many more steps that we need to come out of that depression and that journey is one of learning how to express rather than suppress that which I as a child have been brainwashed to believe should never be expressed.

That's the journey.

That's the trick.

Teaching the nervous system day by day that it's okay to feel.

That takes time.

Teaching the brain to catch up.

That takes time.

Teaching our small self,

The ego self,

To let go little by little because the higher self,

The parent self,

The authentic self is coming back online.

We've been on vacation.

We've been stuck in Pandora's box and learning how to get out of that box and heal.

That is the process.

Today I want to offer you something that may help you shift a little bit more and it's a new way of looking at your feelings and it's a new way of looking at your body,

But I think to anyone that is ready for this information,

Even if you don't get it at first,

Something in your soul is going to feel like I want to get what Lisa's talking about right now because it's going to feel true to you even if it doesn't click right away.

The first thing that I want to say is that trauma survivors,

And yes,

If you are the grandchild or the adult child of an alcoholic,

You have experienced trauma.

If you come from a narcissistic household,

Dad's a narcissist,

Mom's codependent or vice versa.

If you have been adopted,

There is an abandonment trauma there.

If you have been placed in foster care,

Been removed from foster care,

If you've been bounced around from household to household,

If you have never felt safe due to sibling abuse and parental ignorance,

You're not being overdramatic by feeling like something went wrong.

Feeling safe is our number one priority when we are born.

We have to feel safe,

And yes,

A newborn,

Just born,

Knows whether or not it is safe or unsafe,

And until that newborn is swaddled lovingly and brought to its mother's breast and it suckles and it hears its mother's voice,

The voice that it's heard for nine months,

That voice is soothing,

Until that mother's brain is flowing with oxytocin,

And until that baby is flowing with oxytocin,

That newborn does not feel safe.

And so if you grew up feeling unsafe,

Regardless of the reason,

The first thing that you need to do is settle in and accept,

Stop judging yourself,

Don't look for a narcissistic mother to agree with you,

Oh yes,

You were abused,

I made you feel unsafe,

Don't look for an alcoholic father to justify,

Oh yes,

You know,

There was never any money,

I like to get passed out drunk in the garage before I walked into the house,

Don't look to a narcissistic sibling to say yes,

I tortured you throughout your whole childhood,

Don't look to the cousins in your family that are all drinking the Kool-Aid to validate you,

You have to validate you,

First act of self-love is to validate you,

Okay?

Now that we've moved past that,

Let's talk about the heart as a vortex.

I think when it comes to trauma,

We trauma survivors,

We have to wipe the slate clean,

And the only way to do that is to use our mind sufficiently enough to understand why we are in pain.

Trauma is going to keep pulling us back into a vortex of pain until our minds have psychologically worked it out,

It was not my fault,

It's what happened to me,

I've been under the veil of consciousness,

Operating through habits and conditioning that was rooted into me as a child,

And none of this is my fault,

No.

Until we get there,

We keep boomeranging back,

Until we understand,

Wait a minute,

I am enough,

We keep going back,

We keep trying to be enough.

So I hope that this lands for you.

So think about your feelings as a vortex,

Let me explain.

Everything,

The room that I'm sitting in is vibrating,

The recording equipment that I'm using is vibrating,

You are receiving this information as a transmission of vortexes,

Sound waves,

Oscillations.

So your brain is interpreting,

Think about it,

Your brain is interpreting sound waves,

Oscillations,

Think of oscillations as tiny vortexes.

Think of your eyes and the pupil of your eye as a vortex,

Is it not a circle?

Of course it is.

What is it doing?

It,

The minute you open your eyes,

It draws in light waves down into this vortex,

The pupil of your eye,

Down the optic nerve,

Right to your brain.

Now think of your brain as interpreting these oscillations.

Go one step further,

Think of your brain as brain waves in oscillation.

Now this is where this might,

This information to me is like,

Holy Hannah,

Your heart is one giant muscle.

We know that,

Right?

Or we think we do.

But here's the thing,

Throughout history,

And I think that it has been deliberate by the people who control everything,

We have been taught this idea of separation.

And we're not separate from one another,

The field connects us all.

And here's something really interesting,

Your heart is one giant muscle,

It's arranged in a vortex,

A helical spiral.

This is super important,

Dear ones.

If we were to unravel the heart,

It would look like one giant vortex.

We look at the heart as having four different chambers,

Four different jobs to do.

That's not reality.

It spins and it contracts blood in a powerful ringing motion.

So the heart,

Dear one,

When it contracts,

It's squeezing,

But it's also twisting.

Why do I want you to think about this and contemplate this for the next few days or the next week?

Because get in the vortex.

But what if you are the vortex?

What if you are the vortex?

Meaning you can't escape vortexes.

Meaning everything is energy.

What you feel,

What you think,

Think about your heart space.

It's all being experienced through these vortexes.

Last night I had a meeting with our private group and I explained to them that everything is the heart space.

That when you feel a tightening in the chest,

You're in fear.

And when you were a child,

You probably needed to remain in fear because that helped you become hypervigilant and avoid a drunken rage.

A drunken rage.

Maybe you got to avoid your mother's wrath because you could see her piercer,

Like piercing her lips.

You were hypervigilant.

Yes,

That keeps you safe,

But it also keeps you stuck as an adult because you can't attract into your energy vortex or your aura anything that is unfamiliar.

So the tidbit that I want to leave you with today is,

Dear one,

Understand that your thoughts are creating a vortex that your heart is responding to.

And if you want to have more relaxation in your life,

More ease in your life,

Pay attention to how your heart is experiencing the outer world.

If you notice that your heart is tensing when you think about something,

Try to intentionally release that something and focus on something.

Go general and focus on something that feels just a tiny bit more like relief.

You're really afraid about speaking to your manager today because you're afraid of losing your job.

Notice that.

Notice how it makes you feel and decide you don't want to create that vortex of fear for the day.

So in that situation,

You might think something like,

I've done the best job that I could.

I'm going to go in there,

Listen to what they have to say.

Maybe I'm not getting fired today.

Maybe I'm getting a raise today.

And even if it doesn't work out the way I'd like it to,

I'll just get to work doing what I have to do or doing what I can do to attract another,

Maybe even better job into my experience.

Maybe this has to happen for me to let go of this because I really wasn't happy here anyway.

Maybe the universe is making room for something greater for me.

So as you can see,

It's about creating conscious control over what you feel in your heart space,

Which it's about noticing what you notice in your heart space.

It's about bringing your awareness to your heart space.

Don't worry about what's happening outside of you.

Pay attention to how what's happening outside of you is affecting your heart space,

This giant vortex,

Because it is spinning,

Dear ones.

And the more stress that you feel in your heart,

The more stress you're feeling the outside.

And it's a neurofeedback system,

Meaning that the unconscious person,

Through no fault of their own,

When they feel fear,

Their mind wants to find a solution.

So you're in the muck of the problem.

And the solution energy is the opposite of the muck energy of the problem.

I get caught up in this spiral myself,

Where I notice something in business,

Or I notice a negative review,

Or I notice someone's unhappy,

Or I get a negative email.

Right?

99 things happened that day that were beautiful.

But specifically for trauma survivors,

We're very sensitive to when someone is disapproving of us.

And even me can get caught up in that,

Although I'm much better at catching myself these days.

But what happens is trauma survivors,

We're very sensitive to what's going on that's wrong.

And then outside of consciousness,

We try to fix what's wrong.

But we're focusing on what's wrong.

And our heart is clenching.

And it's ringing.

And it's getting tighter and tighter and tighter.

And blood cannot flow.

Oxygenated blood cannot flow to our digestive system.

It cannot flow to our brains.

It cannot flow to our lungs.

It cannot flow to our fingertips and our toes,

Where capillaries are very thin.

Nothing is more important than you manage your heart space.

So today,

Think about that.

Think about that for the next week.

Think about relaxing your heart space.

Think about this idea that the solution is never in the energy of the problem.

Let go of the problem.

Release your attention to the problem.

Take a deep breath.

Put your hands on your heart.

Imagine your heart is your inner child,

And you're comforting them.

Everything's going to work out.

Everything is going to work out.

That is the gentle maternal voice that we all needed.

And I just hope that you're cultivating that new divine maternal loving energy within yourself.

Because dear one,

You are enough.

Nothing's wrong.

It was never you.

It was just programming.

And through conscious healing,

Through healing the inner child consciously,

Diligently,

Consistently,

And repetitiously over time,

You will transform your life.

And you will live with a relaxed heart.

It is my promise to you.

Namaste.

Until next time.

Bye for now.

Reviews

Enlightening information so warmly expressed. Thank You . . . Had to listen to it twice - back to back ! Will return for further understanding. I took notes and sense relief from this knowledge & understanding... peace, monk

Nice work by you 🙏💕

Brilliant, Lisa❣️🙏🏻🌹Thank you so much for this significant awareness.🤍 I was able to listen with my partner & it prompted further discussion. Quite the gift 💝

Trauma issues from childhood, yes. I will listen to this over and over with my hands on my heart.
Thank you✨✨✨

I related to so much of this. Thank you.

so much list of here. I even have two siblings in 12 step programs like me, and even with all the guidance there there’s no ability to look inward

Namaste Miss Romano, I listened to this, while in India in an Ayurveda retreat, yes I am so lucky & privileged! I listen to you for years, neverwrote anything before, but always identify & learn a lit from you. Thank you. This spoke to me 120%