How To Boost Your Intuition

Childhood trauma can interfere with your ability to follow your intuition. In this episode, Lisa A. Romano Breakthrough Life Coach, helps you better understand how you can learn to trust your instincts and follow your gut in spite of the fear of getting outside your comfort zone.

Transcript

Welcome to the Breakdown to Breakthrough podcast.

My name is Lisa A.

Romano.

I am a life coach,

Bestselling author,

YouTube vlogger,

Meditation teacher,

And expert in the field of codependency and narcissistic abuse.

I am a believer in the power of an organized mind.

My aim is to help people learn what it means to live above the veil of consciousness rather than living a reactive life.

May your heart feel blessed,

Your mind feel expanded,

And your spirit find hope as you spend time with me here at the Breakdown to Breakthrough podcast.

So today we're going to be talking about how you can better trust your intuition,

Which is essentially your human superpower.

My name is Lisa A.

Romano and I talk everything that has to do with personal development,

Healing from codependency,

And of course narcissistic abuse recovery.

I like to talk about these things because relationships are really at the core of what drives human behavior.

If we had an amazing relationship with our parents,

If our hearts felt loved,

Then we grow up feeling safe.

Then our brains wire for connection versus protection.

I love that saying.

So if you grew up in a hostile home or if you felt like your parents were just disconnected,

Like you couldn't connect to them,

Right?

For whatever reason,

Even though it wasn't your divine inner child's little fault,

Oftentimes you accept blame for it.

That's where shame comes from.

So whenever you blame yourself,

The accompanying emotion is shame.

So if you felt unloved or if you weren't loved enough,

And let's face it,

Most parents are doing the best that they can trying to pay a mortgage,

Dealing with their own past trauma stuff,

Trying to get through a day.

Most parents miss the mark.

There are some parents who are malevolent.

It's sad,

But it's true.

There are some parents out there who are absolutely narcissistic.

They're absolutely looking to create chaos in their children's lives.

But I think overall,

Day to day,

We're all just human beings trying to figure out how to become better versions of ourselves.

And one of the ways that we get to do that is through interpersonal relationships.

If you're lucky,

You find someone who's going to stick it out with you.

You're going to bring your trauma,

Your unresolved trauma into the relationship.

But if you're lucky,

You'll find someone who understands that and actually helps you resolve the past trauma.

And if your partner is lucky,

Then you'll be someone who is able to recognize that they're in pain,

Recognize that your partner is willing to work through what's triggered them.

And together,

You could work at developing trust and intimacy and vulnerability in your relationship.

So if you're really lucky,

You came from an awesome home.

And if you're really lucky,

And if you're really working at this personal development stuff and you realize that you have some unresolved childhood trauma,

Then you're working on it yourself.

And you're bringing the best version of yourself into your next relationship.

And if you're super lucky,

You're dealing with a partner that's doing the same thing.

And the both of you step into this relationship experience knowing that one another,

Each of you can help the other thrive and will pass survival.

It's a beautiful thing.

So why is it so difficult for us then to trust our internal guidance system?

Because really,

Our internal guidance system can be considered like our inner compass or our guiding star,

Our north star.

I have a theory.

I believe that we're all energetic beings.

Actually,

That's not even theory.

That's scientifically proven.

We are energetic in nature.

If we were to splice ourselves all up to our smallest unit,

We'd find ourselves as light waves or patterns of light.

Essentially we're light.

And if you look at atoms and molecules,

You know that atoms and molecules are mostly space.

But yet we live in a 3D reality that seems very solid.

And that's only because of the nature of the brain.

The brain slows everything down.

Or in this field,

Everything is slowed down.

So everything seems really solid.

Then we have a brain that responds to trauma,

Downloads information,

And holds onto memories.

Hello,

CPTSD.

Hello,

Reactivity.

Hello,

Ego defense mechanisms.

If you're alive and you have a personality and you've been alive for any period of time,

Chances are you've got some unresolved stuff that needs to be dealt with.

So let's talk about our intuition.

This idea that intuition is something that we should listen to,

We see it everywhere.

So we're supposed to walk by faith and not by sight.

But why is it so difficult?

I think that it becomes difficult for those who have been wounded in childhood,

Specifically and especially wounded in childhood,

When our brains are being wired to trust people or distrust people.

Before the age of 18 months,

Your brain has to figure out and your heart has to figure out whether or not Earth is a safe place or an unsafe place.

And determining on the answer,

Whatever the answer is,

That will determine how your brain gets wired.

So if you are born into a loving,

Nurturing family,

Your heart space feels,

Oh,

This is safe,

Sends this message to the brain,

And the brain begins to wire for connection.

It feels safe.

But when you're born into a more abrasive situation,

Your heart space knows that this is dis-ease and sends that information to the brain,

And the brain wires for protection.

So when we're talking about learning to trust our instincts,

I think it's really important that we go back to the beginning and we understand why we might not trust our instincts.

I know for me,

As a little girl,

I did not learn to love myself.

My mom had a bunch of unresolved emotional trauma from her childhood as the result of being raised by not one but two alcoholic parents,

Both her mother and her father were both alcoholics,

Including her two brothers.

And so my mother's life was all about survival.

And so her brain was wired for protection.

My mother didn't trust people,

And she didn't even trust us as her children.

She trusted no one.

But she had a very codependent relationship with my dad,

And she lived to people please.

She lived to take care of him,

To cater to his emotions.

That made her feel safe.

She saw him as her protector.

She saw him as someone who's going to figure things out for her.

And my mother gave up huge parts of herself for this relationship and her perception of safety.

And I get it.

When you're wired for safety as a little girl,

You can latch on to someone if you're a heterosexual.

You can latch on to a man that makes you feel safe and makes you feel protected,

Because that becomes your need of the moment.

Your primary need is to feel safe.

And so when we're talking about the ability to trust our instincts,

I think it's important that we understand that if we grew up in a difficult home and we grew up feeling unsafe,

Then our brain is going to default to survival.

We have a survival brain.

And so now in order to survive,

We have to see the world through a particular lens.

So it is not safe for us to trust others or ourselves.

It's not safe for us to trust this internal guidance system that might be leading us towards a better outcome.

Because what will happen is when we're wired for survival and we're living with a survival brain,

Then everything in our environment becomes a threat.

And so we might feel the instinct to possibly try something new,

But that will be hijacked by the fear of coming out of a comfort zone.

The fear of doing something different might interrupt or override the instinct to try something new.

So our instincts might drive us to grow,

But our childhood experiences and our trauma brain,

Our trauma lens,

Our broken hearts,

Which have sent signals to the brain like,

Don't trust this place.

This is a scary place.

Don't trust anyone.

Might override because of CPTSD,

The instinct or the impulse,

These flashes of amazing impulses and wisdom that we have to take a pottery class or take a dance class or create a blog.

Anything outside the norm or the familiar,

The brain will consider a threat.

So it's not going to be so easy for you if you come from a difficult background or if you've come from really betrayal type relationships,

If you've loved someone for many years and you found out that they had a double life,

You found out that they had high narcissistic traits.

This is someone that love bombed you,

Pulled you into a relationship dynamic,

Pretended to be someone that he or she was not.

And once they got you on the hook,

The discard,

The devaluing,

The marginalization began to start,

The trauma bond gets kicked in and you don't know which way is up.

You're being gaslit.

Your mind is all confused.

This actually happens in life,

Right?

And so when you've experienced this type of psychological trauma,

Your brain can wire for because your heart's been broken,

Your heart's decided it's not safe to love.

The brain in your heart is constantly sending information to your brain.

So it is your heart that is receiving information from the external world and deciding whether or not this place is safe,

Whether or not others are safe.

And if your heart determines that this is an unsafe place,

It's not safe to love,

It's not safe to trust people,

Then you won't.

Then your brain wires for survival.

Even though you'll have these flashes of wisdom,

These flashes of instinct,

These flashes of impulse,

Divine impulse to call a specific therapist or to read a specific book or to go to a specific food store.

I've had these weird experiences in my life where I felt this overwhelming impulse to go to a particular CVS and lo and behold,

I go to a CVS and there's someone that I haven't seen in years just checking out at the pharmacy.

And here I am talking to this person.

Very weird stuff,

Like I was drawn to this experience.

I'm learning to,

As I get older,

To listen to that more.

Even when I come to an intersection and I'm not exactly whether I should make a left or a right,

I just quickly tap into myself and I ask myself left,

Right,

And whatever comes to my mind,

I make that choice.

I know that I'm tapped into this grid and I know that my desire has already been put out there.

And so I know that on a quantum level,

My desire is hooked up to the field.

And if I can tap into instinct,

If I can tap into my intuition,

Then I can make better decisions long-term that will affect my life in a positive way,

In the long-term.

But I think that in order for us to really get clear about our intuition,

It really does clear the field when we understand why we might not have been able to tap into our intuition in the past.

So if you come from a traumatic background,

If you've been labeled crazy,

If you've been labeled selfish,

If you've been called a drama queen,

If you've been called overreactive,

And listen,

I believe in playing fair and seeing it the way it is,

I don't think living in denial or pacifying people helps anybody.

If anything,

It keeps people stuck.

So I think that we need to be really,

Really objective and really real with ourself.

All of us can be toxic.

All of us can be narcissistic.

We have an ego.

All of us can come from a place of deep wounding and be highly reactive.

That's a fact.

Nobody was born perfect.

That's a fact,

Especially if you've had a dysfunctional childhood.

The better your parents were,

The smarter your parents were,

The more emotionally intelligent your parents were,

The better the odds are that you'll be much more well adjusted than someone who came from a traumatic background.

But what I'm saying is we all have stuff.

And what we need to do is be very,

Very objective and fair when we're coming at this,

Because lying to ourselves and acting like the victim and thinking everybody is out there hurting me and I've done nothing wrong and I'm the angelic one,

It's unrealistic and it's not going to help you grow.

So recognizing when you are the one that is coming from a wounded place and being highly reactive helps you say,

Hmm,

I really behaved in a way that I don't want to next time.

How can I change it?

So self-awareness is huge.

And let's all know and recognize and just put it out there that the more narcissistic a person,

The less self-aware they are.

They know that they have a self,

But the less aware they are of how their actions impact other people,

The less empathy they have.

So the more empathy impaired they are.

They don't recognize or care.

Well,

They may even recognize it,

But they just really,

They justify and rationalize why they abuse other people or why they're arrogant.

They confuse arrogance with self-confidence.

And so it's important that we recognize that if you're healthy,

You want to be someone who can check yourself.

That ability is called metacognition,

The ability to observe the way you think,

The way you feel and the way you behave.

And when you develop that ability,

It's an ability of the prefrontal lobe.

When you develop that ability,

You can tap into your intuition much more readily because you're being fair.

You're being able,

You're able to recognize when you're coming from a reactive place and when you are not,

When you're becoming more objective about what's happening in your experience of self and others and how you respond to other people,

What your expectations are.

Are they fair?

Are they unfair?

Are they one-sided?

And so on.

So trusting our intuition is a skill that can be learned.

This is an amazing skill.

This is something that I had to recognize was sort of like defective because I grew up believing that I was unworthy.

My parents in more ways than one had my siblings and I believe that we were less than everyone.

How did they do that?

They told us that our emotions were invalid.

So you have nothing to cry about.

You have no right to feel that way.

If you want to cry,

I'll give you something to cry about.

If you want to cry,

Go upstairs and cry.

Get away from the table if you're going to cry.

Who said you should be happy?

Who said people are happy?

Why do you think you should be happy?

Be happy with what I serve you.

You should kiss my feet because we gave you this.

Look how you live.

Everything was guilt.

You weren't allowed to experience any negative emotions and yet negative emotions are an experience and every human being is going to experience negative emotions.

It's negative emotions are very valuable because they tell us where we're at.

So if I eat a piece of broccoli and I experience this negative experience,

Like I don't like broccoli,

Or my stomach gets upset and I ignore that because my father likes broccoli and he says I should like broccoli,

I'm not going to be able to trust my intuition.

When I look at food and someone says try it,

Even though I don't want to try it or I instinctively feel it's not going to be good for my system,

I'm shoveling it in because I think that I have to please this person or I think there's something wrong with my instinct or how I'm feeling.

I remember very distinctly,

I talk about this in my 12-week Breakthrough Coaching Program,

Where I would come home from school starving because my parents were very regimented with food.

We had a bowl of cereal in the morning.

We had a sandwich in the afternoon,

A thermos of milk.

Back in the day we had little thermoses in my little lunchbox and that was it.

There was no snacking at school.

By the time we got home from school at 3 o'clock we were starving,

But we weren't allowed to have any snacks after school.

We had to wait until 5 o'clock on the dot when my father came home from work.

So we were starving as children and when my mother made liver and onions,

My stomach would flip.

I would be so sick,

But she wouldn't let us eat anything else because their thinking was if you eat something before dinner,

Then you won't eat the liver and onions.

My father comes home and he says,

You should eat the liver and onions because I like the liver and onions.

I remember wanting to gag.

Like what?

The smell is gross.

Like you're eating the calf,

The liver of a calf.

It didn't even make sense to me.

But this is how simple it is to cause a child to not trust her intuition over time.

I fell off a bike.

I ripped open my knee.

That doesn't hurt.

Get up.

Get up.

You're fine.

It doesn't hurt.

I'm not dripping out of my knee.

My father's all this stoop smoking a Marlboro cigarette telling me I'm not bleeding.

There's no blood there.

I mean,

It's crazy,

But how many people do that?

Oh no,

You shouldn't feel that way.

But I do.

You shouldn't have said that.

But I just did.

I don't feel like my mother loves me.

Well,

She does,

But I don't feel like she does.

But she does.

You're stupid.

You're crazy.

How could you say that about your mother?

How are we supposed to trust our instincts or our intuition when throughout our lives we've been told that we shouldn't trust our intuition?

So we wonder why,

As women,

We go out on these dating sites and even though there's a red flag,

We don't trust it.

Well,

His profile looks good.

Well,

He says he lives over there.

Well,

He says he's got kids.

Well,

He says he's divorced.

Even though inside we feel like I shouldn't trust this,

This doesn't feel right.

We do it anyway.

I think a huge part of being able to recalibrate and get back in touch with our divine,

Amazing intuition is to recognize why we have so much trouble trusting our intuition.

So if you've been labeled as crazy,

You're not going to trust the way you think.

If you've been told you shouldn't feel the way you feel as a child,

You're not going to trust how you feel.

If you have felt pushed away and your heart's been broken,

Your heart has felt that and sent this information to your brain and your brain doesn't think that Earth is a safe place.

In order to trust your intuition,

You have to feel generally safe in your being that you can tap in,

That you can close your eyes long enough to say,

How do I think?

How do I feel?

What's going on here?

And so let me explain to you some of the things that I do to help me cultivate my own intuition.

So a big part,

You'll hear me say this a lot,

But a big part of my healing journey and still continues to be a huge part,

I would say the cornerstone of my emotional recovery,

Emotional sobriety,

Because I would say that I was someone who was drunk on emotion,

That I could not emotionally regulate on cue.

And after being thrown into,

Or I really wasn't thrown into it,

I magnetized a dysfunctional relationship.

And after having three kids and living with someone who we were just complete mismatch and not trusting how I felt about that,

Being told that I had no right to feel the way I felt,

I mean,

The day that I got married,

I thought I made a mistake,

But there was nobody in my reality that would support that idea.

So I distrusted my intuition.

Messing with my ex-husband at our reception,

He wouldn't look at me.

He deliberately did not make eye contact at me,

And I could feel it.

I could sense it,

But I talked myself out of it.

On our way to our honeymoon,

He was ignoring me,

Giving me the silent treatment,

And I thought it was bizarre,

But I ignored it.

I thought,

Oh,

Maybe he's just tired from the wedding.

When we got to Hawaii and he's still ignoring me,

I thought something's up.

And that's when I started to get a little annoyed with him.

But then,

Classic behavior,

He starts chasing me.

Now he knows he pushed me too far.

And so now when I start,

Well,

You know what?

I'm going to go on the beach by myself.

I'm going to go to the plantation,

The banana plantation or the pineapple plantation by myself.

All of a sudden,

He knows where I am.

He remembers his wife's name,

Right?

This was basically the crux of our relationship.

I knew something was wrong,

But I didn't honor it.

And I didn't honor it because as a child,

I was taught that my emotions were invalid,

That I was essentially invalid.

And in the corner of my heart,

I felt unworthy and I felt not good enough.

And so the default for me was,

Well,

If you can get someone to love you,

Then maybe you'll be good enough.

It was like I had this psychological milestone to connect to another human being.

It didn't work with my mom or my dad,

But maybe it would work in this marital relationship.

And my mind was a little bit more conscious,

A little bit more cognitive.

So it came up with this premise that,

Well,

If I could figure out how to make this person happy,

If I can take care of this person,

Then they'll love me.

Then that means that I'm something.

So this all blanketed my ability to trust my intuition.

But I can tell you,

Looking back,

My intuition was always telling me,

You're in the wrong place.

You're in the wrong place.

This is the wrong relationship.

I just didn't know how to honor it.

I didn't know how to step into it and say,

OK,

What do we have to do next?

That's where meditation saved my life.

Because once I started meditating,

The thoughts,

The crazy making thoughts that I had in my head began to slow down.

They had to.

So when I got into a meditative state,

It took about 20 minutes for me to get into a meditative state where I noticed,

OK,

The thoughts are slowing down.

And what I slowly began to do was,

As my thoughts began to slow down,

My brain waves began to be,

My brain and my heart became a little bit more coherent.

I was learning how to cultivate heart chemicals or heart emotions at will.

So I was recognizing that I was out of sync.

I was recognizing that I was anxious.

And I was using meditation to calm me down,

Which was huge.

So I would start with third eye meditations.

I would do heart chakra meditations.

I would do open your heart meditation,

Things like that.

But I was noticing the ability to slow down my mind,

Which was huge.

And then I noticed that even during the day,

I was able to slow down and connect to my heart and breathe through my heart.

So many times throughout the day,

I would put my hands over my heart.

I would close my eyes.

I would take a deep breath in.

I would exhale.

I would imagine breathing through my heart space,

Like literally imagining that my heart was doing the breathing for me,

Right?

Breathing,

Because I knew that what I had to do was teach my heart to feel safe.

So I'd imagine that my hands were hugging my heart.

And if I had a hand that could reach around my back enough,

I would put it on the back of my heart space.

You know,

And what you could do is put a pillow on the back of a chair and imagine that your heart is being embraced.

And you're sending the message to your heart that you're safe,

That everything's OK,

That in this moment,

You're absolutely safe.

You're rewiring the messages that your heart is sending to your brain that you're safe.

So in order to trust your intuition,

I feel you have to teach your heart to believe that you're safe.

And this is the crazy thing.

This is the really crazy thing.

You have to reprogram the way your heart receives the 3D world.

So from a higher state of consciousness,

You have to reparent your heart space.

You have to tell your heart space,

Everything's OK.

Everything's OK.

You're safe.

We're safe.

In this moment,

We're safe.

You're in the car.

I'm safe.

I'm safe,

Right?

You go into the ladies' room.

I'm safe.

I'm safe.

Right before you go to bed,

I'm safe.

I'm safe.

Everything is,

I'm safe.

I'm safe.

I'm safe.

I'm safe.

You rewire the chemicals.

You rewire the experiences and the messages your heart is sending your brain.

So now what ends up happening is you're creating this heart and this brain coherence,

And you're beginning to feel safer.

When you start to feel safer,

That's when you learn to trust yourself.

So you have to teach your heart to trust because it's been,

Through experiences,

Has been taught to distrust,

Which,

Considering some of the situations that people find themselves in,

Is normal.

If you have a mother who is psychologically,

Verbally abusing you and physically abusing you and worse,

Then no,

You can't trust that your environment's a safe place.

You have to stay hypervigilant.

You have to be on guard.

Absolutely.

So there's this hierarchy of needs that your brain and your heart are utilizing in order to keep you physically safe.

But if you don't get out of that mode,

If you don't get out of that paradigm,

Then you see the world through this very broken lens,

And you're not able to trust anyone,

Not even yourself.

And so in order to break through this amygdala,

The amygdala and the hippocampus have been patterned and programmed for stress and survival.

And in order for you to break through this,

You have to teach your heart that you're safe,

Right?

Because as long as we stay in the paradigm,

I'm unsafe,

The brain likes the familiar.

And so it's going to keep you there until you break through this veil and until you decide to do something different.

I know it's hippie dippy.

Nothing changes until something changes,

Right?

Are you sick of hearing that phrase?

I know I was.

What are you talking about?

Nothing changes until nothing changes.

What is this fricking thing that I have to change,

Right?

And then you stay on the path long enough,

And it hits you upside the head,

Right?

It's like everything.

You have to change everything.

What do you mean I have to change everything?

You have to change the way you see yourself.

You have to change the way you treat yourself.

You have to change the way you see other people.

You have to let go of everything that you've ever believed in.

And you've got to be willing to walk by your own set of rules,

Rules that feel like they're in alignment with your true instinct,

Your true intuition of who you are and what's true for you.

Imagine being born into a family of doctors and lawyers,

And you feel like,

You know,

I don't know.

I think I want to be a ballerina,

Or I think I want to open a yoga studio,

Right?

Your family are looking down their noses at you like you are bonkers.

Like what are you talking about?

Your mother's a lawyer.

Your father's got a PhD.

Your grandfather graduated from Harvard.

Your grandmother graduated from Yale.

Are you kidding me?

You can't just be a yoga teacher,

Like at a high school and go do some yoga training.

What's wrong with you?

And yet every fiber of your being is saying,

This is what I want to do.

I want to help people connect.

I want to help people clear negative energies through movement,

Through breathing.

I want to help people integrate mind,

Body,

And soul through yoga.

That's what I want to do.

It's my calling.

Imagine being that person who feels the intuition of take a yoga class.

Now maybe find out what it is to become certified.

How many hours do you need?

Maybe you'll be called to go to India.

So you have all of this bing,

Bing.

I call it the black box experience,

You know,

Like bing,

Bing.

The black box is the box that when an airplane goes down,

The whatever,

The safety people can find the airplane in the middle of the ocean.

Like we all have this bing,

Bing.

It's calling us forward.

But when you're living in survival and you've been taught that you shouldn't listen to yourself,

When you carry a lot of shame and you don't think you're good enough,

How do you find the confidence to trust yourself?

This is huge.

This is huge.

And that's why I'm so honored to work with people who are willing to transform their lives in this way.

This is truly the hero's path.

When you learn to say,

Listen,

I know what I was taught.

I know how I've been indoctrinated.

I know how I've been domesticated.

I know what my religion says.

I know what my family says.

I know what everybody else wants me to do.

But this is what I feel like I want to do and what I need to do.

That is a huge heroic step to take when everybody in your world has been unsupportive or it feels like everybody in your world has been unsupportive or you have just kept seeking the validation of the one person in your life that absolutely refuses to support you.

You ever notice how we do that?

We're always looking to gain the validation of the one person who continues to abandon us until we say,

Eh,

OK,

You don't want me in your life.

I accept it.

I'm about to move on.

I'm going to go flap my wings and find out who I am.

It's heroic.

And I really love inspiring people who are willing to look within because that is a teachable moment.

You can teach someone to do that.

But there has to be enough momentum and enough desire in someone to override or break through this paradigm.

Inertia applies.

An object in motion stays in motion until acted upon by a force.

So if you live in the motion of codependency,

If you live in the motion of people pleasing,

If you live in the motion of I'm Mr.

Nice Guy,

I say yes to everybody.

I don't like conflict.

I avoid conflict at all costs.

My family's falling all around,

Falling apart all around me.

But you know what?

I'm not having any types of arguments.

I'm just going to go to the park and ignore all this stuff.

My wife falls apart.

My kids fall apart.

They fight with my family.

I'm out of here because I'm Mr.

Nice Guy.

I never want anybody to have a problem with me.

I avoid confrontation at all costs.

You know,

You stay on that path long enough,

It's going to blow up in your face because you're ignoring what needs to get done.

Part of honoring your instincts and honoring intuition is knowing when you need to set a boundary.

But again,

If you're in survival and your brain thinks that there's a problem with confrontation,

Then that overrides,

Right?

You stay in the motion of the fear of confrontation until something really dramatic happens in your life and you can't ignore it anymore.

Like you have this rock bottom experience or your kids get into trouble or your wife wants to leave you or you have an affair,

Right?

Or you lose everything.

Everything happens in your experience that stops the object in motion.

I know that was my case when I was learning about codependency.

I was in this motion of codependency and my body was failing.

And then my very young sister-in-law passed away at 28 or 29 years old from adrenal cortical course carcinoma.

And I could swear it was from stress.

You know,

She had an adrenal cancer and she was young.

It's like unheard of.

And I was afraid that I was going to die and leave my children to this very chaotic system that I found myself in.

And that terrified me.

So it was the fear that overrode or overrided the momentum,

The roller coaster ride that I was on,

You know,

Because I was in denial of self.

I didn't even know I was codependent.

I didn't even know I had all of these issues,

These insecurity issues.

I didn't know I was masking a lot of insecurities and I didn't know I was seeking validation.

I had no clue.

I was a completely autopilot human being.

And it freaked me the heck out when I realized,

You know,

Who's up there?

Who's running the ship?

It certainly wasn't Lisa.

It was some version of Lisa,

But it wasn't a conscious version of Lisa.

And that freaked me out.

And it annoyed me.

And I was like,

I'm gaining control over this ship,

Whatever it costs me.

And so learning to do that,

Slow my mind down,

Allowed me to develop my intuition.

My intuition was always there.

It was just clouded over with codependency and fear and insecurities,

Reactivity,

Ego defense mechanisms.

But once I could see it clearly,

And once I had that experience of having this train stop because I had so much fear that I was going to die,

My body was failing.

I developed adult asthma.

I never had asthma as a kid.

All of a sudden I'm dealing with adult asthma.

I can't breathe.

I'm breathing with less than 20% of one lung at one point,

Right?

Rashes all over my body,

In and out of the dermatologist's office trying to figure out what's wrong with this woman.

I was tested for cancer.

I had biopsies.

Couldn't figure out what the heck was wrong with me.

And it turns out that once I started to listen to my intuition,

I knew I was in a dysfunctional marriage.

I knew that my ex-husband and I were a mismatch.

Even if he wasn't a narcissist,

And even if I wasn't codependent,

We were toxic for one another.

We were good for one another.

Now he's in a relationship,

He seems to be happy.

And now I'm in a relationship and I am very happy.

So we were not good for one another.

So we brought out the worst in one another.

All of our stuff came to the surface,

But I knew that.

But I didn't know how to honor it.

I didn't know how to step into it and say,

Enough is enough.

I had to get so sick and the fear of dying is what really prompted me to say,

I think we need to go into counseling.

And then went down that road and eventually he quit counseling and told me to get an attorney,

Which I did.

And then he got ticked off about that too.

I was like so confused.

I was like,

You told me to get an attorney.

You told me you wanted a divorce.

You know,

It's just a nightmare.

Coming out of this fog can be an absolute nightmare.

But I'll tell you what,

It's worth it.

It's worth all the pain.

It's worth all the stress.

It's worth all the anxiety to find alignment.

And it takes a whole lot of humility to be able to look at your life and say,

What did I ignore?

What did I not know?

What did I did not know how to do?

What did I not know how to feel?

What did I did not know how to process?

Because we want to blame someone.

We want to say it's my mother's fault.

It's my father's fault.

That's why what I say is it's not you.

It's your programming.

So even though it might be that you might be,

And you are definitely a product of mom and dad,

The reality is the programming is in new now.

I had to face like,

Yeah,

OK,

My parents are unrecovered adult children of alcoholics,

Codependent narcissistic dynamic,

In my humble opinion.

This is what I grew up witnessing.

My mother taught us to acquiesce.

My mother completely ignored her intuition.

She was a robot people pleaser for my dad.

Side of dementia,

Brains turns to mashed potatoes,

Right?

I watched this whole experience.

And while I can say,

Yes,

It's my mother and father's fault,

The reality is they were a product of their parents as well.

And that's why what I say,

My tagline is it's not you.

It's your programming.

It's sort of to help us understand that while our parents are responsible primarily for our programming,

The programming now is mine.

And it's my responsibility to deal with it.

So whether you're a codependent or you're someone with high narcissistic traits,

At the end of the day,

It's your stuff.

And we are the only ones that can deal with our stuff.

And it's up to us to be observing of it.

So when I look back in my life,

I could see them many times.

My first boyfriend,

I had the instinct to break up with him.

I broke up with him once.

He asked me out again.

I went out with him again.

And it took like three years we were dating and another three years to break up.

It was crazy,

A complete toxic relationship.

And it was one toxic relationship after the next.

None of these guys knew each other.

I was the common denominator.

So it was me.

I was coming at relationships half full or half empty.

I was coming at these relationships looking to be validated,

Looking to feel seen,

Looking to have a boy make me feel good enough.

And I was just owning myself in order to have that experience.

So was that my fault?

Well,

It just was what it was.

Why did I turn out that way?

Well,

Yeah,

My parents,

My grandparents,

My great grandparents all affected who I was.

But at the end of the day,

If I'm going to see things objectively and be super responsible for myself,

In my situation,

I had to look and say,

OK,

Now it's up to me to fix it.

I can't perpetuate it.

Now there are always extreme cases where children are born to extreme situations.

And someone who is on the recovery path has got to be given the right to say,

I absolutely was a victim.

And this is how they victimized me.

This allows people to develop an ego boundary system that was ripped from them when they were a child.

So I do believe that in some situations,

It's very beneficial to say,

Wait,

But I was a victim.

Now the goal really is to use that as a temporary springboard so that we can spring off this place and say,

OK,

That was then.

This is now.

And now I'm learning to trust myself.

Now I'm learning to love myself.

Now I'm learning who I can move into my experience.

And I'm learning to notice how I feel about certain people,

Trust that intuition,

And move people out of this experience if I have to.

So the process of learning to trust your intuition,

I believe,

Starts with understanding,

At least this worked for me and it works for my clients,

It seems to,

That you start with,

Well,

Why don't I trust my intuition?

Because once your brain understands,

Aha,

Why do I keep disowning myself,

Then your brain can autocorrect itself.

So if I seek validation from you before I seek validation from myself,

The next time you say to me,

Lisa,

You want to go see this movie?

I check in with myself and say,

I don't know if I want to go see that one.

Have you ever thought about going to see this movie?

Now suddenly,

Just from hitting the pause button,

Because now I know I usually always go with the other person's choice without even asking myself what I want,

Now that I know that's one of the ways that I completely bypassed my own ability to tap into my superpower,

Which is my intuition,

Now I know when you ask me something,

I need to hit the pause button and then ask myself how I feel about that and then ask myself that question,

Lisa,

What do you want?

Lisa,

How do you feel?

Lisa,

What do you think?

Lisa,

What's going on with you?

If you don't regularly check in with yourself,

It's very difficult for you to hone in on your intuition.

So I hope that you feel inspired to ask yourself more often,

What do I think and how do I feel?

What do I want?

What do I see myself?

How do I see myself?

What do I see for myself?

What would I like the next six months of my life to look like?

Listen to the intuition that comes up for you.

Your intuition is always going to try to lead you to the next growth step.

But unfortunately,

Addiction,

Toxic relationships,

Self-denial,

Codependency,

Which is a loss to selfhood,

These things make it really difficult for us to tap into our intuition.

So one of the things that you might want to consider if you are codependent and you're struggling with people pleasing,

Enabling and whatnot,

Consider going deep into,

Taking the deep dive into codependency recovery,

Because if you dig deep enough,

You'll get to the point where you realize you are enough.

It was never you.

It was just your programming.

And you'll learn what it means to honor your feelings and to set boundaries because you no longer seek other people's approval and you no longer struggle with the fear of rejection and or abandonment.

These things prevent you.

They override your ability to tap into your intuition.

Reviews

Holy moly. I feel so seen. Thank you, Lisa. Everyone would benefit from hearing this.

That was amazing. Lisa, thank you for showing us the path you've taken.

Always so very insightful and validating. Thank you Lisa 💚

Amazing! Informative, healing, and so powerful! Thank you so much! 🙏🤍

This was spot on. Thank you for doing the work through this confusing, painful journey, coming out the other side, and sharing what you learned for those of us stuck in similar.

It gives hope, and you've offered a guide to remedy.

Much gratitude

Amazing, I need more.

Thank you. My favorite part was when you said it’s not you it’s your programming. Super helpful and a great place for me to start.
🙏🏻💚💙💜

So clear and insightful
Thank you

Very helpful reminders. Thanks.

Amazing and insightful - 🙏

Beyond insightful and helpful! I will listen to this several more times.

I was looking for a meditation on a different topic when I saw this one. My intuition told me it would be beneficial to me and it was right! Thank you for sharing it. Namaste
🌛💜🌜

Brilliant can relate to everything you spoke about it's such a comfort to hear and I have been making the changes to reparwnt myself with the help of my ACA group and the future feels hopeful. Much gratitude to you 💗

So helpful

Learn to breathe through the heart space. Also, pause and ask self , “what do I feel? “
Lisa’s First husband wouldn’t look into her eyes dancing at wedding reception & gave her The silent treatment on honeymoon.
Great teaching on why we need to change OURSELVES and tap into our “Superpower” INTUITION . Thank you Lisa I will refer to this recording again and again❤️♥️💖!!!

Fantastic. Need to listen again. Thank you

Wonderful!

So authentic is you. Totally resonated. MANY thanks.

Lisa, your talk is truly eye opening and something for me to share with as many people as I can.

Lisa is the BEST! I love her because she's a genuine and beautiful person inside and out. The world needs more people like her. I've learned so much from her
Thank you for being you🦋
Thank you