Reverse The Effects Of Childhood Trauma

Welcome to our podcast, where we explore the profound impact of childhood trauma and how to navigate its lasting effects. In this episode, we delve into an empowering strategy—Lisa A. Romano's 5 Part Kiss Strategy—designed to bring awareness and control to the negative states of our minds, ultimately fostering transformation and healing.

Transcript

Namaste everybody.

Today I want to offer you what I call the kiss strategy,

Which is a quick mental and emotional check-in.

So if you've been following my work for any length of time,

You by now probably have figured out that I'm somebody who deals with childhood trauma.

I'm somebody who helps other people heal from codependency and narcissistic abuse.

I'm also somebody who is very,

Very centered upon this idea of consciousness,

That trauma arrests us at a particular state of consciousness,

And that unless there's movement in our consciousness,

Then our minds,

By default,

Are going to have us stay at this level of consciousness,

Meaning that if I was raised by an alcoholic father,

Then I have all of this trauma that's tied to being the adult child of an alcoholic.

So I might fear authority figures.

I might be someone who has been taught to suppress my emotions because my emotions were an inconvenient thing.

I may be somebody who doesn't trust my inner reality because it doesn't match my outer reality,

Meaning that I may have been raised by a mother who lied to me a lot about daddy's drinking.

So,

Mom,

Is daddy drunk?

No,

Your father's not drunk,

He's just tired.

Giving me the impression that it's not good to tell the truth,

Or that I should distrust my instincts.

I might be somebody who has a very hard time giving myself a break,

So I might be a very rigid thinker.

I might see things in black and white.

Now,

Because I was forced to adapt to a childhood situation that was unpredictable,

My mind has now wired for hypervigilance.

I look outside of myself.

I'm afraid that the shoe is going to drop,

Or that the rug is going to be pulled out from underneath me.

So I don't have a very healthy sense of self.

I don't feel safe in my own skin.

My brain has been wired for survival,

But I don't know it.

Now,

When we're talking about consciousness,

I find this so fascinating that all of us are born asleep.

All of us are born into a sleep state.

That's why infants sleep so much,

And our level of consciousness is very much determined,

I believe,

By the level of consciousness of the people who raised us.

We tend to think like our parents do.

We tend to have the same beliefs as our parents do.

We tend to even stand and walk like our parents do.

Really interesting.

When we think about our level of consciousness,

We often,

Well,

Most of us don't realize that consciousness is by default,

That the brain has what's called the default mode network.

This is the part of your brain that is responsible for everything that's automatic,

Right?

All the ways that you think can also be part of the default mode network once your thought patterns and your behavior patterns,

And even your emotional patterns,

Have become habitual.

So if you think something long enough and repeat it over and over and over,

Then it becomes a habit.

Once it becomes a habit,

It becomes part of the default mode network.

If I am used to being abandoned as a child,

There is this habit of thinking that I'm going to be abandoned.

I have this fear.

So there is this habit of looking outside of myself and noticing when I'm not included.

Now,

The really interesting thing about that is that I won't notice when I am included.

It won't come up on my radar.

I am attuned to not being included.

I won't appreciate the people who are trying to be nice to me.

I am focused on the people that I feel are rejecting me.

It's really,

Really interesting.

And this happens all below the veil of consciousness.

I truly believe that if we can elevate our consciousness,

Then we can heal anything.

Einstein said that you can't solve a problem from the same level of intelligence that created the problem.

Bravo.

Well,

When we apply this amazing man's philosophy to trauma,

We can see the same equation emerge.

You can't heal trauma from the same level of consciousness that protects us from that trauma.

We can't heal trauma from the same level of consciousness as that trauma.

Now,

The thing with the amygdala and the hippocampus is designed to remember and recall the trauma.

You bet your butt.

If something in my external world is scary and it has the potential to hurt me,

My brain is going to be looking for that to keep me alive.

And so we have to use consciousness to push us past this trauma level of consciousness if we're really ever going to be able to become the true owners of our life experience.

I think that we are incredible.

Now,

I don't think I know that each of us is an incredible human being.

In my opinion,

I believe that we are all facets of the divine.

Just believe that.

Some people are turned off by that talk,

But I believe that whatever created the entire universe created me.

I find it really interesting that even Einstein says that the only unfathomable thing about the universe is that it is,

In fact,

Fathomable.

I mean,

If it's good enough for Einstein and it's good enough to Tesla that these magnificent men who are the greatest scientific minds of all times,

If these two men believe in an infinite intelligence,

It makes sense that there is most likely a divine intelligence that has created these laws by which everything in nature obeys whether we realize it or not.

For instance,

Gravity,

Or the law of causality,

Or quantum entanglement,

Or superposition.

If you don't believe me,

Look it up.

There are absolute divine laws that govern time and space,

And there has to be a governing intelligence that created these divine laws.

Okay,

That being said,

I do believe that it is possible for us to accept our divine nature,

And I do believe that once we accept our divine nature,

We have something to anchor to beyond the trauma.

Once I realize that I am this magnificent aspect of the divine,

And then I look at my trauma through that lens,

From that perspective,

I don't feel so alone anymore.

I have something to anchor to.

Now I'm able to peel back a little bit.

So now I can elevate my consciousness,

And eventually,

And I'm not saying this happens overnight,

Dear one.

I mean,

I have been on this path for 30 years,

Right?

Seriously,

Always thought something was wrong,

But I didn't know what was wrong.

I would even say it's probably longer than that.

I would say I knew something was wrong when I was seven.

I just thought it was me.

I must be an alien,

Right?

Nothing makes sense.

I don't feel like I fit in with my family.

This is a painful experience.

It just didn't make sense to my seven-year-old heart and mind that life was so painful.

It just didn't make sense.

And so I feel that I've always been searching on a quest like,

What's wrong?

Eventually,

After my divorce,

It was very dramatic.

I found the road back to me by addressing my inner child wounds,

By healing from codependency,

By addressing the issues of being the grandchild,

And I believe the adult child,

Of an alcoholic,

And really digging into these core wounds and these emotions that my childhood taught me to suppress.

I really got interested in the subconscious mind,

The power of beliefs.

And that just was like,

Poof.

That made everything make sense to me,

That I was programmed to believe a set of beliefs that were self-sabotaging,

That did not line up with the law of abundance,

Or the law of prosperity,

Or this idea that I am,

In fact,

An aspect of the divine.

So how could my life work out if my very belief system,

This guidance system,

Was corrupt by childhood programming?

And then when I add this idea like,

Well,

It's a state of consciousness,

That you've been living under a veil of consciousness.

You are unaware that you are unaware.

Codependency means that you're unaware that you're unaware.

You keep doing the same thing over and over and over and over and over,

People-pleasing,

Enabling,

Trying to be perfect,

Trying to prove your worthiness to other people,

Editing yourself for the sake of approval and validation,

Feeling wounded when people don't listen to you,

Or feeling invalidated,

Or going into a party and just noticing that people aren't talking to you,

Taking this all personally,

Right,

Taking everything so personally.

You're a giant red-infected toe,

But you don't know it.

That's a level of consciousness.

That's a lack of consciousness about your true self.

That is you in your unawareness operating from below the veil of consciousness through the trauma consciousness,

Or through the consciousness of your trauma,

Through the consciousness of your wounded inner child,

But you just don't know it.

So I came up with this principle called the KISS strategy.

People use KISS strategy in a lot of things,

But I applied it to trauma recovery,

And I consider it a mental health check for myself,

Because it allows me to get a good idea about where my level of consciousness is right now.

And I'm always looking for metaphors.

And I think to myself that if my life is a ship,

Then I am the captain.

And if I'm a good captain,

Then I know where I'm going,

Right?

But I,

As a captain,

Cannot figure out where I'm going unless I first acknowledge where I am.

So it's sort of like a check,

Like it's a nautical check.

So we're always looking for ways to increase our level of awareness around where we are,

So that we can figure out where we want to go.

So this mental health check is comprised of five specific questions,

Right?

So if you're really feeling out of sorts,

Or you feel like you're going down the rabbit hole,

Or you're feeling really anxious,

Or you had an argument with somebody,

Or you're arguing in your head,

Your mental inner dialogue is negative,

And you don't have any control over it.

You've got a lot of anxiety.

You've got fear about the future,

Fear about the past.

Oh my God,

What did I say?

Is this person upset with me?

What are they going to think about me?

And maybe I shouldn't have said this.

Maybe I should have said that,

Right?

You're just thinking about all this worry.

What if I don't make enough money?

What if I can't have a baby?

What if I can't make her love me?

What if he breaks up with me?

The wheels just keep going.

I created these five questions that you can ask yourself to keep it simple.

What is the goal?

To know where you are so that you can raise your level of consciousness and then figure out where you want to go.

So the first question is,

Are my thoughts critical or are they loving right now?

Really important question to ask yourself because we're trying to point our ship towards the direction of love and non-judgment.

We're trying to point our ship and our thoughts towards this inner peace within us where we're in the present moment.

We're in the now.

We're detached.

We're the detached observer.

We're non-judgmental.

We're non-critical of ourself.

We're non-critical of others.

We're bringing everything back to the now.

We can only control how we feel in now.

We can't control how much money we make tomorrow.

We can only control how we feel about what we have today.

And if we can get out of critical thinking and out of fear,

Then we align with the feeling of ease,

Which is much closer to living in a state of abundance,

Which means that you are much more a magnet for abundance in that state than you are if you're in a state of criticism or judgment.

So the first question is,

Are my thoughts critical or loving right now?

The second question,

Are my thoughts in the past or the future?

Most of us don't realize that our mind is split.

We are either worried about the past or we're worried about the future,

Which means,

Guess what?

We're not in the now,

Dear one,

And all your power,

Thank you,

Eckhart Tolle,

Is in the now.

All our power is in the now.

The now moment is creating the next moment.

And so what's showing up now is done.

It's already been created.

But what the average human mind does,

And it's not our fault,

It happens by default because the brain is built for survival,

Is that we worry about the past.

But we can't change the past.

So if you think about it from a higher state of consciousness,

It's futile to worry about the past.

It's done.

Or we worry about the future.

Well,

Think about that.

That's like trying to control the reflection in the mirror.

You can't.

You can't control the reflection in the mirror by trying to control the reflection in the mirror.

You control the reflection in the mirror by changing you,

By changing the person that's looking into the mirror.

So trying to control the future or worry about the future is a waste of your life source energy.

That doesn't make sense.

But now that I know that,

Oh,

Wow,

My mind,

Left to its own defenses,

Just traveled back in time,

Well,

That doesn't make sense.

Boop,

You can pull yourself forward.

Wow,

My mind was worried about a year from now.

Well,

I can't really do anything about what's going to happen in the future except bring myself back to the now.

And if I can align myself with my future and have a lot more ease about my future,

It's going to be a lot easier for me to bring about the future that I desire.

So that's the second question.

You want to figure out where you are.

The third question,

Am I in the now or am I in the past?

Sort of like question number two,

But a little bit more specific to the now.

When I am in the now,

I'm present.

My mind is coherent.

My heart and brain are coherent.

My spirit,

Body,

And mind are coherent.

I'm able to be present with you.

If I have children,

I can see the specks in their eyes.

I can see the light in their eyes.

If I'm not present in the now and I'm in the past,

Worrying about the past,

Then I'm not present.

The interesting thing about this is that when we're in the past,

We're bringing the past forward through us.

We don't want to do that,

Dear ones.

If we have a traumatic past,

We don't want to keep doing that.

It's not our fault if we married our fathers,

We married our mothers when we were below the veil of consciousness.

But on this path to true transformation and true transcendence,

When we understand this idea of consciousness,

We see the doorway that no man can shut.

It's potential.

It's the now.

And so ask yourself,

Am I in the now or am I worried about the past?

Try to bring yourself into the now.

You can do this by focusing on your breathing,

Really focused,

Just completely get immersed in your breath.

Only a calm brain and a calm mind can take a deep breath.

So the minute you take a nice,

Big,

Full breath and hold it,

You're telling your brain,

You're resetting your nervous system to just relax.

That is bringing you into the now.

So try to do that more and more often.

The fourth question is,

Am I in a state of scarcity or in a state of gratitude?

When I'm in a state of scarcity,

I've lost control of the steering wheel.

My mind is just full of anxiety.

It's like bats have just,

Or they're out of the belfry.

Like they're all over the place.

Like my brain is getting stung by all these wasps.

My consciousness is not in control.

It's no different than being the captain of a ship and you're in a tsunami and you can't control the steering wheel.

But imagine if,

Even if you were a captain and you were headed towards a tsunami,

That you had the ability to control the ship so well that you could steer it out of the storm.

You could steer it away.

Now,

The more awake you are,

The more present you are,

The more you can sense what's happening.

I mean,

Maybe a tsunami is an exaggerated example,

But let's just say it's a storm.

If you're really attuned and you're really aware,

You're watching the birds,

You're feeling the seas,

You're understanding that something's about to happen because you're awake,

You're in the now,

And then you can avert that storm.

You can push,

You can actually steer your ship away from that storm.

So if you're in a state of scarcity,

Then you have to recognize that because the minute you recognize it,

You're in a higher state of consciousness.

And then what we want to do is we want to find something to be grateful for.

It could just be,

Wow,

I just realized that I'm in a state of scarcity,

That I'm not controlling my thoughts,

That I'm steering my ship literally towards the tsunami,

That I have the ability to stop those thoughts by focusing on something else.

Now,

Here's the thing people say to me all the time in my group coaching,

As well as my personal coaching sessions,

How do I stop this from happening?

You can't stop the mind from thinking,

But you can shift what your mind focuses on.

And that's really significant.

So when you notice that you're in scarcity,

Just notice,

Just love yourself and go,

Oh wow,

Look what my mind was doing when I left it unattended.

Silly monkey mind.

I think I'm going to focus on the sun.

The sun came up today.

It rained yesterday.

The trees grow towards the sun.

Look at that beautiful butterfly.

Wow,

I woke up this morning.

Wow,

Even when I fall asleep,

My body continues to breathe for me.

That's pretty amazing.

Look,

I can blink without trying.

I don't even have to think about blinking.

I just ate that apple and my entire digestive system is turning it into an eye cell or a hair cell or a skin cell.

This is magnificent.

So much of what is about me that I am is absolutely magical and divine.

When you start going from scarcity to gratitude,

You become a magnet for more.

You become in alignment for the things that you desire.

And it definitely does elevate your mood.

The fifth question that I want you to ask yourself is,

Am I in a state of fear or a state of love,

A state of resistance or flow?

Am I operating from ego or higher self?

So we've all heard about the ego.

We've all heard about the higher self.

But what I like to do is just to make things simple,

Keeping it simple,

Is I recognize that the ego is that part of me that doesn't want to let go.

Higher self is that part of me that knows I'm enough,

That knows that every single human being born is born of the same one.

And so therefore,

I am in you and you are in me.

Once you reach this level of consciousness,

It becomes absolutely almost impossible for you to want to hurt another person.

You're not living in scarcity anymore.

You know that everything's going to be okay.

It might be a long trek to get there,

Especially if you're somebody who's experienced childhood trauma.

But I'm here to tell you that you can get there.

You just can't get up.

You can't give up.

Because healing is a journey.

It's a process.

It's not a quick fix.

And anybody who tells you that is lying to you.

It's not a quick fix.

If we're healing from codependency,

Chances are we're really healing from incredible abandonment wounds,

Low self-worth,

Perfectionism,

Self-loathing.

We're healing and trying to recover from a lot of different things,

Being the adult child of an alcoholic or being the adult child of a narcissistic parent.

So it's not a quick fix.

We're on a healing path forever.

Now,

When I recognize that I'm either in a state of fear or love or resistance versus non-resistance,

Ego or higher self,

This is my consciousness,

Which is outside of mind,

Which is outside of ego,

Recognizing where my state of awareness is or where my level of consciousness is.

This is fabulous.

This is what all of the ancient philosophers were trying to teach us to do.

This is what ancient mystics are trying to teach us.

This is what spiritual teaching is trying to teach us.

This is what psychology,

And I wish psychology was teaching more of this,

Quite frankly,

But this is what psychology would refer to as metacognition,

The ability to observe my thinking,

Which is outside the mind,

Which is outside the brain.

It's akin to living your life in the fishbowl and then one day waking up and saying,

Wait a minute,

I'm not the fishbowl.

I'm not the fish in this fishbowl.

I'm the awareness observing the fish in this fishbowl.

Now you're outside of the fishbowl and you're observing the fish in the fishbowl.

The fish are like your thoughts,

Your emotions.

You're not your emotions and you're not your thoughts.

You're the awareness of all of this.

You go further.

You are the awareness that is aware of what it is aware of.

I know it's really deep,

But it's fascinating.

And if you're on this path and that resonated with you,

Stay in the path.

You're onto something.

Just have faith.

Just keep going.

And so this idea that you can acknowledge whether or not you're in fear or love is huge.

Once I know if I'm in fear,

There it is.

There's the door.

There's the opportunity to love.

There's the opportunity to let go.

What am I trying to control here that I have no right to control,

Right?

So maybe I want to control my son's spending habits.

Well,

No wonder I'm anxious because my brain is trying to control how much money he spends.

When in reality,

My logical mind knows,

Mom,

You can't control what your son spends.

His life is his life.

His choices are his choices.

His life experience will be the culminations of the decisions that he makes and the decisions that he doesn't make.

Like let go.

Once I let go,

Then I'm in a state of non-resistance.

Once my logical mind says,

Okay,

It was kind of illogical to worry about something I can't control.

It doesn't mean I don't love my son.

It just means that I logically accept that I,

For a moment,

Was in fear.

And when I stepped into love,

When I let go,

I felt better.

So now my mental health rises.

My emotional health rises.

I develop emotional intelligence,

Emotional resiliency,

Because I'm operating from a higher state of consciousness,

Recognizing what I can control and what I can't control.

And in that moment,

It's when I'm able to choose to let go.

And when I let go,

I'm in a state of non-resistance.

So now here are five things that you can do to improve your ability to benefit from the KISS principle or the KISS strategy.

Got to remember that what we're trying to do is elevate our state of consciousness.

So the first thing that you're going to do is you're going to meditate.

I know a lot of people like,

I can't meditate.

Well,

If you can lay down and fall asleep,

You can meditate,

Because the subconscious mind works even when you're not awake.

When people say to me,

I can't meditate,

Then I say to them,

Can you put earbuds in?

Can you lay down on your back?

Can you listen to music and fall asleep?

Can you listen to positive affirmations and fall asleep?

If you can do that,

You can meditate.

So we have to get past this idea that meditation means that I'm sitting on a pillow and I'm emptying my mind and I have to do it perfectly.

If you're a beginner,

Choose a meditation that speaks to you.

I personally like heart chakra meditations,

Third eye meditations.

I create my own heart chakra and inner child meditations,

I am meditations,

Positive affirmation meditations.

Begin using these types of meditation to help still your mind.

The second thing you want to do is you want to set your intention as soon as your beautiful eyes open.

Don't wait.

I tell you what,

Set your intention as you start coming up out of your dream state.

As you start moving into the theta state of awareness,

Like you're aware that you're waking up in the morning,

It's then that you want to say that everything's working out for me.

I am the creator of my own reality.

I live in a state of abundance.

Everything that I need is being sent to me.

You want to start sending out the intention as soon as you wake up.

I see love all around me.

I am love.

I am no longer concerned about controlling what I can't control.

I am willing to let go of what I can't control.

You want to set your intention early.

The third thing that you want to do is you want to call on your higher self.

Now,

If you don't like the term higher self,

Then say,

I want to call on my higher mind.

I want to call on my organized mind.

I want to call on my mind that is rational and logical,

That is non-resistant to stuff that I can't control,

That is undisturbed by the people that I live with that don't make good choices.

Or I want to call on the higher self that knows that I'm enough,

Even though my daughter is incredibly critical of me and likes to make fun of me and needs to put me down whenever she sees me.

I want to call on that higher self or that higher aspect of my intelligence today to allow me to feel guided when I get challenged today.

You want to call on your higher self.

That's you coming out of your old programming.

Number four,

You want to strive to release all thought and emotion tied to what you can't control.

So now you're deliberately saying that today I'm going to strive to recognize,

Can I control that?

If I can't control that,

Oh,

I'm letting that go.

Oh,

It's raining outside.

My husband's upset.

Oh,

I can't control that.

I can't control the rain.

I can't control that he's upset.

I'm letting that go.

My son got a traffic ticket today and he doesn't have money to pay for it.

Oh,

I can't control him paying attention to red lights or green lights or yellow lights.

And I can't control whether or not he saves money.

I can't control whether or not he pisses money away.

So you know what?

I'm going to let that go.

He's on his own life path.

You want to start thinking in terms of what you can and cannot control.

You want to strive to pay attention to that consciously.

And the fifth thing that you want to do is you want to make it your dominant intention to release the past in thought and motion and to live in gratitude.

So this is a mindset shift.

This is where I'm noticing where my conscious mind is at the moment.

And I'm noticing that I'm in a scarcity mindset or I'm in a fear mindset.

And now what I'm going to do is I'm going to make it my dominant intention to notice things in my environment that I'm grateful for.

Like I said,

I wake up in the morning and I say to myself,

Wow,

I woke up today.

That's pretty awesome.

Wow.

I can swallow today.

I can blink today.

I can hear today.

That's pretty awesome.

Wow.

I just had a cup of coffee.

It tasted awesome.

I could swallow this coffee.

That's pretty awesome.

I just had a bowl of oatmeal and blueberries and that was pretty amazing.

And this is my body's going to digest it.

I don't have to tell my body what to do.

That's pretty amazing.

There's always something to be grateful for.

I think we in an ego based society,

In a fear based society,

In a society that is media enriched,

Which I don't necessarily think is an awesome thing because so much of the media is negative.

So much of the media is fear driven.

It's fear mongering,

Hate this person,

Hate that person,

Be afraid of this thing,

Be afraid of that person.

We're taking our votes as human beings and we're voting based on personality contest versus what is best for our society.

We're being controlled by political parties.

They're telling us what we think and what we should feel.

There's no unbiased information anywhere that we can trust except thank goodness there are media sources now that are popping up that are,

I would say more unbiased,

Which is terrific.

So we're a society,

Especially as political campaigns start to heat up,

We're a society of people that are absolutely inundated with brainwashing.

And I'm very aware of that.

Everywhere you look from cable television to TikTok,

To Instagram,

To Facebook,

To all different types of media platforms,

If you're not careful,

You're going to get inundated with fear based stuff.

And so you're also going to get hit with brainwashing that tells you what success is.

And that's another form of brainwashing that you really have to be careful of because you can't live your life authentically if you're looking outside of yourself for some marker of success.

You have to follow your own heart.

You have to follow your own bliss.

Your bliss might be living in the woods somewhere,

Having a small little business on Etsy,

Making jewelry out of wood.

Good for you.

Where your sister might think that in order to be successful,

She has to be an influencer on Instagram and have millions of followers.

And if anybody unfollows her or dislikes her,

She's crushed.

Okay,

That's the level of consciousness that your sister's at.

You have to follow your own heart.

And so we want to make sure that as we're trying to heal and we're doing these mental health checks,

We're paying attention to what is influencing our state of consciousness.

What's influencing our emotional state,

Our consciousness state,

Our spiritual state?

What is influencing us?

The media is a big deal.

And so you want to make sure that you're aware of that and that you are making your dominant intention to stray away from information that is fear-based,

That is trying to control your perception of reality.

You want to strive to live in a state of gratitude all the time.

Now,

In order to do this,

You need the contrast.

And in order to see contrast,

You have to be aware.

So the goal really is to strive for higher states of consciousness so that you can do these mental wellness checks,

So that you can do these emotional wellness checks,

And you can do them well and fairly for yourself.

Namaste,

Everybody.

Until next time.

Reviews

Wow! Thank you. I understand 🙏.

💖

Lisa always hits the nail on the head. I don’t know where I would be without her ❤️

My new favorite SOS meditation 🙏Thank you, Lisa ❤️

as always, lots and lots of great information and you say it in a way I can understand. Thank you.

Soooo mind opening
And help me to articulate my thoughts. Grateful for you words.

I needed that as I have unresolved childhood trauma, thank you so much xx

Once again Lisa🙏💖Namaste
- I loved the analogy of a captain on stormy waters. Your guidance, and wisdom, are leading me to a higher awareness. I am now 67 years old, a child of disfunction and now capable of sailing my own ship! All because of you dear one💞✌️

Really resonated so much with this talk, thanks Lisa🙏🏻💝🌷 So many parallels at the beginning. I like the 5 questions & tools aspect. I did find that I have to stop & start a lot when you talk quickly, without a pause, particularly when I jot notes down, as I did today. Much enlightenment. 💖

I love all your work, but this one sparked something for me.... I knew big changes were coming for me! 🙏🌞💚🌟

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Thank you 😊