Spiritual Awakening: The Bittersweet Path To Enlightenment

Spiritual awakening is a bittersweet path to enlightenment. Awakening shatters our perception of reality. We are not taught to observe our thoughts, actions, perceptions, opinions or beliefs. Sadly, if we are raised by toxic parents, or suffer abuse, especially in childhood, as adults, we can remain unaware of how our brain, minds, and bodies have acclimated to trauma. By default, the brain is wired for survival. Below the veil of consciousness, triggers cause particular reactions within us. And because we are not taught to look within, and the world around us is so noisy and full of distractions, we simply react to all that is happening within us and cannot see the loopholes. Enlightenment is a journey by which your consciousness expands beyond the limits of egoic constructs. However, ego is as necessary as the higher self. We are here to awaken, learn, expand, and remember who we truly are.

Transcript

Welcome to the Breakdown to Breakthrough podcast.

My name is Lisa A Romano.

I am a life coach,

Best-selling 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.

And today we will be discussing how to incrementally shift our focus when we are trying to recover from anything that has got us caught in a web in our mind or anything that is happening in our mental field that feels like we are on some kind of a loop.

It is important for us as human beings to take seriously this apparatus that is the human brain.

Most of us know more about our cell phones,

Our laptops,

And about what is happening in the lives of reality TV stars than we do about the human brain.

And let's just stop for a second and reflect on the lunacy of that.

Think about the fact that most human beings never think about the way they think.

Human beings have the miraculous,

Divine,

Although not innate.

It's not innate.

Thinking is not innate.

When I say thinking,

I mean the ability to be objective about what thought is racing through the conscious field.

How many of you listening today can say in this moment that you truly understand the miraculous ability that has been creator given divinely encoded in the genome of a human being to be able to be objective about one's own thought process.

It's totally fine if in this moment you are freaking out a little bit.

I remember the first time that I became aware that I could think about the way I think.

I could from some higher state of consciousness,

Perhaps through the ability to think from the area or areas of my brain that are called the prefrontal lobe and the neocortex.

I remember the first few moments that I began to understand that I could be objective about a thought process.

I got to tell you,

It freaked me out a little bit because in the moments immediately following the moment of awareness,

I had to question,

Where the hell have I been?

Where the hell have I been?

What the hell has been going on?

I'm 30 something years old.

I got married.

I had three children.

I have a house,

A business.

Where the hell have I been?

So many of you write me and tell me that before you heard one of my podcasts or watched one of my YouTube videos or read one of my books or took one of my coaching programs or saw a post on Instagram or Twitter or Facebook that you never even questioned whether you were thinking or reacting to the thoughts that were showing up in your conscious field.

I have great empathy for warriors of truth that people like you who find themselves listening to this podcast are.

You have to be a warrior to go up against the pain and the shame and the guilt and the loneliness and the abandonment and the toxicity and the details and the experiences and the nuances and the havoc and the destruction.

That so many of us have not only lived through via childhood,

But have also discovered that we have recreated unknowingly in our adult lives.

That's one bit of fricking pill to have to swallow.

And I remember those early days of my awakening and when the shit hit the fan and I knew there was nothing I could do but surrender to what was going to happen next when I realized my ex-husband was not going to change.

And when I realized that up until those early moments of my awakening I had been asleep,

Unaware,

I was unaware,

I had had children under the veil of consciousness acting out like an automatic human being responding to the thoughts and the feelings that were programmed into my subconscious mind.

When I began to realize that the programs that were running my life were ones I didn't even realize were programs and I began to look over my shoulder like I talk about in The Road Back to Me,

My first book,

And I looked over my shoulder through the jagged peephole of self-awareness and I could see that in my unawareness I had created three children in my unconsciousness and I had exposed them to great dysfunction.

And they,

Like me,

Like my mother,

My father,

My sister,

My brother,

My nieces,

My nephews,

My uncles,

My aunts,

My grandparents,

My great-grandparents,

My great-great-grandparents,

I,

Like all the generations before me,

Had unknowingly,

Had unknowingly and unconsciously infected my children with what I call the disease of invisibility.

I,

Like all the generations before me,

Had constructed a life based on a faulty template that I now know was not the intention of the infinite intelligence or ultimate,

Ultimate intention of the infinite intelligence that created me.

I now believe that many generations ago,

Human beings were denied information at some point in time that would allow them to stay on an awakened path.

And that conversation is not to be had today.

This conversation is about learning to recognize the dysfunction,

Learning to make peace with the fact that so many of us were unconscious and have done to our children what was done to us.

Because that's a bitter time,

Bittersweet time.

It's a birthing process.

And it's really no different than our original birthing process.

It's painful to give birth,

Both for the mother and the newborn baby.

The newborn baby in this cocoon of warmth,

Being completely supplied divinely by the mother's body,

Anchored to planet Earth through the chakra system or the energetic system of its mother.

And for anyone out there that is very logically driven,

This world is held together by magnetism.

That's a fact.

We are all subject to the laws of gravity,

Which means that we are electrical beings,

Which means if we were not subject to the laws of gravity,

We would float off into the atmosphere.

The beings that we are,

Are electrical in nature.

Electricity within our body,

Energy within our body,

Keeps this physical suit moving very much like the electrical system of a car.

When the battery goes in the car,

The car doesn't move.

When our electrical system fails,

We fail to move.

Our physical suit,

Our armor,

Our flesh,

This fiber optic network of capillaries and cells and biology and chemistry,

That we are,

When that system fails,

We are no longer able to be animated,

Very much like a car.

Car can't move.

Human can't move.

But the essence that we are,

I believe anyway,

Lives on.

That's just my opinion.

I know some people struggle with that,

And I say let's just respect where we are.

I respect you.

I hope that you respect me,

If that is a far and reaching concept for you.

But I honor how you feel,

And I get it.

So when we begin to awaken,

Like so many of you are,

And you're realizing where the hell have I been,

It can be a topsy-turvy time.

It's like being born again.

It can make you feel lightheaded,

Off-balance,

Unsure of yourself.

It can shake your confidence.

It can make you feel anxious.

I know I was incredibly anxious.

I was excited,

But I was anxious,

And I was sad.

I was full of guilt.

I was full of shame.

And it took me quite a while to reconcile that,

Although I was,

I would say,

A bit wiser than my parents.

Perhaps a lot wiser than my parents were when they were raising me.

My mom was 19 when she had me.

My dad was 20,

21.

Both of them quit high school.

Both adult children of alcoholics.

And my parents were better than their parents.

So I think that I spared my children a lot.

I know I did,

Of what I went through.

But fundamentally,

I was still asleep,

Like my mom.

Fundamentally.

Perhaps a little bit more conscious than she was,

But still asleep.

Still asleep in the sense that I was recreating my patterns.

Or I was just stuck in my patterns,

Because I wasn't aware that I was stuck inside this hologram.

And isn't that what we are?

Are you not an extension of your mother and father?

And if you have children,

Are your children not an unfolding of you?

And if you think about a hologram,

And as it moves,

It just keeps unfolding,

Unfolding,

Unfolding,

Unfolding.

So if you stand on a star,

And you were able to look at the generations and generations and generations of people before you,

You can begin to see a pattern unfolding,

Unfolding,

Unfolding.

That's not your fault.

And even if there was some religious conspiracy,

Or political conspiracy,

An agenda to keep man asleep,

Separate from his concept of God,

You ask,

Why would anyone want to infuse a society with the idea that they are separate from God?

Well,

If you can separate a man or a woman or child from this concept of God,

It's not too difficult to manipulate the concept of God.

It's not too difficult to shame people,

To have them fear God.

And if you can manipulate the rules of that God,

And you can create texts about this concept of God,

And you systematically reinforce the idea that people are sinners,

And not good at their birth,

Then you can put these people on a quest to be good enough for their God.

And if you're very clever,

You can control the rules.

And fear is a very,

Very effective manipulative tool.

So we have to remember that many of us have been brainwashed in various ways.

And that is not our fault.

The awakening process is very humbling.

It brings us to our knees.

But I believe that is necessary.

I believe only the humble and the meek shall inherit the kingdom of heaven.

And the kingdom of heaven exists behind your eyes,

And between your ears.

We have the ability to create heaven or hell in this lifetime.

And so many of us,

Unfortunately,

Have had very difficult life experiences.

We have had people abuse us sexually,

Psychologically,

Physically,

The people we love the most.

They have hurt us.

They have infected us.

They have passed on this unconsciousness.

Like you pass a baton in an Olympic game.

Parents pass on the shame,

And the pain,

And the unconsciousness to future generations.

Our cells are a product of what has happened in our parents' lives.

You cannot separate yourself from your parents' experience.

You can't.

Trauma is passed on.

Studies are proving that more and more.

It is possible to be born anxious,

In my opinion.

Studies are being done on pregnant women who witnessed the 9-11 tragedy.

Studies are being done on families who have,

Unfortunately,

Witnessed and taken part,

Or have been abused and traumatized through the Holocaust and genocides.

So there are actual research studies being done to measure the kinds of trauma that gets passed down to children from parents and grandparents who have,

Unfortunately,

Witnessed and had the experience of great,

Great tragedies.

And it's being proven that children are affected by what has happened in the past.

It makes complete sense to me.

It makes complete sense to me.

In fact,

It doesn't make any sense that that would not happen.

You cannot separate a child from its mother and father.

You can't.

Even though children are separate and individuals on an emotional,

Biological,

Physical level,

You cannot go into a child's body and separate,

Carve out their mother and father from their chromosomes,

From their DNA.

Can't do it.

Just can't do it.

Children are products of mom and dad.

And so for those of you who are awakening,

Either if you are in the early stages of awakening and understanding this idea of unconsciousness,

Or if you've been on the path for quite a while,

Know that being humble and brought to your knees is a part of this process.

And know that the goal is to get on with it as quickly as possible.

Meaning we have got to learn that in spite of where we've been,

We've got to surrender to what is today and focus on where we're going.

I got an amazing email today from a young woman in Russia who had an awful childhood and who learned from a therapist that she was codependent and then began researching on Google and YouTube and found my work.

And over the past few years,

She's been listening to my work diligently.

She ended up leaving a very abusive,

Covert narcissist,

Took her very young son of two,

Went to live in a shelter for a while just to avoid him because he was violent.

And now two years later,

She is in her own apartment.

She wakes up happy.

She goes to sleep peaceful.

She still listens to my work,

My podcasts while her son is playing.

She said that her son was listening to her listen to my podcast.

And she heard him say to her,

Mommy,

What does it mean to hold on to yourself?

Five years old.

Beautiful.

And in that moment was the opportunity to explain to him how he can focus on his own experience,

His own feelings.

And he has a right to discern and to decide who gets to be a part of his life.

He has a right to discern how other people affect him energetically and emotionally.

He has a right to expect people to treat him well.

He has that right.

That's what it means to hold on to yourself.

Identify your experience outside of what you think other people want you to do,

Outside of what you think other people want you to perceive,

Outside what you think other people want you to feel.

We return to the self.

We hold on to the self.

So what I want everyone to remember is that if you're being humbled by your awakening,

That's a really good thing.

If you are feeling guilt over what's experienced,

What you've experienced and possibly have unknowingly passed down to the children,

Or you're feeling some type of guilt over your unconsciousness,

I just want you to know I hear you.

I was there.

I've been there.

It sucks.

It sucks.

But be good to yourself.

Because it's not your fault that human beings are born and a great sleep falls upon them.

When newborns are born,

They are literally in a sleep state.

So it's a very literal statement taken from the Bible.

And it's very real.

It's very real.

We are not born awakened.

We forget who we are.

We forget.

And the illusion is that we need other people's validation.

But remember,

Dear ones,

You are psychologically and biologically driven to get validation.

So it's not your fault if your entire adult life you've been seeking validation.

And if you have been seeking validation,

Then I know that you never received validation as a child.

And I also know you deserved it.

So it's not your fault if you're still seeking it.

But we have to reconcile this quickly.

We have to accept what happened.

We have to surrender to what is and then we have to decide what we're going to do about it.

And for me,

The decision was,

I had to walk towards the fire.

Although my whole life I was taught to avoid the pain in my life,

And to not walk towards destruction,

Not rock the boat,

Not tell people how I felt,

Not draw boundary lines,

Not adhere to those boundary lines,

Allow people to walk all over me,

Ignore that I was unhappy,

Ignore that I really wanted to get a divorce,

Ignore how I felt.

It's counterintuitive.

We are not wired to rock the boat.

Not really.

Unless,

Of course,

We lack empathy genes or empathy neurons,

Mirror neurons.

Unless,

Of course,

We are,

We have some sociopathic or psychotic tendency,

Psychopathic tendency that makes it incapable for us to care about how other people feel.

And to anyone out there who,

By the slight chance,

Believes maybe that they have an inability to connect to other people,

If there's any shred within you that has you wishing that things were different,

You can change.

You can change.

But you have to want to understand other people.

And you want to understand how what your actions and how what you say affect the people in your life.

And if you do want that,

Then you can change.

Most often,

More than not,

I attract people who have been abused,

Codependents,

People pleasers,

People who have suffered with addictions,

Love addiction,

Sex addiction,

Bulimia,

Anorexia,

Alcoholism,

People who don't know how to feel for themselves and only know how to feel for others.

But either way,

You can change.

So dear ones,

I want you to understand that you're on a journey.

You cannot go from being in an unawakened state for so many years for decades,

And then have one aha moment and think that that's it for you.

No.

We have to shift moment to moment.

We have to milk our consciousness moment to moment.

We must meditate,

We must be mindful,

We must shut our mouths and listen to what is happening in our heart space.

We've got to think,

Quiet the mind.

And when I say think,

I mean observe.

Observe how you feel,

And then think about what you want to do about how you feel.

Learning to observe your feelings is a skill.

And it's a skill that must be nurtured.

So there's a whole lot of us out there that talk way too much,

React way too much,

And just aren't still enough to be able to hear and feel,

Observe quietly,

And experience what is happening in our heart space.

So what I hope you take away from this podcast is a sense of being validated,

A sense that you've been encouraged to stay on path,

A sense that you're not alone.

We're all over the world,

And we're waking up.

Please share this podcast with those who you believe might be inspired by it.

Please return to this podcast whenever you feel you need to.

That's why I create them.

Remember to stay on path.

Remember to get quiet.

Remember to observe how you feel.

And these shifts,

These holy shifts,

These divine shifts,

They first must take place in the conscious realm,

Then in the subconscious realm.

And just know that as you shift consciously,

Cognitively,

Deliberately,

In one realm,

You affect all other realms.

You affect the physical realm.

You affect the past.

You affect the future by commanding the moment of the now.

You are a powerful human being.

You are a powerful human being.

Every human being is powerful.

But we have been brainwashed out of that reality,

And it's time to return to that reality.

It is time to remember that you are an extension of infinite intelligence.

And with the right mindset,

And with full integration,

Mind,

Body,

And soul,

No one can stop you from being happy and making choices for you,

For your children,

Whatever.

Nobody can really stop you once you come into alignment with truth.

You are enough.

You are enough.

You are enough.

And you always were.

And you always will be.

Reviews

🙏 Thankyou Lisa. Electrical beings that are connected to the earth by gravity. An interesting thought and my visualisation of floating off into space had me laughing 😊.
Then what followed was the universal laws of cause & effect... What I think, feel & do matters!
Namaste ❤️ 🙏

I love this talk. I feel like Lisa and I sat down and had a conversation about waking up. Thank you for the reminder that I am enough and that I’ve always been enough. Love you.🙏♥️🕊️🌈

Thank you. You mirrored my awakening and the tough decisions I finally made after 30+ years.
Also the guilt and shame I felt for for taking so long to walk away.
It's still hard but thanks to mindful self discipline and meditation, and...talks like this, I am staying with my journey and spirituality and

Love her take on this…
So perfectly stated.

Thank you!

I love your work dear, but this one was so deep for me! Thank you for sharing and may God bless you always! And I can say I am awake!!!!!

Thank you for this podcast. Maintaining consistency and repetition with a daily dose keeps me on track. Thank you for sharing your Self, your time and the research with work that goes into each one. We are all enough. Much love to you. 💞💫🙏

Thought provoking. I was brain washed as a child to fear a punishing god.
A talk worthwhile of re-visiting many times.
Thankyou Lisa. 💜

Great insights that begins with awareness and leads to the shift in perception.