Have you ever been accused of being a problem simply because you brought up a problem? In healthy relationships, it is essential that couples feel safe and are on the same page. It is normal to want your relationship to grow, and to wonder where the line is when it comes to bringing things to your partner's attention that you would like to change. However, there are red flags you need to be aware of particularly if you struggle with fawning, people pleasing, insecure attachment and tend to be the codependent partner in relationships.

In this episode, Lisa A. Romano Codependency Expert and Breakthrough Life Coach, helps us get clear about some communication guidelines that can help us make clear, logical, and fair decsions about our relationships.

• Does your partner accuse you of being the only problem simply because you want to talk about a problem?
• Are they passive-aggressive, and do they punish you for bringing up an issue you'd like to work out?
• Do they deny a problem exists at all, making it impossible for you to experience any movement forward in your relationship or resolution?
• Are you being gaslit, devalued, or ignored for talking about a real issue?

Consider these red flags, and also ask yourself:

• Does my partner have the willingness to listen?
• Are they capable of real change?
• Do they want to work on the relationship?

Before walking away or making any major life decisions, getting clear about your partner's behaviors, intentions, and level of willingness to discuss, change, or work on marital issues, allows you to act on your own behalf with confidence rather than codependently.

Ready to Conquer the Inner Child Wounds that Keep You Repeating Codependency?

Click below to learn more about The 12 Week Breakthrough Coaching Program—a trauma-informed, neuroscience-based coaching program created specifically for adult children of narcissistic, neglectful, or emotionally immature caregivers, who are ready to ascend the chains of the past.

Inside the program, you'll be guided through:

• Brain retraining techniques rooted in neuroscience
• Inner child healing and self-concept reorganization
• Neuroscience Backed Journaling prompts and assessments to increase self-awareness
• Tools to stop subconscious self-abandonment and start living from your true self
• Embrace shadow work from a higher state of consciousness to experience integration

This method has helped thousands heal from complex trauma and break toxic generational patterns, with tools to rewire limiting beliefs and build authentic self-worth.

👉 Learn more: here

#CodependencyRecovery #InnerChildHealing #NarcissisticParent #EmotionalNeglect #TraumaInformedHealing #ComplexTrauma #SelfAbandonment #NeuroscienceBasedHealing

Codependency is an umbrella term used to describe a broad spectrum of emotional, mental and behavioral, subconscious, and automatic trauma responses developed in early childhood as an adaptation to chronic, inescapable stress. While over-functioning as a small child, to avoid rejection, the child's nervous system learns to scan their environment for potential threats. This scanning is called hypervigilance, and it also exiles the inner child into an abyss. Children of toxic, dysfunctional parents, families, and circumstances are denied the compassionate adult, whose role is to mentor, teach, and guide a child in a way that nurtures a positive sense of self. The very basics of healthy human interraction are not modeled.

A child who has learned they must scan their environment must:

• Use their conscious waking hours scanning their parents' facial expressions, moods, and tones--while this is occurring, a child is learning how to morph and adapt, rather than explore the inner self, their inner child, their inner landscape
• Abandoning the self, including their innate needs, wants, emotions, and right to be authentic, to avoid further emotional neglect, abuse, bullying, or rejection—while this survival response was useful during childhood, the adult child eventually learns that they often don't know what they want or need. This can be a frustrating experience in therapy and relationships.

If you are codependent, you may have felt frustrated in therapy when asked, "What do you need" What do you want?" Codependents do not know what they need.

Codependency is built on self-abandonment.

Many codependents grew up in environments where their emotions were dismissed, mocked, punished, or ignored. Carl Jung would say their inner child—what he called the "Divine Child"—was exiled.

So when asked:

• "What do you feel?"

• "What do you want?"

• "What do you need?"

…they genuinely do not know.

This creates enormous frustration in therapy, because the inner world feels foreign, inaccessible, or even dangerous. The codependent has learned to trust external authority over inner intuition.

Reconnecting with the inner self requires time, patience, and the slow dismantling of shame.

Therapy asks them to return to a Self they have never been allowed to meet.

The journey back home must be slow, steady, and compassionate; otherwise, therapy can sometimes cause more harm than good and lead to a codependent person trying to please the therapist, thereby reenacting a facet of their adaptation survival response.

Begin Your Healing Journey:

Lisa introduces her signature 12 Week Breakthrough Method—a trauma-informed, neuroscience-based coaching program created specifically for adult children of narcissistic, neglectful, or emotionally immature caregivers.

Inside the program, you'll be guided through:

• Brain retraining techniques rooted in neuroscience
• Inner child healing and self-concept reorganization
• Neuroscience Backed Journaling prompts and assessments to increase self-awareness
• Tools to stop subconscious self-abandonment and start living from your true self
• Embrace shadow work from a higher state of consciousness to experience integration

This method has helped thousands heal from complex trauma and break toxic generational patterns, with tools to rewire limiting beliefs and build authentic self-worth.

👉 Learn more: here

#CodependencyRecovery #InnerChildHealing #NarcissisticParent #EmotionalNeglect #TraumaInformedHealing #ComplexTrauma #SelfAbandonment #NeuroscienceBasedHealing

Adult children of alcoholics, and those raised in narcissistic, toxic, neglectful and unpredictable homes, who decide to dive into self growth, self help and emotional healing, inevitably learn that they cannot unsee what they see now that they have awakened to the truth of their toxic family dynamics. This can be a distressing time for someone who has identified themselves as a caretaker, rescuer, people pleaser and who has felt responsible for maintaining family relationships, at all costs, and even at the expense of their mental, emotional, physical and spiritual health.

It is bittersweet to awaken to the truth of a toxic family system, and to be confronted by the fact that just because you can see the truth, it does not imply the people you love, who you have been enmeshed with and you have tried to save, fix or rescue, will want to see what you see. In this episode, Lisa A. Romano, opens up about the emotional challenges of a healing adult child who struggles with abandonment trauma, codependency, and the fear of disconnection, who fawns to keep toxic family dynamics and unhealthy friendships afloat when they discover that they must let go of those they love.

In this episode, you will learn:

✨How to get more comfortable with accepting the uncomfortable reality of having to let someone you love go.

✨How codependency pushes God's love out and idolizes fear instead.

✨What you need to know about making a spiritually aligned decision when needing to end a toxic relationship with a loved one, family or friend.

✨Easy to recall Biblical Scriptures that reinforce the need for healthy boundaries when any relationship fills your heart with fear vs God's love.

Lisa's 12 Week Breakthrough Program is a neuroscience-based roadmap to help you gently rewire subconscious patterns, regulate your nervous system, and return home to your authentic self.

👉 Begin your journey: https://www.lisaaromano.com/12-wbcp

#HealingJourney #SpiritualAwakening #InnerConnection #TraumaRecovery #NeuroscienceHealing #SelfDiscovery #YouAreEnough #LisaARomanoPodcast #PurposeWithin #toxicfamily #adultchildrenofalcoholics #lettinggo #innerchildhealing #toxicfamilysystems #codependencyrecovery #lisaaromano #mentalhealthpodcast #healingjourney #selfhelppodcast

If you've ever felt lost, numb, or silently asked yourself "Why do I feel so disconnected from life?" — this episode was made for you.

Lisa A. Romano breaks down the root of disconnection through the lens of trauma, neuroscience, and spiritual awakening, revealing that the real crisis isn't outside of us — it's the illusion that we are separate from our true self.

From childhood abandonment to social media comparison, our brains are programmed to seek meaning outside of us. But the more we chase purpose externally, the further we drift from the one place it has always been — within.

In this episode, you'll learn:

✨ Why trauma wires the brain to predict danger instead of joy 🧠 How subconscious programming creates a false identity—and how to break it 🪞 What it means to "merge with self" and stop living in survival mode 🕊️ A simple path to restoring meaning through presence, meditation, and self-observation

You'll resonate deeply with this episode if:

✔️ You feel emotionally disconnected or spiritually empty ✔️ You live in your head more than your body ✔️ You crave peace but don't know how to access it ✔️ You're ready to stop chasing purpose and start embodying it

Lisa's 12 Week Breakthrough Program is a neuroscience-based roadmap to help you gently rewire subconscious patterns, regulate your nervous system, and return home to your authentic self.

👉 Begin your journey: https://www.lisaaromano.com/12-wbcp

#HealingJourney #SpiritualAwakening #InnerConnection #TraumaRecovery #NeuroscienceHealing #SelfDiscovery #YouAreEnough #LisaARomanoPodcast #PurposeWithin

What if everything you believe about who you are — your name, your past, your emotions, even your thoughts — is not actually you?

In this powerful episode, Lisa A. Romano guides you beyond surface-level healing and into the core illusion that keeps so many of us trapped: the false self. Drawing from neuroscience, psychology, and spiritual wisdom, Lisa reveals how trauma wires the brain to associate authenticity with danger, keeping us neurologically stuck in survival mode long after the threat is gone.

When safety is wired to people-pleasing, fawning, or emotional shutdown, the real you gets buried beneath layers of programming. But through conscious awakening, and by breaking through veil after veil of illusion, you can remember who you truly are.

In this episode, you'll discover:

✨ Why your brain resists emotional truth even when your soul craves freedom 🧠 How survival patterns become neurological defaults 🚪 The moment you realize "That's not me" and shatter ego-identification 🔥 Why authenticity feels unsafe (and how to rewire it as safety) 🌟 The radical power of witnessing yourself as consciousness instead of conditioning

This episode is for you if:

✔️ You feel stuck in the same emotional cycles ✔️ You've done inner work but still don't feel fully free ✔️ You've questioned your identity, purpose, or sense of self ✔️ You're ready to step into higher consciousness

Begin Your Breakthrough

Lisa's signature 12 Week Breakthrough Program is a neuroscience-based roadmap designed to help you break through subconscious programming, regulate your nervous system, and return to your true self.

👉 Start your journey: https://www.lisaaromano.com/12-wbcp

#InnerChildHealing #SpiritualAwakening #TraumaRecovery #NeuroscienceHealing #EgoDeath #CodependencyRecovery #HigherConsciousness #LisaARomanoPodcast #FalseSelf #AuthenticSelf #12WeekBreakthrough

Saying NO is the turning point in recovery from codependency, narcissistic abuse, and childhood trauma. But for adult children of alcoholics and trauma survivors, it can feel terrifying—like you're choosing rejection or abandonment.

In this episode, we'll explore why the first boundary is always the hardest, and why it's also the most powerful step toward freedom.

You'll discover:

• Why your brain links "no" with danger and rejection

• How childhood programming makes boundaries feel unsafe

• Why toxic people push back when you finally walk away

• How saying no rewires your brain for self-love and peace

If guilt, fear, or self-doubt rise up when you try to protect your peace, this episode will remind you: you're not broken—your brain is coded to expect pain. And with awareness, you can rewrite that code.

💡 Stay through the end for practical encouragement to stay strong in your healing journey.

Start your healing today with the groundbreaking, science backed, psychologist approved 12 Week Breakthrough Method.

Click here to learn more

👉 Subscribe for more on codependency recovery, emotional healing, boundaries, and breaking free from toxic family dynamics.

#HealingJourney #CodependencyRecovery #ToxicPeople #EmotionalHealing #Boundaries #NarcissisticAbuseRecovery #InnerChildHealing

Growing up in a toxic family system wires you to live in shame and codependency—and often leads you to attract narcissists or relationships that repeat the cycle. In this episode, Lisa A. Romano explains how childhood trauma programs your brain and nervous system for survival, and how you can begin breaking free from people-pleasing, guilt, and self-abandonment. If you're ready to reclaim your self-worth and step out of survival mode, this is your wake-up call.

✨ This episode is a must-listen if you:

• Grew up with alcoholism, narcissism, or neglect in your family system

• Feel stuck in codependent patterns and toxic relationships

• Struggle with guilt, shame, or saying "no"

• Long to reclaim your self-worth and live authentically

👉 Begin your healing journey today: 50% Off the 12 Week Breakthrough Method

#CodependencyRecovery #ChildhoodTraumaHealing #AdultChildrenOfAlcoholics #NarcissisticAbuseRecovery #InnerChildHealing #EmotionalNeglect #ToxicFamilySystems #HealingShame #BreakthroughMethod #SelfAbandonmentRecovery

In this powerful episode, Lisa A. Romano, trauma-informed life coach and codependency recovery expert, dives deep into the often-overlooked role that anger plays in the healing journey from parental narcissism and complex trauma. Growing up in a dysfunctional family can leave emotional scars that are not easily seen, but they shape how we experience relationships and view ourselves as adults.

• How denial serves as a survival strategy in dysfunctional family systems and how it can keep us stuck in toxic patterns

• The hidden anger that emerges from growing up with one narcissistic parent and another who was passive or emotionally absent

• Why it's common to feel guilt or confusion when recognizing anger toward a passive parent, even when they weren't overtly harmful

• How anger toward both parents can fuel the codependent behaviors and emotional dysregulation that often follow complex trauma

• The critical step of recognizing your anger as a valid emotion in the recovery process, and how it leads to clarity and healing

When we grow up in a home where one parent's instability wreaks havoc, and the other's passivity leaves us emotionally unprotected, we internalize survival mechanisms like hyper-independence or helplessness. These patterns affect our ability to set healthy boundaries, build trust, and create meaningful connections later in life.

Recognizing anger as part of the healing process is key. It isn't about blaming anyone, but rather about understanding how these dynamics shaped your sense of worth, your self-protection mechanisms, and your relationships today.

Lisa's 12 Week Breakthrough Coaching Program helps you break free from codependency, complex trauma, and the long-lasting effects of narcissistic abuse. Through transformational lessons, journaling exercises, and neuroscience-based tools, this program will guide you toward emotional autonomy and inner peace.

12 Week Breakthrough Method: Start Today for 50% Off Learn More and Sign Up Here

#CodependencyRecovery #NarcissisticAbuse #ComplexTrauma #ParentingTrauma #EmotionalNeglect #InnerChildHealing #TraumaRecovery #LisaRomano #BreakthroughHealing #HealingFromNarcissisticParents

It is estimated that there are at least 28 million adult children of alcoholics in the United States alone. The statistics are staggering. Combine those numbers with a deep understanding of the impact of growing up in an alcoholic home, and it becomes easy to understand why so many adult children struggle with emotional regulation, telling the truth, setting boundaries and with emotional dependencies that result in seeking approval and validation in order to feel somewhat 'normal'.

Many adult children of alcoholics do not even know their parents or grandparents were alcoholics. Toxic family systems are enmeshed and shrouded in denial. When the adults in the family are not addressing their trauma, they inadvertently pass that trauma down to their children. Listen in as Lisa A. Romano offers adult children across the globe an opportunity to better understand themselves, how they process their emotions and perceive themselves and the world through a trauma lens, offering all those who are willing and ready an opportunity to live above the veil of consciousness, the only place where true transformation can occur.

This episode is a must-listen if you:

• Grew up with a parent who struggle with addiction.

• You are the grandchild of an alcoholic.

• Recognize that you struggle to know what you want or need.

• Identify as a cyclebreaker, who is ready to speak the truth and end generational trauma with you!

✨ Pro tip: Understanding your parent's trauma is often a key in recovering from subconscious faulty, negative childhood survival patterns.

Begin Your Healing Journey:

Lisa introduces her signature 12 Week Breakthrough Method—a trauma-informed, neuroscience-based coaching program designed for adult children of narcissistic, neglectful, or emotionally immature parents.

Inside the program, you'll discover:

• Brain retraining techniques rooted in neuroscience.

• Inner child healing and self-concept reorganization.

• Journaling prompts and assessments to increase self-awareness.

• Tools to stop subconscious self-abandonment and live authentically.

• How to integrate shadow work and break toxic generational patterns.

Thousands have transformed their lives with this method—learning to step out of survival mode and into authentic, empowered living.

👉 Learn more: https://www.lisaaromano.com/12-wbcp

#CodependencyRecovery #ParentingPatterns #GenerationalHealing #TraumaInformedHealing #InnerChildHealing #EmotionalNeglect #ComplexTrauma #ConsciousParenting #SelfAbandonment #adultchildrenofalcoholics #codependency #lisaaromanopodcast

When Innocence Feels Like Rejection: How Codependent Mothers Misread Their Children

What happens when a child's innocent comment gets filtered through the lens of an unhealthy, codependent mom versus a healthy, emotionally attuned mom? The difference can shape not only the child's self-worth but also the generational cycle of codependency.

In this episode, Lisa A. Romano, Breakthrough Life Coach and bestselling author, unpacks how unhealed wounds distort a mother's perception of her child's needs and words. An emotionally unhealthy mother, trapped in her own unresolved pain, may perceive an innocent statement like "I wish I could play with you more" as a personal attack—triggering shame, defensiveness, or withdrawal. A healthy mother, however, sees the same comment for what it is: a child's bid for love and connection.

This powerful contrast reveals why addressing codependency is not just self-work—it's generational work. If left unchecked, codependency programs children to feel responsible for others' feelings, abandon their own needs, and repeat the same painful patterns in adulthood.

Lisa shows you how to break the cycle by teaching:

• Why codependent programming distorts reality and causes misinterpretation of innocent words.

• The neuroscience behind why trauma survivors often personalize others' emotions.

• How healthy mothers validate their child's truth without collapsing into shame or defensiveness.

• Why breaking free from codependency is the single most important gift you can pass to your children.

This episode is a must-listen if you:

• Grew up with a parent who made you feel guilty for your feelings.

• Struggle with people-pleasing or fearing rejection.

• Want to stop codependency from spilling into your parenting or relationships.

• Are ready to see how your healing ripples into future generations.

✨ Pro tip: Awareness is the first step. When you learn to recognize these patterns, you reclaim your ability to create healthy connections and stop carrying wounds that were never yours to bear.

Begin Your Healing Journey:

Lisa introduces her signature 12 Week Breakthrough Method—a trauma-informed, neuroscience-based coaching program designed for adult children of narcissistic, neglectful, or emotionally immature parents.

Inside the program, you'll discover:

• Brain retraining techniques rooted in neuroscience.

• Inner child healing and self-concept reorganization.

• Journaling prompts and assessments to increase self-awareness.

• Tools to stop subconscious self-abandonment and live authentically.

• How to integrate shadow work and break toxic generational patterns.

Thousands have transformed their lives with this method—learning to step out of survival mode and into authentic, empowered living.

👉 Learn more: https://www.lisaaromano.com/12-wbcp

#CodependencyRecovery #ParentingPatterns #GenerationalHealing #TraumaInformedHealing #InnerChildHealing #EmotionalNeglect #ComplexTrauma #ConsciousParenting #SelfAbandonment

The Truth About Empaths, Childhood Trauma, and Shadow Work

Are empaths born—or made?

In this eye-opening episode, Lisa A. Romano, Breakthrough Life Coach and bestselling author, explores the origin of empathic sensitivity and its powerful connection to childhood trauma, emotional wounding, and spiritual purpose.

Some empaths are created through painful early experiences—rejection, abandonment, emotional neglect, and feeling unseen. These wounds condition the developing brain into hypervigilance, keeping the child's psyche locked in "scanning mode." When a child is forced to tune into the emotions and behavior of others to feel safe, they become disconnected from their true self—and this is the breeding ground for codependency.

Other empaths are born, arriving with a spiritual assignment. Their nervous systems and emotional bodies are designed to feel what others suppress. Often, these empathic souls absorb the denied pain of their caregivers—especially unhealed maternal figures. Over time, these empaths become sensitive not just to individual pain, but to the collective suffering that society ignores.

But without proper tools, empaths can become emotionally capsized, overwhelmed by the very gift they were meant to use consciously. That's why Lisa teaches empaths how to use symbols, metaphors, and boundaries to reframe their experience, and to reclaim the connection to self that trauma stole.

This episode is a must-listen for anyone who:

• Feels deeply affected by other people's moods and energies

• Grew up walking on emotional eggshells

• Struggles with codependency, people-pleasing, or emotional burnout

• Wants to understand the true purpose behind their empathic gifts

You'll also learn why many empaths feel called to "fix" or "rescue" others—and why this often stems from unresolved inner child wounds, not divine purpose. Healing begins when we stop absorbing and start integrating.

Lisa shares why true transformation for empaths lies in shadow work, conscious integration, and elevating the nervous system. Those brave enough to face their own shadows don't just heal themselves—they become vessels for generational healing.

✨ Pro tip: You may want to listen to this episode more than once. It's packed with golden nuggets that could change your life.

Begin Your Healing Journey:

Lisa introduces her signature 12 Week Breakthrough Method—a trauma-informed, neuroscience-based coaching program created specifically for adult children of narcissistic, neglectful, or emotionally immature caregivers.

Inside the program, you'll be guided through:

• Brain retraining techniques rooted in neuroscience
• Inner child healing and self-concept reorganization
• Neuroscience Backed Journaling prompts and assessments to increase self-awareness
• Tools to stop subconscious self-abandonment and start living from your true self
• Embrace shadow work from a higher state of consciousness to experience integration

This method has helped thousands heal from complex trauma and break toxic generational patterns, with tools to rewire limiting beliefs and build authentic self-worth.

👉 Learn more: here

#CodependencyRecovery #InnerChildHealing #NarcissisticParent #EmotionalNeglect #TraumaInformedHealing #ComplexTrauma #SelfAbandonment #NeuroscienceBasedHealing #empath