Control Is An Illusion

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 So today we're going to be talking about why you should never beat yourself up when things don't go the way you planned So yesterday I hosted a webinar and it was a webinar that lasted two hours Which is a pretty long for a webinar and I had planned this webinar for over a month and every year I host a holiday webinar for people in my community Invite the entire bunch of us those of us from Instagram those of us from Facebook those of us from YouTube And I send that send out an invitation through my email list inviting people to participate in this webinar had over 1500 people sign up and I Planned a slide deck that took me days to pull together now.

I am NOT the most Technologically savvy person in the world and even though I practiced hosting this slideshow and even though I was on the phone with the technical platform that I was using and I thought that I Was ready to launch this webinar.

I thought that the slides were going to act perfectly Lo and behold when I press record the slides disappear and I was Devastated in the moment,

But I'm live right and I hope and I was hoping that the people that showed up live really couldn't tell that I was freaking out,

But honestly,

I was freaking out and I did what I do.

I am pretty good on my feet and when things don't go exactly the way that I would like them to I Generally remain calm and I've practiced the one-two-three process long enough Which is a process that I've created to help people stay in the flow and stay like water versus freeze and detach When they feel like they're under tremendous stress that they can't handle and in relying on the one-two-three process I decided very quickly Lisa listen Look,

What can you control versus what you can't control and stick with this stay in the flow of this You've got a bunch of people online and they expect to hear this webinar They are showing up to hear what you have to say during the holidays.

It's a particularly difficult time Those of us who come from traumatic backgrounds who have toxic parents who have toxic siblings and we're trying to find our bearings We're trying to detach those of us who have left a toxic relationship and have found ourselves in another toxic relationship And we're beginning to understand that this was a traumatic experience and that it is Unhealthy to be in this relationship and that we need to get out of it You know when you're in a toxic relationship when you're codependent,

You don't always know that this is toxic Nor do you understand the trauma that these situations are actually causing the cost of being codependent not knowing it the cost of freezing and fawning in a relationship versus setting a boundary the cost of being in or a member of a Toxic family and feeling like you're in bondage.

I mean when you're in the middle of it You don't understand what it's costing you until you start to get out of it And so this is what I do every year.

I host a holiday webinar for people in this community So I know people were relying on me and then the Google Slides don't work.

So I'm freaking out a little bit and Eventually,

I just decided that you know the heck with it.

I am just going to be completely present for this audience I'm going to flow which is what I love to do.

I'm gonna tap into my feelings I'm gonna tap into what is the message that I want to convey to the people who are really struggling right now And if you take time to listen to the webinar you'll hear a couple of people get really emotional on the calls when they call in they ask me for my advice and What I decided to do in that moment when the slides didn't work was just connect just connect with everybody connect with the audience and Bring them the best value that I can in this hour or two hours that we were going to spend together But something really interesting happened to me as soon as the webinar ended which I didn't expect as soon as the webinar ended I began to berate myself for having the slides not work Even though here I am doing a two-hour presentation on how not to beat yourself up and how to accept yourself and how to personal have personal boundaries and accept what you can control and Release what you can't control and make a decision that is really in the flow of what you want to see happen and manifest You know like even though I followed my own process and system.

I felt like I let people down I felt like I wasn't good enough and That really bothered me and I slept on it and I woke up and I was feeling better until I went to review the webinar And here I am reviewing the webinar and I realized that the wrong Page or the wrong screen was being recorded the whole time So my face is like this big and this the wrong screen is like this big and again Shame came over me and I could hear the inner critic saying what's wrong with you?

You know better you could have done better.

This is all your fault the people that showed up for you This is the screen that they were they were watching Really beating myself up like I had done something wrong and I heard the voice and I went I said to my husband I said,

You know,

And I'm so embarrassed I said I put so much time into the slide deck and it didn't work and I called the company and I was so sure that everything was going to go smooth I really felt like this was going to go off without a hitch.

So that was me attaching to the outcome That was my first mistake I really did attach this idea that everything was going to go as smoothly as I wanted to especially my investment in time And here you are boom live over 1500 people register and nothing's going as planned It's not easy to do that,

Especially live So here I am investing all this time this webinar thinking this is going to work out according to plan it has to because I've done a plus B and that add that equals C and Sure enough as I sit down on my chair chair Nothing goes according to plan and I have to come up with a different solution Which I did when I went to review the webinar like I said,

I was mortified to think the wrong screen was showing the entire time and While I was making my bed and I can hear myself beat myself up and Anthony is fantastic He's so wonderful.

And he said Lisa you showed up your best self,

Right?

You gave people two hours of your time.

You work so hard on the slides.

It didn't work out and No The webinar didn't record the way you wanted it to but did you not give these people the best of you for two hours?

And I thought yes,

I did and I began to let it go then I decided to ask myself What did I learn and what I learned was I am not very good at technology And I need to accept that and maybe the best thing for me when I host a webinar is to just be myself Maybe the best thing for me is to continually connect with people Maybe I don't need slides just because every other life coach out there are many life coaches out there or other business people use slide decks Maybe I don't have to maybe that is the not the path of least resistance for me Maybe the path of least resistance for me is to just show up and be present and to connect find the flow That is me and bring that to the audience.

Maybe that's what I learned I also learned that even though it wasn't the best presentation in terms of a slide presentation I did show up the best that I possibly could and that's all I could do.

I also learned that beating myself up is not Spiritually sound beating myself up is the opposite of what any of us should be doing to ourselves We should be encouraging ourselves.

Certainly if there's something that we could have done better and we can learn from that.

That's good information But the shame spirals are absolutely unnecessary so what I did was when I caught myself going down the shame spiral and I Recognized that my at least in my opinion is tied to family trauma It's tied to childhood trauma growing up as a little girl.

The theme in our home was that we weren't enough We weren't quite enough.

We weren't smart enough.

We weren't pretty enough.

We weren't good enough.

We just weren't enough We weren't enough to gain our mother and father's love to gain their affection to feel safe to feel heard and to feel seen and In my mind as a little girl.

I assume blame for that And of course I did because assuming blame made me feel safe Well,

It was my fault if it was my fault,

Then I had control over Gaining a sense of safety outside of myself by being good enough one day So I'll just try to be good enough.

I'll try to be better.

I'll try to be smarter I'll try to be quieter.

Whatever it is I will try to be better and that gave me a false sense of security So I understood quite frankly earlier this morning Where this feeling not good enough came from because when you're codependent you never feel good enough You don't feel like you've forgiven enough.

You don't feel like you've given enough You don't feel like you've been kind enough There's always more that you should have done for people more you should have done for society You should have done more you should have given more of yourself and God forbid you make a mistake because it is the worst thing in the world because you will feel so ashamed for any slight mistake that happens in any indiscretion and This morning was a huge huge learning lesson for me because the feedback that I got was phenomenal People wrote me and said you hit the nail on the head.

I really enjoyed the webinar.

So here I am beating myself up feeling not good enough and yet the people that showed up didn't feel that way at all and Even if someone says hey you banana like what's the matter?

You don't know how to use a Google slide deck during a presentation even if someone criticized me I would laugh because It wouldn't mean that much to me if someone criticized the fact that it was a technical difficulty And so I just hope that this presentation and what I'm sharing Really offers anyone out there that's struggling with perfectionism struggling with not feeling good enough feeling embarrassed that things don't always go as planned give yourself a break you're human and you making mistakes makes you authentic and If you can be authentic you give people permission to be authentic,

Too And that is a huge lesson to walk away from and so here I am Afraid that so many people are going to notice that this is a big blunder and yet it was all in my mind Because I built it up.

It has to work out this way.

It has to work out this way So I gave myself a full sense of security thinking that my safety was in things going according to plan and yet I was safe,

Even though nothing went according to plan because I'm competent.

I know what I'm talking about I am passionate about what I'm sharing with people and I can connect to myself I can connect to my message and I can connect to my audience and that's really all that matters So I encourage you to be human.

I encourage you to be okay with the times in your life when you make a mistake I encourage you to applaud the times where things Nothing went your way and you handled it like a pro and if you're interested in listening to the webinar I'll leave a link below.

I want to say thank you to everybody who showed up I want to say thank you to those of you who called in and offered your Questions and gave me an opportunity to connect with you in an intimate way.

That's always really special So thank you and know that as you heal your help healing the world Namaste dear ones as I bow to the love and the light that is absolutely in you stop beating yourself up dear one You are enough.

Bye for now