Self Love: The Importance Of Loving The Self Despite Abuse

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.

Namaste everybody.

This is Lisa A.

Romano,

The Breakthrough Life Coach,

And today we will be discussing the importance of self-care and how absolutely crucial it is for those of us who have been abused either by omission or commission,

And I'll explain that in a little bit.

But if you are somebody out there who resonates with the message that in the back of your mind,

Let's say you're going through your day and everything looks perfect and you're one of those people who goes out of his or her way to make sure that everything looks just perfect,

That there isn't a step that we miss,

There isn't a corner that we don't clean,

There isn't a day we go outside not looking how perky is best to make sure what?

That other people think that we're okay.

And that speaks to something within us that has us believing in this idea that we need to keep a face on.

We need to at least help other people perceive that we are okay.

And I remember on the road back to my own soul,

You know,

On the path to recovery,

I was beginning to like really hold myself accountable for the nonsense,

And I mean nonsense that seemed so normal that was running through my head.

And so I remember when I began to milk the observer within me,

I began to understand that I had a higher self,

And that I had the potential to observe my feelings and observe my thought processes.

And I remember questioning myself one day I was as I was running out the door,

And I was panicked because my makeup wasn't on.

And I remember stopping and thinking,

What the hell is this all about?

Why do I care so much about putting makeup on?

I'm not putting makeup on for me.

I mean,

It's not like I'm standing next to myself,

And I'm looking at myself,

Right?

Who am I putting this makeup on for?

Now don't get me wrong,

I love makeup.

I'm actually a makeup artist.

It's one of the things that I've mastered in my life.

However,

My point is that I began to question why I was doing what I was doing.

And I realized that I was putting makeup on or I was afraid to go out without makeup on because of this unconscious idea or notion or fear that was running in the background like static noise in the background,

You know,

Of my mind,

Of my conscious mind,

And of course my subconscious mind that had me worrying about what other people might think of me.

And in my delusion,

I believed that I was more worthy and more acceptable in the eyes of other people if I went outside with makeup on.

And I was less worthy in the eyes of other people if I went outside without makeup on.

Now if you think about that train of thought,

It is actually crazy.

It literally is crazy.

Because here I was thinking that I had some control over other people's perceptions of me.

And it wigged me out.

I was like,

What the hell,

Lisa,

Lisa,

Lisa,

You're driving yourself crazy.

I mean,

It's so complex.

Here I was thinking that,

First of all,

That I was not worthy just as I was.

And here I was,

You know,

So,

So thinking that the world revolved around me,

Right?

You know,

And that people cared whether or not I went outside with makeup on or without makeup on.

You know,

I was so important,

You know,

But it was coming from a very insecure place.

It was coming from a very vulnerable place,

A very raw place,

A place within me that had me believe in that I wasn't good enough.

And that at least if I put some lipstick on,

Maybe I would be less not good enough.

And maybe if I put some mascara on or made sure my eyebrows were even,

You know,

At least maybe I would be a little bit more worthy if I did those things,

You know.

If my car was shiny,

Maybe I would be less unworthy.

I kept chasing this sense of perfection and this sense of worth.

And what was happening,

I didn't realize it,

But all of this was coming to a point in my life that was the result of being conditioned to think that no matter what I did was never good enough.

In all fairness,

It wasn't.

And that's not a victim comment,

You know,

That's just a fact.

No matter the people that I had in my life when I was a young child in my teenage years and in my 20s and my 30s,

The people that I surrounded myself with,

With the exception of my friends,

But my parents,

My siblings,

My in-laws,

My ex-husband,

My brother-in-law,

My sister-in-laws,

I was never good enough.

And that was just a fact.

And so,

Of course,

What I was doing,

Like most people do,

Is I succumbed to these ideas that are set in motion by society as well,

Advertising agencies and whatever,

Well,

If I wear Maybelline,

Maybe I'll be good enough.

And if I'm that weight,

Maybe I'll be good enough.

So all these ideas of maybe I'll be good enough,

Maybe if I do that,

Maybe,

It was all an illusion.

And I didn't know that.

And because I was so below the veil of consciousness,

I was chasing after these ideas that maybe if I do that,

Maybe I'll be good enough.

And it soothed me,

Right,

So this unconscious idea that,

Well,

If I put makeup on,

Then I might be good enough.

And it soothed me for the minute,

For the moment.

And it goes back to the fact that I never saw my mother without makeup,

Not once,

As a child.

And so makeup must be important,

Right?

Because that's what all children do.

They look for meanings to things through what they experience.

So if mommy is upset because the dog pisses in the kitchen and acts like this is the worst thing that ever could have happened,

Then Mary and Johnny grow up thinking that it's a travesty when the dog pisses on the kitchen floor.

Or if mommy raises Cain when she spills milk off the counter,

Then the children grow up thinking that this is terrible.

This is a tragedy when we spill things on the kitchen floor.

Children learn through what they experience in their environment.

So parents,

When we assess a value or a meaning to a thing,

Then our children download it with the same ideas.

So my mother always wore makeup,

So I thought that was important.

So getting back to why it's so important to learn how to self-care,

If you've been abused by omission,

That means that you have not received what you needed in terms of emotional support,

In terms of psychological invisibility.

All children need to know that their parents see them,

Not just physically,

That their parents see them emotionally.

That it's very,

Very important that a child feels attuned with their parent and parents who are not able to attune themselves to their children because of their own issues,

Their own addictions,

Their own codependency issues,

Their own abuse issues,

Their own depression,

They're in their own muck and their own mire.

Parents who are not able to attune themselves to their children emotionally,

The children of those parents have suffered from emotional and psychological neglect.

That's abuse by omission.

Even tactile stimulation,

It is so important.

Our skin is the largest organ of the body and our skin is in contact with this matrix,

With this quantum field.

When we are touched lovingly by another person,

That helps us feel connected,

That helps us feel integrated,

That helps oxytocin to flow,

And that helps us love ourselves.

When we don't experience loving tactile stimulation,

It makes it that much harder for us to believe that we're good enough.

It also makes it harder for us to self-care in the future.

That's abuse by omission.

If you've never been told that you're loved,

If you've never been told that you're good,

You assume the opposite,

I'm not loved and I must be bad.

And a lot of well-intended parents miss the mark on that.

They don't understand the power of touching their child lovingly,

Holding their hand,

Brushing their hair,

Touching their face,

Stroking their forehead,

Just looking into their eyes,

Embracing their little faces and saying,

I love you,

I love you,

I see you,

You matter to me.

I love you so,

So much.

You're such a good little girl.

You're such a good little boy.

There's nothing that you could ever do to make me not love you.

I love you to the moon and back.

Every child needs to hear that.

And so if we haven't heard that,

We've been abused by omission,

Believe it or not.

Abuse by commission means that you've been abused physically,

Through domestic violence,

Through physical abuse,

Through sexual abuse,

Heinous and horrible.

And so if you've been abused physically and you can point at it and you can identify it,

That's abuse by commission.

And if you've been abused by omission,

It's like sort of like being abused by a ghost.

You sense that you've been abused,

But you can't touch it.

You can't look at it.

You can't identify it.

And so in some cases,

It's even harder to put your finger on,

Obviously,

Than it is physical abuse.

And so many of my clients have reported to me that they feel guilty feeling like they have been abused because their parents didn't burn cigarettes into their arms or they weren't sexually abused.

They actually have a difficult time even validating their own sadness and feel guilty because they were abused in a way that they can't say,

Mom,

You did this,

Which is so,

So sad.

And so why is it that it's so important?

You know,

Why is self care so important for people like you or for people like me who've been abused either by omission or commission?

It's important that we as adults,

Men and women learn the value of loving the self.

And when I say loving the self,

I mean we have to learn how to parent ourselves,

Mother ourselves,

And yes,

Father ourselves.

We have to learn how to love ourselves completely and to give ourselves what our parents never gave us.

We have to learn how to first have empathy for the self.

Imagine yourself a little girl.

Imagine the little girl that you are,

That you were.

Imagine the little boy that you were.

And imagine being,

You know,

Four years old or three years old.

And imagine what you went through in your life.

And imagine just observing that little boy or that little girl's experience like you would a lifetime movie.

And think about what you went through when you were little.

Think about how that little child felt.

And this helps you connect to the inner child within you.

And what you will discover,

Like most people discover,

Is that you develop a sense of empathy for this little inner person that you are and that still exists within you.

You know,

Just because we're 50 or 60 or 70 or 20 or 30,

That doesn't mean our inner child isn't with us.

That inner child is within you and will always be within you.

And that experience will always be within you.

Your 12 year old self is still within you.

All the experiences at every stage of your life have been stored within you.

Just because,

You know,

You've got to get past this idea that there's such a thing as time and space.

There is no such thing as time and space.

You know,

Everything is the past,

The present and the future is here right now.

You can't escape the past,

It's with you.

All those experiences are with you.

And we're creating our future right here in the now.

What you think,

What you feel will dictate your future.

What you believe will dictate your future.

And so if we want to change the future and we want to have a better future,

Then we have to change the paradigms for self-love.

If you have experienced neglect and you don't know what it is to love the self,

Then you have a non-loving paradigm that needs to be shifted.

And if you don't shift it,

You can only recreate your past.

And that's not your fault.

That's the nature of consciousness and unconsciousness and that's the way the universe works.

So our thoughts and our beliefs are a paradigm.

It's our programming.

And until we awaken to the programming and understand what metacognition is and we milk the ability to be the observer within,

Then we just keep recreating our pasts.

Not your fault.

And so dear ones,

Today's message is all about learning how to love yourself.

And so what you want to do is you want to nurture a sense of empathy for this,

Your inner child.

And you want to imagine visually watching yourself go through your own life experiences as a child.

And you want to also imagine what kinds of things you think you would have needed to hear when you were a small child and then jot them down.

When I was three years old,

I needed to hear blah,

Blah,

Blah,

Blah,

Blah.

When I was seven years old,

I wish I heard blah,

Blah,

Blah,

Blah,

Blah.

When I was nine years old,

I wish someone told me blah,

Blah,

Blah,

Blah,

Blah.

And you nurture this throughout your life,

Throughout your timeline.

You learn to nurture the child that you were in those experiences.

That'll help you develop empathy for your inner child.

And then what you do is you understand that loving the self is an action and that in the beginning it will not be natural,

But the brain is habitual and we are in habitual states of neglecting the self and that's not a fault.

And the only way to heal that is to act differently and to behave differently.

And to not expect just because you're hearing this,

This podcast,

Don't expect that because you heard this podcast that,

You know,

You're going to wake up tomorrow and love yourself and eat right and go for a 15 or 20 minute walk or,

You know,

Have a spinach shake instead of sausage and cheese and eggs for breakfast.

You're going to eat that spinach shake,

You know,

And you're going to have a yogurt parfait.

It doesn't work that way.

You might,

You might feel inspired,

But until you act on these types of ideas consistently,

You won't develop the neural pathways necessary to create habits of self-love.

And so the whole message that I'm trying to convey here is a very,

Very simple one.

We have to treat ourselves the way we want other people to treat us.

We have to nurture our inner child the way we needed the inner child to be nurtured.

We have to have empathy for what we went through as children,

Even if nobody else in our experience validates our experience.

Very often time,

Abused adult children discover that their parents invalidate their histories.

They say,

That never happened.

You know,

You're just a drama queen or you make a big deal out of nothing or,

You know,

That's not the way I recall the situation,

Blah,

Blah,

Blah,

Blah,

Blah.

And it hurts even deeper to be invalidated.

So know what you feel,

Feel what you feel,

Accept what you feel,

And then decide to change.

Decide to do something about the way you feel.

So if you're depressed,

Then know that it is absolutely scientifically impossible to be happy unless you do something to change the way you're feeling.

And so what we want to do is we want to go into action mode.

So in terms of self-love,

I hope that you understand that it's all about action.

So loving the self would mean,

As far as like,

You know,

The way I looked at it when I was on the recovery journey,

I began very practically,

I began to love my body.

I cut caffeine out of my life for a while.

I made sure that,

You know,

I began to take supplements like multivitamins and multiminerals.

I stopped adding artificial sweeteners into my diet,

I completely took that out.

I began to go on juicing fasts,

You know.

I began to walk,

I began to sit in nature,

I began to meditate,

I began to take Epsom salt baths instead of showers.

I actually scheduled baths because,

You know,

When you're a single mom,

If you've got three kids,

You know,

You're lucky you can take a shower a couple of times a week.

So I began to make sure that I was scheduling my baths and I would put a note on my door so my kids knew this was mommy's bath time,

Quiet time,

Hello,

Leave me alone.

Or I would make sure that,

You know,

I put them all to bed and then I would make sure I absolutely had my sacred time.

I mean,

I lived in a little small house,

Very small house,

Beaten up house,

But I bought beautiful spa candles and I bought me some really nice Epsom salt and,

You know,

Lavender Epsom salt and I made sure I had spa music playing and I would sit in this warm bath and sometimes I would just cry,

Right,

And I would just allow myself to cry.

So loving yourself implies that you have to learn how to take care of yourself.

So start,

For me,

I started with my body and then I moved into making sure I was getting enough sleep.

I was drinking a lot of green tea.

I went from drinking coffee to herbal teas,

Everything to calm myself down.

That's the way I was loving myself.

And then I,

Even though I was driving around in a crappy,

You know,

Minivan,

I made sure that that minivan was clean inside and out.

It made me feel good.

I was taking care of myself.

You know,

I would go through,

I went through my house and I took one draw a day and I began to organize the draws in my house.

You know,

I went through my closets and I threw away clothes that no longer fit and had holes in it.

So the idea was that I was taking myself seriously.

I was learning to self-care.

I also began to go get manicures and pedicures more regularly when I could afford them.

You know,

I couldn't always afford them.

I was working three jobs,

Seven days a week at one point,

And manicures were not on my list.

But I made sure that I was doing other things.

I was making sure that I was getting my rest and I was taking my vitamins and whatever it was that I could figure out that would nurture me,

I would do.

I would go to the library because sometimes I didn't have the money to buy books and I would go to the library and I would sit in a corner all by myself.

There were days that I went to Barnes and Noble and I would sit in Barnes and Noble with a cup of cappuccino,

You know,

Or an herbal tea.

And I would just sit there for hours and just read because I didn't have the money to buy the books at certain times.

But I found ways to nurture myself.

And I also noticed that the more loving I was to other people,

The better I felt about myself.

And so,

You know,

If there was an opportunity for me to be loving,

I was loving.

You know,

I made sure not to stay in an angry place,

You know,

I made sure that when there was a door that I could hold open for an elderly person,

I did it.

You know,

If someone dropped something on the floor,

It wasn't out of codependency,

It was out of me wanting to bless and to be giving in spite of what was going on in my own life.

And so definitely if you have an opportunity to volunteer time,

If you find that that's going to nurture your soul for the right reasons,

Consider it.

Because it's very difficult to be giving and then to at the same time feel crappy.

At least that's what I found in my life.

And so it is very,

Very important for those of us who have not known what it's like to be nurtured by a mom and a dad or an aunt or an uncle or a grandma or a grandfather.

You know,

It's very difficult for us to know what that feels like.

So it's not natural.

We don't have the tools.

Some of us have a difficult time even waking up and brushing our teeth every day.

We do it once in a while,

You know,

Or whatever.

And so it's very important that we understand that that data for taking care of the self is missing.

It is like a file.

It is missing from the brain.

And the only way that we can heal is by deciding to take action in real time with behaviors that reinforce the idea that we are enough.

And so I am hoping that this podcast has inspired you to make a list of the ways that you can absolutely begin loving yourself today.

And you get in the habit of looking at that list every single morning and making sure that you attend to that list and you do something on that list to nurture yourself every single day until it becomes a habit for you to put yourself first.

This is not easy work because we are being called to challenge what is not there.

You know,

What we're trying to do on the road to recovery is add information into the database that is the subconscious mind.

And that ain't easy,

Folks.

That is the warrior's path.

But I can tell you as someone who has been on this trail for quite a long time,

If we don't do it,

Then we stay stuck.

And if we don't act on loving the self,

We cannot attract people who are able to love us.

If we don't love the self and we don't send this information energetically out into the quantum field,

We cannot manifest a loving life.

It's just not possible.

And so what has been done has been done.

It's water over a wheel.

And all the power that we have lies in the now.

Eckhart Tolle is 100% right about that.

All the power is in the now.

The Bible says,

Walk by faith and not by sight.

You know,

The Bible says,

Focus on lovely things.

An awakened person has a choice.

And once we awaken,

We must never forget that we have the power to focus on lack or abundance.

And abundance to someone who has nothing could be five cents.

To someone who had nothing on Monday is literally zero in a bank account,

Who on Tuesday finds five cents in that bank account.

That's abundance.

So somebody who has focused on feeling powerless and ugly and obese and unworthy on Monday,

Who on Tuesday wakes up and says,

You know,

I've got pretty nice hands.

That's abundance.

And so we shift incrementally.

It's not realistic to make gigantic shifts.

It won't last.

And so dear ones,

I hope this podcast has inspired you to shift and to stay on point and to stay on path and to know that the power to heal is absolute within you and to never give up.

There is a force that you can connect to within you that is strong enough to shift your paradigm and help you deliberately manifest an absolute new reality.

That force is real.

That force is real.

And that force is within you.

And the only issue that we have is that that force that we have has been corrupted by our conditioning.

That was not our fault.

We had parents who disconnected ourselves,

Disconnected us from that source.

But as adults,

We have the power to reconnect and to remember who we really are.

You are enough,

Dear ones.

You are enough.

You always were.

No matter what you do,

No matter where you are,

No matter what you have,

No matter what you don't have,

No matter what you look like,

You are enough.

You qualify.

This is Lisa A.

Romano,

The Breakthrough Life Coach.

Thank you for joining me today for this podcast about the importance of learning to love the self.

Namaste,

Dear ones.

Make it a great day.

Bye for now.