Denying The Self Equals Denying Self-Love

Welcome to the Breakdown to Breakthrough podcast.

My name is Lisa A.

Romano.

I am a life coach,

Bestselling 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 the importance of not denying a reality.

And I'd like to help everybody understand how easy it is to confuse a child and to be confused.

Think about growing up in a home where you perceive something's wrong.

Maybe daddy's drunk and you say to mommy,

Is daddy drunk?

And mommy says,

No,

Daddy's not drunk.

You perceived correctly that daddy was drunk.

Then daddy turns around and he says something like,

You know,

What are you making your mom angry for?

And so now here you are,

You have perceived the situation correctly.

You have your intuition tells you that something's wrong.

The people that you love the most are telling you nothing's wrong.

What do you do then as a child when you're in a reality is being tossed around,

You know,

Like a hot potato,

Right?

No one wants to touch it.

No one wants to look at it.

Everybody just wants to throw it around like it's a thing.

And yet reality in many ways,

Not always,

But reality is pretty concrete.

So if daddy's drunk,

That's a fact.

If mommy's upset because daddy's drunk,

That's a fact.

When a child walks into a room and perceives that reality,

That reality is a fact.

That perception is correct.

But what happens when over time a child says,

Daddy,

Are you upset?

No,

I'm not upset.

Mommy,

You said,

No,

I'm not sad.

You know,

Are we going to lose the house?

No,

We're not going to lose the house.

You know,

Is uncle Mark angry?

No,

Uncle Mark's not angry.

You know,

It's just this constant invalidation of what's really going on in a home.

It is that easy to get a child to suppress and repress their emotions.

It is that easy to get a child and to get a human being to doubt their reality.

It is that easy to cause a child to feel like they cannot trust what they feel.

It is that easy to get a child to think that it is wrong to speak the truth.

How many of us in day to day life do this exact thing?

We feel a thing,

And not only do our friends say,

Hey,

You know,

Lisa,

How are you feeling?

You're right.

Oh,

Yeah,

I feel fine.

You know,

I don't feel fine.

I don't feel fine.

But how many of us,

Me included,

Pretend from time to time that we are fine when we're not?

Now let's think about the consequences of denial,

Self denial,

Which is irresponsible.

It is not responsible to deny how you feel.

And any form of irresponsibility is going to lead to unhappiness.

It is responsible to be truthful.

It is responsible to be authentic.

And that's really scary when you grow up in a world that it's taught you that it's not safe to be truthful.

That's really scary when you've been growing up,

You've grown up in a world where mommy is angry when you don't agree with her opinion.

That's really scary when you know that your father is going to reject you unless you continue to act like daddy's little girl.

That's really scary when you've lived with people who have made you feel like you're ignorant,

You're stupid,

You're unintelligent,

Or you don't matter.

That's really scary to tell you truth.

And yet the only way to be happy is to learn how to be authentic,

To tell you truth,

And thus be responsible.

Be responsible for the self,

Which all goes back to stopping the denial of self.

Now just because we want to stop denying the self doesn't mean the brain flips a switch and says,

Okay,

I'm going to stop denying my feelings.

It does not work that way.

We're dealing with a very sophisticated brain.

We're dealing with neurological pathways.

We're dealing with ingrained habits.

We're dealing with autonomic responses.

We're dealing with automatic responses.

Habits become autonomic and automatic responses over time.

The mind is more unconscious or subconscious than it is conscious.

We are more asleep than we are awake.

We are more our habits than our conscious efforting.

To be conscious means that I am aware,

And that's exhausting.

To be conscious means that I have activated the prefrontal lobe and I am working through the ability,

The divine power of metacognition to observe the way I think.

The brain can only play with the tools that are in the shed.

If all I have are negative habits,

Then all I can create is a negative life experience over and over and over and over.

It's not me,

It's my programming.

But I am a human being and I exist in a free will society and my mind has the ability to become awakened.

I can become the observer of my thoughts.

I can come out of self denial.

I can undo childhood programming.

Is it easy?

No,

It is not easy.

Is it easy to become a world class athlete?

No.

Is it easy to become a successful business person?

No.

Is it easy to be happy when you've grown up abused and your role models were unhappy?

No,

It is not easy.

It is difficult and anyone that tells you that it's easy to heal is not telling you the truth.

It is difficult to heal.

It is difficult to climb Mount Everest.

It is difficult to wake up in spite of challenges.

It's difficult to wake up and know that you have a day full of challenges.

Try divorcing someone with high narcissistic traits.

Try co-parenting with somebody who is highly reactive.

Try convincing a boss,

A narcissistic boss that you deserve a promotion.

Try speaking out against sexual harassment in the workplace.

No,

It's not easy to do the right thing for you.

It's very difficult.

But in order to experience success in your life,

You've got to be willing to do great things.

Self-esteem is tied to the ability to recognize yourself as worthy,

Confident,

And capable of solving problems.

Low self-esteem is tied to seeking the familiar.

Low self-esteem is tied to not facing what I need to face.

And that's no one's fault because it's really,

Really difficult to face what we need to face.

And part of the reason that so many of us struggle in this area is because the brain is designed to run away from forest fires.

So no,

Healing is not natural.

Healing is something that you have to work for,

Just like you have to train for a marathon.

You have to train for healing.

You have to prepare your mindscape for what's about to happen because healing involves opening up Pandora's box.

And that's not fun.

And the brain is designed to avoid forest fires.

The brain is designed to avoid pain.

The brain wants nothing to do with more pain.

And that's why it will seek the familiar.

It will seek a familiar,

Prickly,

Scary maze that is dark and infested with rats.

If that maze has been patterned in the subconscious mind and the brain knows it can master the maze,

The brain will prefer you stay in the maze and you do the thing it knows you can do and it knows that you can master even if it keeps you stuck versus running for that exit sign that you know nothing about,

That your mind knows nothing about what's beyond that door.

Don't dare go there,

Dear one.

Don't dare go there.

You will experience tension and you will experience anxiety.

And that is because this is something new.

The brain doesn't know what's behind that door.

Becoming more self-reliant,

Becoming more self-responsible,

Becoming more inquisitive about what's behind that door means that you have to manage the emotions that naturally surface when you and your brain and your mind are confronted with an experience you have no pattern for yet.

Every nurse that graduates nursing school the first day as a registered nurse experiences anxiety.

Every police officer out of the academy the first day on patrol experiences anxiety.

Every fireman and every firewoman out of the academy experiences anxiety.

The first day of kindergarten all of us experienced anxiety.

The first time we walked into a new gym or a new yoga class a little bit of anxiety.

It's new.

The first time we took a new way to the mall or to a friend's house we happened to find a new way,

A new route.

We're a little nervous,

We're a little anxious.

That's normal.

What that means is that the brain is on guard because this is new.

And in this newness you are hyper aware.

And this hyper awareness means you're less likely to make mistakes.

But all too often we as human beings perceive this anxiety as a negative and we shut down.

And no,

No,

No,

I can't do this.

It's too scary.

It's too scary.

It's too scary.

We self-deny.

And the mall goes back to being raised to not trust our intuition,

To not trust how we really feel.

We were taught to be afraid to trust our instincts.

We were conditioned to think that what we think is irrelevant,

Stupid,

Unnecessary,

But just not correct.

The goal is to come out of self-denial.

The goal is to start recognizing your intuition as valid.

The goal is to recognize how often you may have been taught to suppress,

Repress,

And deny what you feel.

The goal is to thaw out.

The goal is to stop fawning,

Stop people pleasing,

Stop acquiescing.

It doesn't mean we step on the heads of other people.

It doesn't mean we become obnoxious.

It means that we understand that perhaps we've engaged in enabling relationships.

And it's going to take time for the people that we love to understand that we're changing.

And we hope that they come along for the ride.

But primarily,

The goal is to understand where self-denial comes from,

Why it is so many of us suppress and repress and deny,

And to understand that better days are ahead.

The goal is to recognize that self-denial is basically denying yourself the right to grow and to self-love and to self-care and to experience happiness,

Which is the whole goal of the human existence.

It is not normal to be unhappy,

Although most of us never question our state of happiness.

We think that,

Oh,

If I go to that event,

I'll be happy for 30 minutes.

Oh,

If I have that relationship,

I'll be happy for a while.

But then we always recoil to our basic emotional set point.

So happiness is really,

We have to renegotiate what we believe happiness is.

And in order for us to experience happiness on a daily basis,

Which is basically contentment and the freedom to be who we are and to change and to ebb and to flow and to manifest people who are able to accept us for who we are and people that we can accept for who they are,

Our vibe tribe,

Our sense of self and feeling like we've manifested people who are actually friends,

Not adversaries,

People that welcome our growth and celebrate our growth and people that we can celebrate their growth.

That's a beautiful thing.

That to me is happiness.

That's success to me.

And so I hope that this has inspired you to understand a little bit more about self denial,

A little bit more about how we are conditioned to deny the self and the consequences that this has on a life journey for someone who is unaware that they are in a state of self denial.

I hope that it's encouraged you to love yourself and to honor yourself and to become all that you were meant to be.

Namaste,

J1s.

Until next time.

Bye for now.