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Namaste Dear One,
This morning, at about 4:30 a.m., I was sitting and having coffee with my husband, Anthony, which we do nearly daily. Before we start our busy lives, we spend time chit-chatting about what is on our minds. It is a time to connect and to ensure we stay within one another's universes. This relationship is so different than any other I have ever experienced and is specifically marked by a feeling of safety, ease, and contentment. It is a miracle that despite my long string of crazymaking relationships, I have found myself in such a settled and content experience. And to think I met my husband at 45 and had three children underfoot. After my divorce, when I was putting in all that effort to heal from childhood trauma, specifically faulty subconscious beliefs, although I had no way of being certain that effort would lead me to this easy, mutually satisfying relationship, I know with certainty that is precisely how I ended up here. So, Dear One, never give up.
Getting back to why I am emailing you today...
This morning, I shared with Anthony how heavy my heart feels when I consciously take an inventory of the unfair consequences of childhood trauma that so many people never stop to think about. For example, I have coached three highly successful professional women this week who struggle to advocate for themselves confidently and self-assuredly. However, they have made great strides professionally. This is a common conflict among adult children of traumatic childhoods. However, despite their brutal beginnings, they are willing to come out of the denial of the brutality of their early childhood experiences for the sake of taking the weight of the world off of their shoulders.
These are women who are becoming aware that they've needed to fight harder than their peers because of the rumination, self-doubt, confusion, and punishing inner critic that gaslights their inner child with self-defeating narratives, which are mirrors of the language patterns their narcissistic mothers used against them when they were children.
This newfound awareness helps soften the sharp edges of their inner critics' tongues.
These are women who know they have to stop and feel the feelings trauma has created and stored within their bodies to make their lives better. They know they have to stop running from their unmet needs long enough to allow them to be fully processed by their conscious mind. They know that unless they learn to put themselves first and address these unhealed wounds, they will continue to feel like imposters and feel wrought with anxiety, unworthiness, and distrust of others.
So yea, these women are heroes and mavericks who, against the odds, have become highly successful in their careers, all while the people who were supposed to love, support, encourage, and protect them were weighing them down, insulting them, withholding love and were jealous of their drive, fortitude, and conviction to make something of themselves.
In my book, these women are courageous heroes. Although they currently have difficulty seeing the divine outliers they are because their nervous systems and subconscious minds are stuck in loops of survival thinking and feeling, all I see are cycle breakers, trailblazers, and heroes.
Never forget that unhealed wounds and unmet childhood needs make striving toward any positive goal far more challenging when comparing yourself to someone who grew up with healthy mothers and fathers who encouraged their children even when they fell.
For those of us who have experienced childhood trauma, we have been doing our best to keep our noses above the water line. We had dreams and goals, too, but because we were denied the love, support, and sense of safety all children require to develop faith in our thoughts, desires, goals, abilities, and worthiness, our journeys have been laden with invisible goblins and the lack of emotional, mental, and cognitive skills necessary to get from point a to point b without unnecessary suffering.
Once you make it through to the other side of childhood trauma and you have conquered the faulty negative subconscious beliefs, you, too, Dear One, will see yourself as a maverick and a hero.
Never beat yourself up because you're not where you want to be. Remember, you needed and deserved a supportive parent to succeed. If you did not have that, it might take you a little bit longer to get where you want to go, and that's okay—it's not your fault.
I wanted to share one of my most popular guided healing meditations with you today. It's designed to help you learn to appreciate and validate your inner child's experience so you can begin learning not to be so hard on that innocent being within you.
CLICK HERE
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This picture was the first Christmas without my ex. I was working three jobs, seven days a week, and battling anxiety, depression, and rumination. I knew I was codependent, that childhood trauma was the cause, and that my marriage was killing me slowly, which is why I had to get out, but I had not yet figured out how to heal the holes in my heart or the menacing inner voices in my head.
I am smiling in this picture, yet my mind was swirling with self-doubt.
"Did I do the right thing?"
"Are my feelings correct?"
"Can I do this on my own?"
"Was my ex and mother right about me? Am I crazy? Am I selfish?"
"What if I am wrong?"
"Did I screw up my kids?"
"What if I am never happy?"
"Am I wrong for divorcing their dad and separating our family because of the way I feel?"
When I look at this picture of my younger self today, I marvel at her strength because the people who should have been there, supporting her or at least listening to what she was saying, weren't. Instead, they added stones to my back, criticized, judged, and withheld the encouragement and support I needed.
Maybe I could have had a life of far less suffering had I been born into a healthy, predictably loving family, but you know what? I would not change a thing because of the wisdom, strength, and inner self-confidence I have gained by having to strive without support while being dragged down is priceless!
Dear One, yes, your life will feel more difficult because of childhood trauma. Still, I am here to tell you that that only makes you even more extraordinary when you get up every day and decide to push through the other side of childhood trauma without the support of a healthy, loving family!
All my love,
Lisa A. Romano
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