Talk Therapy is Not Enough

My first earnest bout with a therapist happened after the birth of my second child, although the truth is, I should have been in therapy by the time I was seven.  If I had had an empathic ear back then, it might have saved me from assuming that the rejection of my mother's love was my fault. Perhaps having someone to talk to back then could have prevented the kind of crippling shame that results in obsessive counting, hair pulling, eating disorders, and other compulsive behaviors my innocent, wounded inner child's mind volleyed with as ways to ease the insurmountable anxiety of abandonment, loneliness, and feelings of unworthiness.

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Yes, a comforting ear would have made all the difference back then, long before the neurological fibers tied to assuming my mother's inability to nurture me warmly was my fault had programmed my nervous system to live in survival through decades of observation, repetition, and consistency.

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A child is in a hypnotic brainwave state, called theta, until about the age of seven, and so yes, even one comforting, consistent, predictable ear in my life could have made all the difference. However, that early intervention never came, and as a result, I had no other choice but to live in fear of the one who was born to bring me a sense of safety in this world, the kind of feeling that could have become the foundation for a strong mind, mental clarity, and a healthy sense of self rooted in a sense of worthiness.
Rather, my nervous system solidified in hypervigilance and a sort of mental expectation that an attack was always right around the corner. This was the basis of my anxious personality, although my mother and father simply labeled me a drama queen.

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The soil of my innocent inner child's mind was malnourished and dry. Weeds grew in my subconscious, where love should have embraced seeds of self-worth. I did not feel or believe I was worthy of love. How could I? I was never told I was loved or that I was good. Instead, the most I could hope for was not to be so tongue-lashed or doused in the gasoline of criticism and rejection. Feeling loved? Oh no...All I could feel was that I was not good enough, or worthy of love, and not being loved was my fault...my doing.

Insecure Anxious Attachments

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Over the years, my feelings of unworthiness intensified. I now understand that this is a normal and valid experience, one that is a natural psychological and emotional process. A child who is born to the emotionally arrested, ego-driven, and severely wounded always adjusts to whatever their environment is. So, if a mother is unable to connect and attach to her children, those children by default are unable to connect with their innate self worth and that is not their fault, and no, they are not broken.
You are not broken! I was never broken!

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It took decades for me to unravel the deep, faulty beliefs within my subconscious and to clear the energy associated with negative subconscious faulty beliefs. These self-eroding beliefs were the result of being raised by two unrecovered, controlling, withholding, codependent, and narcissistic parents, who never questioned their own beliefs, emotions, or ways of being. They lacked self-awareness, assumed that any opinions and feelings were justified, and the result was, in my opinion, disastrous.

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It is a miracle that I am alive today, tapping on this keyboard, with the intention of awakening the kind of self awareness within you that causes one to pause, reflect, to freaking stop the mind chatter for a moment, and ponder. It is in the stopping, pausing, and contemplating that clearing and healing occur, and I so hope, with all of my heart, that this is happening for you as I connect with you this early morning.
I was twelve years old when the scent of death felt more pleasing than having to draw another breath. This reflection does not sadden me any longer. It fills me with deep humility and self-compassion instead. It also fills me with compassion for other human beings, my divine brothers and sisters, who, through no fault of their own, operate from below the veil of true awakened consciousness, with ego identities in control, unaware they are unaware. And although many may know they have experienced trauma in their childhoods and may even be under the care of a licensed mental health professional, they still feel stuck, hopeless, and like a failure because relief has not come or is only momentary.

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On this early morning, I am filled with the intention to bring a bit of what I learned the hard and long way, in the hopes of activating some higher self inquiry in you. I also know many will not read this email, or may never make it this far, but you have, and for that, this soul is grateful. My spirit sees you, and it blesses you and your courage, and tenacity to cling to hope, and sometimes in the forms of letters strung together via an email by someone you believe has walked your path.
I get it...

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Today, I want you to understand that if you are seeking relief, what you are truly after is mental clarity, emotional clearing, and balance. You are after a kind of self-confidence that comes by way of organizing your thinking processes, which allows you to know that you have approached any situation properly, despite its outcome. Relief implies your false self is no longer in control. It means you are no longer addicted or in compulsive need for others to approve or validate you. It means you have cleared the emotional charges tied to those traumatic childhood experiences caused by abuse, abandonment, disconnection, and being raised by the egoically unaware.

When Therapists Do More Harm Than Good

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That first therapist of mine did more harm than good when he realized he could not help me and insisted I was not praying hard enough. Although deeply spiritual, I resented his suggestion and thought of him as a nincumpoop. Intuitively, I knew he had no idea how to help me unravel my fears, and out of desperation and his own egoic salvation, he threw the consequence of my angst into my lap, and blamed my lack of faith for my crippling panic attacks, and debilitating sense of doom and dread.

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Lost, it was at least another six years, during the total collapse of my marriage, body, and mind, that I began seeing other therapists. One told me I did not love my ex-husband enough, and another told me I was wrong for being angry or unhappy. More shame, piled onto more shame. And the one couple's therapist that seemed to have my ex's number, well, my ex just refused to keep coming to those sessions, and eventually the therapist moved and closed her practice.

The Drama Queen and Dissonance

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Still, only because I understood how frayed my psyche was becoming and I knew I needed to keep it together for my children, I felt what can only be described as the kind of divine intervention that is born of spiritual, emotional, and psychic surrender, the kind that guts you because you feel as if you've struck rock bottom. My parents, siblings, and ex had joined conscious forces. To them, I had no right to feel unhappy, to complain, to want more from my marriage, or from myself. Yet again, the label reared its ugly head.
I was not a person with valid experiences; I was just a 'drama queen.'

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Still, this time, I had a different intention. Rather than look for a therapist to fix me or my marriage, I ached for one to tell me what was wrong with me. I wanted to know what I was doing wrong. I wanted to know what he/she could see in me that I needed to see because, despite my desire to 'feel better' and all of the hours I clocked talking about my feelings, none of the therapists I found could help me in a way that was tangible, logical, or doable. Any couple's therapy session failed either because I felt shamed or he felt shamed. He was stuck. I was stuck, and talking was doing nothing but making everything worse.
My new therapist's name was Ed, and I met him every Tuesday in the early afternoon for a 50-minute session. During our first meeting, he helped me to begin organizing my mind in a way no other therapist ever had. By diagnosing me with codependency and linking it back to being raised by two unrecovered adult children of alcoholics, my entire mindmap shifted, and the old paradigm began to weaken within my subconscious mind. Suddenly, I no longer felt broken, but instead felt relief as I began to imagine that the shame I felt was, in fact, valid, understandable, and even appropriate considering my childhood experiences and especially feeling so disconnected from my mother.

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Ed was less interested in me talking about my feelings than he was in WHY I felt the way I did. And although that intuitive therapist did not say much, his refusal to blame me for why I felt the way I felt was just enough for this starved soul to allow herself to stop blaming herself for why she felt what she felt.
Rather than talk about my feelings, Ed's way of being helped guide me toward a new path, one that was anchored in self-inquiry, self-understanding, and essentially self-gnosis. Was I healed in the time I spent with him on those Tuesday mornings? No...But I was healing and, more importantly, I was gaining self-enlightenment and awakening to a more profound truth that I needed to embrace, explore, and commit my life to.

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Looking back over nearly three decades, I marvel at all the small moments of self-awareness that shaped the path I walk today. Each lesson in accountability, humility, and emotional mastery became a stepping stone toward taming the protective ego that once ruled my life. My mind had been doing its best to keep me safe—repeating the familiar, unaware that beyond those loops existed a vast quantum field of infinite potential I could access once I began breaking free from the patterns, programs, and templates trauma had created.

I Wasn't a Drama Queen; I Was Wounded and Living Below the Veil of Consciousness

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It’s important that my message not be misunderstood. I am not anti-therapy. I deeply value the power of therapy when guided by a skilled, grounded, and intuitive practitioner—someone more interested in helping you reach the root cause of pain than in simply managing symptoms or filling time.

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The most transformative therapists act as facilitators of awakening. They encourage self-inquiry, emotional regulation, and nonjudgmental awareness—helping you reconnect with your inner authority and innate healing intelligence.

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Therapists who work from ego or believe they are the healer may unintentionally disempower clients. But those who understand that healing is a collaborative awakening of consciousness can illuminate the path that leads you back to yourself.

The Power of the Nonjudgmental Observer

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Today, nearly 3 decades after meeting an intuitive therapist, I understand why traditional talk therapy was not enough for me. I didn’t need to be told to pray harder, love harder, or try harder. I needed someone who could help me see why I believed I was unworthy of love in the first place. It wasn’t until I met a therapist like Ed, who was someone who saw beyond the surface, beyond the stories and defenses, that real transformation began.

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His approach allowed me to find a path that honored both neuroscience and spirituality, trauma and codependency, my inner child and higher self.

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I learned how to observe my thoughts without judgment, regulate my emotions, and set expectations aligned with the truth of my innate worthiness, while honoring the validity of my anxieties through the lens of self-compassion rather than self-judgment, self-hate, or self-disgust.

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Talking about my feelings from within my feelings, anchored to my wounded ego, only reinforced the faulty negative self-perceptions that were at the helm of self-abandonment, codependency, and running on empty. What changed my life was working with someone who taught me to go deeper, to observe the talking in my head, rather than open my mouth and repeat the thought forms verbally and out loud.
Rather than focus on symptoms, he taught me to focus on the causes without judgment, or the need to blame. In time, I taught myself how to do this within my own mind and developed methods I now teach others.

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Healing didn’t come from being told what to believe or who to be. It came from permitting myself to feel all of my feelings, including shame, the terror of abandonment, and the obsessive need to put others' needs before my own. It came from finding the space between my loop-like thoughts and trigger-like emotions, long enough to beckon the feminine sacred energy of the mother within; the only energy that could ensure my inner child she was safe and could feel whatever it is she needed to express.

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In time, and it took a few years, eventually all the denied, shamed, repressed, and suppressed energies associated with my early childhood were honored and flushed. It was then that my consciousness began to remember who I already was beneath all the programming. And that, Dear One, is the power of awakening to your own mind.
May you be inspired to sit and observe your mind, emotions, thinking habits, and patterns of reactions as consequences rather than absolutes.
This would mark the moment of awakening and the path to personal self enlightenment.

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You are enough!
Lisa A. Romano Breakthrough Life Coach

Join my private Community of Conscious Awakened Souls Here

https://www.lisaaromano.com/breakthrough-warrior-membership

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