Lisa A. Romano - My Road Beyond The Codependent Divorce

My R oad Beyond
The Codependent Divorce

Lisa A. Romano

Copyright 2012 by Lisa A. Romano.

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ISBN: 978-1-4525-5948-3 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4525-5949-0 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2012917766

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Balboa Press rev. date: 10/24/12

Contents

Author of the Bestselling Book

The Road Back To Me

F OR OVER THREE DECADES I suffered from amnesia of self. Conditioned by those who were older, stronger and bigger than me, to deny my self , I lived the first part of my life asleep and pitifully learned to presume the angst within me was appropriateand worse that the being I waswas wrong.

Bound no more by the shackles of falsehoods, I have since awakened to self, and have learned to master my own mind. I will be eternally grateful for the spiritual thinkers who have blazed the roads less traveled, for without their insights, my journey might have never begun.

To Gandhi, Socrates, Emerson, Martin Luther King Jr, Plato, Shakespeare, Einstein, Nathaniel Branden, Dale Carnegie, Henry Ford, Merrell-Wolff, Confucius, Wayne Dyer, Anthony De Mello, Melody Beattie, Marianne Williamson, Louise Hay, and to so many, many other teachers of enlightenment who have inspired me to believe in self , I thank youwith all that I am.

This book is dedicated to the brokenhearted.

M Y FIRST BOOK, THE Road Back To Me took twelve years to complete. The original draft, which took two years to finish, was lost in a single keystroke. When my computer crashed and my manuscript was sucked into a digital black hole, it took big chunks of my mind with it. Feeling as if the universe had unexpectedly slapped me in the head, I was dazed the moment my monitor faded into nothingness. Stunned by the sudden loss, a deep sense of powerlessness engulfed me as I sat gazing into the black screen. Writing about my life, had become my life. And in one instant it was all gone.

Immediately following the loss of my first manuscript, I considered giving up on the dream of ever being able to help others heal their wounds through the written insights of my personal story. In my heart I firmly believed that the pain I had experienced could be used for the better good, and that the lessons I had learned about codependency and self were ones I needed to share. It wasnt enough that I had learned to live a more stable and satisfying life. I wanted to help change the world. It made no sense to me to keep what I had learned under wraps. Learning to master my own mind saved my life, and I wanted nothing more than to help others learn to do the same. When oblivion claimed my dream, it took all the strength I had not to raise a white flag and ask the universe to leave me alone.

For most of my life I have felt like a square that was desperate to be round. For as long as I can recall I have had an insatiable need to feel as if I belongedsomewhere. It has taken me a lifetime to unwind the prickly strings that have kept my mind bound to thoughts that did little more than reinforce the notion that I was an unworthy being. Faulty childhood programming had solidified deep within my unconscious mind the belief that I was destined to not ever fit in--anywhere.

I was a child when I first discovered I was most at home when words were dancing out of my head and onto stages of white. Expressing my emotions on paper gave them life, and helped me to feel real in a world that so often insisted I not feel what I felt. Writing The Road Back To Me was as cathartic as it was terrifying. Sharing my life story meant I would need to expose the brittle family skeletons the people I loved denied existed at all. For almost two years I wondered when, and if I would ever find the strength to begin facing those bones again. The first go round with those old skeletons had proven to be painful enough.

Two years following the demise of my first manuscript, I began an uphill journey and decided to start writing my story again. Fueled from within by a burning desire to help others learn how to take control over their thoughts, I somehow managed to move beyond my original setback and eventually finished writing my lifes story. But completing my manuscript was only act one. My hearts desire to help others learn from my experiences would not be complete until The Road Back To Me was in print, and in the hands of those who might need the encouragement it offered.

Fear of hurting the ones that I loved by exposing my truth is the only reason it took twelve years to finally get my book published. I have since learned to accept that my lifes purpose, for whatever reason, is larger than me, and my fears. I am passionate about helping others heal through learning to master the power of their own creative minds. I know healing is possible because I have experienced it first hand, and understand how agonizing facing ones own personal truth can be, especially when those we love are unable to validate for us our very intimate experiences. Thinking and acting according to ones own personal truth is truly a heroic undertaking. Self-mastery requires owning ones own history, in spite of what others prefer we define as reality. But this of course, is not an uncomplicated matter to confront.

It is a miracle my story breaths at all. When I was twelve I tempted suicide. At the time death seemed to be a more pleasing option than life. Exhausted by the need to continuously shield myself from the ones that I loved only made tolerating the repeated bullying I received from the kids at school impossible. As if I were a log being hacked into at both ends, I felt safe nowhere, neither at home nor at school. Death I presumed would at least stop the pain. It was not a bullet that altered my life that day. It was a single positive thought that did.

Many decades later, I find myself humbled by memories of the past. So much of what I have endured now seems so unnecessary, and frivolous even. Time, patience and a commitment to self has taught me to understand that every moment of my life, including the painful ones, were manifestations of what was going on within me on an emotional, and thus a vibrational level. What I thought about, I brought about, and that included all the doom and the gloom. The most difficult part of my journey has been to accept full responsibility for my unhappiness. Once I did not know about this thing called choice. Mastering my own self however, has made it abundantly clear how simple life was intended to be. Reflection not only blankets me with humility, but it also tickles my funny bones.