Mistaking Pain for Love: Mother Hunger, Self-Abandonment & Reprogramming the Subconscious w/ Lisa Romano

Adult Child

Andrea Ashley

Relationships, Health & Fitness, Education, Society & Culture, Self-improvement, Mental Health

4.9 • 1.8K Ratings

🗓️ 24 September 2025

⏱️ 67 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

What happens when the very people who were supposed to teach you love taught you pain instead? When you’ve been wired for abandonment and neglect, it’s no wonder your nervous system confuses chaos for connection.

Lisa A. Romano is a certified life coach, bestselling author, and leading voice in codependency and inner child recovery. After growing up in a home defined by addiction, denial, and emotional neglect, Lisa spent years chasing love in all the wrong places before realizing her patterns were rooted in unresolved childhood wounds.

🔑 Mother Hunger & Emotional Neglect – How unmet childhood needs for nurture and safety leave us chasing love in all the wrong places as adults.

🔑 Mistaking Pain for Love – Why chaotic relationships feel familiar and safe to adult children of dysfunctional families, even when they’re toxic.

🔑 The Cycle of Self-Abandonment – How people-pleasing, perfectionism, and ignoring our needs are survival strategies that keep us disconnected from ourselves.

🔑 Reprogramming the Subconscious – Why awareness alone isn’t enough, and how tools like meditation, journaling, and rewiring negative self-talk can change deep patterns.

🔑 Breaking the Family Denial System – How speaking the truth about your childhood creates liberation, even if it means being labeled “crazy” by your family.

🔑 The Path to Self-Reclamation – Why healing requires radical self-honesty, self-compassion, and releasing the need for others’ validation.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	It's Kelly Clarkson here to talk all things Wayfair, the best place to buy furniture,
0:05.6	decor, and anything else you can think of to create a home you absolutely love.
0:10.0	I know when I shop with Wayfair, I find options for every style, whether I'm feeling
0:14.3	boho or farmhouse, modern, traditional, French country. I can find exactly what I need
0:19.6	for my home and more. No matter your
0:21.9	space, style, or budget, shopwayfair.com to make your home way more you. Wayfair, every style,
0:29.2	every home. When I learned that I was worthy of self-love, a love that was worthy showed up.
0:36.3	My name is Andrea, and this is an old child.
0:54.8	Welcome back to it. Let's just let it all go. What's making you slow now?
0:56.6	Let it all go.
1:03.9	Welcome back to adult child, where we take a deep dive into the impact of growing up in a dysfunctional family.
1:06.9	Ahoy, my dear shit shows.
1:08.8	For any new listeners, my name is Andrea.
1:12.4	I am a total incomplete shit show. I'm a captain of the ship. And I just want you all to know that I will be relaunching the podcast in the next
1:19.3	few weeks. Yes, you heard it in the next few weeks. And I just need to name this. I just need to say
1:25.6	this out loud. Because that's what we do
1:28.5	here, right? We're just real and raw and don't try to act like we got it all together. Perfectionism
1:35.6	has been absolutely kicking my ass, the amount of pressure that I have put on myself for my first episode back has been
1:50.0	absolutely relentless, okay? It has not been fun. And, you know, I was somebody for a long time who didn't think that I struggled
2:04.0	with perfectionism until I realized that procrastination and overthinking is a form of perfectionism.
2:14.8	Perfectionism has many faces, y'all. That was our topic for today's shit show
2:18.1	support group. And so the amount of pressure that I've put on myself for this episode is ridiculous.
	...

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