Why You Stay Loyal to The People Who Hurt You
Lisa A Romano Breakdown to Breakthroughs
Lisa A. Romano
4.8 • 805 Ratings
🗓️ 26 January 2026
⏱️ 24 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Everything is fine until it isn't. The moment when you start noticing the twinge in your stomach, and you can't ignore it anymore, marks the threshold of an awakening to what may be the reality of toxic relationships in your life. Codependents are those who sacrifice the self for a toxic one way relationship, whereas a narcissist sacrifices the relationship for the sake of their ego. When a codependent, highly empathic individual begins to awaken, they cannot unsee what they now see: the passive aggressiveness, the stonewalling, disrespect, and minimization.
Many adult children of toxic family systems, are programmed to deny, ignore, and never feel their true feelings. They learned early that connecting with their painful inner reality threatened their connections to others, which triggered a sense of fear and abandonment. Although this is a subconscious pathway, it is possible to awaken from the faulty negative, subconscious childhood programs that are rooted in the fear of abandonment and the experience of emotional neglect.
In this episode, Lisa A. Romano unpacks the subconscious programming behind why so many trauma survivors and codependent personalities stay loyal to people who repeatedly hurt them. From passive-aggressive group chats to unspoken exclusion, emotional manipulation often hides behind denial and "that's just how they are" thinking.
But here's the truth:
You weren't born to tolerate disrespect — you were programmed to.
In this episode, you'll learn:
✨ Why your brain links saying no to abandonment and danger
🧠 How early rejection creates lifelong tolerance for BS
🎭 The difference between overt narcissists and covert "poor me" manipulators
⚔️ Why the first boundary is the hardest step — and how to push through it
🦋 How to reclaim your self-respect and rise above emotional slavery
This episode is for you if:
✔️ You make excuses for people who repeatedly disappoint you
✔️ You second-guess your instincts and minimize your own pain
✔️ You feel guilty for cutting people off — even when they hurt you
✔️ You're finally ready to stop walking on eggshells and start walking in truth
Begin Your Breakthrough
If you're ready to interrupt the subconscious patterns that keep you stuck in people-pleasing and emotional slavery, Lisa's 12 Week Breakthrough Program will guide you step by step into emotional freedom.
👉 Start here: 50% Off the 12 Week Breakthrough Method
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to Breakdown to Breakthrough, the podcast that empowers you to transform your life |
| 0:04.8 | by awakening to your true authentic self. I'm Lisa A. Romano, your host, as an award-winning author |
| 0:10.6 | and certified life coach, I've dedicated my life to helping others understand the incredible |
| 0:16.0 | power of an organized mind. I believe that true empowerment begins with awakening to our false self. |
| 0:23.2 | I created the Conscious Healing Academy, a three-part coaching and brain retraining program designed |
| 0:28.6 | to help individuals triumph over trauma and turn the breakdowns into powerful breakthroughs. |
| 0:34.5 | My mission is to support you on your journey toward mental and emotional |
| 0:38.6 | regeneration through conscious and deliberate awakening. In this podcast, I'll share insights, |
| 0:44.5 | tools, and transformative stories that illuminate the path to healing and self-discovery. |
| 0:50.2 | So today I want to talk about and encourage you to understand the legs of the journey that you are on when you start healing from codependency. |
| 0:59.8 | When you start saying no to toxic people in your life, when you start addressing the fear and the abandonment that comes up, when you start to notice that you're being disrespected by a friend |
| 1:13.2 | group or you're being disrespected by people in your family. You know, they're needling you, |
| 1:19.7 | the passive aggressive comments. You're in a group chat on Instagram and you see family members |
| 1:26.7 | getting together, but you were never invited. |
| 1:29.9 | This idea that social media can be weaponized or you go on Facebook and you see your friend |
| 1:36.8 | group and they're all hanging out, but you just mysteriously never got invited. |
| 1:41.7 | And this is a pattern. This is a habitual, perpetual pattern. It's happened over time. |
| 1:47.6 | This is not a one-time event that you're reacting to. You're starting to wake up. And when you start to |
| 1:54.6 | wake up from codependency, from emotional neglect, which causes stress for a child. And now that downloads the subconscious |
| 2:04.7 | mind. Let me get my, Ed the head to explain my new best friend. So when you have trauma in |
| 2:13.4 | childhood, you get downloaded the amygdala and the hippocampus. |
| 2:17.8 | I do have another diagram that is even more, will outline this even more profoundly to help |
... |
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