Mental Resilience: The Key to Inner Emotional Balance

Mental Resilience Begins by Understanding These Key Ideas My dad was an ex-Marine who smoked Marlboro cigarettes and wore white tank tops and dungarees nearly every day. He had a way about him that made you feel small, intimidated, and afraid of doing anything that might upset him. As a young child, and even into my forties, I perceived my father as mentally tough. My understanding of mental and emotional wellness shifted as I devoted my life to self-care, personal development, healing my inner child, and recovering from codependency. Once I was diagnosed with codependency, and an intuitive therapist helped lift the veil from my internal eye, soon, like a Rubik's cube organizing itself according to its colors, the stuck, frustrated, overwhelmed, approval-seeking, exasperated young wife I had morphed into began to make sense.  As a child, I was programmed/brainwashed to worry about what might happen next. I can't remember one day when I felt carefree as a child. The constant worry of when the next shoe would drop was always in my mind. I would observe other children and feel a deep pang in my heart. Why couldn't I play like that? I would wonder, as layers of shame were layered on. Like all children do, I assumed my parents didn't show emotional concern for me because there was something unworthy about me.  The Veil Lifts It was quite a shock when the father I loved, feared, and ached for approval from, while simultaneously fearing his disapproval and discard, began to unravel when he closed his business and started a new job. Suddenly, the strong man I believed my father was was struggling under the weight of the unknown and of being the low man on the totem pole at his new place of employment. Without feeling in charge and control of every moving part of his life, Dad began imploding.  I remember peering out a back bedroom window and noticing my father sitting on one of my backyard lawn chairs with his head in his hands. He was crying and obviously under duress. When I sat beside him to ask him what was wrong, I began to understand that my father was struggling mentally and emotionally because this new job caused him to feel as if he no longer had control of his life or time. He was no longer the entrepreneur who called the shots. Rather than feel like the one in charge, Dad's reality clashed with the false identity and mask that kept him feeling like he was always in control.  Mental Toughness is Not Tough At All There was a time when I thought I was mentally tough, too. That's when I was below the veil, codependent, and unaware I was unaware. An extreme cognitive distortion I subconsciously lived by was like a blindfold, and it was not until I said enough is enough and devoted my life to emotional and mental recovery that my idea of being tough transformed.  Back then, I operated under faulty subconscious codependent beliefs. I believed wholeheartedly that if I took on and anticipated all my family's needs, appeared perfect, and never asked for help, I thought I was tough. If I wore ragged clothes while ensuring my kids looked pristine--if I worked for my in-laws for free--if I volunteered to help others, and especially if I was not feeling good, I was a tough chick. Nope. I was not tough because I relied on controlling as many moving parts as possible in my life to avoid the emotions I was programmed to deny, avoid, and pretend did not exist as a child.  I was not tough because, as a codependent, I preferred taking care of others rather than myself and immaturely assumed that others would naturally take care of me in return. When they did not, all of the emotions tied to abandonment as a child bubbled to the surface, and I falsely presumed how I felt at that moment was entirely due to what was happening in the now, and then shut down and blamed whoever was standing in front of me for why I felt the way I felt. I was not tough because I refused to self-care and relied on self-sacrifice as a rationalization for not honoring myself. I was not tough when I lost my sh** and then blamed my ex for my inability to emotionally regulate or accept that our marriage was toxic and needed to end. That was just me clinging to the fear of the unknown, aching to control him immaturely, hoping he would wake up and change so I did not have to face taking accountability and responsibility for how miserably unhappy I was in that marriage.  That was just me, acting out the patterns my father taught me as a child, unaware I was unaware, looking to control the outside as a means to control my inner universe. Breaking the Cycle  Inner child healing and codependency recovery demanded I stop seeking a sense of self from anything outside of me. It required a clearing of false, negative, subconscious, immature beliefs that kept me stuck in self-sabotaging loops of cognitive distortions.  Through years of devotion to inner healing work, I have realized that mental toughness isn't tough at all. Being mentally tough implies a softening of attachments to tyrannical ego identity markers that falsely cause a human being to believe that their peace is outside of them and that mental and emotional balance is determined by remaining in control of moving parts we can in no way logically control.  Mental toughness is represented by compassion, understanding, flexibility, authenticity, vulnerability, and acceptance. It's allowing what is rather than resisting, denying, rebuking, retaliating, rationalizing, justifying, or refusing. It's akin to the wisdom of a Sage who lives like water rather than boulders and bulldozers and whose inner peace is regulated internally by internal systems and processes governed by the understanding that mental resilience has nothing to do with what is happening outside of you.  Once it clicked, I understood that much of my suffering was tied to false premises, cognitive distortions, codependent belief systems, faulty childhood programming, self-abandoning habitual thinking, and distorted perceptions of what constitutes mental resilience. At that moment, my personal life's mission was to learn not to allow what was happening outside of me to justify not managing what was happening inside me.  Mental resilience has nothing to do with controlling or reacting to what is happening outside you—that's easy. Being loud, critical, shutting down, hiding, or withdrawing was a walk in the park compared to facing the shadows of my childhood programming and committing my life to breaking the cycles my parents taught me.  Mental strength is all about controlling, regulating, modulating, and managing what is happening inside you, especially when what's happening outside you triggers your survival brain into believing the answer to your imbalance or dis-ease is something that needs to be controlled on the outside.  The magnificent news is that within each human being is the potential to defy the laws of nature. This implies that one will reap what has been sown by past generations only until one begins to awaken and decides to consciously devote one's life to deciding what unfolds in one's life next! Dear Ones, we are Creators at our core, and each of us creates by default or on purpose.  I hope this message inspires you to consider what patterns you live out each day so that you may begin to operate from above the veil rather than below the veil of consciousness. If you wish to learn more about how to tap into inner systems and processes that help you defy the natural consequences of adverse childhood experiences and generational trauma, click here to learn more or email me and my team at email us here for information on how you can begin or enhance your inner transformation sooner than later.  It was never you; it was only your programming.  I honor you! Your Breakthrough Coach,  Lisa A. Romano #mentalhealthtips #adultchildrenofalcoholics #emotionaltriggers #healingcodependency #codependency #cyclebreaker #emotionalhealing #innerchildhealing #innerpeace #emotionalregulationtips #mentaltoughness #emotionalresilience #emotionalintelligence