Detachment and Letting go of Controlling What Others are Doing

In the latest podcast episode, a member of our Facebook Soul Recovery community posted about the struggle with detachment and the challenge of relinquishing control over others' actions and energy. This topic hits close to home for many, including myself, as the constant battle against the urge to mold our surroundings to fit our desires remains an ongoing journey. Both in Al-Anon and on the Soul Recovery path, loving detachment is a key element in letting go of our desire to control others, regardless of how 'helpful' our help may seem to be.

It's all too common to feel the itch to judge or feel irked when those around us diverge from what we perceive as the 'right' path, especially when it seems like a misuse of time or potentially harmful. Embracing the foundational principle of Soul Recovery—allowing others to exist authentically as themselves—demands acknowledging our internal conflicts. This doesn't mean neglecting our own needs; it means being curious about the reasons behind our judgments.

By turning the attention to ourselves,  we gain clarity on the root of our hurt or frustration. This introspection allows us to practice compassionate detachment, fostering acceptance of others just as they are. It's a journey of acknowledging our emotions, understanding them, and employing loving detachment to navigate our interactions with a more empathetic perspective.

For more information about Rev. Rachel Harrison and Recover Your Soul- visit the website www.recoveryoursoul.net  use the code TRYASESSION for 40% off your first Spiritual Coachi

Ready for a weekend of Soul Recovery, deep healing and Transformation?!?!?! Join Rev Rachel on June 8th and 9th in Lafayette Colorado for 2 full days of teachings, meditation, group work, journaling, connection and sound healing and Soul Recovery with others in the community.  Use  this coupon code at check out for $50 off!  RYSJUNERETREAT$50 

This podcast is for educational purposes only and is not allied or representative of any organizations or religions, but is based on the opinions and experience of Rev. Rachel Harrison. The host claims no responsibility to any person or entity for any liability, loss, or damage caused or alleged to be caused directly or indirectly as a result of the use, application, or interpretation of the information presented herein. Take what you need and leave the rest.

Transcript

Rev Rachel Harrison: 0:47

In a recent post opening up for season five, I asked the community what they would like to hear more about, and one of the questions was I want more information on control, the need to control what others are doing. How do I let go of wanting to control what other people are doing? This is a hot topic and it's not easy to be able to discern. When is it helpful to be giving somebody advice on how they should be doing something different and when are we just being irritated and frustrated at the choices that other people make with what they do with their time? These are great things to look at and how we can come to our soul recovery, to live from our fullest, most authentic self, even when we're watching somebody doom scroll. Enjoy the episode. Welcome to the Recover your Soul podcast a spiritual path to a happy and healthy life.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 1:45

My name is Reverend Rachel Harrison. I started Recover your Soul after having profound changes in my life from my recovery of alcoholism, codependency and control addiction. I was guided to share the tools and principles of spirituality and soul recovery to help others transform their lives as mine was transformed. For us to overcome external circumstances, we need to turn the attention to ourselves, focusing on our interchange and healing, positive results in our lives will follow. Welcome to Recover your Soul. I'm Reverend Rachel. Thank you so much for choosing to spend your time with me today. If you're new to the soul recovery journey, welcome, welcome, welcome. I often say it's by no mistake that you are here, that you have found this community, you found this spiritual path for healing, and I think that it opens that knowing that we are always being held and guided towards our true and highest self when we make the decision to choose ourselves and our own healing first.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 2:52

For today's episode, I wanted to touch on something that was one of the community members' request to talk more about. I recently had a post on Facebook around starting the fifth season Recover your Soul podcast and asked what do you wanna hear more about? And one of the answers was control Our needing to control others and what they're doing, and I thought that was perfect, because I recently had an experience that played into this place, where we can think that we know better about what somebody else should be doing and how it annoys us or makes us frustrated or hurts our feelings, and I thought that it was only appropriate that the number one thing that we talk about in Soul Recovery is learning how to let go of control. I mean, it goes along with my Christmas experience and I had mentioned it in the last podcast, so it works great for it to go together.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 3:49

In Soul Recovery, the first step of the nine steps of Soul Recovery which you can find on the website and recoveryoursoulnet, the first step is along the lines and inspired by 12 step and it's around letting go of control. In 12 step, what we say is we're powerless over alcohol and that our lives have become unmanageable, and that was incredibly true for me. That was what I finally had to take into my life to really understand that, no matter how much I tried, no matter how much I wanted it to be different, no matter how much I tried to control, I am powerless over alcohol. Now in Soul Recovery, we're looking at our life from an entirely different view. We're rising above, almost like an eagle flying above our own life, and we're looking at it in an entirely broader view. We're looking at everything. We're stepping outside of our codependence, we're stepping outside of maybe someone in our life who is dysfunctional or has addiction and we're realizing here we are in our life, in our experience, and we're rising above and we're taking this step one.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 4:59

We're saying I am powerless over every single thing outside of myself. I'm powerless over everything outside of myself, and my desire to control people, places and circumstances causes me pain and suffering, makes my life unmanageable. That desire to make it be different makes me unhappy, makes me unhealthy, makes my life unmanageable. Now, living a human experience is painful. There is definitely the emotion that comes from being a human being, but what we learn is we learn that the suffering is optional, that this attachment we have to it being different, wanting it so desperately to look and feel a different way, is what causes us the suffering and the clinging and the desire to make it be different, to make other people's circumstances be different, to make the world feel different. And when we really take this step, this was one of the most profound soul recovery steps for me, because I didn't think that I was being controlling from the perspective of being a dictator or being aggressive or forcing my way on people. I thought I was being helpful. I thought I was making things better. I wanted to tamper down the emotions. I wanted to save my children from their pain. I wanted to make the relationship between my husband and my kids different. I wanted to calm the situations down. And I wanted to calm them down because I would feel better if they were calmed down, because I was trying to make them change so that I could feel a certain way.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 6:53

And what we talk about in soul recovery is that that's giving our power away, that if we have control of not a single thing outside of ourselves, when we then expect them to behave or be a certain way or respond to us in a certain way, for us to feel whole, for us to be okay, we're actually giving our power away. So in soul recovery, we're learning to take our power back. We're learning to attend to ourselves. We're learning to allow other people to be exactly who they are. And, from this perspective of the eagle soaring above of us being able to rise out of our clinging and our attachment, this deep attachment that we have in our forest, that we can't see the forest from the trees, that we're rising up and we're looking out and we're saying, wow, I don't actually have control of anything outside of myself and I'm going to put my energy on taking care of myself and being within my life in a way that is more aligned and more true to who I know now, with more awareness that I am, that I can let go of the need for everything else to be okay, for me to be okay Now. What I love about this question is the clarity around our need to control others and what they're doing. So it was specifically about what they're doing. So I wanted to use an example in my life because I know that this is how I'm learning and I love hearing from all of you that my stories resonate with you and help you in your life of being able to see and recognize in your life how you can make changes.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 8:40

I've mentioned in some past episodes that I went to see my dad as part of a trip to Santa Fe in September and showed up in his house in Madrid to go to dinner and saw a very different dad than I had seen. Last Thanksgiving. I saw a man who had lost a lot of weight, who looked sallow and was weak and pale, and he shared with me that he had not been feeling well and I knew I knew from our conversations. We don't talk that often, but I knew from our conversations that he'd been having some issues, that he hadn't been feeling well, but he hadn't actually been sharing how unwell he had been feeling, and he's a hippie from way back right. So if you've listened to my stories, you know my middle name is Little Flower. I grew up in a very. My early years were very, very standard New Mexico hippie. He still lives this way. Here he is.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 9:41

He doesn't go to the doctor because there's some pride that he has in not going to the doctor. If you don't go, maybe you won't be sick. I don't know what his reason is. Here I am trying to figure out what his reason is. The truth is he hasn't been to the doctor in forever and he was going to acupuncture and letting him know that he wasn't feeling well. And it turns out the acupuncturists were saying you know you should go to the doctor and he kept kind of not doing that.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 10:06

Well, he finally got to the place where he shared that he was not able to do anything for more than about 15 or 20 minutes without needing about an hour of rest. He shared that he's in level eight pain all the time. He shared that he is in a lot of discomfort all the time and I looked at him and I knew almost immediately that he was really sick, with something Now, being a metaphysician, being a metaphysical minister, I watched myself want to jump into the control, into the we're going to fix it. What's going on here? There's something wrong with him. He has cancer, he's sick. And then I had to back myself off in that moment and say we are here to hold space and until he gets a diagnosis I'm going to continue to see him as healing and as well. And even when, then immediately when he finally did go to the doctor, they said this is indicative of colorectal cancer, I was able to really hold that space that didn't go down the rabbit hole of despair or fear and just really hold the light that this is his journey. He's 83 years old. I'm so grateful that he was able to find and get care that is working for him Now in my dad's story.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 11:39

The other part of my dad's story is he's been this lifelong hippie and hasn't had normal jobs. He's been self-employed, aside from a small stent of time that he worked for the city of Santa Fe putting on concerts for them, and with that, luckily, he has a very tiny small social security. But outside of that he has never put money away. He's never saved. He's always lived month to month on being able to make this amazing Southwest jewelry that he's an incredible master at, and also playing music. This is the life that he chose, and it was a lot easier for me to allow that to be the life that he chose when he was able-bodied and able to continue to live and be in his existence.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 12:28

Well, now here he is, and he's admitted that he's really not well. And now we find out yes, he indeed has cancer and is going to need to go through cancer treatments, and that he has literally nothing to fall back on financially. And so I immediately set up a GoFundMe, which has been posted on the social media page, and many of you have donated from the kindness of your heart, and I can't thank you enough for that and we've raised around at this airing time, $13,000. And then he had a benefit concert in Madrid that we went to that raised some additional monies, and so, for the first time in his life, he literally has a cushion that will allow him to actually get well.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 13:18

Now all of this is interesting because that part of me that wants to be in control and wants to be in charge of what's happening for him it's important for us to recognize that some of these aspects of ourselves where we are very good at setting things up and we're very good at organizing and making things happen. We never want to diminish that aspect of ourselves. This isn't about us sitting back and just being like, well, I'm just going to let that happen. Whatever's happening to him, he's the one who didn't take care of himself, or he's the one who got cancer, or he's the one that didn't save money. Right, that is as destructive as it is for us to jump in and think that we personally have to fix.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 14:03

I am powerless over everything that is happening outside of myself. I'm powerless over people, places and things. I'm powerless over my dad getting cancer and I'm powerless over how he handled his finances and I'm powerless over his experience. Now, when I let those things go, what I'm doing is I'm taking the responsibility of them off my shoulders, and then I can step into this situation from my full, authentic self that says, hey, I know how to set up a GoFundMe, I know how to spread the word, but not expecting or demanding that I'm fixing it. I'm just offering myself from my whole self, from my highest self, from the expression of myself that can show up in authenticity and in integrity and in kindness and in love, knowing from the spiritual place that I trust and have faith that everything is indeed working for the good. Now, the good needs to not be what I think the good looks like. The good needs to look like what is, and us being able to just be present with what is is part of our learning and soul recovery to rise above and see the bigger picture and release our need to make something happen.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 15:29

I love my dad so much and his choice to not go to the doctor for what it turns out he was in pain for for over a year. It turns out that when he came to my house the last time I saw him which was Thanksgiving of 2022, that he at that time wasn't well, but he didn't share it with me, and so for an entire year, it was building up into this way of being cancer, being literal tumors in his colorectal cancer that were uncomfortable and painful. This is the part of us where we can practice our soul recovery by not judging, by not then wanting to make him guilty. This is his choice. He's the one who's experiencing whatever this is for him. I can't possibly understand what that is. So this ability to be present and help him financially not me financially. I don't have the money to give to him for him to be able to relax and be able to pay his bills, because everybody has bills right and his bills are much less a month than my bills are because they live a very different lifestyle than I do. I don't have the money to pick it up and fix it for him, but I have the ability to participate in a way that will be beneficial and helpful to him.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 16:59

If you're ready for soul recovery, as a spiritual coach, I can support your healing to help make real changes that will bring you a life of peace, happiness, connection and abundance. You can also work in smaller groups by taking a deep dive in a Zoom workshop or with me in person at a retreat or an event. Join others on the Soul Recovery Path once a month for the free Zoom support group or daily on the private Facebook page. Visit the website recoveryyoursoulnet to book coaching sessions with me or find all the information you need about soul recovery dates that are coming up and how to register for those groups and workshops. To support the podcast and the community, check the links in the show notes to make a small monthly donation or a one-time donation of your choice. That will make a huge impact to support this community and the Soul Recovery mission. Together we can do the work that will recover your soul. So that part was easier, because I'm good at those kinds of things. I'm good at setting those kinds of things up. I'm good at letting go of the outcome of those kinds of things.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 18:07

This comes to the what you think they should be doing, controlling what you think they should be doing. And this is such a huge topic because how often do we look at somebody else and say you know, if you were me, this is what I would do in this situation? I think about early on if we're using my dad's cancer as the topic. Early on, I even said well, why don't you come to Colorado? There's probably better treatment centers here in Colorado. And then I caught myself and I thought is that true? Is that true? And do I need or want to totally be enmeshed in every aspect of this when he's not asking me for that? Am I actually thinking that I know better, when the truth is, I know nothing about cancer? Right, I know nothing. That was an interesting process around. Do I think I know better? Because when we say, if I were you, this is what I would do, what you're really saying is I think I know better, and if you were me, this is what I think you should do. And when we catch ourselves doing that, it's important for us to really recognize why are we saying that? What do we really think? What is our intention behind it? And most often it's that part that I talked about in the beginning. It's that care, it's the wanting to be helpful, it's the wanting to give somebody peace or to keep somebody from pain. It's that desire that we have to fix. But we're powerless over everything outside of ourself and we want to continue to work on showing up in our best way and not thinking that we know better.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 19:51

Okay, so fast forward to the story, which is for Christmas. Normally, my dad and his girlfriend do this big long road trip back east to go be with her son and his grandkids and her grandkids his kids, because being with kids at Christmas is the best right. My kids are all grown up now and they do this whole six week adventure together of driving cross country, and it's a beautiful time for them. They love it. They really love doing that. Well, clearly that wasn't going to happen this year because my dad had started his cancer treatments in the middle of December, in the first couple of weeks of December, and so at Christmas time he was going to be smack dab in the middle of receiving his radiation and chemo treatments and of course we don't know how anybody's going to respond to any of those things.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 20:46

And the assumption really was that he would be weak and maybe sick or not doing well, and she really wanted to go and still spend Christmas with her family. I said of course I'll come and take care of my dad while you're out of town, and so we had that already set up to do that. So my mom said I'll come with you, and I thought that was really sweet. And I said you really don't have to, you don't have to come, I don't want to put you out, it's Christmas time, I'll just go and take care of it. And she said no, I think that you'll need me and I'd really like to be in Santa Fe because I love Santa Fe, we were there for so much of our life. And she said I really could use a hit of Santa Fe and I'd love to support you. And we knew from the situation in which they live that it wouldn't benefit to have rich there too. So he stayed home and he's doing remodeling. So in the next couple of episodes you hear any remodeling sounds, that's because he's remodeling the house. So, anyway, he stayed home.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 21:46

So what's interesting to me about this is the part that says how do we not control what other people are doing and thinking that what they're doing isn't right or isn't what they should be doing? And it's so interesting how sneaky it is. To be honest. My mom and I drove to Santa Fe together, and the place where my dad and his girlfriend lives it is the attic of a house that she owns in Madrid. Madrid's a really cool eclectic mining community where, when they sold all the houses in the 60s, it was a whole bunch of hippies and a lot of them are still the ones that own the houses, including her and they turned them into art galleries and really cool little stores. So she's rented her house out as a store for a long, long, long, long, long time. It is still that store and they finally were able to move up into the attic. Prior to that, they'd been living in a travel trailer next to it, and this was a big step up for them and the truth was it was really amazing timing because they were able to be inside where there was a better running water and bathroom and all that kind of stuff.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 23:02

This plays into it, because one of the things that happened to me is that I had a little bit of emotion around going and staying in this place, which is a perfectly fine, simple, lovely home that they have. It is very different style of living from the home in which I live and a very different style living from the home in which my mother lives. She is living on that upper level, we're in the middle, and then here's my dad's very simple, simple life that they have. Now, what I wanna touch in on this that I'm aware of for myself was I wasn't sure what was going on and why I was being affected by this, this idea of going and staying in this environment, because I really wanted to stay and help my dad and in other episodes I've talked about the inner child and I'm gonna do some more episodes really on working on that because what I realized was this trepidation, trying to find the right word for it, right, this aversion that I had around just jumping in and saying we'll sleep on the floor, we'll do whatever. I had a piece of me that finally could recognize that there was a little girl in me that had to handle going and visiting my dad when I was a little girl and what it felt like to go visit my dad.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 24:41

Now my parents divorced when I was eight and one of the reasons why they divorced was because there was real clarity around the lifestyles in which they each were wanting. Now my dad has never stopped being the same hippie that lived in very simple ways. When I was being raised, there was often no running water, no electricity in those first couple of years of my life, and that's comfortable and fine for my dad and my mom actually loved those couple of years, and then she kind of got to a place where she thought I actually don't wanna just live this hippie life, I want more. And what they loved in each other was allowing each other to be exactly who they were, and instead of saying I need you to lean in my direction and do what I want and the other one's saying no, no, no, I want you to be who I need and want you to be, what they realized is that they could love each other enough to realize that what they needed and wanted in their own lives didn't match up, and that my mom wanted to be able to have a more comfortable life, that she loved the concepts that came from this being a hippie and a spiritual life and community and all of those things that came with it. But she didn't like being poor. She didn't like never having food. She didn't like having this unknowing part of her about how was she was gonna survive. So my parents divorced when I was eight, in a loving, kind way. My mom went and got her PhD and we became middle class, thankfully so. So I've lived middle class since I was in middle school.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 26:30

My dad, he continued to live the life that was comfortable and easy for him. So when I would go visit him, the living situations were not always that great, because he didn't need much. He didn't want much. So sometimes I would be in some girlfriend's apartment and sleeping on the floor or the couch, and sometimes he would rent a room with some guys and I'd have a little pallet on the floor until he got married and that relationship created a more stable house, but still I didn't have a room. I slept on the couch or I slept on the floor. So every time I went to go visit my dad, there was this element of not really having a place of my own. So when I went on this time to go stay with him, I haven't actually stayed with him at his place since oh my gosh since probably he lived with his second wife Like we've always stayed in hotels or at an Airbnb or another friend in Santa Fe's house I like I actually haven't stayed with him because there's no place to actually stay.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 27:43

So I had this trepidation and it was really important for me to go and look at the younger part of myself that was being activated, that didn't like that situation but wanted to be with her dad and to give her voice and to talk to her and share with her that it was okay and that that feeling that she had when she was younger around not feeling always safe or comfortable is a valid feeling. And that was powerful for me because as soon as I could recognize and see, ah, this is for my childhood, this is the part of me that I've pushed down or protected, needs, now just to say, oh, it's having this voice, it's having this activation. So once I had gone through that and done the sole recovery work of recognizing her and speaking to her from this new motherly place where she could really be recognized, and reminding her that everything is safe, that this is a perfectly fine place to be. Your mom's gonna be with you, it's gonna be comfortable. She totally relaxed and then we showed up and my mom had brought an air mattress and I had a very nice futon to sleep on. So the truth was everything was fine and well.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 29:02

So then here comes the next part around how do we have awareness around controlling what we think other people should be doing? So I've showed up with my mom to help my dad during his cancer treatments, and that part of me that wants to be of service, wants to help, wants to see him through this, observed his choice and how he spends his time in a way that was complicated. So I had an assumption that we were coming to show up to help him get him to cancer treatments, make sure that he was okay. Who knew whether he was going to be strong enough to climb up and down the stairs, you know, really be there for his safety. But I also thought I was going to go and spend quote unquote time with him. Hang out with him, visit with him, chat. You know we only see each other a couple times a year and we don't talk on the phone that often. We have a great relationship, but you know to like really spend time with my dad.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 30:03

That was a little girl. That was a little girl who wanted the attention of a father who has always loved me deeply, dearly, intensely, but lives a life that is a very particular way, and so he has, in the last year of not feeling well, created a habit of resting, of spending a lot of time. His most comfortable way to be because he has colorectal cancer is laying flat in bed. This is what he's done for the last year if he wasn't actively working, making money to try to survive. So now that he has this cushion that can allow him to relax and actually put his energy into healing, he can truly just be in this state, and what he does is he climbs up in his bed and he scrolls the internet on his phone and he watches videos and he hangs out and he talks to friends on the phone. This is what he does. This is the part that is so powerful around.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 31:08

How do I not control what I think other people should be doing. And if I'm really looking at what I think from my spiritual self that he should be doing, I think he should be meditating. I think he should be spending his time and energy on something quote unquote more valuable than scrolling a phone. And when I first showed up and realized that this wasn't just a thing that he does every once in a while, what I really realized is this is what he does and I had to work with myself on it. And again I want to really emphasize the importance and soul recovery of us doing our work within ourselves. We're turning the attention to our self and we're processing these things from within our self from a new and healthy perspective. We're asking ourselves questions, we're curious about how we feel. We're really digging in underneath what I call these rocks that we carry of our pain, of our woundedness, of the heaviness that we feel. And this rock that I have, that's around my dad, is this concept of wanting his attention, both when I was a little girl and figuring out what that looks like as an adult, and wanting to be helpful. And this is a man who loves me and clearly has so much gratitude that I'm in his life. There wasn't a moment on this trip that he didn't look at me and say thank you so much for being here, thank you for making sure that I'm safe.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 32:53

The good news is he feels better than he's felt in months. He's on chemo and radiation and he is not in pain anymore. His tumor is shrinking he can feel it. His energy is coming back, his color is coming back, he's eating. He is remarkably, doing great, and there was that moment for me when I had to look at my own desire for him to be spending his time in a way that felt more valuable. I don't know, that felt more worthwhile. That's my decision. That's what I think. If you were me, here's what I would be doing. Well, I'm not you, I'm not him. This is what he does with his time, this is his life, just like every choice that he's made along the way to live and be in the life that is his. This is another one of them, and I'm able to let go, one step at a time, of all of those things, with true compassion and true letting go, when I attend to myself first and I say why am I judging what he's doing with this time? Well, I'm judging it because I actually have a desire that he'd be interacting with me on a different way.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 34:21

So I did what I recommend to everybody in the solar recovery community. I took out my journal, I had conversations with myself, I had curiosity about myself and what did it come down to? It came back down to a little girl who has always been looking for some interaction from a father figure. In a way, that may not be what I'm going to get, and this is a human being who is over in his section of the apartment of the loft, perfectly at ease, perfectly content with himself. He's not unhappy, he's not mad, he's not moping, he's just being him. And here I am wishing that it were different. That's the suffering from the step one, wanting and wishing that it was different, and then, within ourselves, trying to make it be something else. So I did the switch of starting to see it for what it was.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 35:29

My mom and I ended up going and having day trips, because he was doing so fabulously, he didn't need us around to be there every single moment he's doing what he's doing. So my mom and I just started going out and being in Santa Fe and having a little vacation together, and that was great and that was so enjoyable and I could enjoy it because I wasn't caught up in this. I'm not getting what I want from you. I think you should be doing something different. I think you should be interacting with me differently.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 36:00

And then the beauty was that opening came for me just to share a tiny bit with my dad and he said thank you so much for coming, I so appreciate you being here. And I said, well, it's been an interesting trip. And he said, well, what do you mean by that? And I said, well, I thought it was going to be different. I thought we'd spend more time together. And he said we are spending time together.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 36:20

And I said I thought we would have more time to connect, more time visiting and talking. And he came back and he said you know, this is what I do. This is as much energy as I have to expend, and although it may feel like visiting doesn't take a lot of energy, it really does. And so, as I'm healing and as I'm allowing myself to just be in this process, being on the phone doesn't take energy from me, but it lets my mind be busy. Wow, I thought I didn't see it that way. I look at it and think you should be spending your time doing something else.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 36:59

And that was really healing for me, because I want to accept him for exactly who he is and I want to attend to myself and my feelings and validate how my experience feels for me and take care of me underneath that so that that part of me can release and let go. And then there's no grievance, there's no resentment, there's nothing left over and I could heal a lot of my younger experience and I could have compassion for everyone involved, for my dad's choice of the life that he has created for himself, and to give him the complete acceptance of this choice that he has made in his life to be this particular human being, and for me to attend to myself and recognize as a child. It wasn't always easy for me, and that's true, but it doesn't make a judgment on him. That's what Solver Curry is all about. We're not judging anybody as being right or wrong or good or bad. We're just seeing it. We're rising above and looking at it. I'm powerless over his choices and the good news is is that we both love each other, and the good news is that I can see this particular situation as another learning tool for me in this self-righteousness that I carried in my life for so long that thought.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 38:31

I think I know better than you what you should be doing with your time and energy. Now I'm not 83 years old like my dad. I don't have cancer like my dad, I only have me and my life and where I'm at. And the more that I can use the reflection of somebody else and sometimes and say, wow, that doesn't feel like what I would want to be spending my time on, I can turn to myself and say, well then, you are in charge of you. If you only have control over yourself, you spend your time on what feels right for you and for somebody else. They think what you're doing isn't good for your time. They think you should be doing something else.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 39:13

So when we let go of the need to please everybody in the situation and be perfect or accommodate or be what other people think we should be, or that they should be how we think they should be, what we're doing is we're accepting the humanness of all of our expressions. We're accepting the journey and the path that we're all on, and the gratitude that I have is that I left that trip feeling connected to my dad, feeling grateful for his journey and getting an opportunity to be in his life with all of my feelings, attend to myself and love him and love the life that he has and continue to desire to want to be present in it from my healthy helping and not my unhealthy. Let me fix and do for you place, and I think I was successful. I think in the end, if I'm looking at it, I'm grateful for that very strange and wonderful Christmas experience and I'm grateful that he gets to have his experience of this last part of his life as he chooses, and I will continue to show up in the ways that are authentic to myself and I can even more allow him to be and do exactly who he is as he moves into his later parts of his life. Having had this intensive experience and time together, I can stop being in a fantasy of what I think I want it to be and what I want our relationship to be, and I'm grateful for that. So I hope this has helped you in this concept of how do we let go of what we think other people should be doing. There's so many more stories that we could tell on this man. I could do an entire year talking about this particular subject. As always, if you want direct help, one-on-one with working on this book of coaching session with me, this is the kind of work that we do to work through our younger experiences and our belief systems and healing and releasing these kinds of emotions.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 41:33

Until next time, namaste, thank you for listening to the Recovery Soul podcast and if you loved what you heard here, every Friday we have a bonus episode and you can access this by becoming a subscriber through Apple podcasts for only $3.99 a month or become a Patreon member and on this platform you can choose $5.15 or $25 a month to show what you want to support the show with. On both of these subscriber platforms is an entire catalog of back episodes intended to inspire and support you on your soul recovery journey. I really want to invite everybody to attend the free once a month, every first Monday of the month support group. This is on Zoom. Everyone is welcome to attend and by giving a like or a review and sharing this with your friends and family really helps us to share the soul recovery message with even more people.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 42:31

We are on social media. We are on all the platforms. I am on TikTok. You can listen to guided meditations by Rev Rachel Harrison on Insight Timer. Thank you for supporting the show. Thank you for being part of the community. To find out more about soul recovery and everything that's being offered, visit the website wwwrecoveryoursoulnet. Together, we can do the work that will recover your soul.