Exploring Empathy and Compassion and the Path to Healthy Relationships

While I am on vacation  for February 2024, I wanted to share some of the powerful episodes from our book study last year for subscribers of the Bonus Recover Your Soul podcast, and have chosen some of the favorites.
In this episode we explore the concept of compassion during the book study of Paul Faerrini's "Crossing the Threshold from Fear to Love: 31 Days of Spiritual Awakening". Rev Rachel speaks to the importance of compassion for both ourselves and others, emphasizing the need to strike a balance between understanding and empathy while also establishing healthy boundaries. She discusses the transformative power of compassion within the Soul Recovery journey and how it grows a deeper connection with oneself and others. Let's talk about the profound impact of compassion on healing, understanding, and personal growth.

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 Coaching session when you book on the website.  Visit the website for all events and groups to get involved in Soul Recovery and the community.

Soul Recovery Support Group on Zoom -The 1st Monday of the Month, 6PM Mountain Time. This is a drop in support group where we can come together to explore, connect and support each other on our Soul Recovery journey.  Visit the website to register and receive the meeting invite.  Free to attend and donations appreciated.

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

If you're listening to this at the date of its airing, it is February 2024, and Rich and I are in Indonesia for a trip of a lifetime celebrating our 30th wedding anniversary, which is exclusively through the power of doing soul recovery and creating a new life. So while I'm gone, I'm going to be replaying some of the content from the subscribers' bonus episodes that are listened to through being an Apple Podcast subscriber or Patreon number. I like doing book studies as inspiration on the bonus episodes and last year we worked with Paul Ferini's book Crossing the Threshold from Fear to Love. It's around the spiritual values that can allow us to be our whole, full self and we're going to be using some of those values for you to put more tools in your spiritual toolbox and on your soul recovery journey. And just a quick pitch that, if you like this episode and you like the concept of book studies or in-depth interviews, I hope you'll also become a bonus episode subscriber. Enjoy.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 1:53

Welcome to the Recover your Soul Podcast a spiritual path to a happy and healthy life. 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 inner change and healing. Positive results in our lives will follow. Welcome back to the bonus episodes of the Recover your Soul Podcast. I'm Rev Rachel and I am so happy that you're here as a Patreon member or an Apple Podcast subscriber. You're not only supporting the Recover your Soul Podcast and community, but you're stepping into a deeper connection with your own journey. You're doing this commitment to do the next level of awakening, that next level of inner work. And you know it's not easy. It's not easy doing this, really looking at ourselves, letting go of what we can't control of in the outside world which, man, if you were like me, I certainly thought that I could and learning how to just turn the attention to ourselves and to start to choose how we want to see it it is as I choose to see it and just change our perception a little bit. And every time we change it just a little, we have this ability to open our hearts in a new way, to let go of that tightness, that stickiness that comes from everybody else's experience, and so I love that we're continuing on the book study of Paul Ferini's book Crossing the Threshold from Fear to Love 31 Days of Spiritual Awakening. We're using these 31 spiritual values as a way to really come in even deeper into our soul recovery journey, to take a look at ourselves, to put more tools in our spiritual toolbox and to be able to look more deeply at our own experience and our own feelings.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 4:14

And this week's episode is around compassion. And when I first started reading the lines in the book, I realized he was really talking about compassion for others and I thought you know, in soul recovery we're really wanting to make sure we're not being in co-dependence of putting other people's needs before ours. We really are working on practicing self-compassion. But as I read on, I really could feel the truth around so many of the ways that we can heal from practicing both self-compassion and compassion for others and how important this is in our process, because compassion is the foundation of being able to be gentle to ourselves and to others, to let it go. So there's some really great stuff in here, so I'm excited to read it. As you know, I will read it and then I will reflect as it pertains to soul recovery and we'll just go on from there.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 5:17

So today's topic, today's value, is compassion. He says compassion is a state of consciousness. We cultivate compassion when we put ourselves in someone else's situation and understand their thoughts, feelings and behavior. Our compassion helps us refrain from judgment and gives others the benefit of the doubt. Even when they're expressing some strong emotion like anger, grief or jealousy, we can relate to them because we are human and also have had these feelings. Being in compassion go hand in hand.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 5:52

Now, as you can see, when I read that first paragraph, my first thought was we want to make sure that we're not doing that part of compassion for others that makes it so that we don't care for ourselves, that we spend the energy having an awareness but not letting somebody else's behaviors or somebody else's way of being to us that it hurts us, and it's a fine line sometimes. But in soul recovery we're getting more clear about where that line is. What does that line look like? Can I see somebody who is in a strong reaction, who's angry? And instead of taking it on myself, can I just see that that person's in pain and not feel like I have to fix it not feel like I have to do something about it, not be a people pleaser in it. Can I just hold space for them and have compassion for their feelings? And that's what we're learning in soul recovery. So as I go on it'll get a little more clear, but I wanted to make sure that there's clarity around. Compassion does not mean that you take people's crap or we let people walk all over us.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 7:09

Opposite states of consciousness are blaming, shaming, judging, finding fault with others, inability to understand and accept the human frailties of other people, callousness and rejection, unwillingness to offer help and encouragement, objectifying or dehumanizing others so that we feel justified in ignoring their rights and their needs. This is the other side of the coin that I think is really important to talk about, because when we go into blaming and shaming others, when we go into that callousness and that rejection, this is how we're protecting ourselves. It's important for us to be in awareness of what are the ways that we shut down, what are the ways that we protect ourselves from pain. So, when we're not encouraging, when we're objectifying, when we're dehumanizing, when we're shutting other people's feelings out and we're not aware of the fact that we're actually using this as a tool. That has been probably something that worked or started when you were a kid, or that you were taught from a parent as the way to deal with these complex and uncomfortable feelings. Then we can close up and become hardened and we put all the energy outside and say they're at fault here, they're the reason why this is happening, instead of just holding space for them, instead of just being present with whatever the feelings are on both sides, no matter how difficult they are.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 8:48

And again, this is not easy. This is not easy stuff. This is a pretty big deal to start to step back and be a witness in a way that's very different from our beliefs and upbringing that were given to us. So he says the teaching compassion is similar to empathy, but it's not identical. Compassion helps us to be the observer and to see the big picture, as I just said, like really stepping back, seeing the big picture. It helps us understand, based on our own experience, what someone else is going through. When we feel compassion for someone, we refrain from judging or rejecting because we can see and relate to another person's suffering.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 9:30

He goes on to give a little section that's about how compassion is the bedrock of 12 step programs and compassion is the bedrock of these places where we come together and we witness each other. This is part of the soul recovery community that we're not alone in this. The reason why you relate to this podcast is because I'm sharing my stories. I'm sharing my experiences, my difficulties and through that, my hope is that you can hear that we have similar lives, that you're not the only one, that in my stories you hear your stories, and when we can connect to another person and be in the space where the judgment is ceased because we understand how hard it is real tenderness and ability to be present and to be seen and to be witnessed and to connect with each other is a foundational piece of allowing people to heal themselves, to let go of the shame and the blame and the judgment that they have felt from others and that they feel for themselves.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 10:39

He goes on to say our common experiences enable us to accept others, even when they're acting out in unpleasant or destructive ways. We can say I know because I've been there. Yet when we also feel compassion, even if we've not had the same experience as someone else, when we understand someone else's history, we can see the root cause of his transgressions, misdeeds or mistakes, and I think this is really powerful in terms of the people in our lives that the more that we start to open up and let go of the need to fix somebody else or to tell them how they should be or need them to be a certain way for us to be comfortable, we can start to look at their behaviors, their misdeeds, sometimes the hurts that they have upon us, and have compassion. By looking back and saying I can see where they got this from their parents especially with our spouses or our family members, we actually know really deeply what their upbringing was, what their patterns were, how are they acting out in pain? And again, this doesn't mean that it gives them permission to treat you poorly. What it means is that you get to choose from your own spiritually grounded, resourced self If you're going to let it hook you, or if you can be the witness and just observe their behaviors and hold space for them and stand in your firm place that says this is either okay for me or it isn't okay for me. But you're not taking on their stuff, you're not trying to make it be different and you're having deep awareness and tenderness and compassion around how they got to where they are. How did they get there? What was their upbringing? So many of you that I work with that say I understand that my spouse is the way that he is. He was Traumatized as a kid. He was abused, he had alcoholic parents. She had, you know, these kinds of situations that really led her to have these kinds of behaviors. So we're not Condoning them, we're accepting them. We're seeing them for exactly who they are, instead of who we want them to be, who we think they should be, what we want them to be doing, and we're holding space for that. That's compassion. He goes on to say compassion enables us to walk in another person's moccasins before we attempt to evaluate their behavior. Walking in their moccasins allows us to feel empathy for them and we can feel what they feel.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 13:27

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 recover your soul net 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.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 14:24

Empathy this is so important, so really listen to this. I love this. Empathy can be a stepping stone that deepens our experience of compassion, but it can also be problematic when we feel empathy. When we feel empathy, we identify with that person's experience so that it becomes our own. I love this because being empathetic means you're feeling their feelings and there's something really beautiful about having empathy for people, and I remember when I started to realize that I had some empathic parts of myself, that when it was named for the first time, I thought oh, that's why their feelings impact me on such an intense level is because I actually feel their feelings.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 15:18

Now, being a people pleaser and a codependent, it meant that I felt that I was supposed to fix those feelings. I took those feelings on as my own. I Wasn't able to let myself have empathy, to feel the tenderness Around somebody who's having something really traumatic happen in their life, or even watching the news and seeing some of the stuff that happens in the news and Really just your heart just aches for the suffering that is happening. But then you don't take it in, you don't experience it as if it's yours. You move to compassion. You move from that empathetic feeling to a compassionate feeling which holds space for it but doesn't take it as yours. And so I think this awareness between the difference between empathy and compassion is really fantastic. So I'm going to read that again. When we feel empathy, we identify with the person's experience so that it becomes our own. He says if that person is experiencing grief, we start to feel grief too, and it can trigger all of our past experiences of grief that we've had. Now there's two people grieving, not just one. Now this is so powerful because not only is it about us having the ability to actually feel other people's feelings, but that recognition that it can trigger and bring up all those feelings that are trapped in our body and our subconscious and we may not even realize that that's what's happening, but all of a sudden we're just flooded with emotion.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 16:59

There's something called a highly sensitive person HSP and when I started looking into it it's really fascinating. I'm not a HSP. I have empathetic tendencies, for sure. But people who are highly sensitive people are affected so deeply by other people's emotions or by their own emotions. It's like their body is just extra tender, they're extra sensitive, and not in a negative way. It's not a negative thing, it just isn't is thing. So, the more that we can have clarity around, am I a highly sensitive person? Am I an empath? Do I have empathetic feelings? You can start to set up for yourself emotional boundaries, energetic boundaries that allow you to see when it is safe and when it's not safe to be connecting with people in that way, to be taking on those emotions, or to notice that you are taking on those emotions. So it says you can see the problem.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 18:04

If both people are in pain, who can bring the love, who can bring a healing, who can bring encouragement? When we identify with someone else's pain, we're unable to help that person. We get stuck in feelings. That's like a person jumping into quicksand or trying to help another. It doesn't work. So empathy is helpful only in the short term if we use our empathy to move to compassion. Compassion sees the big picture. It helps us stand back, observe and understand the situation so that we have the ability to help.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 18:42

And I want to add to that not just the ability to help, but the ability to help in healthy ways and in the ways that we've talked about in soul recovery. That we're not fixing anyone, we're not there to make it better for anyone. That that ability to help is actually to let that other person know that you see them as whole, that you're experiencing their wholeness, that you're relieving the belief that there's something wrong with them, that they need a quote, unquote fixing, but you're allowing them to see that they have what they need to take care of it and encouraging them to see themselves from this healthier place. It says oftentimes people who are empathetic have a very difficult time in life. They identify with and take on the feelings of others. They have to learn to establish boundaries so that they're protected from the negative feeling states of other people. They need to constantly be aware when those boundaries are being crossed and they are jeopardizing their own comfort and safety. I think that's so powerful and important. It says sometimes identification happens unconsciously.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 19:54

The people we judge harshly often bring up our own unconscious guilt. He says in John 8, 7, jesus tells the crowd who wanted to punish a woman who had committed adultery, and he says he that is without sin among you, let him cast the first stone. This calls them to a deeper level of honesty in which they must acknowledge their own sins. If they punish her, they should also be punished. If they forgive her, then they can also be forgiven.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 20:26

There's an essential quality that exists between all human beings One is not better or more spiritual than another. I love this because I think it can be so easy for us to say oh, I'm worse than that person. You know, that's the tendency is to say these people are doing better than me, or higher than me, or that person's not as good, or that there's some level of whether we're on a higher path or a lower path. You know, I see so clearly that we are all exactly where we're supposed to be on our journey and we are equal. We're all special, but no one is more special than the other. The more that we can have this awareness that we all make mistakes, that we make mistakes, that we can accept ourselves in the mistakes that we make and, instead of being the one that wants to cast the stone on somebody else who is at fault, releasing that deeply and just having compassion for how complex it is to be a human being. It is very complicated to be a human being and our feelings and our desires and our expectations and our wants they are all mixed together and we're having such similar experiences and yet each of ours is our own unique experience. So this concept of really seeing that there is an equality that exists between us and no one is more spiritual or better than another, can we just allow people to be on their own journey and have their own experience? And in Soul Recovery, we're learning to let go of the need to help somebody along on their path. Right that I'm here having this experience and my awakening is mine.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 22:23

For me to think that rich or my kids or my friends or my listeners or anybody in the community, even my clients, should be somewhere is faulty, because you're exactly where you're supposed to be. And when you start to have awarenesses and you start to see things in a different way, there's just such a gratitude that it's come to you in the time that it's supposed to come. I didn't get sober until I was 48 years old and sometimes I think, wow, you waited a long time, you could have done that earlier. Well, that's when it was right for me, that's when I was ready. And being sober from alcohol doesn't mean that I'm spiritually aware, and it has been my spiritual awakening that has brought me the most love and the most joy and the most deep inner peace and change in my life.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 23:18

He always offers a practice, and his practice says today practice compassion. Give others a break, be tolerant towards them. Walk in their shoes and understand the struggles and pressures that they're facing in their lives. Try to find something in your own experience that helps you better understand or relate to them. Then he says today have compassion for yourself as well. If you're judging or condemning yourself, try to soften and cut yourself a break. You don't have to be perfect and you don't have to be right all the time. You are human and you make mistakes. Accept your humanness and your fallibility and all that. The people you interact with today Hold your experience and that of others gently. Affirm your equality with each other, with your brothers and your sisters. See yourself and others and see others in yourself.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 24:13

One of the most beautiful paradoxes is that the we experience in life is that we're both unique and the same. We can and must individuate, but when we discover our own truth, we do not lose our common roots. We are individuals, but we're members of a family and because of that we are faithful to each other. We accept our differences. We support and encourage one another, even though our paths may diverge. May be aware of the needs of your human family, support and encourage your brothers and sisters, withhold your judgment and criticism and give each person the respect you want them to give to you today.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 24:54

So the beauty of this is really that stepping out of judgment and just allowing people to be exactly who they are. I keep saying this, but I just think it's so important that when we accept and we allow people to be who they are, it doesn't mean that we're allowing people to behave in ways that are destructive or unhealthy or are damaging. What we're saying is that when we walk out into the world, so many times we're calloused and we're protecting ourselves, and so it's easier to be really judgy of the people around us, and we're opening up just a little bit to say, wow, they must be having a really hard day. If they're coming back in some way, that's unkind. But if you have some in your life that you can hold that compassion for and start to hold space between the two of you so that you're not getting the brunt of what happens in their unhealthy behavior, so that you're not trying to fix or control what choices they're making, and have that compassion that gives them space to have their experience, to have their consequences, and that we allow it to be what it is, allowing it to be what it is from that observer, distanced space and having kindness in our heart instead of judgment.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 26:28

His journaling questions are in what ways do I need to be more compassionate with myself and others and his other? Is his empathy a stepping stone towards compassion for me, or does it result in my identifying with or taking on the emotional states of others? That second one is the one that I think as recovering codependence and having people in our lives who, boy, do we want to do something different for them or we want it to be different? Are we taking on the emotional states of others? What does that look like? How can we start to show up with compassion and how can we start to have a healthier relationship with ourselves and with them from the soul recovery perspective. What a great chapter on compassion, lots to think about. As I always say, if you need help with any of this and want to do one-on-one coaching with me, this is the kind of stuff that we're looking at. We're looking at how to come from our healthiest highest self and to live a life that is true to our nature and allowing others to be exactly who they are.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 27:39

Until next time, namaste, thank you for listening to the Recovery Soul Podcast 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 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.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 28:24

This is on Zoom. Everyone is welcome to attend 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. 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.