Embracing Faith: Trusting in the Goodness of Human Beings and the Universe

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 bonus episode we continue the book study of Paul Ferrini's "Crossing the Threshold from Fear to Love: 31 Days of Spiritual Awakening" and study the spiritual value of faith.  When we step into faith, we are invited to leave judgement and blame behind and be present with 'what is', knowing we are being held and guided for what is right for us on our own learning soul journey.  This chapter was a beautiful complement to our Soul Recovery as we are moving closer to our spiritually grounded Higher Self and connection with Higher Power.

Become a Patreon Member and listen to the full book study!

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

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

Speaker 1: 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.

Speaker 1: 1:55

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 interchange and healing. Positive results in our lives will follow.

Speaker 1: 2:35

Welcome back to the bonus episodes of the Recover your Soul Podcast. I'm Rev Rachel and we are coming to an end of the year. Hard to believe that we are almost finished with 2023. And I wanted to come back to our book study on Paul Ferini's book Crossing the Threshold from Fear to Love 31 Days of Spiritual Awakening, and we're taking these 31 spiritual values. We've been through quite a few of them at this point and I probably won't continue on with the book next year just because I want us to have different things to study, but I definitely recommend this book if you didn't pick it up already. And so for the last two episodes of this year on the bonus episodes, we're going to hit a couple of really powerful values that I wanted to make sure that we covered. One of them is faith. So day 13, value 13 is faith, and this is so important because here we are in soul recovery, on a spiritual journey. We're here following a spiritual path to a happy and healthy life and utilizing soul recovery to remember our wholeness, to connect to our higher power and to come back to ourselves, letting go of the outside world. I'm going to read from the book, as I usually do, and then I will reflect on it in the soul recovery perspective.

Speaker 1: 4:01

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 recoveryoursoulnet 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.

Speaker 1: 4:58

Before I start reading, I want to make sure that I clarify that Paul uses the word God in this book. I want to make sure that you use and translate that into whatever word feels right for you. Maybe it's love, maybe it's good, maybe it's universe, maybe it's divine, maybe it's cosmos, maybe it's spirit, maybe it's source. Soul recovery is very, very much about you discovering for yourself what is that connection to higher power for you. Whatever word or energy or concept fills you up with love and light and wholeness, that's the one to use. As I'm reading this, I want you to know that I'm just going to say the word God, but please exchange that for what feels right and perfect for you. Okay, with that.

Speaker 1: 5:58

Paul Ferini says Faith is a state of consciousness. We cultivate faith when we trust in the basic goodness of human beings and the universe in which we live. Even when bad things happen, even when other human beings disappoint or betray us, we don't give up our hope and optimism. Even when we live through a natural disaster or another catastrophic event, we don't blame God or believe we're being punished. We know that from deep within, that we are loved, blessed, and that we trust that, even when we don't understand what's happening right now, in the time of God's plan, it will be revealed to us. Our faith enables us to weather the times of crisis in our lives and to emerge safely from the fire and fury around us.

Speaker 1: 6:47

The opposite states of consciousness are lack of faith, despair, inability to find purpose and meaning for our lives, lack of emotional resilience due to disconnection from our core, self distrust and inability to perceive goodness in ourselves, others and the universe in which we live. Our myopic vision and self-absorption make it difficult for us to see the big picture or feel that higher power or force for the good is active in our lives. When our vision narrows and we can't see the forest for the trees, it's time to climb to higher ground so that we have a longer and wider view. It's time to get out of our heads and into our hearts, where we can connect with love and regain our faith. It's interesting what I read when I listen to these states of consciousness, these opposite states.

Speaker 1: 7:41

It's when we're in pain, when we're out of balance, when we're in our human need to control, when we're in the place where we think this is happening to us and that we need and want and have to make it change and we want it to be different. We want to control it. Of course, that's how it can feel, especially if you are going through, or have been through, some major event in your life or the difficulties that we have. This idea of being able to truly touch into your heart, where you know that you're being guided and held and loved, isn't natural to us when we've been through so much. This is something that we're cultivating, that we're growing within ourselves, and this is the core concept of soul recovery.

Speaker 1: 8:30

Can we believe that, foundationally, we are good, that the universe is good, that we get to choose what we think and feel, and believe that we can utilize our spiritual practice to bring us back into focus and that we can then utilize these tools to actually demonstrate in our life how to live from this higher self, from this full self that is connected to something even greater still? And this concept of faith, I think, is so important because we want to trust all the people around us to be a certain way, so we can be okay, but really they're just human beings doing what humans do, and so, when we open up to this awareness that we can collect ourselves, our thoughts, our beliefs and shift how we see the world, change our perception to come from a more grounded, spiritually centered place. We start to see things as they are and we let go of the need of everybody else to fulfill for us some hole that's in our heart and we let go of disappointment and we let go of pain and then we can be in the state of consciousness of faith. It's a shift that can happen within us, slowly, over time, and sometimes in a very quick manner where you see it in a new way. So I love this concept of us being able to look at faith from how Paul's sharing it with us, because it really resonates with me on the soul recovery perspective.

Speaker 1: 10:23

Okay, so his next section is called the Teaching. Like Job and the Old Testament, we're all tested at times by events and circumstances that feel overwhelming to us. At such times we're challenged to reconnect to the source of love within in our hearts and to find our faith. I totally agree. Many of us feel defined from the outside so that when something bad or difficult happens to us, we think that we are somehow to blame or are being punished by God or by other human beings. Isn't that so true? When something happens, we want to understand why, and we feel like it's a punishment instead of just the concept that life is complicated, that things are hard, that it doesn't always go perfect, and so this concept of really letting go of blame and guilt, for ourselves and for others is a pretty profound shift in the way that we can see the world. He says we condemn ourselves or we condemn others for what happened. This closes down our hearts and makes it difficult for us to recover from adversity and trauma.

Speaker 1: 11:38

We're always looking for why.

Speaker 1: 11:41

Why did that happen? Why did they say that? Why is it happening like this? Because our ego and our psyche, inside all of our various memories and parts, are trying to understand and make sense of a nonsensical world. So often the answer of why is something really irrelevant. People do and say and act in ways that aren't congruent with who they are at times, or are just purely out of pain or are by chance, and when we're desperately seeking for the why, we're desperately looking for a blame, then we're wasting the time and energy that we have right here, right now, to be present with ourselves and to connect to the feelings that we have and to know that we can and will make it through it that we are strong enough to be able to handle anything, he says. If we're lucky in time, we take ourselves and others off the hook and we find renewed sense of meaning and purpose in our lives.

Speaker 1: 12:51

If we're lucky right, we may even understand and retrospect why an event or circumstance had to happen in order for us to wake up and pay attention to our soul's need for growth. This is so true for me. I think about how, in the rooms of AA, people say that they're grateful alcoholics, and when I first started to hear that, I thought what does that mean? You're grateful alcoholic? Well, if they had not had this situation, if I had not had the dark times that I had in my life, if I hadn't really hit a wall that was so intense that I didn't even want to live anymore, I wouldn't have gotten to a place where I was willing to do whatever it took literally whatever it took to break out of this internal prison that I had put myself in.

Speaker 1: 13:44

So, instead of seeing it as some sort of punishment, what if we look at it as our soul's growth, as our curriculum of life, that we are in this study of how our soul can grow and expand and learn and remember our wholeness and stop seeing it as a punishment and that's what he says next and then we will know that it's not a punishment but a blessing. Can we shift our focus and our energy within us to change the perception? Because if you see it different, you will experience it differently. And we all are going through difficult times on some level some harder, some easier but we're all experiencing discomfort. So when we allow ourselves to stop trying to think that there won't be any discomfort and we start saying, what can I learn about this conversation? What can I learn about this particular moment in time in this relationship? What can I learn about how I'm interacting with people at work? How can I stand in a new way of seeing this financial situation that I'm in? That feels really heavy and dark, and I trust and have faith that I have the resources within me to be able to manage it. Can I lean into my connection with higher power and move past this desire for it to not hurt and allow it to hurt but not choose to suffer?

Speaker 1: 15:24

He says many times, if not indeed all the time, we don't understand what's happening or why it's happening, so we try to give our own meaning to it. As I was saying earlier, we interpret what happens either positively or negatively, and either interpretations can be erroneous. If we are wise, we withhold judgment and try to accept and live with what is happening until we better understand it and can respond in a helpful way. This is the part of learning how, in soul recovery, we talk about letting go of judgment, positive and negative, trying to truly release that part of us that thinks that we need to figure it out. Can we just look at it for exactly what it is, and sometimes what it is isn't easy to look at and sometimes what it is is way better than we actually are perceiving it to be because we have all this sticky attachment to it. So to just accept it, to accept and live with what's happening until we can better understand and respond in a helpful way. He says we learn to say I don't know why this happened and I don't know what it means. Can we just be in the space of not knowing? Can we trust, can we have faith that we will have clarity for what is right for us, not that we can figure out what it meant for them, why they did such and such, but truly that we within ourselves, will have the capacity to handle and show up for and be present in a way that is healthy and true and right for us. He says we take time to get our arms around it and eventually we can embrace it and work with it. As we take this necessary time, we hold ourselves and others harmless right. We can not inflict harm on ourselves or on others because we don't blame or shame anyone. There's such a desire to blame somebody I was thinking about recently.

Speaker 1: 17:41

We just came back from Santa Fe with Rich and the kids to go see my dad, who we had planned this trip long before this actually happened that he got diagnosed with cancer. But he's been diagnosed with cancer and he's in cancer treatments and we just went as a family to go spend time together. I ended up getting sick. Rich and my mom and I all came back with this crazy cold. Right, there was this moment where we were talking about where did we get it? Who gave us the cold? The truth is, it doesn't even matter who gave us the cold, who cares? We all came back with a cold. So even if there was somebody who was coughing up a storm and in your face with germs, knowing that they got you sick. What does that do? What point is that?

Speaker 1: 18:33

I know for me that my immune system was down because I was not in my centered place trying to get everything ready for the kids to arrive, to go down to Santa Fe, to get everything done here at work, to get the podcast out, and I wasn't in my balanced place, which really means that my energy wasn't in a place that I could potentially thin off something that came. We want to blame and we want to know why. What I love about this getting sick was that I am grateful for this opportunity to get sick, to be honest, because it happened right in between being with my dad, with the family, and going back down in a couple days to be with him for Christmas while his girlfriend's out of town and get him to cancer treatments, so that I was sick, not around him. He didn't get sick. Also, that I will have built up an immunity that when Rich and I go to Indonesia in February, maybe my system will be stronger. So I can choose to see it in the way that it's going to be more true for me.

Speaker 1: 19:47

But if I spend a whole bunch of time and energy being pissed about who quote unquote got me sick. I'm really just perpetuating negativity and I'm bringing myself into a place that isn't around healing and growth. It's around whose fault is it? And this is a simple thing. But, man, you can go around and around about whose fault it is in almost every single thing.

Speaker 1: 20:11

So he says in the practice today, see if you can be with your experience without interpreting it. Just be with it and try to get your arms around it. It's okay if you don't understand what's happening or why it's happening. Can we just be in the unknown? Can we allow those parts of ourselves that desperately want to know and want to have certainty and are curious? Can we Let them know that it's okay, give them voice and say I hear you, I know that you really want to figure this out, but we're just holding space, you're all right, we've got this. Spirit is with us. He says today be open to the possibility that whatever is happening in your life might be happening for the good, even if you don't see where the goodness abides when difficulties arrive and you feel overwhelmed. Be willing to see the lesson you are being asked to learn, not a lesson like you're a bad person supposed to learn a lesson, but if we are here for our spiritual development, we have an opportunity to be growing and learning and expanding ourselves and remembering our wholeness in every single situation and every thought that happens in our moments in life, every single one.

Speaker 1: 21:33

He says most negative events and circumstances arrive from our own karma, and karma I won't go into a big thing, but to me in this situation really means what are the thoughts that we've had prior to this? What is our energy prior to this? If we're always running through our perception, then if we perceive the world to be terrible, it's gonna generally show up that way. If we perceive the world to always be working out for us, it's generally gonna show up that way. So most negative events and circumstances arrive from our negative thinking. They are inevitable consequences of our feelings, thoughts and beliefs and patterns of behavior. So if you've worked with me in Soul Recovery or listened to this podcast a lot, you know that what we're working on are what are these underlying patterns and beliefs and behaviors that we grew up with, that we've been doing for a long time out of pain and suffering, because those patterns and behaviors no longer work for us. But we have to be willing to shift and change and open deeply to ourselves to be able to correct, transform and move them into healthier ways of being.

Speaker 1: 22:56

He says sooner or later our chickens come home to brust and we have to deal with it. We have to take responsibility for what we have created. That doesn't mean the universe is punishing us. It just means that it's awakening us to the need to make different choices in our life. I believe this so strongly that we are not being punished. We don't bring sickness to ourselves because we are bad people. We don't have bad things happen to us because there is some again, this is me and my beliefs there is some being who is pointing their finger down in us and saying you deserve this because you're a bad person. Life is complicated, being human is complicated, but if we are energy, if the universe runs on energy, we can change how we perceive and respond and participate in our lives in a way that makes it so that we're not bringing towards us like a magnet difficulty and when we do stand in difficult times because they happen we interact with it in a different way. To decide that you're not being punished like a child, but you're being awakened, can completely affect how you see the world, he says it's asking us to change our consciousness so that we can change our experience. When we take responsibility and learn our lessons, we plant better seeds that will grow into healthier plants. We always reap what we sow.

Speaker 1: 24:41

Today, ask yourself am I blaming the God or universe for the difficulties or obstacles that I'm facing? If the answer is yes, be a little more restrained and humble. God does not want to punish you. The opportunity is to wake up and take responsibility for what you are creating Today. Understand that life always challenges us to deepen our understanding and our faith. These are the lessons that we can learn along the way.

Speaker 1: 25:13

Remember something important here. He says God tests you and I have a little issue with the word tests because I think the universe just is. So I'm gonna say the universe just is and these experiences that we have because we are here to learn and to grow. I believe the universe loves us deeply, that there is only love in its purest form and that all of our perception and our attachment to the humaneness comes with a lot of complexity. And if we're willing to learn, then we're able to let go of the past. We're willing to let go of the why we're willing to let go of the blame, we're willing to let go of the shame and open to our full, true nature, which is connection to the divine, connection to the one that we are whole, that we are holy.

Speaker 1: 26:17

He says, during challenging times, we either trust God or we don't. If we do, that, trust will see us through and will cross the threshold Remember, this book is crossing the threshold from fear to love. If we don't, we'll shrink back into our victim consciousness and the door will not open for us. How powerful is that? If, during challenging times, if we can trust and have faith that we are strong enough, that we are not alone, that we indeed are being held and resourced and loved, then we can work through what's happening within us. We can absolutely release what we no longer need changing our patterns, changing our beliefs.

Speaker 1: 27:08

We always have journaling prompts, and one is what is your job moment Meaning? What is the challenge moment, what is the moment in your life where you are really being pushed? And then, out of that being pushed, what has come out of it that has allowed you to expand and to grow and to potentially see the world in a different way when we look back on the difficulties of our lives. So often it feels like we won't ever make it. And yet for those of us who are lucky, it says earlier if you're lucky, then we'll see the world in this new way. For those of us who are lucky and interested in taking the narrow path into our hearts, into spirituality, we recognize that those difficult moments actually taught us so much and gave us so much strength and so much awareness, and maybe taught us to let go of the other people in our lives, that they need to take responsibility for their own experiences, that we are not responsible for everyone else's happiness. We are only responsible for our experience and how we show up in the world around us.

Speaker 1: 28:24

Another one of his prompts is how has your faith been tested in the past and how is it being tested right now? I know for me that my faith is getting stronger and yet I'm incredibly human and so when I get that prick of pain or of disappointment or of fear, I can quickly go into old patterns. But more often I see it, but I don't go there like I used to. I recognize that my body, my psyche, my old way of being wants to run that old, rugged, ugly path that was so comfortable and that I can choose to come back to my spiritually grounded, centered place, and then that's when I really step into my spiritual practice, whether it's a prayer at that moment, a meditation, taking time for myself, coming back to what is it for me that connects me to my God of my understanding, and you have the opportunity to turn to your God of your understanding, whatever higher power is for you. Wow, what a beautiful chapter around faith and especially at this time of the year, which is the holidays, to remember to step into this, knowing that you are loved and held and resourced, that everything that you need is within you, that you are whole. Until next time.

Speaker 1: 30:01

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.

Speaker 1: 30:57

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.