Use Soul Recovery to Find the Courage to Leave (or Stay in) your Relationship

Ready to face the tough questions in your relationship? In this honest and candid episode, Rev. Rachel doesn’t shy away from the raw reality of love, commitment, and the gut-wrenching choice to stay or leave. Drawing from her own 30+ year marriage, she lays bare the old patterns that can trap us, the fears that keep us stuck, and the soul-crushing doubts that make us wonder if it's time to move on to stay true to ourselves and our spiritual awakening.

This isn't your typical relationship advice. Rev. Rachel uses the transformative power of Soul Recovery to help you cut through the noise, reclaim your power, and make the decision that's right for you—whether that means walking away with courage or staying with renewed strength.

If you're tired of second-guessing yourself and ready to take back control of your happiness, this episode is your wake-up call. Tune in and discover the clarity you've been searching for.

Join Rev Rachel and the community for the FREE Soul Recovery Support Group on the 1st Monday of every month for a quick live mini workshop with Rev Rachel, time for questions and then meeting in small groups to connect and share your Soul Recovery.  Next group is Monday October 7th from 6 to 7PM Mountain Time. Same link each month, register on the website www.recoveryoursoul.net!!! 

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.

Chapters

• 0:00 Making Relationship Decisions for Spiritual Growth
• 14:57 Reevaluating Relationship Patterns
• 25:26 Navigating Relationship Dynamics and Growth
• 29:55 Choosing Spiritual Growth Over Familiar Patterns
• 42:30 Navigating Personal Growth Through Relationship Challenges
• 50:26 Join the Recovery Your Soul Community

Transcript

Rev Rachel Harrison: 0:31

In soul recovery. We're using our relationships to be our spiritual teachers. We're learning how to take the attention back to ourselves and find our own healing, our own wholeness, and to practice this spiritual path to a happy, healthy life, regardless of what's happening around us. However, there are these moments where we have to decide does this relationship work for me? It is important that we know that we can ask and want for more, but what is more? And how can we discern that place where we're not asking someone to be who they can't be and yet we're accepting who they can't be, and yet we're accepting who they are and allowing that to be a teacher for us, that we can grow and shift and be our full selves? And recently, in a conversation with my husband, I had to ask myself is this working for me? Am I able to grow and expand here in the way that is important for my spiritual journey? And a door opened. Was I going to walk through it? What was I going to decide? And in this episode I share with you the process that I went through of the courage to either leave a relationship or to stay. They both take courage and ultimately it's all around stepping into your soul recovery path and seeing everybody with compassion and making the choice that is right for you in your situation, for your wholeness and for what works for you. Enjoy the episode.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 2:14

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 to Recover your Soul. I'm Rev Rachel and I am so grateful that you're here in this community, in this safe space, to do your own soul recovery journey, to connect with others who are here, learning how to take our power back, learning how to follow a spiritual path to a happy and healthy life and recover our souls. To do our inner work, to heal ourselves, to learn to be okay when the people around us are still in their complexity of life.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 3:26

What I love about soul recovery is that we are allowing everyone to be in their own experience and putting our attention on ourselves and how we choose to see, feel and interact with our lives and the people around us. And this is a transformative process and, for those of you who have been on this journey with me either for a while or maybe you're new, there are so many people that tell me that they go back and start at the beginning of my podcast, when I started in the closet, sharing on my phone my transformation that was happening to me, this opening of my heart that was happening from a very, very, very difficult and dark time of addiction, of really intense codependence and people pleasing and really living in my patterns of dysfunction and fear and massive amounts of trying to control the uncontrollable and the chaos that was my life. And when I had this spiritual awakening and this opening, this just crack of willingness to stop looking at everyone else and wanting them to change and thinking, I can now see that I need to look at me, I need to heal me, and that's why I recently had the insight that I needed to change the nine steps of soul recovery, move them away from 12 step and more into what's grown out of these last four years of incredible growth and transformation and awareness from my spiritual path that I've been sharing with you. So if you have in you to go back and start at the beginning of the podcast, I encourage you to do so because if this speaks to you and you're on your journey, you'll see me, you'll feel me going through those experiences with myself, and what I love about those of you that are in the community with me is you get my stories. You get it because you have a spouse who might remind you of my spouse, or you might have kids adult like mine or growing up that you resonate with my stories, that I have with my kids or how it was for me growing up, because you know we feel like we're so alone out there.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 5:47

But the truth is we have more similarities than we have differences, and yet our individual experience as a human being is so important to truly, truly recognize and be in connection with your unique experience, knowing that there are these touchstones that relate to each other, but it's always about really embracing your experience and not diminishing yourself and allowing your human experience here at what I call Earth School to truly be about your transformation. So my journey relates to you, but it is uniquely your story. So I wanted to share with you a little bit about what's been happening within me recently. This is a big time of transformation on a more cosmic energy level. If you're into the woo-woo stuff, like I am, they say that right now there's a lot going on in terms of the sun flares and there's a lot of energy happening. And in the astrology there's a lot of crazy shifts going on and it's a really intense time of profound change. And there's also a lot of belief around how quickly the consciousness is changing and how it's really making it, so that the discrepancies and the differences are even more apparent, which just look at politics and you can see that that's the case.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 7:21

But here we are on our soul recovery journey, wanting to expand ourself, and if you're here listening, you're probably on the same wavelength as me, because if you don't get me and I don't appeal to you, you're not going to listen. So if we are connected, it's because we are feeling similarly. I'm sharing with you what is already within you. I am just opening my own channel to be able to have more clarity about what's within me, and you, through my words, are opening the channel to understand what is already within you as well. This is the beauty of us connecting with people that remind us of who we are, that remind us of our wholeness.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 8:06

So with that, last week I did an interview for another podcast. I have a new show coming out called Awaken your Soul on an upcoming network that's going to be a streaming network called the Ethereal TV Network and they're currently getting it all put together and I'm so honored to be able to be one of the teachers on this new network, which is intended to raise the consciousness, and it'll allow me to move more into some of the woo-woo stuff. If you're interested in that kind of a thing, I get to be Rev Rachel, give a talk and a guided meditation. So this woman is bringing on different creators and content people from that channel onto her podcast to introduce them as a way to be promotional and connect with each other. And so the story is that we're in this interview, connect with each other.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 8:57

And so the story is that we're in this interview and she says, oh, I'm surprised you're still married. And I said, really. And she said yeah, most people that really move on a spiritual plane, who really increase their spiritual consciousness, often can't stay married because the person that they're with doesn't stay on the same movement, the same trajectory of expansion and growth. And she said that she was one of those people that she had to get divorced, and she knew a lot of people like that. And I said what I always say here, which is at this moment at this moment in time, I don't feel like it holds me back in my marriage rich, but when it does, I will certainly have to take a look at it. But I want to tell you that when I said that to her, there was something in me that knew that I was at the place where I needed to take a look at it, because this relationship thing that we do with people is complicated. And it's complicated because we are each our own individuals, on our own individual journey, with all of our own stuff that we came in with, if you believe in karma, or just came in with from our childhood and our patterns. And, and here we are on this journey of connection and relation with each other and we need to learn how to cohabitate, to be in union, to be in intimacy in ways that fill us up.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 10:34

Are you ready to step into your soul recovery? Well, I am here to support you as your spiritual coach. Visit the website to book one-on-one coaching sessions with me as we transform your life through working the nine steps of soul recovery. You can also choose to work the steps on your own through the modules at your own pace. I'm excited to also be announcing that there are retreats every year, both in Colorado and other places in the country, workshops and events, and I hope that you also will join us the first Monday of every month from 6 to 7pm Mountain Standard time for the free Zoom support group. This is an amazing place for us to connect, learn and share our stories. And don't forget to join the private Facebook group for soul recovery inspiration connection, answering each other's questions and giving shout outs. I thank you for supporting this podcast, either by being a Patreon member, apple podcast subscriber and getting that extra episode every Friday, or by your one time donations or your small monthly donations that are found in the show notes. You are helping spread the soul recovery message and supporting this community. Visit the website recoveryoursoulnet for dates, times, everything that's happening, register for the support group and how to stay connected. Together we can do the work that will recover your soul, for, like the last, I'm going to say maybe three or four months.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 11:59

And the truth is, when I came back from Indonesia with Rich, I think I'd shared on the podcast that he and I had such an amazing time on the trip. We were so connected and he showed up in this way. That was this true beauty of who he is when he's not stressed, when he's not at work, when he's not worried about money, when he's not under the stresses that he can feel in his life, and I just ate up the beauty of that connection and it was this really beautiful and special time for us to celebrate our 30th wedding anniversary. But then we came back into life and both of us had a dip in our business, because when you stop something for a month, there's a momentum that stops and my business slowed way down and his business slowed way down and so money got a little bit crunchy and he got back into the part of him that is a go, go, go.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 13:03

And as he went into that part, I went back into my part, which is a retreat, retreat, retreat, and I got really invested and involved in my own stuff, my business, doing the podcast, coming out here into my little she shed in the backyard and working, because when I'm here in my space, in my spiritual journey, in my meditation, I feel the happiest. I am so, so grateful to be in a place where I am so contented with myself. I know that I'm doing what is my purpose. I know that the things that are coming through me are for me to heal within myself and to share with others. And there's this pattern that happens in relationships where, when you're not getting what you need or what you want, you compartmentalize and you start to shut out what that feels like and you turn into yourself.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 14:09

And oftentimes what happens with Rich and I is that we go through these flows, you know, like an ebb and flow, a little bit of a roller coaster ride, and what I want to say, that's so fascinating about this, is that there's nothing particularly hugely wrong. And so these are the things I want to share with you, because I know you can relate to this in your own life, right, like I've heard from so many of you that you are as well on this spiritual journey and the people around you in your lives. It's hard to continue to connect with them, because what do you say? How do you explain? And soul recovery is all about acceptance. It's all about allowing people to be exactly who they are.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 14:57

And yet, and yet, there is this piece that in other programs and other places, what they say is if you can accept and love someone enough, it doesn't matter what they're doing or how they're being, matter what they're doing or how they're being that you can overlook it and you can get past it and you can let it just not be a problem for you. And I think that that is really, really, really important, because there's going to be people in your life where that's the case. But I think that when we look at our partner, our life partner, we need to have this clarity around being willing to want and ask for more. And this is a big subject, right, because so many of you have people in your life who are trying to get better, who say they're going to get better or who are refusing to get better. You know you're on this path of soul recovery that you're doing with me and you're doing the work. You're doing the meditations, you're paying attention to what the steps are, you're looking at your patterns. You're looking at where you can stop controlling. You're working so hard on trolling. You're working so hard on releasing what is not yours to carry and you're having success, and then you're in this relationship and there's just not a connection or an intimacy.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 16:26

Now what I think I'm always working on in both my relationship and people that I work with, is my first want is for people to know that there's always hope to make their relationship work. And in my situation, I'm 32 years in and I want so much to be able to truly make my relationship work. So what happened recently is I don't know if this happens to you, but there's like these little stacking moments that stack up and you don't even really notice that it's stacking until it's really like too heavy or too wobbly or too much, or you realize you're carrying too much. So when I was in that interview and and she said, oh, I'm surprised that you're still married, and I caught myself saying, yeah, when I am not happy, I'll I'll take a look at it. When I'm having to betray myself, I'm going to take a look at it. And it made me look at it in a way that I needed to look at it, because we can become complacent, we can start to be as I've talked about many times the frog in the boiling water and again it's not like horrible things are happening. It's some really old, repetitive patterns that are around, being checked out, around being distant, around kind of being crabby and snappy with each other.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 18:00

And what ends up happening for me is the stack is pretty high to start with, where I'm just kind of like there's irritation underneath there, but I'm doing so much of my own acceptance that I'm really just trying to let it all go. So what ended up happening is last Sunday I'd already started to have some of that stacking and then I'd had that interview the week before and it had really ticked off a piece in me that was nibbling on that. You know that like thing that's in your mind saying this this is really something you need to look at. And so on Sunday we had breakfast. I made breakfast and we're sitting there kind of actually having a nice breakfast, and then I said something about Alex and Rich said something about Alex and we started having a conversation and it started to scratch and we struggle in our communication about about Alex. Right, we've, for since Alex was a little kid we've had these issues around communication with our son and I get protective of Alex and I want Rich to be and feel differently about him and it hurts me, and so I got defensive and I watched him get defensive and then I watched us do the thing where we like try to pretend like that's not happening.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 19:28

But what I'm realizing when I look back at it now is that the stack is just swaying so high because I've been trying to get past and look past what's been happening. And what's been happening is that, in my desire to not want him to be different, I've also been trying, managing and trying to find and work with my voice and what to say and what not to say, because we worked so hard on how to be with each other in a better way, and part of that has been me taking responsibility for my piece of control. And Rich has jumped all on top of that and said, yep, you were controlling, and I love that you're not as controlling as much. And Rich has jumped all on top of that and said, yep, you were controlling, and I love that you're not as controlling as much. And so he's used that at times to keep me from sharing my voice in a way that makes him defensive, right? So we're, we're in these patterns, and what I love about soul recovery is that there's no judgment. We're not saying anybody is right or wrong. We're looking at what is and we're looking at this journey of being human beings and how we relate to each other.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 20:39

So Sunday continues on and I go to help him with something outside and he does this thing where he gets defensive. If I mentioned one thing, you know he's putting something together and it's not going together right and he's getting really irritated and he's he can get really. You know he's putting something together and it's not going together right and he's getting really irritated and he's he can get really irritated and he's cursing a little bit and he's snapping and I'm saying, well, I'm trying to fix it for him. So I'm saying, well, maybe if it did this, and he's snapping at me and saying I don't need you to tell me what to do and I know what I'm doing and I hate that. I hate that. It brings up in me all of my stuff. And then I feel like I'm being shut down and in my shutting down all my old stuff is up.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 21:23

And Sunday was this day of like, oh my gosh, like just such intense feelings. And what I can share with you that I think is so important is our feelings are telling us something. Our feelings are telling us something on purpose, and it's really a GPS within us to say what is that? And what I want to do is I want to point the finger at him and I want to say when you do this, I get angry and you treat me like this and I don't like it. And I'm doing so much work in my own soul recovery to be curious about myself.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 22:02

I got my journal out, I meditated, I asked myself questions, I was curious. I really, really, really wanted to understand within myself what was going on. And when I got in there and I really touched on it, I was starting to lose myself. I was starting to go back to people pleasing, I was starting to go back. The expansion that's happening within me, the growth that's happening within me, is indeed being stifled by the current relationship that I'm having with my husband, because we're back in some pretty old unhealthy patterns. And in that I woke myself up and I realized that this is not going to work for me.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 22:58

And then we had the session on Monday, which is the support group, the free support group that everybody comes to, and there was 45 ish people there on the screen and at one moment we were talking about how you can say this doesn't work for me. And it's not a judgment on whether somebody is a good person or a bad person, you just recognize this doesn't work for me. And in that moment I realized that I was speaking to myself, that this doesn't work for me. So then there's tension in the house and we finally get a chance to talk, and we talk in the morning. I'm not even remembering what day it was, because today is Thursday, the 8th of August, maybe it was even Tuesday morning.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 23:46

That next morning we're sitting for coffee and we start the conversation with something pretty general and the conversation rapidly moves in me, the stacking has stacked up so high that I'm in my space where I'm so confused and I'm uncomfortable and I'm not sure what's happening and I'm upset. And when I get that way, all of the Rachel stuff falls away for a minute and I'm just a mess. I'm upset because that's what we are as human beings. We're just messy in those moments, you know. We're just messy in those moments, you know. And so he, he opens the door to this conversation and I don't even know sometimes how to open up these conversations when the stack has gotten so tall.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 24:45

So we start talking and I start saying I'm recognizing that I'm feeling stifled in this and that our intimacy and our connection isn't what I want. And I'm in an awareness that I want more in my life. I want my, I want soul recovery to be huge. I want it to reach more people, not so I could be famous, but so that it can connect with more people. I want to share this experience with more people. I want to create a community, an environment that uplifts and changes lives in profound ways, and I want to be able to dream bigger and I want more than what we have in this life.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 25:26

And right now, in this marriage, I feel small, I feel shut down, and in that moment, rich responded and reacted in a way that was defensive because it was hurtful to him, and his response was if you're not happy in this marriage, you can leave, and it was a door that opened. Now, in that moment, when those kinds of things happen, what happens with us is all of the stuff that's stored in all of our memories and all of our pain and all of our being swooshes out into a huge tsunami of emotions and in that moment, this part of me was really overtaken with the pain and the hurt. And what's interesting is, we had a few more words. But right at that time someone came to the door to be his worker for the day, and so it stopped the conversation, which I think is divine, right, it's divine timing. And so he goes off to pretend like everything's fine and his defense was if you don't love me, then leave me. But he wasn't actually saying that. That's what he wanted. That was his pain body saying if you don't love me, if you're not happy here, then leave.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 26:51

But for me, what I saw was a door, and it reminded me of this conversation that my dad had had with his second wife, where there was this huge argument that they had one time and the door swung wide open for him to walk through and to leave and he hadn't. And so there had been many more years of sadness and discomfort and he had said to me many times I should have walked through the door when it opened for me. That time I didn't have the courage to walk through the door. So I come out to my studio and I say the door is open, are you going to walk through it? And so I pull out my oracle deck and I pull three cards, and so I pull out my oracle deck and I pull three cards and two of the cards have an image of a woman walking away and that was incredibly profound and I'm scared inside and I'm worried and I'm thinking where am I in this?

Rev Rachel Harrison: 27:48

Is this real? There's nothing bad happening here. There's nothing horrible and wrong happening here. We are not fighting all the time. As a matter of fact, I have a lot of moments of joy and gratitude for my life and there's a lot of sweetness and funny interactions that happen with us. It's just been this low grade, falling back to old patterns not expanding, not growing, not being more being safe, being constricted.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 28:22

And then he wanted to talk to me about something and I had. I had something else coming so I couldn't and so we didn't talk and I did my other thing. And then I left the house and I went and I talked to my mom and I just poured out for two hours all of the stuff that's real and we all have stuff that's real. We all have stuff that's real. I poured out my pain of the father, that he was and how he was an alcoholic and one of the things that had hurt me the most in our conversation that morning was that I finally said to him something that I hadn't said out loud really to him before, which is that I've been holding a resentment, that I've taken responsibility for my part of the dysfunction that we had for those 15 years, and I don't believe that he's ever really seen, accepted or been willing to take responsibility for the harm that he caused me and my children in those years. And his response was I never harmed you. I've only done two things at two times that I can remember that were purposefully harmful, and that's what enraged me, that's what pissed me off so much that that's when the friend came and interrupted our conversation, because what I heard in that was I don't think I did anything wrong here, this is all you. And that hit a pain body in me. That was huge.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 29:55

Fast forward, go to my mom's house. And I am, and we need to do this sometimes. It's really important that we're not laying in our victim, but there's a lot that's in there and in our body and that is real that if we don't see it, if we don't express it, if we don't get clarity about it. Now what I can say from being in this process for four years is that every time I open my mouth and I share what's going on with me, I have more and more awareness of the power of our thoughts and the power of our voice and the power of how we choose to see it, regardless of whether we're in our pain body or whether we're in our wholeness. And so, in that holding space with my mom, I could see the door wide open to walk through, and I could see that there was part of me that knew that if it stays like it is now which again isn't horrible, it's just not expanding into the fullness of the life that is calling for me then I'm going to have to have the strength to walk away. I'm going to have to have the strength to walk away and I cried and my mom is an amazing listener and she never tells me what to do, which I'm so grateful have to have the strength to walk away and I cried and my mom is an amazing listener and she never tells me what to do, which I'm so grateful for. And she listened and she heard me and she acknowledged that it had been hard and she acknowledged that there has been a lot of work done. It was a really important two hours of me just pouring out what was going on within me. And then I went and journaled, which I always recommend that we do right Journaling, not from our pain, but from our wholeness.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 31:42

What do I want in my life? I want a whole and healthy relationship. I want expansion. I want a partner who I can share what's happening with me but also has the ability to totally be who they are and to not expect things that are unrealistic and I know that we're all just in this earth school and it's complicated and I want to be able to fully be myself, without that caveat that says when I see that this is blocking me, I will look at it. I want to look at it, I want to be here, and I felt a knowing within myself that I could be in this, and I was terrified, but at the same time, I felt strength and I felt a knowing that I was connected with source, all those things that I've been working on and I've been sharing with you.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 32:37

And then I came home and I did some work and I had a session, and in that session, this person that I was working with was in a very similar situation to me. Because aren't we in these situations together? This is why we're in community together. And she had a husband who wanted to be better but couldn't quit drinking and she was having to draw boundaries and being able to put my Rev Rachel hat on, which I do, where I really clear the space of my own projection and my own experience and to, as deeply as I can, I connect to source and I connect to the knowing that we are all whole and I hold the space for you. But in that moment, in that feeling the wholeness for her, I could feel the wholeness for me.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 33:29

And I finished with that session and I went inside from my healed self and sat down with my husband. And it does. It makes me emotional just to be sharing the story with you because this work is working and it's working in ways that I could have never. I could have never believed or seen. And what I tell you when I say, that when we do our own internal work, it does end up expressing out, because we bring out the higher consciousness of everyone involved.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 34:09

And so we both had this really hard day. From the argument in the morning and he one of the first things he asks me is are you going to leave me and I had to honestly say I can't stay in this marriage the way that it is now. This isn't working for me. For me, and what I want to share with you is that, because me and Rich have been on this journey together for the last four years, in particular, my gratitude is that the man who showed up to have the conversation with me opened his heart. He asked questions and, although there were moments where there was some defensiveness on both of our sides, the ability to speak my mind and to hear what he had to say back from a completely new perspective, not being on the emotional battlefield, but truly being from a place where I was being as kind, as truthful to myself, as real as I could, and we both ended up opening and sharing things from our heart that we had been keeping, that we had been trying to save each other from, and there was so much openness and compassion and love and Rich was able to genuinely say I never want us to be apart, I never want us to not be married.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 35:48

And I can see what you are saying and I can see where I've been asleep and I can see where I've been shut down and I haven't wanted to look at that part of me that you feel so much pain from our years together in the darkness, and I've tried to deny it and I've been defensive around it. And for the first time, for the first time, he looked at me with eyes that were real and he said I see what you're saying. And I said to him I don't want to not be together. I want us to continue to work on this together. We have all these years in, but I have to choose myself for the first time in my adult life to step out of people pleasing, to step out of codependence, to step into a place where I say my growth, say my growth, my learning, my healing has to take the front seat and I want you on the ride with me. But I'm also not going to make you be somebody that you are not. I'm not going to ask you to be or do something that is not in your nature to do and I'm not going to ask you to be somebody who is not true to who you are. But I want you to be your happiest, fullest you.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 37:18

And there's still so many things that I recognize in my relationship with Rich that will never be interested in the same stuff. We have a few things that we do in conjunction together, but he's not going to sit on a meditation cushion with me for hours at a time or listen to chanting music and really dig it and get into it, and I am not at all interested in hanging out on car shows or going to rock music shows with him. We have these differences in our personalities that are real, but it doesn't mean that there isn't something to work on. And we talked for hours and we both cried a lot and we both opened our hearts a lot, and I asked Rich to make a commitment to me that he would go to therapy, that he's never worked the 12 steps, he's never done the therapy.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 38:14

And the crazy thing is, you know, at one point in the evening he's sharing like these wounds that he has from childhood, and he looks at me and he's been rejecting my coaching right, he's been. He wants to get the osmosis of what I have to offer, but he doesn't need or want me to be his coach. I'm his wife, right? So he's not engaging with me on that way because it hits this piece of him in the past where he felt like I was saying I want you to be different. I want to change you. And he says how do you go and find those patterns? And I looked at him and I said this is what I do. This is what I do for others, this is what I do for myself. This is the soul recovery process and I'm not asking you to step into the process that has worked for me. I'm asking you to find your own process to do this work for yourself, in whatever format that is for you. But if that doesn't happen and if there isn't expansion and if there isn't connection and there isn't actual intimacy and growth, this isn't going to work for me.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 39:23

And that that was big intimacy. By the end of that, it didn't turn into what it used to turn into for all those years a big, raging, defensive, who's right and who's wrong. It was this beautiful opening for something new and I clearly stated again at the end of the night my cards that I pulled showed that I needed to walk away and I am indeed walking away and out of a marriage that continues to repeat patterns. But I will step into a new marriage with you that is more awake. That is more awake. And we snuggled that night and you could just feel like a vibration of awareness.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 40:39

And the next morning we didn't sleep that night very well. We stayed up so late and your mind is racing so much. And so the next morning we wake up and we're both still really groggy and tired and Rich says that was one of the hardest conversations that I've ever had in my life, and I want to thank you for sharing so honestly with me. I want to thank you for giving me another chance and I want to thank you for waking me up. I can see I have been really asleep and in my stuff. Now this is a success story at this moment. This is a success story at this moment. But what I want to share with you is that then I had to go in and do my work and look at myself and not say, oh good, now he's going to be fixed, now he's going to go do this work, now everything's going to be fine.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 41:32

I had to go in and look at my own piece that says what is the bitterness within me that has been holding on or wants to hold on or still wants to make or control Can I completely release? And I had this huge shift within me of, I believe, source speaking to me, saying you have said and done what you needed to say and do. You have had the strength to stand up for who you are, and now it's time to completely let go. Come back to turning the attention to yourself. Be open and loving and kind. Let go of being in charge of his recovery, his spiritual journey. You're not here to check whether he actually signs up with a therapist or make sure that you're doing meditations in the morning. Then you're just controlling. Be loving, be open, be kind, be accepting and allow the natural course of events to take place.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 42:30

And so here we are, a couple days later, and there's a marked change in the energy in the home. There's a marked change energy of our interactions with each other. There is a definite change in how he is responding and showing up for me, but he is scared, and so I need to let him have his experience and not go back to my old stuff, which is to try to manage and control all of it, and just know that I did what was right for me, which is I shared what was really happening for me from my heart, from compassion, from kindness, from an openness, and so last night I went to go have dinner with my mom while Rich had band practice here at the house, and I walked in and I had texted her that we'd had a productive conversation and and she said I had a feeling when you left that that there would be a turnaround, that I had a feeling that Rich would have an open heart and be interested in working on this and working on himself, because he is such a good person, because he has such a good heart. Now what I want to say is I'm in this moment, right now, because that's the only moment that we have, and I will continue to do this work on myself, which is to check myself.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 43:57

The boundary is not that he changes. The boundary is that I continue to make sure that I'm expanding, I'm growing, I'm being my full self, I'm sharing my voice from a compassionate and strong place. I'm not expecting him to be something for me to be okay, and time will tell, time will tell. I don't even have to pay attention to that part. I just am so grateful for the soul recovery tools that allow me to be in this shift, in this flow, which means that we went through this thing, which means that right now, when the consciousness and the energy of the universe is so on fire and there's so much transformation and manifestation manifestation happening that I was willing to want and ask for more. And not more because more from you will make me happy, but because I want to create the life that aligns with me, and I am fully aware of the complexity of how it is going to unfold, because life is complex and my expectations are so different than what they used to be, and I am not going to hold him to some standard. That is not real. I'm going to continue to love him for exactly who he is and you know what? I'm grateful for that. I'm grateful for that Because I'm in my mid 50s and this person is worth the work, but I will not lose myself.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 45:37

If there was a moment in that conversation where it turned and there was no opening from him and all I got was old, defensive posturing, I would have had the strength to walk away, because I've done this work and I will choose myself, and I know that the universe is calling me to be my fullest self, just like the universe is calling you to be your fullest self, and what I offer you in this story is our stories all have a flavor. Like I said, that respond and relate to each other. But you know, you know within yourself whether you're fooling yourself, that that person is going to move with you in your expansion or not. And not that there's anything wrong with where they're at. People just are where they are and their experience is theirs. We're not any better or worse than anyone else. We are creating our life of our dreams that aligns with us. And so your wisdom, your knowing, your journey, your heart, where are you in your relationships friend relationships, relationships with your kids, relationships with your coworkers to be able to stand in the strength to be able to say, to be able to say I can ask for and want more and not more from them, more from you to know that the universe is here for our creation to expand and to grow.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 47:29

So very heavy week for me, and I'm still here with tears in my eyes just recounting the story. And when we go through these major shifts, it's really. I can feel it, it's a shift in me, it's a strength in me, it's an expansion in my awareness, and it's using these tools, it's using these principles and practices of changing our perception, changing our patterns, letting go of old beliefs and stepping into a new way of being that is compassionate and kind and forgiving and open, and open to our fullest self and never makes it so that we have to lose ourselves, compromise our growth or betray who we are. And that can be for some hard choices. And today I can tell you I didn't have to make the choice to walk out of my life, but I was ready, even though my life wasn't quote unquote bad, it just wasn't working for me. So I'll keep you updated on how things are going with me and Rich Wow long episode had my eyes closed for most of that. So here we are at 45 minutes.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 48:48

Thank you for being part of the soul recovery community. Thank you for everything that you are doing in your life that continues to be of an energy that we are all in this together. I'm here to support you on your soul recovery journey with spiritual coaching. Join us on the first Monday of every month for the free support group. I'm working on the new courses for the nine step soul recovery process. All kinds of amazing, juicy, wonderful things are happening in my life. It's exploding in this journey of soul recovery, which is why I cannot be held back, and neither can you. We are in this together Until next time.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 49:30

Namaste, thank you for listening to the Recover your 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 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: 50:26

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.