Embracing Change in Friendships: The Path to Healthy Connections in Soul Recovery

In this episode of the Recover Your Soul podcast, we’re talking about the changes in friendships that naturally happen as we grow spiritually. On the Soul Recovery path, as we become more aligned with our authentic selves, we may find that some relationships no longer resonate. Letting go of friendships that don’t support our well-being is a powerful step toward honoring who we are becoming. This shift is not about judging others but about recognizing when connections no longer feel healthy or fulfilling. In this episode, we’ll dive into the courage it takes to release these relationships, create space for friendships that truly uplift us, and deepen our understanding of compassion and detachment as essential parts of the Soul Recovery journey. If you're ready to embrace relationships that reflect your growth, this conversation will guide you.

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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 Healthy Relationships and Soul Recovery
• 15:17 Understanding Evolving Friendships
• 26:35 Navigating Spiritual Relationships With Boundaries
• 32:41 Join the Recovery Your Soul Community

Transcript

Rev Rachel Harrison: 0:43

We are all deserving of healthy friendships, healthy relationships, and on our soul recovery journey we are actually changing. We are growing and shifting how we think and feel and believe, and that can mean that sometimes we have to leave some friendships and relationships behind. And what I love about soul recovery is there's no judgment about anybody being right or wrong. Sometimes there's just a season for people to be in your life and it is okay to move forward and align more with people that are really healthier for you now, and I'm inspired by a quote that I found that says it's hard to forge healthy friendships if you're spending all your time and energy on dead-end relationships. Enjoy the episode. Welcome to the Recover your Soul podcast a spiritual path to a happy and healthy life.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 1:40

My name is Rev 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 the Recover your Soul podcast. It's Rev Rachel and I am so happy to be sitting here today on this beautiful fall Colorado day, with the sun shining warmly, the leaves are all crisp and yellow all over my backyard. It's just been so glorious this fall and I just got back from a week in San Diego. I was so excited to lead another really powerful and transformative soul recovery retreat and then also to spend an additional couple days with one of my best friends and her sisters on a R&R, just really relaxing right next to the beach in San Diego, just revitalizing and rejuvenating myself. And it really made me think about the value of friendship and this concept around our spiritual journey and how it is an always in connection and community with others and that we're looking for and striving for healthy relationships in our lives.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 3:21

And many of you have commented in one way or another either in coaching sessions with me. It was a question recently in the support group. Somebody had mentioned this concept of there's a shift that happens when we start on our spiritual journey and it can create some loneliness because the way that we were is different than the way that we are becoming. So that's going to be the topic of today's conversation, which is really around healthy relationships. And then, as the universe works, you know how it always works the way that it does. I love my tiny Buddha tear off calendar that one of the community members sent to me at the beginning of the year and I save all of them because they're so good, and then I use them for note cards or just when I want some inspiration.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 4:11

And I pulled out a little stack, knowing that this was kind of what I was thinking about, what I wanted to talk about, and, of course, the second one that I pulled reads it's hard to forge healthy relationships if you're spending all your time and energy on dead end relationships. Do you hear that it's hard to forge healthy friendships if you're spending all of your time and energy on dead end relationships? So, while it never feels good to release old friendships in order to make room for a new one, sometimes you have to release the old, and this is Krista Resnick who said this. So that's what I want to talk about today is this transformation that's happening within you as you're working. Your soul recovery process means that you're shifting and changing and it means that the relationships that you have forged in the past have had a really a pattern to them that may not align with you anymore, they may not work for you anymore, because we're changing, we're growing and just this morning, in the sacred circle that we hold here in Colorado, we've been doing them on the first Saturday of every month for the last couple years.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 5:24

This group of about 20 people get together and I lead it with another spiritual teacher friend of mine, and we were talking about the chrysalis. We were talking about this incredible process that happens for a caterpillar to go into the chrysalis. They create this space and they literally turn into goo. The cells completely release. They are actually no longer a caterpillar cell and they're not yet a butterfly cell. There's something in the middle that is yet to be determined.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 5:59

You have to have this period of time where you're growing, you're building, you're shifting into a new self and in this space of growth and shifting, oftentimes we're stuck in the middle of who we were and who we're being called to be, and it can be a lonely and confusing time. I know that it was for me and that piece of the spiritual journey is not unique. It is spoken about a lot, actually, because it is a transformation. It's a death of the old and the opening to the new, and so it really allows you to truly have compassion and grace for yourself, to know that if you're out there and you're experiencing some loneliness, or you're experiencing some discord in your family or in your social groups or the friends that you used to always get along with, and now you're starting to feel like this just doesn't feel the same. I'm not quite enjoying it the way that I used to, or I don't know what to talk about, because now I've made a commitment to not be a victim. I've made a commitment to not complain. Now I see my patterns, now I see my old systems and I really, really, really want to step into the wholeness of who I am.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 7:16

Because, as you begin to truly understand that your thoughts create the reality in which you live, in, your actions create the reality in which you live, in your speech, everything you say, you are actually writing your life. We have stopped believing that it's happening to us and we've started understanding that we are co-creating, that our choice and how we see it is what we will interact with, and so when you're around people who aren't on that same path, it can get complicated right, and you know from my last couple months story is that I bumped up against this with my husband and that in relationships and love relationships, this can be a pretty big storyline that as we begin to grow, somebody else feels discomfort around the fact that you're changed, you're not who you used to be and we are working as recovering codependents and people pleasers on how to upgrade our system that used to believe that we had to please everybody else, take care of everybody else, make sure everyone else is okay before we can take care of ourselves. And now we're saying, hmm, that may not work for me. I really need to make sure that I'm okay. So what ends up happening in friendships, especially as women? We need our community, we need our committee right, we need these women in our lives for us to thrive and to grow. We can move and shift in those relationships to what aligns with us in each phase of our life.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 9:06

Now, when I was a young person in college, I hung out with other young people in college and I hung out with a bunch of people who liked to party like I did, and that's how I met Rich. I met my husband because I had a certain environment in which I like to be and he met that energy and had same, that same wavelength of what is fun, and that's how we matched up. And then we met other young couples that had a similar energy. So everyone around us that we hung out with like to party like we like to party right. And I think now how funny it is now that I don't party at all and I'm so pure in no alcohol, no smoking, weed, nothing that's mind altering of any kind, no gummies, no, whatever.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 9:59

It's harder and harder for me to be around an environment where people are drinking as the activity right. Not if there's a one-off of somebody who might be having a couple of glasses of wine or doing something. I don't really have an effect with that unless I can't connect with them on a emotional level and then you know, then that kind of feels a way. But it's not around the drinking, it's around the connection, and what I realized is that connection of what is it that we're connecting with? Changes over time, and it's going to change over time, regardless of whether we're talking about addiction or spiritual journeys. Then I ended up having kids right, and so then I became really good friends with a couple of the women in my Lugmaz group and we raised our kids together and we became total best friends, right?

Rev Rachel Harrison: 10:50

So if you really think about these relationships that you've had in your life, how they met certain criteria, and that the universe is conspiring for your needs in that moment, whatever your energy is that you're pulling towards yourself. That's what you're attracting. So that also means that you could be attracting people to you that are in an unhealthy place, an unhappy place. If you're in an unhealthy and unhappy place, and that's okay, because at certain points we need to feel seen and witnessed, we need to feel like we're part of something, and if you have compassion and space for everyone, you know soul recovery is so much just about allowing everyone to be exactly where they're at and putting more and more energy on yourself. Who are you? What is your highest good? How can you be aligned with what is right for you, instead of pointing the finger that everybody else should be different? And you start to recognize that, of course, the energies pull these kinds of groups together because they're of like mind. Well, now your like mind is changing and you're beginning to see the world in a new way. Your belief systems are updating through the soul recovery process. You're starting to live these principles. You're starting to heal from the old wounds. You're starting to see above sort of the mire and the complexity of life and choose to not get so entangled in all of this stuff and just witness it and see it and be more present. You're learning to let go of the past and open to a potential in the future, and the people around you may not totally resonate with that.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 12:45

A couple months ago, in one of the free soul recovery support groups, which is the first Monday of every month, one of the questions that was asked in the question and answer section was I'm struggling with the people that I used to hang out with. It just doesn't feel the same. What do I do? And this is what this is about, which is that if you're putting your energy into dead end relationships, you don't have the energy to forge healthy relationships, and those dead-end relationships are not a judgment about those relationships being quote-unquote bad. It's really beginning to look at what is. Does being with this person fill me up? Do I feel supported and loved in this relationship? Can we say honest things to each other and see each other in our wholeness and not be bringing each other down or not believing each other? And maybe you're working on raising yourself up and that person can't see you as whole. That person can't see you as having more possibilities, can't see that you have more to do.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 13:58

Are you ready to step into your soul recovery? Well, 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 7 pm 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.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 15:18

You know, I can't remember if I've told this story before, but way before I even started the podcast not way before, but when it was in my mind and I was creating it and I had no idea what was going to happen I didn't start out thinking I'm going to become a metaphysical minister and I'm going to start a podcast and I'm going to create a community, and I'm going to create a community and I'm going to become a spiritual coach. I didn't have any of that in mind. I was just in recovery. I just wanted to share what was happening in my own life, the transformation that was happening for me. That was so huge and I had this little voice inside my head that said start a podcast. And I thought you know, maybe I could become a speaker. I had always wanted to be a unity minister. So I think in my mind that was in there somewhere. So I didn't know what I was thinking and I was working at the church at this time. So, you know, I had that in my mind but nothing, nothing set in stone.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 16:13

And I went and had breakfast with a friend, a new AA friend, and I was telling her these dreams that I had these ideas of who knew what it was going to be. But I was going to start a podcast and I was excited and I thought that this was somebody who could hold space for me to be excited for me. Well, we did become friends and we did end up having a really important friendship that was supportive and allowed me to have a space to talk about a lot of the things that were going on in my life. And she was sober and I was sober and she actually joined the same ministerial program that I was doing and she was a really important person in my life as a friendship. But we had these butting up against each other moments and these moments are actually an opportunity for growth.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 17:02

So there was one moment when she was sharing in one of our groups, that that day, when I had told her about my dreams, she had looked at me and thought there's just no way, I don't know who you think you are. The good news is she didn't tell me that that day. The good news is that that was her own projection of her own self and her own doubt, and that over time we were able to have conversations around the fact that that that's what it was for her. That, as I was excited and was feeling like I could, who knew what this was going to be? But I was going to do this thing that I was scared to do, that I had no idea what it was, that it bumped up against in her something that was pushing on her to grow and that was scary. So the easiest thing for her to do was to cut me down inside, even though she didn't say it out loud and that was scary. So the easiest thing for her to do was to cut me down inside, even though she didn't say it out loud. And then that relationship ended up kind of blowing up, which was kind of difficult at the time and unusual, and I didn't really understand it.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 18:12

But now I really understand that when we allow friendships to be whatever they are to be whatever they are, when we give them breath and some of them are to let go that I have every bit of myself that has warmth and love for her. I don't hold any resentments, but that was a friendship at a very specific period of time, for a specific reason, and there wasn't really a place for it that seemed healthy for either one of us, which is interesting, so it's okay to let that go. And then you have friendships with people that maybe it's someone you've had a friendship with for a really long time, since you were a kid right, and they've watched you through all those incarnations, explanations and as you're changing, it pushes buttons for them, and if you love each other enough and if you can see each other's wholeness enough, there's a space to grow together. I've had a really good friend for, oh, it's probably been 15 or 20 years now that we've been friends. But we became really really good friends when I separated from my husband, from Rich, about 15 years ago, and part of what we connected through was we both were struggling in our marriage. We had a lot of sadness, and so there was an ability to really see each other in that space and to understand where the other person was coming from.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 19:42

And she was like a big sister to me, you know, and she always would say yes when we would go do things, and she was funny and sweet and just such a blast to be around. And if you know me, if you've listened to the podcast at all, you can kind of get this sense around the fact that I was raised very serious. My mom is this very serious straight Buddhist and my dad, you know, played in my life. He has more of a sense of humor but he was pretty serious too. So I'm just this single child, you know, like I didn't have a sense of humor, I didn't really understand humor. So this friend, she grew up in a set of sisters that really encouraged each other to be funny and be lighthearted and and tease, but from a loving place, and she's just, she just cracked me up so much all the time and she was fun and she always wanted to go out and do fun things the time. And she was fun and she always wanted to go out and do fun things.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 20:45

Well, she also was in recovery for a long time prior to our hanging out and then in our hanging out together. Then I always feel badly and she always tells me this isn't the case, but I always feel badly that I feel like I was a bad role model and she never even began to drink the way that I drank in those years. But you know, she started a party with me a little bit and we'd have beers and we'd go out and go dancing and she'd follow me wherever I wanted to go. She wouldn't follow me, but she would come with me and support me when I would want to do karaoke or whatever. We just had a ball together.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 21:20

Well, part of that was really us connecting and separating out from our unhappy marriages. And so when I got sober this time, she was in a place in her life where she was ending her marriage and it got complicated between the two of us because I was shifting in one place, she was shifting in another place, my life story was changing, her life story was changing and we didn't have that same connection and I was really on my sober track. I was really on my recovery track, and the way that I've heard her tell the story and the way that I hope I'm telling the story correctly is what happens in our lives and I felt this way around people at different parts of my life too, which is sometimes that mirror is too much to be with at any given time. And then I said some things that were hurtful to her and I felt rejected in my own ways, and so we ended up taking a break. We didn't have a huge falling out, we didn't do anything.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 22:29

We just slowly stopped communicating like we used to all the time, and some time passed, and in that time I just really was immersed in the knowing and the calling forth to myself, and I used to ask spirit. I used to say thank you, thank you, thank you for bringing my tribe, thank you for the friends that see me and support me and love me, just as I am in this new space in my life, and I had a lot of sadness that I had to let this friendship go because she had been such, such such an important person in my life and she knew me better than anybody besides my husband and my parents, to be honest. And so when you are in those spaces, sometimes the letting go has grief and sadness and difficulty because those friendships are so profound. Now this story has a happy ending, but even if it didn't have this particular next ending, it's around allowing it to be whatever it is. But the good news is is that she and I reached out to each other again after a couple of years and we ended up having a conversation that allowed for so much healing and it wasn't the kind of conversation that it would have been in the past.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 23:49

That was out of alignment, of soul recovery. It was very much in alignment with soul recovery, which is allow me to be present with where you are, allow me to share from my whole healed self not from a place that says you did this to me and I didn't like this, and then you said this. It was a place that really held space for each other, for who we were and where we were at, and it was a really powerful opportunity for each of us to be exactly who we were and to share love. And we both cried and we apologized for any harms that we did or amends, any harms that we had purposely or unknowingly caused each other and that we missed each other. And we very cautiously began to step back into the friendship.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 24:42

Until now we're back into a full fledged friendship again, but it's different now than it was then, because we're both healthier now and in those two years that we were taking a break from each other, she did her own path, her own healing, her own journey, and she needed that space from me to do that and I actually needed the space for myself to do that as well, and so now we've actually come together and we're accepting each other fully as these healed selves that include a whole bunch of other people in each of our lives that are valuable friendships and I think that's the piece that is so important when we're starting to look at our whole self is to have compassion and grace for everyone where they are on their path and, more importantly, passion and grace for ourselves to truly say and be in relationships that lift and fill us up, that we are deserving of such. But we never can dismiss the piece that we train people how to treat us, that it is important that we understand who we are, that we're showing up as our best self, that we're not laying out something that says, hey, for you to be friends with me, you need to be like this, or I want it to look like this, or this is how I need you to speak to me or be for me. No one needs to speak or be anything for me anymore. I cannot stress enough the importance that we are each responsible for our own well being, and so the more healthy we get, the less we actually need from the other people and we can actually hold space for what is.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 26:35

I started a spiritual leadership group because I really wanted other women who were in the spiritual leadership community that I didn't have to be a leader, I could just be a peer. But we're in the same sort of field and you know, two of the people dropped out of the group and one person wrote an email and said I just don't really feel supported in this group. I do better one-on-one and you know best wishes to everybody, hope that we can meet, you know, for hikes or coffee. That works better for me. You know my old self would have felt rejected, would have thought that this was personal, all those things. And you know what I heard in that email. This woman is asking for what she needs. How fabulous is that. She is saying I didn't feel like I was getting what I needed here. That's not about me, that's not a diss to me. That's how she felt and that she wanted other kinds of connections. That to me, was strength.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 27:37

And how hard is that, as people pleasers right and codependence, for us to ask for what we need and then not be judged. So I sent an email back and said I love that you're asking for what you need and I love that you're taking care of yourself. And the other person just said I just realized I don't have the time for this. I have a different thing going on and it just feels more stressful than than it needs to be. Good for you. Right, this is our healed selves and relationships.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 28:07

When we don't take it personally, if we don't get invited, if we're not part of the group, if we can say no to people, when it doesn't work for us to show up to things that fill us up instead of places where we think we should be, this is big work. This is big work and what I recognize is that, now that you can begin to be in the space where you are standing, in your higher self, of course the vibrations and the energies align, just like when I was aligned with parents, you know moms that had kids my same age, or drinkers that drank like I did, or people who complained about their husbands, like I did. Now I am completely surrounded by women who are spiritual, who love themselves, who are doing their work, who want to talk about things that are more interesting than complaining, where we can really share what's happening with us without being a victim, but really be witnessed in our experience that we're not being fixed by somebody else and friends. I've been doing this for six years, right, so there was a whole point in time in there. There was those couple years that it was pretty lonely and isolated, but now I'm so blessed and gifted to have so many beautiful, wonderful friends, including this wonderful friend of mine who has been one of my best friends for over 20 years. She's my, she's my sister. And the ones that have fallen away you know the ones that came in and came out, and it's okay. It's okay.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 29:57

We need to put ourselves first. We need to allow ourselves to be in relationships that feed and fuel us, and saying no does not mean that you're rejecting anyone. And it can be difficult, and I could probably do a whole episode on the concept of like. How do we set boundaries? How do we have those conversations that I don't what's the word I'm looking for? Obsess over making sure that every word is perfect and that I don't hurt anyone's feelings and I don't have to justify why I'm saying no.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 30:44

The easier it's gotten and the words have become more and more clear. How many texts do you text out and then you back, back, back, back, back button. We don't have to justify what we need. You can ask for what you need and it's okay to be in relationships that fill you up and you do not need to be putting energy into relationships that don't. But the main thing is you are responsible for your wellbeing, you are responsible for your own happiness and they are responsible for theirs. So all of the work that we're doing in our soul recovery, through the process of soul recovery, is us cleaning and clearing and updating our old beliefs, our old stories, and allowing our perception to change so that we can see everything from a higher, more healed perspective, and from that place you can't help it but be aligned and to draw to you healthier, happier relationships, as always.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 31:49

If you want any help with any of this, please, please, please, know that I'm here as your spiritual coach. Until next time, namaste. Thank you for listening and I hope that that helps support your soul recovery process. I just wanted to give you a quick reminder that every Friday is the recover your soul bonus podcast, and this is available both to Apple podcast subscribers for $3.99 a month, or it's available for both free and paid Patreon members. So as a Patreon member, you can choose. Do you want to support the podcast with $5, $10, or $25 a month, totally volunteer. But to let you know that if you want to listen to those bonus episodes, incredible interviews, wonderful book studies you don't have to be a paid member. You can access them in the first week or two that they're available free on Patreon.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 32:41

This community is so important to me and I want you to know I treat it with love and consideration. If you want coaching, I'm here for you. You want to come to a retreat? I'm here for you. You want to come to a retreat? I'm here for you. You want to come to the free soul recovery support group? The community is here for you. Watch us on Facebook, instagram, follow us on all the social media for daily inspiration. Be part of the Facebook group. And one of the most important things is that you share this podcast with people that you think that it will resonate with, that you think that they're interested. Give it five stars, give it a review. We are growing this community together because together we can do the work that will recover your soul.