Reclaiming Your Voice: Soul Recovery Solutions to Gaslighting and Manipulation

In this episode of the Recover Your Soul Podcast, we’re diving deep into the topic of gaslighting—a term often used but not always fully understood. Gaslighting is a form of psychological manipulation that causes us to question our reality, memories, and perceptions. But here’s the truth: the more we cultivate awareness and strengthen our connection to our authentic selves, the less power anyone has to manipulate or diminish us.

Join me as we explore what gaslighting is, how to recognize it in your relationships, and most importantly, how to reclaim your voice and stand in your truth. Through the lens of Soul Recovery, we’ll uncover the tools to detach with love, set healthy boundaries, and transform dysfunctional communication into opportunities for growth and empowerment.

This episode isn’t about blame or judgment—it’s about awareness, compassion, and stepping into our full power. You’ll learn how to take your energy back, focus on your own healing, and create a force field of wholeness that protects you from negativity and manipulation. Together, we’ll discover that the journey to reclaiming your voice starts with aligning with your Highest Self.

Remember, you’re not powerless. By shifting how we show up in our relationships, we can transform the dynamics around us. Let’s continue to recover our souls, one ste

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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 Understanding Gaslighting in Soul Recovery
• 13:06 Empowerment Through Boundaries and Communication
• 29:06 Healing Through Boundaries and Detachment
• 39:13 Join the Soul Recovery Community

Transcript

Rev Rachel Harrison: 0:44

What is gaslighting? This is a word that is used a lot out there and what we're learning in soul recovery is we're learning how to be in control of ourselves, how to let go control of everybody else and how to stand in our strength, our wholeness. What we're going to talk about today is the concept around the awareness of how gaslighting, which is the psychological manipulation where somebody else questions the reality, memory, perceptions of another to really to protect themselves, to gain control or power of the conversation, to shift blame it really all just comes out of everyone's individual pain. But the more that we understand what this concept is and how we show up in it from a healthier way, the less anybody can gaslight us. Enjoy the episode.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 1:35

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. It's Rev Rachel and I want to thank you for choosing to spend your time with me here today on your soul recovery journey. This is such a powerful community and if you're new, welcome. Welcome to soul recovery, welcome to taking your power back and learning to be okay even when the people in the world around you isn't okay, and learning to just be in true acceptance of what is, and then moving into a life that is aligned with you and your power, your vision, your beliefs, your strength, your full, vital self. We're learning to fully step into our authentic and whole nature.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 2:53

Today's episode is a response to a question or a comment that was on the private Facebook page. We have a Recover your Soul community Facebook page. Everybody's welcome to join and it's really important that we are a community, that we have a place where I'm posting some inspirational posts and then I let you know when new episodes are coming. But some of my favorite parts of that community is when people ask questions or post what's going on in their soul recovery or say here's what's happening for me and I'd like some feedback on it, and one of the things that came recently was someone talking about how impactful the episodes on the four M's that came back in November last year, that are the Al-Anon four M's martyrdom, manipulation, managing and mothering. So I did those in November of 2023. And in the manipulation episode I started talking about gaslighting and she said I think that you mentioned that you have a whole episode on gaslighting and I couldn't find it and I thought, I think maybe I said that I would do one on gaslighting and I never did so.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 3:57

Today we are going to be talking specifically about the concept around gaslighting and I think that it's really important because we've been talking a lot about communication and soul recovery is this place where we are learning how to have just a little bit of distance, a little bit of witnessing in our communications with people, because we want to be in relationship, whether they're sticky and complex and giving us lots of things to work on with ourselves, or whether they're sweet and tender and kind. We want to really be in true connection and relationship. Now, when we're in an unhealthy state, there are ways that we communicate with each other that are around our defensiveness, around our pain, around us, trying to manipulate or control situations, and it happens on both sides, and gaslighting has become a word that's been used a lot lately and I wanted to just dig in and have more conversation around. What is it? How do you know if you're being gaslit? Because most of us are being gaslit on some level and we're not judging it as good or bad. We're just having the soul recovery awareness around it so that we can show up and do our part in it. How do we not participate in it? How do we have the right words to say? How do we process it for ourselves? How do we recognize when we're being manipulated by somebody and not allow ourselves to go down that dark spiral of dysfunction and be the one that disrupts and breaks the pattern in a new and healthy way? So I did some research and I'm going to be utilizing some of the research that I did on the gaslighting and I'm going to always be coming back to us talking about it on a soul recovery angle, because there's never anything in soul recovery that's about somebody being right or wrong.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 5:54

What I really want you to take in is I really want you to be able to see, with witness just enough, that everybody involved is doing the best that they can with what they have and a good portion of the time it's not all that great. It's not about accepting unacceptable behavior, but it's about letting go of the resentment part, that the control part, where we demand that they are some other way, instead of just saying, wow, this is the best communication that they have. What am I going to do about it? How do I attend to myself? How do I not turn it into a resentment where I'm fueling my own anger and my own yuckiness, my own darkness, and just allow them to be in their own stuff? Right, so that's what we're going to work on today.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 6:44

What it says is gaslighting is a form of psychological manipulation where a person makes someone else question their reality, memory or perceptions to gain control or power. And what I want you to really hear in that is that when we say to gain control or power, it can feel really heavy, like they want to force us, and be like really intense. But I think it's a lot more subtle than that. It's a form of manipulation that makes someone else question themselves. Because the other person is questioning themselves, because they don't know how to feel, they want to deny those feelings. This is their way of trying to control what feels uncomfortable for them In soul recovery.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 7:32

The new step two is the recognizing that our pain and suffering comes from our attachment to control and the illusion of power over external circumstances. Well, we're working on that and most people don't know that yet, so they're just trying to what I call stay on top of the rock, which is the situation or the person or the feeling where we're feeling discomfort. And on top of the rock is where, I say, all the control is, it's where the anger is, it's where the intensity is, it's the place where we really actually don't have any power or control anyway. But underneath the rock is where our feelings are, that's where our experience is, that's where our reality is. But on top is generally where all of us are hanging out, and so it's not about trying to make other people see, it's just about us witnessing. Ah, that's what that is. So here's some examples of gaslighting Frequent denial of facts, says a gaslighter, insists that events didn't happen or reinterprets them to shift the blame.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 8:38

We're all defensive posturing all the time, right. So that person may say I never said that or you're just imagining things. Now that could come from two places. One is that they are actually aware of what happened and they're trying to shift the blame from a conscious concept or they actually don't know. They actually have their own ideas and their own memories. This is the piece that's so fascinating of us really recognizing that every single one of us is interpreting the world through our own brain, through our own experience. But they're trying to make control and shift the blame by saying I never said that or you're just imagining things.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 9:22

The next one is trivializing your feelings, dismissing emotions and overreacting. Right, so it says you're too sensitive, you're being dramatic, these are all protections. Can you feel? If you've been listening to soul recovery for a while with me, can you start to see how others are just protecting themselves? And it isn't. It doesn't feel good. You know what I'm saying? Like it doesn't feel good when people use these particular techniques. So it's not again, it's not about saying, oh, we give everybody permission to be horrible. No, we totally don't. But when you can accept what is and stop being pissed about it, then you actually have some power in yourself.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 10:09

The other one is contradicting statements, changing narratives or using inconsistencies to confuse. I didn't say that yesterday. When proof exists, people are defending themselves like crazy. And you know what I'm just going to say out loud that one of the things that I think is so difficult about the political situation right now, whatever side that you're on, what I hear is that the kind of one of the most painful thing that's happening as a society is and I hope that you'll hold the space for me to go ahead and actually say this out loud but Donald Trump, who is a human being, who is the king at all these things you know of dismissing people's feelings of really like they can put that to the side and there's other parts of policy or values, or you know what political system they're on or you know whatever that they can put that to the side and then other people who actually like that. It gives them the ability to do that. Well, I don't want to judge any of that. I just want to say that it's out there in the forefront as being an acceptable way to treat people and it is not an acceptable way to treat people. It is a cover for you dealing with your own stuff, but we don't have to be manipulated or take on that energy or try to change or control them.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 11:48

In soul recovery, we're taking our power back. We're coming back to our experience, how we choose to see it, how we choose to interact with it. What are we going to do with whoever it is in our life husband, kids, family members, coworkers, whatever it is that they're showing up and they're using these tactics from their own self-preservation? This is the place where we're taking our power back. So the last one says using love or trust is manipulation, and it says that the statements make the victim feel like they're guilty for questioning them, whoever they're saying. The word victim I don't like that, but the other person is is making you feel guilty for questioning, and they'd say if you loved me, you'd believe me, right, if you loved me.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 12:38

What I really want us to talk about in this episode and I have a lot of really great examples that we're going to continue to work on with some things that you can say to be able to have the responses In the soul recovery perspective we are just recognizing and witnessing that they're doing that. It's all about awareness. Awareness doesn't mean that you're changing it. Awareness means that you recognize it, and there was an episode that I did last week around awareness.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 13:07

What is so important about us gathering up these tools is truly seeing that we're powerless over how people show up when they're in their pain. We're truly powerless over this way of them to cover their own feelings, but we are not powerless about how we respond to it. We are not powerless about what our choices are going forward in terms of boundaries. We're going to talk about boundaries here, about if you have somebody who continually says or does these things to you that you begin to recognize oh wow, this is what's happening. This isn't okay. This needs to be healthier. This isn't okay, this needs to be healthier. And then, if they can't, we're doing is we're taking our power back.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 14:09

We're starting to change some of these dynamics, and what I recognize with Rich is in my relationship with my husband is there was a lot of gaslighting going on, but he didn't know he was gaslighting. He didn't know that he was talking me out of my feelings or trying to take away my voice. He has this piece where he comes back again and again. He's like you used to say that I took your voice away. I've never wanted to take your voice away. I believe him that he never wanted to take my voice away, but even his voice way of talking about how he saw the situation is him, on some level, gaslighting me to try to talk me out of how I felt in the situation. And so it's not about using gaslighting as a term where we attack somebody with your gaslighting me, it's us saying, ah, these are psychological ways that our brain works to try to defend, try to control, try to shift blame, and I'm going to move my chess piece of life in a different direction. I'm now have more information about how I'm going to show up. So what we can see is that this awareness, the recognizing the signs of gaslighting, using your instincts what's my truth here? How am I feeling here as codependents and people pleasers?

Rev Rachel Harrison: 15:32

One of our issues is that we check in with their feelings and their needs first. We don't generally check in with our needs and our feelings first. We want to make sure everyone's okay, so we can be okay, and when we begin to shift this a little bit, it's not that anybody gets left behind, it's more that we're all out in the field, the same, with more equality. But the more that we take on this role that says, I'm responsible for my well-being and my discomfort and you're responsible for your well-being and your discomfort, then we stop thinking that we have to make sure that everybody gets along and agrees and everything's all good, or that everyone sees the situation the same. So when we can detach with love, when we can release the need to control the gaslighting behavior and we focus on our own well-being rather than fixing the other people, then we're moving more into that place where we're taking our power back, we're really having more awareness of how we're showing up and then we can set boundaries we can have clarity about when you do this.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 16:43

I'm going to make this decision and I've talked about this before that boundaries can sometimes feel like it's control of the other person. I need you to not gaslight me. That's a boundary. No, that isn't. That's a request. That's a request and requests are really important in relationships. But a boundary means that when you do something, I'm going to make a different choice, because the only person that can hold a boundary is you. A request is necessary in so many ways, but a request also lets go of the outcome. You can make the request, but they may or may not lean into what that request is, and then you can have a boundary for yourself of what you will choose to do if there is unhealthy behaviors happening that that request isn't meeting right.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 17:30

So the other is, you know, to make sure that you have someone that you can check in with If you're only in the battleground or in this uncomfortable or dysfunctional relationship. Yes, our minds are skewed. Our vision of what is real gets skewed. There isn't a place where you can check in and say was I actually feeling that or did that actually happen? And you want to be able to have friends that can support you, that aren't going to jump on a blame bandwagon or a victim bandwagon, a perpetrator oh, he's such an ass and you've never done anything wrong. It's more somebody who can really hold space for you to see both sides, to see the what is, the facts, and then to really allow you to be present in your experience without blame, without judgment, and be able to have clarity of how do you feel, what is going on.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 18:28

And for me, journaling is number one journaling and meditating, because so much of how I see it can have a distortion to it. I have to be really cautious that I am perceiving everything through a filter of beliefs and stories and patterns and as those get healthier and healthier over the years. That's helpful to me, but at the same time, I can still need a place where I get more clarity all the way around about how I felt and to validate my own feelings for myself and then to also look and say was I projecting in this situation? Was I seeing something different? So, meditating, journaling, you know we're really engaging in practices around our truth, our truth. There is such a push for us to all agree on what the truth is and what we want to recognize is that somebody's gaslighting because they're confused about what their truth is. They need to process and have more space to understand themselves. And not everyone's interested on this path. Not everybody wants to go down this get healthy and understand yourself path. Not everybody wants to go down this get healthy and understand yourself path.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 19:47

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.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 21:07

Okay, so here's some ideas. And let's say you have a husband or a partner or a wife who you have an unhealthy communication situation with, and one of the most important things is to recognize what's going on without blame. And I've said this so often in soul recovery, no one is right or wrong here, no one is good or bad here, it just is. It's painful for everyone. People don't attack unless they're feeling attacked or hurt, and so much of what we're doing is we're healing from literally generations of dysfunction most of our families and if you have compassion with that person and you're not, then also attacking from their negative behaviors. You open up more space. But you want to say things. You want to have words that you're ready to say, that come from your higher self, your kind heart.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 22:10

So some of these examples are saying something like I noticed that when we disagree, I feel dismissed and invalidated and I'd like us to work on how we communicate. Wow, right, like that just knocks out the blame. You're not saying you did this to me. You're just saying I notice that when we disagree, I feel dismissed and invalidated and I'd like us to work on how we communicate. You are opening up with nonviolent communication, this concept of a better way of connecting and then having boundaries right. We're coming back to the boundaries Clearly state your needs and what's acceptable without attacking. Here's the example.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 22:56

I value honesty and mutual respect in our conversations and when I share my feelings, I need them to be heard rather than dismissed. Need them to be heard rather than dismissed. So this boundary again is you're asking for what you need. I need them to be heard rather than dismissed. Now, what that looks like on their end is where we need to release and let go and have more compassion and understand that they may never truly be able to hear us in the way that we would like, but we're asking for mutual respect.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 23:32

And then it's also important to really come from I statements. What I learned from Rich and my relationship with my husband is that I spent years saying when you do this, you are this. When you do this, I don't like this that you do you, you, you, you, you. And it doesn't matter whether every single thing I'm saying is true and valid and and could be worked on. All he hears is there's something wrong with you. There's something wrong with you. You're bad, you're bad, you're bad. Well, that's all just tacking on to his already existing beliefs and patterns and stories about himself that he has in there that created the alcoholism and the intensity and all the issues that he had in the first place. So when we come from an I statement, you're not attacking them. You're really clarifying what you need. So an example is I feel hurt when my perspective is questioned in a way that makes me doubt myself. I feel hurt. I feel hurt when you talk to me like that and it makes me question what's going on. For me Now, the key in all of this is that you are saying these things because this is how you are communicating what you know within you and you're letting go and releasing whatever it is that they respond with.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 24:48

You are powerless over how they hear you. You are powerless over how they respond. You are powerless over whether they take this information and have some great epiphany and all of a sudden change. However, when one person in the relationship starts to engage in a little bit different way, it shifts the communication style in such profound ways. In such such profound ways that we can't see at first. But we are moving on a different path and we are the ones that get to start that. So another one is to focus on your peace, your inner being, you being your higher self, right, and you're not trying to fix or change anybody. Like I'm saying, we're maintaining our inner calm, we're standing in our higher power, in our higher self, and you remind yourself that their reactions are not your responsibility. Right, like this. I'm powerless over this. Their reactions are their responsibility. I am going to maintain my peace. I know how I felt. I know how that felt and looked and was for me. I know what my memory was. I know what my memory was.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 26:06

And then look at this partnership. If you're in a partnership where you're continually on this wheel of dysfunction, it might be something to look at. You're now starting to use the kind and courageous and compassionate and transparent communication styles, the nonviolent communication styles. You're disengaging. You're making the shift in the how the communication is going. You're not raging or attacking back or gaslighting back or any of that.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 26:38

If that continues to be their style and it doesn't seem like there's a lot of change and we can't fix or change them, there might be some conversations you have to have with yourself about whether this is an appropriate relationship for you, whether this is a place that you're safe, because ultimately, somebody who's constantly manipulating how you see the reality is not healthy for you. So if you have adult children right, cause I'm so into this on my adult kids it's also important just to remember they have their own path, they have their own choices, they have their own responsibilities and words that you can use for them. If you're having these kinds of gaslighting conversations is I respect that you're making decisions for your life, even if I don't always agree with them. We're allowing them to have their own autonomy. We're remembering that we can't fix or change them, that we can't actually manipulate them, and there's so much separation that happens with our kids, especially when we've been in addictive and enmeshed in complex relationships untying those very sticky ties that have been happening for a long time and that codependence it takes a minute and it really is around allowing everyone to have their beliefs and their memories.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 28:06

And you know, what's interesting that I'm thinking about in this is as I move from like a relationship with my husband, for example, where this, this isn't how I remember it, or this is how I felt, or why are you feeling this way, or you're too sensitive, or I never said that. You know those kinds of things. I have been known to do that with my children to try to save them from the memories that they have of their childhood that are painful for me to remember that I didn't want them to actually go through what they've gone through. And so I find that sometimes, when they're sharing with me feelings that they have, I don't realize I'm gaslighting them by trying to say, oh, I don't think it was like that, like it wasn't that bad. That's how it felt to them, and the more that we can just say, wow, I didn't realize that felt that way for you, or that's not the way that I remember it, but I respect that. That is how you remember it and it makes my heart hurt to know that that's how that felt for you.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 29:06

Is there something more that I could provide for you that would help you in this situation to be able to heal from this? We're opening, we're not defending. We're being kind and conscientious, and many of our kids have learned maybe they're addicts. They've learned these defense posturings from how our family's been with each other, so now maybe they're on attack to. They've learned these defense posturings from how our family's been with each other, so now maybe they're on attack to us, right? And so it's this dance that we're doing that is really trying to heal. So you know, just not trying to control the situation, not trying to fix it anymore, allowing them to be exactly where they are. You know I'm here to talk to you.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 29:47

If you're ready to have an honest and open conversation, you can say to them and again, we're reinforcing boundaries. We have kids sometimes who are in full blown addiction, who say horrible things to us. I have people that I work with and I've heard stories from people about kids who are really suffering and their drugs and their addiction and their alcohol and whatever it is that's going on for them. That's what's talking, that is what is spewing out this really horrible stuff. And again, we don't want to gaslight back and diminish what they're thinking or feeling and we don't want them to gaslight us and diminish what we're feeling. So in this particular thing, you can say I love you, but I will not tolerate being spoken to disrespectfully. Do you hear that? I will not tolerate for you to speak to me like that.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 30:46

If this continues, I'll need to step away from the conversation, being able to say to your kids in learning how to not manipulate and just having these clean lines, I will not tolerate being spoken to disrespectfully. And if this continues, here's what I am going to do I'm going to step away from this conversation. I'm going to ask for space. I will not show up to a thing, whatever it is. You're saying what you are going to do and then you have to detach from the outcome. You have to let go of the expectations of how they're going to behave. This is such a huge part of soul. Recovery is with kindness and compassion and love. We're detaching and we're just allowing ourselves to come into our own heart space.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 31:36

I so often do prayers in my own mind. You know where I trust. I think to myself. I trust their journey. I trust that they are being held by a higher power. I release my need to control it. I know and trust and believe that this is part of their experience and I'm sad. I'm sad that it has to be so hard for them and when I do that, I have more ability to be present and to show up in my full adult self and deal with what can be some. You know difficult behaviors and maybe they saw something different. And one of the things that says is I understand you see it differently, but I trust my memory and feelings about what happened and I trust your memory and feelings about what happened for you.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 32:22

There is space for us both to have seen it our own ways, stopping the chess game that says somebody's the winner, someone's the loser. The way I saw it is the right way. The way that you saw it is the wrong way. There is no right or wrong way. It just is how we each interpret it. But when we quit fighting about it and we quit trying to have somebody else lay all their projection unhealthy stuff on us and we quit laying all of our unhealthy projected stuff on them. There becomes more space for everybody to actually just be in their experience and potentially heal. We don't have any control of anybody else healing. We only can heal ourselves. Get under that rock, take care of yourself and detachment as a foundational piece of soul recovery, detaching with love. How can I show love without compromising my self-worth? How can I be present here without engaging in these unhealthy behaviors that we've been doing for so long?

Rev Rachel Harrison: 33:30

And again it comes back to journaling. It comes back to sharing with people who are like-minded and who are encouraging you to take responsibility for what's yours, your way that you see it, to help you change your perception, to detach with love, to hold those boundaries, no matter how hard they are. And we can't control anybody else. We can't make anybody else be what we wish that they could be, even if what we see for them is wholeness and healing and their full potential. They have to see that for themselves.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 34:07

And the more that we turn the attention to ourselves to be that for ourself, the more that, whatever anybody says to you, they can be in their full, full dysfunction and be spewing out all kinds of no, that wasn't how I saw it and that's not what happened. And you're this and you're that, but you've got a force field of wholeness surrounding you. Your energy is so filled with compassion and grace that you just see their sadness, their stickiness, their lost self, but you don't need to fix it and you have clarity about being able to say the way you're speaking to me is not okay. This is important that we have healthy communication, and this doesn't feel good to me. These places where we can stand in our strength and then attend to ourself is where we begin to shift and change everything.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 35:05

Now gaslighting, I think, is an important topic that we're beginning to really come together as a society and to be able to recognize the value and importance of clear, honest connection. So, instead of getting on our high horse about how everybody else, including our government officials, might be communicating or setting up standards in some style that go against love and light and connection and honesty, don't get on that rock. Don't get up there and get all worked up about it, because it's actually diminishing your ability to be present in who you are and how you choose to show up, how you choose to be with your family, even if you have family members that totally are on a whole other political standpoint. Can we remember that there is love always, that we are all really these souls trying on these different experiences, and that we're powerless over all of it? It's fascinating to me that actually, everything that's happening politically you could take that and apply that to addiction. There is so much that this represents, and so if we see it as a representation that gives us the tools that we need for healing, for how we're going to see it, how we're going to show up in it, how we have these lines, these ways of communicating, these ways of showing up that are actually going to make changes, those changes will feather out into the world. We're powerless over what's happening out there, but we are certainly not powerless over how we communicate, how we show up.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 36:49

What is going on for us. Can I detach from the behavior of my husband or my wife, or my children, or my family, or the political system? What would peace look like for me? How do I step into a peaceful way of being for myself? What do I need to be safe in my relationship? To be heard in my relationship. Is that possible in this relationship? Or am I trying to see something that may never come? How can I stand in my truth? Where am I potentially compromising my truth and can I reclaim it? Can I step into my soul recovery process and have clarity around the fact that everyone's having their own experience? And if I stop spending all this energy worrying about all of them and what they're doing and how they should be doing it, then I can come back to myself, I can heal my core wounds, I can change the patterns and beliefs that have been my foundational operating system. That no longer works for me and let them go and step into a new way of being. And once you start practicing these new communication tools and you attend to yourself and you recognize how you're showing up and how you can be a better you in those situations, it's interesting those kinds of responses get less and less and less and less because their tools quit working. You know it takes a minute, but you actually are changing the dynamics and that is power Until next time.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 38:29

Namaste, thank you for listening and I hope that that helps support your soul recovery process. 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: 39:13

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 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.