Letting Go of What No Longer Serves You: Releasing Old Beliefs with Step 5 of Soul Recovery

As we stand at the threshold of a new year, this  final episode of from this season and year invites you to release what no longer serves you. We explore how our subconscious stories and defense mechanisms shape our lives and hold us back.

• Step 5 of the Soul Recovery Process—'Release What No Longer Serves You -Cultivate Awareness and Insight: Use your growing awareness to gain insights into your old patterns and beliefs, and what you have learned from them.
• Practice Compassion and Forgiveness: Release these patterns through awareness, compassion and forgiveness, both towards yourself and others.'

It’s the perfect time to reflect: What beliefs, patterns, and stories are you carrying that no longer align with who you truly are? What are you ready to let go of as you step into a new way of being?

I share personal insights from my own Soul Recovery journey, the power of forgiveness and compassion, and how we can free ourselves from the pain of old wounds and self-sabotaging behaviors. By releasing the past with awareness and gentleness, we create space for healing, growth, and peace as we move into the new year.

Join me IN PERSON on April 13th in Sacramento California for an all day retreat to deepen your Soul Recovery Process. Learn more on the website! 

Join Rev. Rachel for an upcoming Soul Recovery workshop or retreat—an opportunity to deepen your healing, release old patterns, and reconnect with your true self. Learn more and register at https://www.recoveryoursoul.net/inperson

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 Releasing Old Patterns in Soul Recovery
• 12:02 Releasing Old Patterns for Soul Healing
• 25:05 Embracing the Path to Soul Recovery

Transcript

Rev Rachel Harrison: 1:02

Today's episode is focused on step five of the soul recovery process. It's releasing old patterns and stories that no longer serve you. We can be so impacted with all of the subconscious stories and beliefs that are in our minds and through the soul recovery process we've been learning about them and by the time we get to step five we are saying we are ready to let go of what no longer serves us. Enjoy the episode. 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. Hello Soul Recovery Community. It's Rev Rachel. Thank you so much for joining me here on the Recover your Soul podcast, where we are healing ourselves, where we step in because our outside world is really complex and painful. Potentially, people are in addiction or dysfunction and we are learning detachment. We are learning how to be okay even if they're not okay, and we're actually learning that we might have a part in it, that how we show up and how we choose to see it has something to do with it, that our lives are what we think and feel and believe they are, and once that we realize that we can take our power back, we can quit needing everybody else to be okay for us to be okay. And one of the foundational pieces of this is releasing old patterns and beliefs that no longer serve us. And that's what I wanted to talk about today, because we are here at the end of the year and I don't know about you, but I tend to do a reflection at the end of the year. How was this year? How did it feel for me? Sometimes it was a really hard year and all I can think of is God, I'm glad this year's over. What we're looking at in soul recovery is how do we take every single thing that happens to us, every single thing, and learn from it, grow from it, expand from it, release what hurts, open to what feels good, step into a spiritual path where we get to determine if we are okay or not and sometimes we're not okay and we get to allow ourselves to be not okay when we don't feel good we're really stepping into our authentic self.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 3:50

When I started this journey almost seven years ago I'm coming up on my seven year sober anniversary in February, which is amazing and a miracle all on its own. But really my healing was from codependence. If I am really honest with myself, I drank because I didn't feel comfortable and I didn't feel comfortable because other people didn't feel comfortable, and it's been quite the process of my own healing journey to uncover the stories and how I was raised and what did I tell myself about what this meant and how did that set up beliefs in myself, myself about what this meant and how did that set up beliefs in myself? And my first time of working through these concepts on the level that began my healing was in the rooms of AA and Al-Anon, working with a sponsor, doing the traditional steps in the traditional way, and AA has a flavor and Al-Anon has a flavor and I learned a lot of things about myself in that experience. I learned a lot of things about myself and I also, at the same time, a couple years after I got sober, started studying metaphysics to become a metaphysical minister, which is what I am now, and so I was taking these concepts around the 12-step process. The 12-step in 12 steps, is having had a spiritual awakening as a result of these steps. Right, it is intended to give you a process and it works if you work it. And then, at the same time as studying to be a metaphysical minister, I also did A Course in Miracles at my church, which is this big book and if you've heard about it before, it's been around since I think, the 60s. It's supposedly a channeled work and it is a spiritual program.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 5:41

So here I am, I'm studying all these different modalities at this very early time in my recovery and, if you have heard my story before, it still wasn't going great in my life. It still wasn't going great in my life. My husband and I still had problems. My older son, alex, in my first two years of recovery, was really struggling with his own addiction issues and really complex situations happening in his life. And my younger son was in college but was getting in trouble for his addictions as well and kind of struggling with his ADHD in school. And there was a lot going on and Rich and I were getting better, but we were still not in the loving place that we are today, man, we still struggled. So in those early years I really was still in a place where I so wanted everything else to be different. But I, finally, was taking responsibility for my own life and my own healing and I was using these three models to learn from.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 6:48

When I first started the podcast, you know I wasn't thinking that I was creating a community, I was just sharing. I was just sharing my experience, strength and hope and talking into my phone recorder and uploading it raw onto the podcast with this idea that we can't do this alone, that there was more happening for me than just what was happening in the rooms and I needed to talk about it and I needed to share those larger ideas of what was happening. And from that I talked about Detachment, which ended up being the podcast that really has. Maybe it's why you're here, maybe you heard that raw original episode in the first season around detachment and you know it all got clearer and clearer as time went by and the more I concentrated on me and started realizing what am I doing? What are these steps that I'm taking that have a little flavor of what I learned from 12 step but are moving more into the spiritual journey that I'm learning and other places. And that's how the original nine steps of soul recovery was created, and it really had more of a modification of the 12 steps.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 8:01

And then, over a couple years, I've been continuing to grow. The process has been continuing to unfold. The more and more and more I do coaching with people, the more clarity I get about what this process feels like and looks like to help other people to work through, and that's when the new nine steps of soul recovery was born this year. And so here we are today. You know so.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 8:25

If you've listened to previous episodes that have have steps, know that you might be confused. Yes, because now we're talking about a new step five instead of whatever it used to be in the past. I'm not even sure, but that's what I want to talk about today. Is I actually want to talk about step five, which is releasing old patterns that no longer serve you? This is step five of the soul recovery process, and if you're interested in all nine of those steps, you can go to the website about soul recovery and there's the full list, in more details, of each of the steps. Okay, so, releasing old patterns that no longer serve you. And the reason why I want to do this is because we're at the end of the year and I want to offer you that this is also a beautiful ritual of time in our life at the end of an era, at the end of a year, to truly be ready to commit to a new way of being. Part of this reason why I wanted to do the releasing of old patterns that no longer serve you is because this is the beautiful time to make a commitment to step into a new way of being. So before I get into that, let's just quickly go over the steps that are before this.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 9:38

Are you ready to step into your soul recovery? Visit the website recover your soulnet to learn more about the nine step soul recovery process. Your soulnet to learn more about the nine step soul recovery process. I hope that you'll join us the first Monday of every month for the free soul recovery support group on zoom, where we learn more about soul recovery and connect with each other. If you'd like to work directly with me to move through the nine step soul recovery process, I'm here for you, but you can also choose to work the steps on your own, with individual modules intended to support you to work at your own pace and on your own time. And if you want even more soul recovery, join us for the recover your soul bonus podcast for Patreon members and Apple podcast subscribers, where I interview amazing people sharing soul recovery tips for us and also do spiritual book studies. You can also find daily inspiration on Facebook and Instagram and join our private Facebook community. Visit the website for more information, links and registration for everything. Back to the episode.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 10:38

The first of the nine steps in soul recovery is ready for awakening, becoming aware that your dissatisfaction and suffering is caused by your current perceptions, beliefs, patterns and stories. And then we move into the releasing control, accepting that you're powerless over everything outside of yourself and that your true strength and peace comes from within. And as we start to look at what we're controlling, we begin to understand the why we begin to look at the stories that we have from our childhood. If you go into how this works with the 12 steps, this is really step my. Step three discovering a healthy patterns, beliefs and stories is what we learned from doing a fearless and searching moral inventory. It's the place where you start to look at what are my reactive places. What do I believe about myself? And I say examine patterns, identify and acknowledge the unhealthy patterns, beliefs and stories that have shaped your life and behavior, and understand how these patterns have contributed to your current state of suffering. We can't fix the operating system unless we know what the operating system is. It's all in your subconscious. But there is this beautiful way to discover and understand these unhealthy patterns, beliefs and stories without judgment.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 12:03

Then we move to step four in soul recovery, open to co-creating with a higher power. Explore what higher power is for you, your personal relationship with it, and begin to co-create your life with this higher power of your understanding, choosing the light and your authentic self. This is where you're really connecting to something even greater still. It's pretty hard to just hand it over when you don't think there's someone to take it from you, to support you with it. So having that connection to higher power is essential before we move into what is now.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 12:38

Step five release those old patterns that no longer serve you, and I say cultivate awareness and insight. Use your growing awareness to gain insight from your old patterns and beliefs and what you've learned from them. Practice compassion and forgiveness. Release these patterns through awareness, compassion and forgiveness, both towards yourself and others. So, in this step five, what I want you to really see because whether you've done all the other steps or not, it doesn't even really matter because everything that you need for your own healing is within you already.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 13:13

I believe our souls are just perfected, begging for us to wake up and see how wonderful we are, to recognize your wholeness, to stop playing around with all the dysfunction and, oh my gosh, the self-sabotage that we do, the critical nature that we have. This is the part of us that we're ready to release. These are actually old patterns, these belief systems that were not enough or not lovable. All the complex nature of how we judge ourselves and judge others comes from a form of us trying to protect ourselves. And when we've done the other steps and work through them, either with me or from listening to other podcasts that give more exclamation, or doing the work, the steps, on your own, what you're doing is you're walking yourself through a path that offers forgiveness and healing, that says something bad happened and I'm going to pretend like it didn't or I'm going to try to let it go, but from this place and spirituality and in soul recovery, where we recognize that everything that happened to us has something to teach us that when we step into our wholeness, we recognize we are fierce, we are strong, we are survivors, we are warriors.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 15:54

And when we stop thinking of ourselves as being less than, or being victims or having the world walk all over us, we realize that our patterns, beliefs and stories told us that that was okay, or that's how people treat people, or this is all I deserve. We get to this place where we start recognizing we actually have so much more to do with what is happening to us in our lives than we ever thought before. What we think and feel and believe is the life that we have, and we are here to release old patterns that no longer serve us. And if we don't see them, if you don't recognize them, then it's really hard to let them go. What I love about soul recovery is that it is a practice of non judgment, that when we see aspects of ourselves that need love and healing, we can actually let go of the part of us that wants to beat ourselves up for even having those hard parts.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 16:58

And part of this journey really came for me when I did the 12 steps through AA and Al-Anon and as I did my fifth step and shared with my sponsors all of these things that had been heavy on my heart, and then they gave me a worksheet that was to help understand the sixth step, which is to be ready to have've seen these aspects of yourself and then, at step six, we're entirely ready to have God spirit source take these from us. This is actually very similar to this step, but what I wanted to say is that when I did my fifth step and I did this worksheet that you do with the six steps, it is a worksheet that has all these they call them character flaws I'm not really a fan of that word, but all of these aspects of ourself that come from pain, all the ways that we show up when we're hurting or how we learn to survive, or what the protectors are at the doors, and we all have them. So, instead of being hard on ourselves for having them, what we want to do is have compassion, because it's hard to let it go If you're being aggressive or holding onto it. It's hard to let it go If you saw the story about it. It's hard to let it go If there isn't gentleness and compassion to yourself.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 18:20

So through that exercise, I was able to pull some of my character flaws, some of my defenses, some of my ways of showing up when I'm in not in a healthy place and some of my character flaws, some of my defenses, some of my ways of showing up when I'm not in a healthy place, and some of them are withdrawn self-seeking, victim, self-righteous, afraid, controlling, defensive, denying, enabling, fearful, judgmental, gossipy, anxious, isolating, masked and selfish when I'm not in my good place. I use these ways to be in the world and protect myself. And they came from these old patterns. They came from the good girl syndrome. They came from my not thinking I was smart enough, my being afraid of getting in trouble, my trying to just fit into the world around me, my success in being controlling and making everything work out. That got rewarded by people until it stopped working.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 19:18

It's all these parts of ourselves that have these foundations and our core wounds. And the beauty of what I see in soul recovery is, if you want to walk through every core wound and every resentment and every harm that you ever felt in your discovering unhealthy patterns, beliefs and stories, be my guest. You know what's right for you, but for most of us we need a more gentle approach. A more gentle approach. We need to be able to not relive a lot of that trauma but have clarity around how these patterns were created and touch in and give compassion to those memories and those stories. But we don't have to dig them all up because really they're a repetition of the same story all the time. If you really look at even this list of my go-to defense mechanisms, they have a flavor that is very similar and isn't that interesting. I don't have anger on there. Other people might have something that's more on an angry side. Mine's definitely on a codependent side.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 20:28

And when you're ready to release these patterns, when you're ready to allow spirit to take them from you, what you're really saying is you're ready to let go of the stories, that you're ready to rewrite your story. If you have a belief that you're not enough, you're ready to hand that over and live from a way of being that is enough, that believes that you're capable, that you're smart enough, that you're lovable, not from anybody else, but from you on the inside. Particular ritual is that you're making a commitment to yourself to treat yourself better, to love yourself more, to be more connected to your wholeness, to stand in your strength and to give gentle compassion and forgiveness to yourself, for however you behaved in the past, however you showed up, whatever these defense mechanisms are, you're going to allow them to release. You're going to make a commitment to yourself to show up in your life in a more healthy whole way. And the beauty is that when you make that commitment, when you decide that these patterns no longer serve you, it doesn't take anything but that true intention of your heart, a willingness, a sliver of willingness for things to begin to profoundly change, because we're always going to want to slip back into harmful patterns. But when you've done these steps, before you move back into, can I connect with my higher power, can I trust and believe that, that I am resourced here, that I am held here, that I am loved here by the God of my understanding, by the higher power of your understanding, whatever that is for you, and when I am in that connection, then I can let go of control. Right, it's really hard to let go of control of the people that you love in your life if you don't think that there's something that is there for them or for you. But you have a higher power now and you're letting go of control because you're not going to use these patterns and these ways of showing up, these defensive ways of showing up in your life, in the people around you. That's going to help you. Let go of control. See how they all are matched and pieced together. You realize that your dissatisfaction and suffering is caused by whatever your belief, stories and patterns are at that time. So if you want to feel different, see different. If you want it to be different, show up different. We have the power to do that.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 23:25

This is also the step where forgiveness is, and in 12 step it's dealt with in an amend way, but in soul recovery, forgiveness and amending is around showing up in your life, with the people around you, regardless of who they are, what's going on, whether they're healthy, unhealthy from your whole and higher self, that every word and every action that you have in reflection of them is coming from your wholeness. It's coming from the place where you are releasing the past, where you're letting go of what no longer serves you, and a lot of that letting go is holding on to old, painful memories and stories, and they did happen, but we do not have to continue to replay them. What I say in terms of amends is once you are doing this process, doors will open for you to have conversations with people that allow you to take responsibility for your part, and that often is very helpful in the relationship. But it's not always necessary and sometimes it's not safe to do so, and ultimately it's how you show up that really makes a difference in people's lives. And sometimes it also means that you love people enough that you let some relationships go and you stand in integrity and you hold those memories without all the harm you are letting go of what no longer serves you, what no longer serves you.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 25:06

If we could truly release what is not good for us emotionally, physically, spiritually, beliefs, stories, all this noise that's in our minds all the time, and so much of it does not serve us. So much of these thoughts are repetitive thoughts from the past, fears of the future, anxiety. What if you could release what no longer serves you, understanding that your old patterns and beliefs created who you are today, that you've learned from them? Right? So we're moving into appreciation. It's a step of gratitude, it's a willingness to move into a new way of being, it's a lightness, it's freedom, releasing all that no longer serves you, and I often think it's so important to really touch in and be gentle and kind to the different time periods and parts of yourself where hurts and harms happened and beliefs were created, and just give them the voice that they need to say, validate the feelings that happened at that time that we often had to push down or ignore, and allow that to have voice in this new way of learning from them, giving them gratitude and allowing them to be in a place of calm and quiet, of love, of appreciation, so that those parts of us can settle, so that we can begin to work into the next steps of soul recovery.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 26:49

And then step six would be embrace new beliefs and rewrite your story. And this is where we're stepping into new beliefs and patterns that align with our higher self and our updated perceptions. And then step seven is align with your new perception. You choose your reality, make a conscious choice in how you see and interact with the world from the standpoint of your higher self. We are truly beginning to walk the path. Higher self, we are truly beginning to walk the path.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 27:19

And then in step eight, it's deepen your spiritual practice, engage in a regular spiritual practice and continue shedding old stories, beliefs and living in the present moment. You know this is a continual process. It's not like you just do it one time. This is how we have a process to deal with difficult things, because it's always more to learn. There's always more happening in our life. This isn't about keeping us from having the complexity of life. It's around learning how to not think that everything is horrific, not catastrophizing, not being in fear, not having anxiety, not thinking that the world is falling apart, but being curious about what's happening and how you can best be in it. And then step nine is shine your light. Live authentically. Live without control or judgment. Embrace your true self, accepting the world as it is and shining your light to the world around you. Become an inspiration and a beacon for others on their own spiritual journey and soul recovery.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 28:22

So, as we come to the end of the year, I invite you to really look at this incredible opportunity to step into a new way of being, to release the patterns that no longer serve you, release the beliefs that no longer serve you release the beliefs that no longer serve you, release the judgments that no longer serve. You, release the stories that no longer serve. You release the harm and the hurts and the pain that no longer serves you Just because you allow the past fears, emotions, wounds to dissipate does not diminish what happened. It stops harming you with the energy of reliving and re-traumatizing and being completely compelled to protect yourself in a way that isn't allowing you to open to the truth of who you are. Soul recovery is your own journey and I'm here to help you in any way that I can.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 29:25

You can book coaching sessions with me. You can listen to all these podcasts and gather steps along the way. There's the work, the steps on your own on the website, still adding more all the time, and it's really around the decision that you make within yourself to commit to yourself. This community is holding space for you and, as we come to the end of the year, thank you for being part of this community. It has been a gift. Looking forward to next season. Until next time, namaste, thank you for listening and I hope that that helps support your soul recovery process.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 29:58

Just a reminder that every Friday is the Recover your Soul bonus podcast. This podcast is for Patreon members and Apple podcast subscribers and not only do you get an incredible interview or book study that comes with being part of that community, but your subscribing helps support this podcast and the Recover your Soul community. If you want to listen to those bonus episodes but can't subscribe right now, do know that you can be a free Patreon member and have access for limited time to new episodes. Visit the website RecoverYourSoulnet or check out the show links below for coupons and information for upcoming events. I thank you for sharing this podcast with information for upcoming events. I thank you for sharing this podcast with your friends and family. I thank you for giving it five stars, and the reviews that are left bring tears to my eyes. I am honored to be part of your life. Together, we can do the work that will recover your soul.