Reclaiming Your Power: How to Stop Controlling and Start Connecting

In this episode Rev. Rachel Harrison reflects on the delicate balance between needing others and maintaining independence. Inspired by today’s reading from The Language of Letting Go by Melody Beattie, Rev Rachel explores how codependency and control show up in sneaky ways in our lives. When life feels out of control, we often lean into patterns of over-controlling or shutting people out, but true healing comes when we can let go of these defense mechanisms and open ourselves to authentic, healthy relationships.

Join Rachel as she shares insights from her own journey, the transformative power of Soul Recovery, and how releasing the need to control allows us to take our power back and step into a life of connection, love, and inner peace. Whether you’re struggling with being overly dependent on others or keeping people at a distance, this episode will help you find balance and deepen your relationships while staying true to yourself.

Let go, step into your Soul Recovery, and rediscover your wholeness.

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 Recovering From Codependency and Control
• 10:13 Finding Balance in Needing People
• 19:38 Embracing Help and Letting Go
• 35:29 Join the Soul Recovery Community

Transcript

Rev Rachel Harrison: 0:00

This episode started as an inspiration by reading today's reading out of the Language of Letting Go Daily Meditations on Codependency by Melody Beatty, and the reading was around needing people. Sometimes we lean too far in the being overly needy and sometimes we lean on the other direction of not allowing anybody in. It is a reflection around codependency and it's a reflection around soul recovery and our concept of control that sometimes, when we feel so out of control, we swing into the direction of over-controlling in sneaky ways that we didn't even realize. How can we have people in our lives in a healthy way? How can we allow people in without being in control? That's what we're going to talk about today. Enjoy the episode.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 0:52

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.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 1:33

Welcome to the Recover your Soul podcast and community. I'm Rev Rachel and I am just as always I say this every time, but it's so true. I just am so grateful that we're all here together. It just means so much to me that you are choosing to spend your time with me. It is this incredible knowing that you're not here by mistake and that these stories that I share, this nine steps recovery process that has become such a transformative piece of my life and has now become such a transformative piece of so many other people's lives, I just feel the strength of this community more and more and more every day, with such gratitude, such enormous gratitude for each and every one of you. So thanks for showing up, thanks for doing your work, thank you for choosing you, thank you for showing up to say, hey, I want something different in my life. I am ready to take my power back, I am ready to take control back in my life and I want to know how to do steps to get there. I want to know how I can choose myself. I'm ready to let go of what no longer serves me. This is a powerful moment when you can do this to take your power back.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 2:47

You know one of my main foundations of what I teach is around control, and it's fascinating to me how it's all come around, because it wasn't something that I even registered that I did. I thought I was helping, I thought I was taking care of, I thought I was fixing, I thought it was my personal job to make sure that everybody was okay, that everything was okay. It had been ingrained in me from my childhood. Whatever our life's circumstances are is what the definitions are for it, but it generally has this definition of being over demanding or to really be putting upon other people to make other people do what you want them to do right. It has this heavy hand to it. You want them to do right. It has this heavy hand to it.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 3:48

And what we're offering in soul recovery is we're actually saying that this is sneaky, that it's something that we don't even recognize that is happening in our life, and when we are trying to control everything around us because we think that it will make it better for the people around us, what we're really saying is, if everything else could be or feel better than we would feel better. And, in the end, what we're learning in soul recovery is how to take control of your life, not how to control their life. We're making a switch that we didn't even know needed switching. How do I take control back in my life? I've lost control. It feels out of control. I feel like everything is spinning out of control and when we recognize that we've been playing a part in that by trying to fix it, by trying to change it, by trying to force it, then we get off of the crazy ride that is around control. I know that I talk about control so much, but it is such a really sneaky, sneaky little thing that happens in our lives that continues to come back and remind me and show me more and more about how I was showing up in my life before, how I'm continuing to show up in my life today, how it continues to offer me these beautiful moments of grace where I recognize that it's really giving me these markers to deepen my relationship with myself, to turn within, and every time I'm learning a new spiritual something. You know me, I'm just always soaking in teachings and learning more and going down more rabbit holes, and it's really giving me more solidity around this truth that we can indeed let go, that we can indeed hand it over, that we can indeed move into a space of faith and trust, and we talked a lot in the last couple weeks around some of these concepts and what I think is important is that we allow ourselves to let it unlayer. Is important is that we allow ourselves to let it unlayer.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 6:09

You know what do they say in 12 step when you get into the rooms of AA is it took you a long time to get this far down the drunk road. You know we don't wake up one day and have a drink most of us and have it just completely go off the rails from the first day. That's not how that usually starts out. It usually starts out being a solution. It's a solution to feeling good. It's a solution to having fun. It's a solution to a reward at the end of the day, it's a solution to numbing out some of the pain. That solution continues being a solution until it no longer is providing you with that same comfort. Well, in a way, we're the same with control, with this need for us to want to manipulate, maneuver, manage, mother, all of those things that. It was a slow and steady process, just like my becoming a full on drunk. I didn't start that way, but by the time I started drinking when I was 21 years old and earnest to the time I was 48, when I quit. That was a lot of years and a lot of different levels of trying to have that solution fix what ended up being my broken heart. It was the part of me that was out of control. Right, we're trying to find a way to feel okay in a world that feels really unmanageable.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 7:34

One of the things that I think is important in soul recovery that I hope that I'm impressing upon you on a regular basis is that we actually have a lot more choice than we think. We have so much more choice than we were told that was in our minds, and that choice is not about them. It's about you. That question of how do I get back control of my life, how do I control my life? How do I find a way to make all of this better? How do I change what feels so difficult and painful to me? The answer is to stop trying to change it, to stop trying to control the outside, to stop trying to make other people be a certain way or to change those interactions within your relationships. But it's not about being small. As I said that last sentence, I could feel that feeling around not having other people in your life be a certain way, but those people in your life, you need them. You need them and you want them. You actually want them desperately in your life to show up for you.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 8:45

And today my original thought was that I would read out of the Language of Letting Go by Melody Beatty for today, which is the day that we are airing this particular episode, which is January 27. And as I close my eyes, as I always do, and started talking, what came out before is what came out. What I think is so fascinating about this control is that so much of it has this piece of what we need and want from people, and this is what we've been talking about actually this year so far. How do you allow yourself to be in your dreaming, how do you allow yourself to want for more and not control at the same time? So I'm going to actually go back to my original thought, which is to read out of today's reading of Melody Beatty's the Language of Letting Go Daily Meditations on Codependency, because I actually think that it plays into really beautifully this awareness that the more that we release the need for others to change, the more that we actually step into the wholeness of ourselves and can be in more healthy and intimate and connected and really vulnerable and authentic relationships with everyone around us, especially when we allow it to be whatever it is and quit living in a fantasy. So I'm just going to read the full reading for today and then I will reflect on it in the soul recovery perspective.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 10:13

Okay, so it's called needing people. We can find balance between needing people too much and not letting ourselves need anyone at all. Many of us have unmet dependency needs lingering from the past. While we want others to fulfill our desire to be loved unconditionally from the past, while we want others to fulfill our desire to be loved unconditionally, we may have chosen people who cannot or will not be there for us. Some of us are so needy from not being loved that we drive people away by needing them too much. Some of us go to the other extreme. We may have become used to people not being there for us, so we push them away. We fight off our feeling of neediness by becoming overly independent, not allowing ourselves to need anyone. Some of us won't let people be there for us at all. Either way, we're living out unfinished business. We deserve better. When we change, our circumstances will change. If we're too needy, we respond to that by accepting that needy part of us. We let ourselves heal from the pain of the past and all those needs that were unmet, and we stop telling ourselves that we're unlovable because we haven't been loved the way that we wanted and needed. If we've shut off the part of us that needs people, we become willing to open up, be vulnerable, let ourselves be loved. We, let ourselves have needs. We will get the love we need and desire when we begin to believe we're lovable and when we allow that to happen. And her meditation is, or her little quote for the day is today I will strive for balance between being too needy and not allowing myself to need people. I will let myself receive the love that is there for me.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 12:07

Are you ready to step into your soul recovery? Visit the website. 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. 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: 13:08

What I love about this, in reflection to what I was saying in the beginning about everything being out of control, is that when you look at what our motivation is, that's underneath our behaviors and our actions and our reactions right, there is this incredible well of information that came from the past that is trying to tell us something. Those were our feelings, and when we get so caught up in trying to protect and save ourselves and trying to make sense of what could have never really truly made sense because there's just too many layers to understand, especially when we were younger. Then we used control, we used trying to fix it, we used codependent behaviors, we used addiction. Sometimes we used ways of showing up that were around the outside, always needing the outside to provide for us something. And what I really love about this that I'm glad that it's touching on in this conversation is it's okay to need people. It's okay to need and want to have healthy relationships with the people in your life. They may not be able to give you that right now, they may never be able to give you that right now. They may never be able to give that to you, but it doesn't mean that it isn't okay for you to need and want those relationships.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 14:39

In my own life. I'm fascinated with my mind. I'm fascinated with my story. I've become more and more curious about how I became who I am and as I approach this, this seven year marker of sobriety, which always is such a beautiful time of reflection to look back and say, wow, how did you get here? So much has happened in my life.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 15:02

I have been on the overly independent side and not the needy side. I've been on the side where I felt that it was my job and my responsibility to take care of myself, to do everything for myself to make sure that I didn't need anyone, and if I look back at my childhood, I had a particular childhood that didn't have a lot of the traumas that so many people that I've worked with or that I know personally or have come to retreats or shared their story with me a lot of you have really been through some really profound, profound trauma, and I want you to feel in your heart how true that is and so that need that you have to control, to protect, to make sure that nobody ever can get in there and harm you, or that you're supposed to take care of everything to make sure that nobody ever can get in there and harm you, or that you're supposed to take care of everything to make sure everything's okay. Of course these were the systems that were set up within you. Of course you have created these systems and that gentleness that we can give to ourself.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 16:04

But because I had such independent parents who really never treated me like a child or gave me a lot of the markers that you get as a child, I was trained from a very early age to be independent and self-reliant, and so it wasn't necessarily from big T trauma, it was from modeling and conditioning, and that there was some part of me that believes, and has spent an entire lifetime believing, that nobody is there for you, that you have to do everything yourself. And recently this has been reflected in my business, that the recover your soul business is me. It's Rev Rachel, right, so I work seven days a week because I love it, because I've never loved anything the amount that I love doing what I'm doing, yet because I am somebody who thinks that I have to be self sufficient, that control has snuck up in this sneaky way to bottleneck my ability to bring more of recover your soul to more people. Because I have gotten stuck in this feeling that it's all me, that I have to do it all, and I'm using some tools and I'm trying to do the best that I can, but I record two podcasts a week, I see clients three days a week and I do all the social media myself and I'm writing a book with, for the first time, somebody that I am co writing with, somebody that I'm actually.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 17:41

This is a huge step for me to step out and stop feeling like I have to be in control of everything, somebody who came to me and said I'm in your process and this is what I do. What can we do together to make this work? And it's been an opening for me to recognize that, when I really look back on my life, even though I've been doing so much work around, letting go of control in so many other areas the work that I've done with my kids and that how I've worked with Rich, they're huge, just enormous, massive improvements but when it comes down to this, I'm watching myself get completely bottlenecked in the fact that I recognize that I'm back to. It feels out of control, because there's so much to do and so much to offer and so much that I want to do and it's so big and it's so important and I want so desperately to help more and more and more people to listen to this, this nine step soul recovery process, to be able to accept a spiritual path and have the kind of freedom that has transformed my life that I did the thing that I'm teaching you to not do, which is to put all of the pressure on yourself that it is only yours and that nobody is there for you, right? So I caught myself in the limiting belief that says there is nobody there for you, you can't count on anyone. You have to do it all yourself. And when I do that, I'm taking spirit out of the driver's seat, which is my favorite place for spirit to be. I feel the safest and happiest and most contented when I let spirit be in the driver's seat and I'm over here in the passenger seat being the navigator and being part of the conversation as we talk about in the co-creation with source. That's my favorite.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 19:38

And yet that control is so sneaky that those old beliefs that say no one is there for you, you can't ask for help, have bottlenecked me into, backed up against a wall where I can't do it all. I can't physically do it all, and that means that I'm not having work-life balance, which means that I'm moving more and more into the driver's seat and forgetting that spirit's in the driver's seat. And then that leaks out into my life. It leaks out into my life. It leaks out into my life, and then I forget all of the principles and I start to be more easily reactable.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 20:20

I let Rich hurt my feelings more easily. It happened yesterday. He snapped at me while we were doing a construction project and my whole self knows that this is one of his things that he does that. He likes it to be a very particular way when he's doing his construction projects. And I'm just supposed to hold the pole the way that he told me to hold the pole right, that's my whole job. But I don't do it exactly the way that he would like, and so then he snaps at me and then I recognize I'm actually not in a place where I'm in my body or I'm doing it well, because I got really hurt and I realized it's because I'm feeling overwhelmed in so many other places.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 21:04

And the beautiful thing in soul, recovery is, instead of going down some crazy spiral, I become super curious. I noticed that these are the character defenses that I'm in one of my character defenses and all of a sudden in the last day I had this epiphany and said what if you need people, why are you not allowing people to help? Why do you think you have to do this all yourself? What are you afraid of? And you know what I'm afraid of. I'm afraid of letting people in. I'm afraid that there's a weakness by my raising my hand and saying I can't do this all myself and I need help. And there's a fear that if I let go of the reins, this incredible community that means so much to me and these teachings that are transforming people's lives that I take incredibly seriously, but not so seriously that I think I'm somebody so special, right Like I believe so much that we're all in it together and that this is my soul's mission, is to just be present in my, in my life, to share this with you. I can't do it myself. I got to get, I got to get in the passenger seat, and then it comes back, just like in the reading for today. And it's beautiful that to take control back into your own life means that you have to stop trying to control the world around you. And then I opened up the book today thinking maybe I'll just read out of the book for the podcast for Monday and guess what it is Needing people.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 22:41

So if we're overly needy, it's saying you accept that part of yourself that feels those feelings that had those parts of you as a young child who did not have your needs met, did not have your needs met. So of course you set up systems. That is, looking for people on the outside to fill it up and for whatever circumstances, I grew up in a situation in my childhood where my independence and not needing anybody was so rewarded that I have not let anybody in on the level that would be good for me, and my husband complains about this all the time, on a regular basis. He has said to me over all the years that he wishes that he would be able to be in, that I would let him in, and now that we've established this level of safety within our relationship that is better than we had for 20 years and our 32 years together. I still have this wall up, and the wall is not necessarily a wall of fear of getting hurt. It's this wall that says you have to be independent, you have to do it yourself, you can't need anybody, it's not safe to need anyone and that if I do, my world will fall out of control. And then I start to control, and then it starts this cycle again. It's it's fascinating when you look at it.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 25:23

So what I realized is, if I want Recover your Soul, to grow in the way that I do and I have, you know this Maddie is helping me write the book and then she's introducing me to people who are helping me with other aspects of it, and I feel this pressure and I'm thinking what's the pressure anyway. And then, is it okay if I'm using some of the AI tools to use my words, my concepts, my transcripts, my teachings to you so that I don't have to write everything? Yeah, I'm using those tools and I want to be able to hand that over to somebody who is still using those tools so that the concepts of soul recovery do not get diminished, because that's so important. Everybody who is out there doing this work that has moved into bigger levels has assistance. They have people that are helping, they have people who are doing these things for them, and I'm afraid to let that go. And you know, I'm not afraid to let that go for the reasons that one might think. It's because I have an underlying belief that I personally have to do it all myself and I raised my kids like that.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 26:33

I was like that in my marriage. I realized as a employee of other businesses I showed up that way of not feeling like I could ever ask for help, that I just needed to take on everybody else's stuff. These are the markers of codependent and people pleasing behaviors that are not bad. They just are the way that we protected ourselves and it is okay to need people. So then I come back, just to sort of bring it back around, when we are in life and in situations where the people around you cannot show up for you in the way that your heart so truly desires. That control that we're trying to make it be different or we're in the suffering of wishing that it was different, is the part that we get to take our power back and we get to feel those feelings. We get to be with what that is and stop trying to change it, fix it, manage it, make it be different and attend to our own grief, our own sadness, our own stories that we've told ourselves, working through the nine step soul recovery process to be able to unlock the pain and let all of it teach us, turn us into our full, authentic selves, so that those people in our lives who are indeed not showing up in the way that we wish that they were it does not hurt us in the same way.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 28:13

Right Yesterday, with this thing with Rich and I, I did my usual thing. I just got really quiet. I just did what he asked me to do. I went about my business and then in the evening, when he said I can tell something's going on, what's up, because I can now show up and speak in a way that I never allowed myself to have the voice of. When you, I feel I need nonviolent communication. When you snap at me when we're on a project, it shuts me down and I need to be able to show up and feel like there's safety here. And he said you're right, I forget that we're not on a job site and I forget that you have a more tender way of being and I forget that I can't just bark orders. And then I went and did something else and he came back and he said and you know what I really meant to say, honey is, I'm here for you, I care about you. I can tell you're overwhelmed. Why don't you call the house cleaner and let's get our house put back together? I know that is hard for you when it's kind of messy. That is huge for us, that's huge for us and it's huge for me.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 29:35

So not only can we believe that the people who we didn't think could be there for us, that they might end up showing up in ways that we would never have expected if we stopped trying to control it that's what has happened to me in my relationship with Rich. I also recognize that there's people in my life and family members that I have to completely accept and let them be exactly who they are and stop trying to fix and change and manage and control, and the protection that used to be that I don't need you has lessened and it's now an awareness and acceptance of their process, who they are. And then I turn to the places where I do have control. I have control over recover your soul. I get to invite people in who see the value of what this community is and are as stoked and excited and honored and privileged to share this with everyone as I am, as I am, and that we together are going to do this, that it's not just me, that when I do that, not only do we have spirit in the driver's seat, we've got me in the passenger seat. We have a bus filled with people potentially who are as energized with what this is. And you know what that does. It creates even another level of community.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 31:05

And can I allow myself to be gifted with that kind of love? I never thought I could and I think there's some part of me that didn't think that I deserved it as a child. That must be some story that I told myself from all those experiences that I couldn't ask for help, that I had to do it all myself, that somehow those kinds of connections or those kinds of interactions were for the other ones, not for me. You know I've told the stories about being rejected so intensely by other kids when I was growing up, so that happened. That's okay. Here I am now today and I am ready to make choices in my life that open me up to more connection, that open me up to understanding myself better, that make the connection with my higher power more and more and more relevant, more and more true that I feel more in the flow. I feel more in the flow and that from that then, I am actually needing people, needing and wanting people in my life in healthy and really authentic ways. That's what I'm calling to myself.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 32:31

What I encourage you to look at from this episode is based on this reading. It's based on the reading of where are you on that scale of being too needy and looking from the outside for people to provide you with something that maybe they can't give, or where are you not needing people at all? You're putting up barriers and pushing people away really from fear, and how is that reflecting in your life to where you realize that you're actually using control as a mechanism to defend yourself, as a mechanism for making sure that you are safe or not in pain or that others aren't in pain, and recognizing that when everything feels out of control, it's actually where we step back even more and attend to ourselves. Put spirit in the driver's seat, move over to the passenger seat driver's seat. Move over to the passenger seat and not only let spirit into your life, but let those into your life that are there for you, that see you, that support you, that love you and to allow yourself to be loved as you deserve, as you so deserve.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 33:43

I really want to let you know how important this community is and that, if you're struggling with any of these things, I have this nine step soul recovery process that I'm hoping that you'll take advantage of in whatever way works for you. If it's just listening to the podcast, but you're looking at it on the website and you're saying here's the step that I'm in, here's what's going on, I hope that you'll engage in that and if you need one on one coaching, please come and join me in this process of me leading you through it. Not only are we doing the steps, but there's something that happens in those in those sessions that is a channeling of spirit that is really profound. They have a level of it's hard to even describe what happens in those sessions, and then I'm hoping that you'll take advantage of the work, the steps, on your own. I'm avidly working on getting steps finished so that you have more to choose from.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 34:44

There's a couple to choose from right now on the website up and going, and I hope that you will feel this intimacy that I'm feeling with you as we're here together, and I want it to be accessible to you. I want it to be accessible to you because this is your journey and you're here on purpose. I want you to feel loved and seen and that your wholeness is the truth of who you are, and you wouldn't be listening if it wasn't time for you to do this work. You wouldn't be here if it wasn't time for you to do what you need to do for you. Until next time, namaste, thank you for listening and I hope that that helps support your soul recovery process.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 35:30

Namaste, 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 your friends and family. I thank you for giving it five stars and the reviews that are left to 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.