They Went to Treatment—Now What? Finding Your Way with Soul Recovery

Turning the attention to ourselves and our own healing is the greatest gift we can give to anyone who's recovering from addiction or other life challenges. When someone we love enters treatment, it's an opportunity to focus on our own Soul Recovery and allow them to fully embrace their own journey of recovery.

• Understanding that our loved ones' readiness for treatment is an opening for our own healing
• Recognizing that trying to control or fix others actually keeps us stuck in dysfunction
• Learning to see others wholeness, not as their addiction or behaviors
• Breaking the cycle of focusing entirely on others while neglecting our own well-being
• Setting healthy boundaries that honor our healing while supporting others' recovery journeys
• Practicing detachment with love—letting go while still holding care
• Moving from empathy (taking on others' pain) to compassion (witnessing with love)
• Developing unconditional love that doesn't enable destructive behaviors
• Creating peace within ourselves regardless of others' choices

Remember that feelings are part of being human, and even intense pain will pass. Choose your own health, happiness and peace—it's yours to claim.

Ready to take your Soul Recovery journey deeper?

Join Rev. Rachel in person for a transformative in-person weekend retreat—July 19–20 in Lafayette, Colorado, or September 13–14 in Asheville, North Carolina.  Learn more and reserve your spot.

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 When Someone You Love Enters Treatment
• 7:13 Understanding Soul Recovery
• 21:06 The Addiction Family Dynamic
• 31:12 My Son's Treatment Experience
• 43:35 Join the Recovery Your Soul Community

Transcript

Rev Rachel Harrison: 0:00

Someone you love just went into a treatment center and you're wondering what do I do?

Rev Rachel Harrison: 0:04

How do I help them? What is my job here? What is my role? How do I fix it? How do I make it better for them? In this episode, we talk about soul recovery, the concept of turning the attention to ourself and our own healing as the greatest gift that we can give to anyone else. They're being ready to do something, whether it is long lasting or just for this particular moment around their own addiction, their own broken heart, is really an opening for you to step more fully into your healing. We are going to talk about what to do when they go to treatment and how you can recover your own soul. Enjoy the episode.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 0:44

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 the Recovery Soul Podcast. I'm Rev Rachel. Thank you so much for taking this time to spend your moments with me, your recovery with me, your soul recovery with me.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 1:35

Today's episode is really going to hit on the head of addiction, and this is a spiritual path to a happy and healthy life. But you came here generally because you're looking at what somebody else's choices are and how they're affecting your life, and because addiction has been such a big piece of my life, both as a recovered alcoholic on my own, but being married to an alcoholic and now having two grown alcoholic and addicted kids. I am well versed in having addiction as a main focus in my life and I get so many messages from people who just say that this has been a lifeline for them, and so many of them say my spouse, my kids, my sister, my whoever it is, just went into treatment, and now I'm doing this work to know what to do about it. They just went into their recovery. What's my job? How am I supposed to show up? What am I supposed to do here? And so I haven't really hit this topic this distinctly before. This is our own spiritual journey, but it comes to us because somebody else is having these situations in their lives that, in most of us, have been all consuming for a long time all consuming for a long time. So in this episode I want to work on how do we take care of ourselves. What is our job here, now that they have gone to treatment and I will maybe also speak about? Maybe they are thinking about it or you think that they should, but we're going to really hit today in the main focus of somebody's just gone to treatment and now you're wondering what your role is. How do you show up in it for yourself? Again, I just want to preface before I even start.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 3:21

My name is Rachel. I'm a recovered alcoholic. I am a codependent, I am somebody who's been through Al-Anon and 12-step, I'm a metaphysical minister, I'm a spiritual person, but these are my ideas. This is how I've done this in my own life to have profound, transformational healing, and what I want you to do is take what works for you and leave the rest. Each of us are so unique in each of our experiences and our stories that there is no one size fits all. This really is unique to you, and what I hope that you're doing is gathering information that's going to give you the tools that you're being guided to by your own innate wisdom and guidance. You've heard me say and maybe if you haven't been here before, you are already whole no one here is broken. Even the person who's going off to treatment is not broken. We're lost. We certainly think we're broken, we certainly think it's all falling apart, but this is our spiritual journey. This is our ability to come back into our own, and it's their ability to come back into their own too. So if this resonates with you, keep listening. If it doesn't resonate with you, it's okay. Go find what does, because there's so much out there that is going to be helpful in whatever the languaging that you need. So this is just the language of Recover your Soul.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 4:41

And, rachel, I want to start by saying that I'm working on a book right now. That's going to be my soul recovery process that I went through, especially over the last seven years, but really since I was born, but since I started my own recovery of alcoholism process in 2009. And in the midst of researching and doing the work for getting ready to turn in my manuscript for this to be worked on, in addition to with my co-writer Maddie, I was reading through all of my old journals and let me tell you, oh my goodness, to go back and read through, basically from the beginning of my marriage. I have journals that go further back than that, but I found the ones that started when I got married and when I especially started writing journals when I had my kids and to really see the amount of trauma and pain that was caused in our lives from addiction, from alcohol and what's so fascinating and you've heard me say this before.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 5:53

I picked Rich because he drank, like me. I didn't even know at the time that I was already an addict. I grew up in addiction in a different way than his addiction that he grew up with. He grew up with specifically alcohol addiction. My dad had addiction, but it was different. It showed up in a different way and that's his story to tell and not mine. But I definitely grew up in an addictive situation with my dad and so I didn't do alcohol well, which is very interesting. I definitely had other ways that I was already showing up addictive behavior generally in codependency and in deep attachment to other people, the need for other people to fill me up in some way, to give me something in some way that I had that codependency from being a good little girl of a single mother and and being raised with some addiction in my life.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 6:49

When I met Rich, I had already started to drink, but I mostly smoked pot and I mostly was just really into having a good time. I wanted to have fun, I wanted to go out and I wanted to dance. And the night that Rich and I met was like the fifth night in a row that I had gone out and I almost didn't go out. And the night that Rich and I met was like the fifth night in a row that I had gone out and I almost didn't go out. And he had been up all night on an architecture project and he ended up going out anyway, even though he hadn't had sleep for two days. And that's when we reconnected. And what did I do? I invited him over to my house to smoke pot and then he never left. That's how we're together.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 7:24

That's our addiction story, right, and so when you look at like how we got together and the amount of passion and love and zest for life that we had, you wouldn't know that that was going to end up being what was the demise, in a way of our relationship, when I look back and I was reading how destructive alcohol had been in our life and how desperate I was for something to change.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 7:53

And so when we get to this place where somebody goes to treatment, it's gotten pretty bad. And the person that went to treatment in our family was my son, alex, and he had started using when he was around 13 years old, and little did we know that that was what was going on. I thought that he was being picked up by someone from church that was taking him to go do good things, but it turned out he was getting picked up by someone at church who was taking him off to smoke pot and start his addiction process. And you know what I want to his addiction process and you know what I want to really impart is what I recognize that I have now, with this hindsight of this soul recovery work that I've done, and that I hope the message that I'm giving you to never take away from the very complex and difficult situations, and it's bringing up a lot of emotion for me, because this is difficult.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 8:50

It's been 10 years since my son went to rehab himself, and the spiritual journey isn't about bypassing how complex it is.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 10:09

It's about giving us tools and resources and our own incredible opportunity to heal through all of it, start to see the life and the world around us through the eyes of challenge instead of through pain and suffering. It switches up how it is, but when you're in the midst of it, when you're in that incredibly painful, uncontrollable and unmanageable space where everything is just falling apart and people are making choices that are really, really painful and difficult, it can be very hard to keep your head above water. And the secret isn't that you're supposed to know how to do everything. The secret isn't that you're supposed to bypass how it feels. It's hopefully that you recognize that you have every resource within you to be able to get through it.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 11:06

What I recognize that happened in our own life was that Rich and I were addicts and even though we had had a stint of sobriety for about three and a half years, when Alex was at the end of middle school and going into high school, we were still pretty dysfunctional and I was going to AA and Rich had started AA but wasn't going to AA. And life is just complicated. Man. I mean I just think. Sometimes I wonder, sometimes I have real curiosity Are there actually families that don't have some level of difficulty and pain and heartache? And I don't think anybody bypasses it. I think that we look behind the doors of what seems like perfect families and there is generally stuff going on that maybe they don't share and maybe it looks different than what it looks like for us when we have addiction in our lives, but this is what it is for us and I don't think that we should feel shame or have guilt over the fact that this is what it is, but it sure feels like we should be hiding it and I remember how much I wanted our lives to feel on the inside, like how much energy I put on them. Looking on the outside, and when you look at photo albums and you look at Facebook, it presented a certain way, but inside there was a lot going on, and one of the things that happened for Alex was that he was only responding to what was the energy and the feeling that was around him. He's a highly sensitive person just as a whole, and he experienced this very complex and difficult life the way that he did.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 12:53

And when you start looking at the people in your life who you love who are experiencing addiction, addiction is actually a protector and it's hard to see that that would be the case that when Rich and I first started dating and we were partying and having fun. That is what we think we're striving for, that's what we think we're looking for. But as soon as it gets complicated, as soon as your heart hurts, as soon as you are feeling in despair, the first thing you turn to is this substance or this behavior or whatever it is that changes your brain chemistry, that shuts down, that covers the actual emotion, that pushes it away and that becomes the tool, that becomes the resource and in 12-step they call it the solution. Right that this is the solution. And when you're looking at somebody that you love so much and you're seeing that this has long stopped being a solution, this has long stopped being a solution, and they're now in the place where they are, in the throes of the despondent, horrific places that can go from addiction, you wonder why they wouldn't make different choices. And the answer to that is it's so complicated. You can't just have some simple thing.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 14:09

But from the soul recovery perspective, this is a spiritual path. And again, take what you like and leave the rest To me. This is about souls. This is about our spark of essence that is in this lifetime, having this experience, we can't possibly understand what it is that each of us has to go through, and I can't understand what I had to go through to get to where I am today, when I was reading those journals and was just heartbroken, deeply heartbroken, to reread these words from a woman who was lonely, who was scared, who was overwhelmed and just wanted some peace and wanted some love and wanted to figure it all out and was feeling really, really unsure of how to change or fix her life.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 15:05

Those were the formative years of my deep control addiction. But so much of that journaling was around witnessing somebody else's complex sadness and the choices that they were making in their life that I wished were different, because my experience as someone going to rehab was 10 years ago. What I can tell you is that we were in massive crisis by the time we got Alex into a rehab center and he had stopped going to school, he was in truancy court, he was having to be drug tested, he was failing the drug testing. We didn't have insurance that covered treatment at that time. It was prior to the kind of coverages that are on insurance now.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 15:49

We had some college money saved up for him, but you know, I mean, I think that's that part, that there's so many moving parts that you have to put into play about how you're looking for something to save and fix it. And so by the time we got to the place where it was really apparent that we needed to do something, it was really apparent that we needed to do something. And you know it's interesting, he wasn't into alcohol at that point, it was really his destructive emotional internal behavior and smoking pot and not going to school. He was just. He was losing himself. And we found a treatment center and we raised a bunch of money and we borrowed a bunch of money and we had friends who gave us money and we somehow scrapped together to be able to pay for this treatment center. And here's the thing I thought the treatment center would fix it and if you have someone who's going into treatment right now, that is your hope too.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 16:44

I know that's your hope too, and I understand, I deeply understand hope to, and I understand, I deeply understand I just so wanted something that could be so straightforward, that would heal my son's broken heart. Because, ultimately, when somebody's at that level of pain, it's really their own broken heart that they're trying to cover.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 17:14

And I hoped that that treatment center would do that. And if you've listened to the podcast in the past, you've heard me tell the story, which is I think I was sitting in the main area and I overheard the director telling somebody else it's not if they relapse, it's when they relapse, and I was pissed. Here we are. We've put so much money and time and effort into trying to get him to this place. That is going to be the answer. I want you to fix him, I want you to fix our family, I want you to fix it, and I couldn't wrap my head around that because I so wanted this to be the thing. Now, here's the interesting piece In those five months that Alex was in this residential treatment program, he was happier than I'd ever seen him Bless his heart, he went in full-fledged. And if you have anybody who's gone into treatment and you go and visit them and they are, they are engaged and their heart is open and they are learning and growing and there's healing energy around them and you just have such hope, I just remember thinking, yes, oh, that director is wrong. This is it. This is what's going to make things better. But you know where I was not putting energy. I was not putting energy in me and the truth was, by the time Alex went to rehab, rich and I had started drinking again. So there was still dysfunction happening in our own home. So this is the place. This is the place where we have put all of our attention and effort on somebody else's unhappiness, on somebody else's choices, on somebody else's addiction. They do because we want to love them, we want to support them, but we prioritize their wellbeing over our own wellbeing and we have a belief that if that piece changes, that it's going to fix us. And this is where soul recovery comes in. And this is what I didn't know 10 years ago. That I know now.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 19:29

Alex came out of that treatment center and we had gone to the family counseling and Rich was pretty attached to the rules that we were supposed to set up. When he came home, the heavy boundaries we hadn't changed, our dynamics hadn't changed, our family hadn't changed. And so Alex left this environment that was peaceful and had had clear boundaries and had support and he walked back into an alcoholic home. He walked back into a relationship with his dad that was complicated. He walked back into a relationship with a mom who was a control, freak and complete people pleaser, triangulating in every single thing that I was doing and enabling everything because I just didn't want anybody to be upset. And so what did he do? He went back to a solution when he started to be in pain and by the time he was 18 years old he had moved out of the house and it just was a cluster for another couple of years.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 20:35

Are you ready to step into your soul recovery? Visit the website recoveryoursoulnet 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.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 21:39

Back to the episode. So here is what I can give you from my own experience. If I had recognized when my son went to treatment that it wasn't about his healing but it was about mine recognized when my son went to treatment that it wasn't about his healing but it was about mine, then maybe the crash afterwards wouldn't have been so bad, and the truth is, maybe it would have been the same. That was his journey to have. But what I can recognize in myself is that when I stepped into recovery seven years ago, to recover from my own addiction not to make rich be sober anymore, but for me to be sober for me, because I had a moment of grace where I realized that my life was worth it, that I didn't want to die anymore, that some part of me had a moment of grace that said that I could actually be happy and have a better life. That's that moment of grace that you hope, that that person that you love can feel in themselves. Only they can access that if that is what they so choose. I didn't get sober till I was 48. And here I am. I'm obsessing still to this day. I'm working on it, I'm 90% better than I was before, but my kids are still not sober. They go in and out of seasons but they're on their own journey right.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 22:55

So if you have somebody who is going into treatment, the first key is to recognize that that is their experience to have, that is their recovery to experience. It is their responsibility to choose that level of recovery and to engage in it fully and for you to see them and open your arms to their full recovery and to see them well. I think one of the foundational pieces and this is a huge piece of what I want people to see in soul recovery to see people as whole and not as broken. Even if they are showing you behaviors that are undesirable, those are just behaviors. That is not the soul. That's on the inside. That is this incredible light that is experiencing pain and suffering and difficulty and not knowing how to show up and be in the world. That is their experience on the outside of who their soul is. And if all we're reflecting back to them is you're screwed up, you're broken, you're an addict, you're not enough, you harmed me, you're bad, you're whatever. All they can do is reflect back that shame. And it doesn't mean that you allow behaviors that aren't acceptable, and I talk about this all the time. You can have clear boundaries and you can actually not like the behaviors. There are still, to this day, behaviors that I do not like of my family members my husband and my kids but that is very different than the soul that's inside, that is beautiful and light and kind and loving. And when I respond to my children or to my husband from all of the hurt and upset from the past, it actually just happened.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 24:54

In reading my journals, you know that 30, almost 33 years later, rich and I are still together, which is a miracle all on its own to show a testament to the capacity of people to heal. And it's because we are both healing, it's because we are both working, and he is his own human being. He certainly is not the husband that I would write down on a piece of paper and say this is what I'm ordering. He's Richard. He is his own human being, he's his own soul here, having his own experience, and it took me a long time to stop trying to make him fit into some mold that felt like what I thought I wanted. But he's also worked on his addiction and he's also worked on his heart and he's also done the work that if we had been in this place today, 10 years ago when Alex came out of treatment, that would have been different.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 25:53

But when I read those journals the other day, it brought up of course it did. It brought up all of this sadness. I mean I've cried three times on this episode already because it's up. And guess what I did that night? I snapped at him for nothing, right, I was a bitch and that was a very old protective behavior because I wasn't being present with him of who he is today. I was still flooded with all of the pain and the emotion and this is the other piece of somebody who's going into rehab. There is a lot that has happened. There's a lot of pain that has happened. It is true. There is no denying that these experiences happened.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 26:42

But we cannot continue to respond and react to anything that was prior to this moment today. React to anything that was prior to this moment today, aside from how you feel within yourself and the healing that you are dedicated to have in your own being, because everybody has the right and we have the hope and prayer that they wake up every single day to make a decision to be who they choose to be and want to be and maybe stepping into their authentic self today. We all need permission to show up in a new way today and not be punished for the past. And I watched myself as I was still in reactivity from 20 pretty hard years that were really hard. And so the next day when I made an apology to Rich for snapping at him, I said I should have told you I read all my journals today.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 27:41

I was in a really, really painful space and he said oh, that makes sense. He said those were really hard years for you. That was a really hard years for you. That was a really painful time for you. Now I thought this was beautiful because in our past relationship there was competition over who was kind of having the hardest time or whose side or whose view was real quote, unquote, real and for him just to hold space for me and say, oh, wow, I can see that that is a reason why you're feeling tender, because those were painful years for you is testament to soul recovery work on everybody's side. This is the beauty is that we each get to do our own work. So, as much as we want them to go and get fixed, it's really an opportunity for us to step more fully, more deeply, more completely into our own experience of our healing and soul recovery.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 28:38

You come here because you searched Al-Anon. You come here because there's addiction in your life or codependency in your experience of how you're showing up, but I hope that soul recovery is giving you the tools to recognize that every single one of us has this spiritual awakening that we can step into. That looks different for every single person, but it has a similar formula, which is we all come from some learning in our childhood and I believe we come in with karma from previous lifetimes as well and again, take what you want and leave the rest. We come in with an essence of self and even on a bigger spiritual level they say we choose. We choose these elements of our life, and some of us are thinking there's no way I would have chosen this. If we are here for challenge and if we are here for awakening and if we are here to truly step into our authentic self and recognize that we can make it through anything and every single thought that we think creates something and to understand the power of those thoughts.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 29:42

I didn't get this before. I didn't get it before because I was so consumed with trying to hold my family together and make it all look a certain way, and of course I did. I didn't have the tools or the resources or the modeling of multiple kids and a healthy marriage, and I didn't. How was I supposed to learn all that from the movies? We look at what's been handed down, even internally, generationally, you know. They say that people will meet parents that they didn't know they had. Maybe they were adopted or maybe there was some other circumstance where they finally meet their family member, their parent or a grandparent, long, long into their life and they have similar mannerisms. Isn't that fascinating To really think about how much of the doctrine is handed down in ways that we can't possibly understand? And in this time period, right now is a very specific period of time where we are opening up to a consciousness that hasn't been there, wasn't even like the ability to do that before. We were just so in the mire of life, and right now we have the privilege to contemplate our own consciousness and it is they call it the great awakening right now, and this great awakening that we're doing means that your responsibility is to do your own awakening and hand them the responsibility to do their own awakening. So when we have somebody who's going to do their process and all we're doing is putting the focus on them and believing if they can be better, than then we can be better.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 31:29

We're continuing to give our power away because we're powerless over their addiction. This is step one. In Al-Anon, to admit that I was powerless. In AA, it's admitting I'm powerless over alcohol myself. I had to admit that and it took me a long time to truly admit that I was powerless over alcohol, that my life had become unmanageable.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 31:49

In Al-Anon we're saying we're admitting that we're powerless over addiction, we're powerless over someone else's alcoholism. To truly admit you're powerless over someone else's addiction or dysfunctional behaviors and that when we try to control that, that our lives become unmanageable. That's the 12-step perspective. And then in soul recovery, step two and soul recovery is we're powerless over every single thing outside of ourself and that the suffering that we feel in our life comes from this, this incredible amount of energy that we put into trying to fix and control and save everything outside of ourself. Well, we're powerless over all of that.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 32:34

So when we hand it back to them from a loving place, from a place of compassion not empathy where you think it's yours to hold on to, I want to carry your burden. It's a place where you're seeing it, witnessing it in them. You're seeing that wholeness of who they are. You're seeing them surrounded by their addiction and their pain with compassion, and you're trusting that they can do what it takes to take care of it. But you're taking your power back and you're saying you need to do your work and I'm going to do mine. I'm going to be curious about these patterns, beliefs and stories that are ingrained in me from my childhood.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 33:19

Why, why am I picking alcoholic people in my life as my spouses or friends, right? Why am I enabling this behavior in my children? Oh, that's interesting. That's something that I need to work on. I need to learn to be okay even if you're not okay. Wow, I have feelings that I've not given myself space to feel, because other people's feelings and needs come first. I'm so consumed with making sure that everything is okay and that you're doing, or whatever it is. We just become consumed, addicted to somebody else's well-being. This is our work to do so. If you have somebody who's going into treatment. It gives you space to begin to work on your own stuff, to look at these behaviors, these beliefs, these patterns, these stories that are your operating system and recognize that they don't serve you, that they're not benefiting you, that this solution, your own solution to how to be in the world, isn't benefiting you in the same way that someone else's solution of an addictive substance or behavior is trying to benefit them. And we separate, we detach. That's why detachment continues to be the key word that we're all coming back to to recognize that they need to be in their own experience, their own healing journey, and that we need to be in ours and that we need to be in ours.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 34:56

And unconditional love means that they can be and do whoever they are. You accept it, you do not have to like it. And unconditional love does not mean that somebody is in your life. Unconditional love means that you can hold space enough to truly recognize that you can let go of all judgment. And the judgment is I need you to be like this for me to be okay. I need you to be like this for me to love you. You can unconditionally love somebody, let them be in their process and from this space you can begin to see what is and then you can, taking all the layers off of it, of your parts of you're trying to fix it and manage it and enable it and give them their responsibility to heal themselves.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 35:40

They are deserving of their healing, but their healing is going to look like whatever their soul's journey is to have, and sometimes it is a place where everything comes together. That's what it's been like in our family. Our kids are still toying with drinking. They're not off the rails anymore. They're living their lives as young people in their 20s. They are self-supporting through their own contributions. Do I wish that they didn't drink? Of course I do. Is it out of control? Not at this particular moment, but I can feel more and more and more that it is their journey to have and that stint in rehab that Alex had 10 years ago was an essential piece of the building blocks of his journey of wholeness. That has been helpful to him over the years, but it certainly didn't fix him in the way that I thought that it would.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 36:36

And I think that so often people go back and back and back to rehabs because it feels like the only place where they can be safe and the hard part is that you have to take these tools that you learn in those places and then you have to step out into the world and be able to be okay in your own skin. This is the same in the spiritual journey that you're working on with me when I'm in my bubble here, in my spiritual bubble, that has completely transformed my life by working the nine-step soul recovery process, where I have thoroughly and completely moved into a place of connection with spirit, awareness that every single thing that happened in those journals was part of the challenges and that everything is okay, that every single thing that happened was painful and difficult and hard. But you know what those experiences brought me to right here, where I feel a sense of self love, self acceptance, grace and peace in my own life that I couldn't have ever imagined and I needed to go through all of that stuff to get there, including my own addiction. Can I trust that they have to do the same? Can I put the attention on myself and say that it's the most important piece is for me to do my own healing and my own journey, that they will have the building blocks that they need, that for me to be this person and to be able to be present is the greatest gift that I can give. But then, just like leaving a rehab, when I go out into the world and I hear people shouting about politics or fearful about this or angry about that or rage drivers screaming or flipping people off or cutting people off, in that moment I'm in my own choice of how I'm going to show up in my life, just like the people who are in their own recovery from addiction. And it's pretty hard to go out there without either the safety of the rehab environment or the safety of what they thought drugs and alcohol gave them. We're all looking for safety in the end, but the more that we can continually come back to ourselves and to our own healing, our own transformation, our own desire to be unconditionally loving to ourselves first and foremost and then to everyone else in their life, then the more opportunity everybody has to heal, because the pressure is off of whoever it is to finally get their shit together. The amount of shame and addiction is profound. They don't need us to continually shame them as well. So time is strange and you are entitled to feel your feelings and to be able to process what's happened in your life, but we're inviting ourselves to actually recognize that we want them to be better. But when you're better, you're going to be better. One thing I can guarantee you is that if you do this work, if you do this internal spiritual work, you will be better. But we can't make anybody else be better.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 40:06

I can't tell you how important the rooms of Al-Anon were to me In those years when it really was chaotic and there was real constant I mean fights and police and it was horrible of my being able to give myself strength to walk out into the world and to be with my family. That was really difficult and complex at that point. And going into the rooms of AA was where I would show up every single time and say guess what? I made it another day without drinking. Well, here I am seven years later and I haven't had had a drink and I don't even think about it now, so I don't need that room anymore. And then I've created the rooms of soul recovery to be that space where I'm holding a container for not only for you but for me, to remember that this soul recovery journey for ourselves, this is really where our priorities lie, and when they come back and it's hard and they're having ups and down days.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 41:22

It isn't easy and we have to work really hard to not be codependents that need them to be a certain way. We need to let go of our own addiction to their well-being and to have gratitude. Gratitude is such a source of pure transformation in a spiritual journey because we often forget to look at what we can be grateful for, because we spend so much time and energy on what we don't like. You know, we have somebody who's gone through the treatment but they're still mad. They're mad that we made them go. They're mad that they can't drink anymore. They're mad that their lives are different. What if you let them have those feelings and you stop talking them out of them but you take care of yourself? You recognize how that's hard and complex for you.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 42:21

When we give space for everybody to feel their own feelings and to be present in their own experience, there's an energetic shift that happens and all it takes is one person who is awake and aware and conscious and has that higher vibration and the ability to stay in their heart and in the connection with source, and those energies do radiate out and help promote positive change to others. It won't fix them, because that's their responsibility. But it will indeed change and shift the energy so that maybe, just maybe, those feelings of inadequacy or anger or upset move through them more quickly and then in the end you have more clarity to understand what your part is and how you can detach from their feelings to your feelings and to be able to see what is and make decisions such as does this work for me? Is this a healthy relationship for me? Can I continue having contact with a child or with a family member who may or may not be making decisions to help themselves? And I will lastly just say I have a strong rule with myself and my boundaries with my kids that I will only help them to the level of which they are helping themselves. It is not my job to tag them along, but if they are present and doing the work in their own life to better their life, to be self supporting through their own contributions, to make their own decisions in their life, to live their fullest life, I am more than happy to be giving them a hand. But I'm not giving anybody handouts. I am not saving anyone because that doesn't give them the knowledge that they can do it for themselves. And then I get whipped back into their dysfunction.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 44:27

Being gentle with yourself and being gentle with others allows us to stop needing everybody else to be a certain way, and what I love is the slogan from AA and Al-Anon. This, too, shall pass you. Focus on yourself and your own healing. Something inside gives you the strength to be present with what is and to be able to make choices for yourself that are aligned with the truth of who your soul's authentic being is and who you came here to be.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 45:01

If you want to work the nine steps soul recovery process, it is just one of many different modalities out there to rediscover who you are, certainly not the only way. It's the way that's worked for me, and it started from 12 step and got morphed into a more metaphysical spiritual journey, but it is similar to many other journeys out there. So, whatever journey you choose, pick one for you, let them pick one for them. Do it side by side, but not together. Together, your healing will affect other people's healings, but you are each responsible for your own, and you can always go to the website recovery soulnet and look at ways to do the nine step soul recovery process or work directly with me.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 45:55

This is your journey of your healing. This moment is a moment for you to awaken for yourself. This is actually a gift to you, if you can see it that way. And it can be incredibly painful, but feelings part of what it is to be human. Painful, but feelings part of what it is to be human. And when you have this level of pain, this too shall pass and there is health and happiness and peace on the other side. But it's yours to claim and choose for yourself.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 46:27

Until next time, namaste. Thank you for listening and I hope that that helps support your soul recovery process. Until next time, namaste, 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 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.