The Soul Recovery Path to Clear Boundaries, Healthy Requests, and Inner Peace

Before Soul Recovery, I didn’t even know what my yes or no was—let alone how to honor it. In this episode, we explore the essential role of boundaries in your healing journey. Through the lens of Soul Recovery, boundaries aren’t rigid walls—they’re living, breathing expressions of self-love. They allow us to protect our energy, express our preferences, and release the need to control others. When we learn to say yes and no with clarity, we create safety in our relationships and peace within ourselves.

If you’ve ever felt overwhelmed, drained, or unsure how to ask for what you need, this conversation is for you. We’ll explore the difference between control and true sovereignty, how your boundaries naturally evolve as you heal, and why honoring your needs isn’t selfish—it’s sacred. Join me on the path to deeper self-awareness, healthier relationships, and a life aligned with your soul.

Listen to the Recover Your Soul Bonus Podcast Episode I mention with Lisa Campion on Patreon.

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This podcast is for educational purposes only and is not allied or representative of any organizations or religions, but is based on the opinions and experience of Rev. Rachel Harrison or guests. The host claims no responsibility to any person or entity for any liability, loss, or damage caused or alleged to be caused directly or indirectly as a result of the use, application, or interpretation of the information presented herein. Take what you need and leave the rest.

Chapters

• 0:00 Understanding Boundaries for Soul Recovery
• 5:26 Protecting Your Energy, Not Building Walls
• 10:53 Cultivating Clarity in Yes and No
• 17:43 Sovereignty and Personal Responsibility
• 24:29 From Rigid Control to Compassionate Boundaries
• 29:12 Creating Safety in All Relationships

Transcript

Rev Rachel Harrison: 0:00

Before I started my soul recovery journey, I didn't have any concept of boundaries. As a matter of fact, I didn't have any concept of how to protect my own energy. I was way too involved in everybody else's life and trying to make everybody else happy that my yes and my no was not clear. I didn't even know what my yes and no was. The more that I've learned about boundaries, requests and preferences through the soul recovery lens, I've had more awareness about how, attending to my own energy, having clarity about what I need and being able to ask for it in a healthy way, and seeing that a boundary is not really a wall. It's an opening to create safety in our relationships. Enjoy the episode. To create safety in our relationships. Enjoy the episode. Welcome to the Recover your Soul podcast a spiritual path to a happy and healthy life. My name is Rev Rachel Harrison. I started Recover your Soul after having profound changes in my life from my recovery of alcoholism, codependency and control addiction. I was guided to share the tools and principles of spirituality and soul recovery to help others transform their lives as mine was transformed. For us to overcome external circumstances, we need to turn the attention to ourselves, focusing on our inner change and healing, positive results in our lives will follow. Welcome to the Recover your Soul podcast and community. I'm Rev Rachel. Thank you so much for choosing in on your soul recovery journey with me today.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 1:33

Soul recovery is a spiritual path to a happy and healthy life and many of us come here because we have somebody in our life who might be dysfunctional, have addiction, have chaos in our life. Maybe we dysfunctional, have addiction, have chaos in our life, maybe we're people pleasers, codependents, and you're walking through these doors thinking, oh my gosh, how can I fix or change or help all the people around me? And soul recovery is about coming back to yourself. When I first was thinking about a website and I was just barely even thinking about a podcast it was like a figment of my imagination, but the website was really website and I was just barely even thinking about a podcast. It was like a figment of my imagination, but the website was really first and I thought maybe I'd blog and I was sharing my own experience of transformation from healing and I was brainstorming with my son, bodhi, about what I would call it and very clearly the words came to me recover your soul. What I get more and more and more is that this is about us recovering our souls individually.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 2:32

Rachel. It was saying recover your soul, come back to your soul, come back to who you are, heal you, learn who you are, let go of all of these beliefs and stories and patterns and dysfunction and your own addiction and all your attachment and codependence, and recover who you are, recover your soul. And that's what we're doing here. We're learning how to love, accept, be compassionate with, be patient with the people in our lives and hand them back their own soul recovery, let them be on their own experience and how to attend to ourselves. And one of the things that is important about really understanding in this is how to really be mindful of your own energy. What is it that you want? What is it that you need?

Rev Rachel Harrison: 3:23

And so today I wanted to talk about boundaries. I wanted to talk about boundaries, preferences and requests, and when I think about boundaries from the way that they're talked about now, there's some really amazing boundaries experts in the very sort of in the world way of how to handle people and boundaries and all kinds of different understandings of how to talk to people or understand more about, maybe, how you've let people be all over you and not have any boundaries. I don't want to be that person. There's plenty of people that will do that and I really recommend. Terry Cole is somebody who I've listened to her book Too Much, which is about highly functioning codependence, which was a great book, and she has another one called Boundary Boss. So if you want that kind of information, it's out there, go get it. She's got some really great stuff on Insight, timer, meditations and courses. That's free and you can always listen to her content or anybody else about boundaries.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 4:25

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've learned 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: 5:25

I want to talk about boundaries from the soul recovery perspective and from the concept of us getting more clarity around us, attending to, protecting and really having clarity of what is our energy. What is our energy that we are taking care of ourself? And so often part of the boundaries situation is that we are giving away a lot of our energy to other people or we're allowing other people to take our energy. They're sucking it from us right by demanding or having expectations and we're trying to people please and fulfill those expectations, and we can really get overwhelmed. We can be giving away too much, we can be really wishy-washy, and one of the reasons why I wanted to talk about this was a podcast.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 6:23

In the bonus episodes was an interview with Lisa Campion and she is a Reiki healer. We talked a lot about being an empath and what it is to have intuition and, as an empath, when you're feeling other people's feelings, then you can not protect your energy right, because you can't really tell what's theirs and what's yours, and part of this journey that we're on is to get more clarity about what that is, that you may have this empathic nature, this ability to really attune to other people's feelings and emotions, but we are not responsible for their feelings and emotions. We're learning this. This is actually new. It's new, if you really think about it, for generations that has not been given permission for us to really attend to ourselves. We've been really rewarded as a society for taking care of, for being one of those people that does for everybody else, and this isn't about being selfish and this isn't about throwing away everybody else in your life. Everybody right now is being given an opportunity to be responsible for their own well-being, for their own happiness.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 7:36

I think, more than ever before, we are in this moment of grand awakening where we're really kind of coming out of this haze that was this foggy system that didn't work. If you really think about all of us who are listening to this podcast, we've been through a lifetime where there were no cell phones, where there were party lines, where there was only five stations to watch on television, where our mothers and fathers listened to the radio or didn't have TV. I cared for people in elder care when I was in that industry, listening to people who would be my grandmother or my great grandmother's ages talking about riding horses to school. One room schoolhouses we have transformed so quickly and those years where it was really around desperate survival in the United States has long gone, but we're still running from these old systems that are really based in fear, these old systems that are really based in fear, and this fear creates a situation where we're we don't know what our yeses or nos are.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 8:53

And that was my conversation with Lisa Campion was she had this moment in the podcast where she was talking about boundaries and the importance of a clear yes and a clear no, because it provides a safety for everybody involved. It doesn't mean they have to like your yes or no. It means that there's clarity around it and they can know for sure that that's what you mean. And if you have children, she was saying in the podcast and I think this is so true when you have kids who know what the clarity of the boundaries are that this is a yes, this is a no. They have safety, they feel safe. They may not like the no, they may throw temper tantrums and do all the things, because for them, they're just expressing their feelings and they have every right to feel those feelings. We're also learning how to feel our feelings, but they know in the end that a no is a no. And we're learning how to do that in the world too, because we've been playing this game with everybody where we're all not being clear about who we are and what feels good to us and what is the right thing for us. And this is what we're being called to understand and it's so essential.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 10:05

It's such a big part of the soul recovery process, the nine step soul recovery process, because you're you're powerless over everything else around you. That's step two in soul recovery. And then step three is you're looking at the underneath patterns, beliefs and stories that are in your subconscious. They're the imprints, they're the programs that were put into your mind as a child that you've been in the world, and now we're in this place where we're waking up, and so boundaries are this place where what I really want to come across in our talking about it is boundaries are not a place to be rigid and it's not a place where you put up a wall and you make a demand.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 10:46

Boundaries are a place where you come to yourself and you have clarity about what works for you, what you align with, what is in your heart. That is maybe a deal breaker. Maybe you have more clarity about somebody who continues to show up in a way that isn't respectful or isn't helpful or isn't honest, and you can be clear about the fact that it's like oh, if I can't control them, I'm powerless over the choices that they make. I can stop doing this dance where I think, if I just say it this one time, or if they just would love me just enough, maybe they wouldn't do these things. You start having this awareness of the energy that you hold within yourself. That isn't judging them as bad or horrible or the things that we can blame all those things right, they're just off doing their own souls curriculum here on earth school. They're just in their own stuff, their own pain, but it doesn't have to affect you. You do not have to reap the consequences of somebody else's continued choices that don't align with you. And the beauty about boundaries that we're having more clarity around is boundaries is not a way to control their behavior.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 12:03

Boundaries is a clarity of what you are going to do when something doesn't work for you, and it could be as simple as not going to a party. People want you to go at a party and you're expected to go to this event and you're tired or you know that the people that are going to be there aren't going to align, that you find yourself in this sort of petty small talk or people complaining and it doesn't feel good to you anymore and it doesn't feel good to you anymore. You're able to start to make these transitions and so when you have the boundary that says thank you so much for the invite, I'm going to take care of myself and have a night home. That is a healthy decision to make, and somebody may come back and be like oh, why didn't you come? And you're expected.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 12:50

We're in a world now where we're saying can we actually look at each person's situation that they're in and give them compassion for their own well-being? And instead of this supposed to, why don't you do this for me? Energy exchange. We're actually having more compassion and gentleness to everyone involved, but mostly really with ourselves, without this aggression or anger, but mostly really with ourselves, without this aggression or anger, being able to clearly state and say what we need, what are our preferences? And needs and preferences are important to be able to share with the people around you. But then we have this attachment to expectation that we call a boundary. But when you call that a boundary, you're really just setting up for control and soul recovery.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 13:39

Step three in soul recovery is letting go. Step two in soul recovery is letting go of control. Right, so we're releasing the control. We're recognizing we're powerless over everything else around us and that flexibility to be able to, it's like breath. You know, just feel the breath of this situation. It's like this moving energy. It's an organism all on its own, these relationships that we have with people and you can ask for what you need. But then you step back with this clarity and gentleness to yourself.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 14:17

What is your protection around yourself? Not protection like a steel wall, but energetic protection of your energy field, this awareness that your energy field is important and that it's always changing. Who we were a week ago, a month ago, a year ago, 10 years ago. We are not that person anymore and we're constantly expecting the people around us to continue to be who they were as much as who we want them to be, versus being present with who they are right this minute and allowing ourselves to be clear about who we are right this minute and allowing ourselves to be clear about who we are in this minute. So the boundary allows us to actually have more clarity about how we are going to respond, how we are going to interact, what we are going to do.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 15:08

And sometimes it's really about you being able to have real sovereignty and the word sovereignty is really up now and I think it's so beautiful because it's really around us having clarity of our individuation, not again, not as like some sort of selfish blocking the world out, but starting to really have the clarity around not giving your power away that other people are entitled to how they feel, they're entitled to what they think, just like you're entitled to how you feel and what you think. That if we are all sovereign in ourselves and we're letting go of the sticky attachments that we have to everybody to behave in these certain ways for us to be okay, we're letting go of the need for them to be okay for us to be okay. So we're sovereign in our own well-being and our own happiness and our own joy and our own really seeing that we get to choose how we're going to see it, we get to choose what it's giving us information about ourselves. Every situation is offering us information to learn more about ourselves and if we're in reactivity to something generally, it's because there's something that is underneath that needs to be healed and it's revealing itself to us in those moments. Revealing itself to us in those moments and the boundaries sometimes can be around us, having clarity that those requests, those needs that are stated to be able to do them in new ways, right Like, instead of this rigid pushing, what if we can allow it to be this breathing energy? What if we can allow it to be this breathing energy? Now, if you have somebody in your life who is a boundary bully and you've made clear requests and they still don't show up in any form, that is honoring and providing safety in your relationship, doesn't matter whether it's a work relationship, friend or family member.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 17:19

One of the things that I think that we forget is that we have the ultimate ability in our own self to make choices of who we interact with, how we interact, and sometimes I think we allow people into our lives who really are unhealthy for us for way, way, way too long, and I think at other times we're so sort of caught up still in a lot of the old pain and the old systems that we interact with people in our lives that have this opportunity for us to learn more about ourselves and have clarity about how we can ask for what we need with love and compassion. But we get so hurt that we end up putting up one of those rigid ultimatum boundaries control things, and sometimes it's hard to see the difference between the two, and it's understandable why it's difficult. Because relationships are difficult, they're complicated and the more that we look at our asking for what we need and what our preferences are and how we can be in each relationship really attending to our own internal energy and making choices for ourself that align with our highest good and offering ourself forgiveness and compassion for maybe some of the stuff that's coming up, it opens up the door to have compassion and forgiveness for the people around us, but that does not mean that then you let them walk all over you. That is not what that means. That's that this is where the boundaries come in, because there are people in your life who are making choices that are not healthy for them but they don't need to be unhealthy for you and those boundaries. When you set up those requests, the people who are used to you being kind of wishy-washy and not having a solid yes or no they're going to test those boundaries just like a two-year-old. Maybe you have a kid who's not a two-year-old anymore, but they're going to push the boundaries in the same way, because they probably have been pushing them since they were two and there hasn't been clarity Now in this concept, I really want us to be looking at the value of you checking in with yourself on a regular basis, because you are changing so much and as we step into the soul recovery journey and the process, the amount of old patterns and old wounds that come up and are being revealed to be seen, to be witnessed, to be loved and to then be released is a pretty big deal, and so you've got to give yourself grace that maybe something that worked for you a year ago doesn't work for you now, or a relationship that you continue to have with somebody was just fine last week and now you're showing up this week and it doesn't work for you.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 21:38

The not working for you is not a judgment that they're bad. It's clarity about you attending to and protecting your energy, because that's your vital life force. This is your lifetime, and your ability to be healthy and happy relies exclusively on how you choose to be in your own body and in your own mind, because we're powerless over everybody else and we're connecting to our higher self. We're connecting to a higher power. We're connecting to our light energy. We're connecting to the divine nature of who we are. That's step four in soul recovery. We're connecting to our light energy. We're connecting to the divine nature of who we are. That's step four in soul recovery. We're connecting to this more expansive part of ourself that can hold space for situations and start to look at things with a little more grace on all sides and, at the same time, is looking at what is in a more neutral platform and letting go of the stickiness on our end so that you can actually have a more clear discussion with yourself of does this work for me or not? Because if we're taking everything personally, we can be really getting irked and pissed off at stuff that really isn't that big of a deal I think about.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 22:57

In my relationship with Rich that you know, there's a lot of things that I've had to work on for myself about, like is this a deal breaker for me Is the you know unfinished projects around the house. Is that a deal breaker for me? Now, my boundary, my protection of my energy is that it's important to me to have a place where I feel safe and comfortable, and so I have done the work on the inside of the house to make it so that I like it. But I also don't get all that bent out of shape about trash not taken out or crumbs on the counters or things that somebody could say I have a request or a preference that this is taken care of. And you know, ultimately I'm not going to set some sort of marker on top of a hill and get pissed about those things and or even around the projects around the house, because I have more awareness of like who Rich is and what his life is like and what's in his mind. I have more curiosity all the time about those kinds of things and so again, for somebody else it may be a deal breaker for them, but for me I want to protect my own energy. So when I come to him and I have a clear request, he knows that that's important to me because I'm not being wishy-washy in a whole bunch of different other ways and kind of being passive, aggressive. When I have an ask, he knows that I'm asking out of this clarity of inattention and then he generally will respond pretty quickly in a positive way to help me out with what I need help with and that's taken us years to get through and that's just something so simple.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 24:47

Another place in like boundaries and requests. I had an example from actually from Rich, that he is in a band with somebody who just sent a text message to everybody saying you know, I'm really realizing this is too stressful for me and I'm going to bow out. Now you've got all these band members who are being affected, who want this person to be in the band, and they've got shows lined up, and so you could go on a whole thing that says well, how could he do that when they have shows lined up? I think it's great. On the soul recovery perspective, we're saying what if we all attended to ourselves without blame and without shoulds, and I have tos and all those kinds of things? He's giving them plenty of time to find a replacement for his part, or they can come together and decide they're not going to do shows anymore.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 25:45

But the initial reaction is a little bit like oh, why is he doing that? Well, the secondary reaction is what a fabulous boundary for him to say I recognize. This doesn't resonate with me anymore, for whatever reason. There's not even a need to point fingers or blame or say anything other than I'm an adult and I can look at what I do with my time and my energy, and I think the more that we can really see that everybody should be choosing what feels good to them. What are their boundaries, what are they doing with their bodies, with their lives? Because then everyone's actually more responsible and having sovereignty for their own happiness in the first place.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 26:29

And if you have people who are in a band with you or showing up at a party or in your life and relationship, you want someone that you can trust, that their yes is a yes and that their no is a no. And if we live by the four agreements, which are not taking it personally, not making assumptions, impeccable with your word and always doing your best, the world would be a lot easier place for us all to be, because that actually is a clarity of boundaries and energy right there in that situation and making requests with the people around you is important, but if we're not having an attachment to, they have to do it, or if they don't do it, then you know, then something terrible is going to happen. You have the ability in your own boundary about how you're going to live in your body. If you continue to make requests, requests, requests, requests, and that person is not stepping in, helping, honoring your request, being respectful. There's something to look at. Not judging them. Being respectful, there's something to look at. Not judging them, just looking at it with neutrality, being present, with what is.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 27:42

And then you make a choice in yourself about how you're going to respond, what your part is going to be. And sometimes that part is leaving relationships, leaving situations, making big changes. But the more that we really give everybody space to make those changes and those choices for themselves, the more we actually have a society of people who are doing not from a selfish place, but from a compassionate, higher energy place. They're actually resonating and being more true to who they are. Don't we all just want to be more true to who we are from our whole happy, healthy selves? Because when you're being true to who you are, you're not living in resentment or anger or fear. You're stepping into your light, you're stepping into the truth of who you are and that's how we want to raise our society. That's what we want to all be doing in the first place.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 28:35

Nobody should be working from shoulds or have tos. That is the old system. So boundaries requests, preferences. They're really around you, attuning and attending to your own energetic self, letting go of the judgment of the people around you and seeing if you can step into compassion for them and their choices, especially stepping into your sovereign state with yourself and then looking at it from this new perception, this new way of seeing it, so that you can speak with honesty, integrity, clarity, compassion with each other and then see with more flexibility what is shaking out and if you need to be rigid, if you need to be strong, if you need to be clear as day, if you need to put up these strong like boundaries is the word I'm coming up with, right but these strong intentions of what you are going to do, then you have more strength to make that active step from a place that has more knowing behind it, more strength behind it because you've looked at it from a cleaner perspective. I want us, as the recovery community, to be really attending to ourselves and to use each of these situations that come up in our life as a way for us to reflect for ourself how we can see ourselves more clearly, what is going on underneath. Because then, once you see it, then you can move to step five, which is letting it go.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 30:24

Not living from these limiting beliefs, not living from a place where you think you have to be codependent or enabling or do for others. As your first number one priority that everybody else's needs come first, stepping into the fullness of who you are. That's step six, that you're stepping into the fullness of who you are. The truth that you can have autonomy, you can have the sovereignty, you can take your power back and have compassion and watch the people around you in your life have whatever's going on with them, but you're not taking it personally, you're just witnessing and observing it. And sometimes it's not going to work for you and sometimes you have to really ask and have requests for what you need. But when you do it from this place of tenderness and grace, the other person's always going to hear better and the people who are here to have these collaborative conversations and relationships with, where you're both learning and healing and growing, it will only make those relationships even stronger and the ones where you're pushing and pushing and pushing and you're hitting a wall over and over and over again.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 31:37

That boundary is for you to realize that you're the one making the change and how you're going to show up, how you're going to respond to it and whether you're going to be there for it. It's okay to walk away from some of those places where people are being boundary bullies. You have the ultimate authority in your own life. You have sovereignty. So I hope you really see this as this idea that boundaries is more of a concept. It's like the vibration, the declaration of your sovereignty, of your caring for your own energy and really your soul's wholeness. Again, it's always coming back to that knowing that you are enough, you are whole, there's nothing wrong with you, you are not broken. You are just remembering everything that is true and wonderful and amazing about who you are, and sometimes these bumping up against people and situations are the greatest mirrors that you can have to be able to see more clearly places where you're still living from the old paradigm, but we're stepping into the new paradigm. And being in this place of clear boundaries, clear preferences and clear requests is not selfish. It's actually creating safety in all of your relationships and safety for yourself Until next time.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 33:06

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