From Codependency and Control to Peace: Recover Your Soul a 9-Step Process to Healing and Awakening

What does it really mean to Recover Your Soul?

In this episode, I walk you through the updated 9-Step Recover Your Soul Process to Healing and Awakening™ -a spiritual path to a happy and healthy life. These nine steps were born from my own recovery from alcoholism, codependency, people-pleasing, and control addiction, and from the awakening that came when I finally stopped trying to fix everyone else and turned the attention to myself and my own healing journey.

This process is for anyone who’s ready to release control, let go of old patterns and stories, and discover a new sense of peace and purpose. Each step offers a way to move from fear to faith, from confusion to clarity, and from pain to the freedom of living as your authentic, awakened self.

Recover Your Soul™: The 9-Step Micro Teachings (Visit the website for the full description for each step)

1. Ready for Awakening - Recognize the Call
 2. Release Control - Surrender the Struggle
 3. Discover Unhealthy Patterns - See the Stories
 4. Open to Co-Creating - Trust in the Divine Partnership
 5. Release Old Patterns - Let Go and Heal
 6. Embrace New Beliefs - Reclaim Your Truth
 7. Align with a New Perception - See Through the Eyes of Love
 8. Deepen Your Spiritual Practice - Live in Sacred Presence
 9. Shine Your Light - Be the Light You Are
This is your invitation to join me and the Recover Your Soul Community—to walk this path of healing and awakening together. Because when we heal ourselves, we help heal the world.

Take a deep breath, open your heart, and le

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 What Recover Your Soul Means
• 2:46 From Soul Recovery To Recover Your Soul
• 5:45 AA, Al‑Anon, And A Turning Point
• 11:04 Awakening, Not Perfection
• 13:39 The Recover Your Soul Origin Story
• 17:29 From Early Recordings To Ministry
• 21:44 A New Nine‑Step Framework
• 25:04 Step 1: Ready For Awakening
• 27:34 Step 2: Releasing Control
• 29:14 Step 3: Discovering Old Patterns
• 32:24 Step 4: Co‑Creating With Higher Power
• 35:44 Step 5: Release What No Longer Serves
• 38:44 Step 6: Rewrite Your Story
• 41:44 Step 7: Choose Your Reality
• 44:44 Step 8 & 9: Deepen Spiritual Practice and Shine Your Light

Transcript

Rev Rachel Harrison: 0:00

What does it mean to recover your soul? I wanted to do another episode that talked about the revised and updated nine-step recover your soul process to healing and awakening and walk you through the nine steps. This is a path to an awakened and whole and healed self, a spiritual path to a happy and healthy life. This is your soul's journey, and my hope is that this podcast and the recover your soul community support you on your journey to finding and remembering the beautiful wholeness of who you are. Enjoy the episode. Welcome to the Recover Your Soul Podcast and Community, 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, people pleasing, and control addiction. I was guided to share the tools and principles of spirituality and the recovery soul process 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 interchange and healing. Positive results in our lives will follow. Welcome to the Recover Your Soul Podcasting Community. I'm Rev Rachel. Thank you so much for choosing in to be with me today. I'm gonna do a podcast that is around what is recover your soul. And for those of you that have been listening for a while, this might be a little bit of a review, but I've recently tweaked the Recover Your Soul steps. And so I want to give us a foundation for anybody who might be new or maybe you've gotten some pieces, parts, but you're going, What is this process? What does this mean? What is recover your soul? And how do I get there? How do I do it? And I want to share it with you because I am switching my own way of speaking. You've heard me say soul recovery as the process for years and years and years since the beginning of the podcast in 2020. And recently, after having my conversation with Esther Nicholson, who has her own soul recovery process, we had a beautiful discussion about how her process is soul recovery. And the term soul recovery has been around forever. I mean, this is used by shamans, it's um in the spiritual dialogue, but as a process, soul recovery is something that she's been working on. And recover your soul is the process I've been working on. And it was this beautiful, amazing like click that happened. You ever had that happen in your life where you've got some discrepancies going on in my own mind? I was kind of confused myself with recover your soul as a community and as a podcast, and then using the word soul recovery. And it wasn't quite jiving. And in our conversation, I was like, well, of course not, because my process is about recovering your soul. That is the process. And so I've just been on this like transmission receiving download ever since then. And it's just been pouring in all this incredible information. And I've been working with Bodhi, who is helping me on my website right now, to start to streamline all of the wording and so much great stuff is coming in. So I just am so excited because it's a perfect timing, to be honest, because I'm in the edits of version five of the revision of the manuscript for the Recover Your Soul memoir book that's going to be coming out in spring next year. And it really is this belief that we are in the flow if we allow ourselves to, that if I was in control, I would be trying to make all these things happen. I'd be trying to force, oh no, this is what it's been, and this is how I do it. And that's not how it's been at all. It's actually the freedom that's come from doing the recovery soul process in my own life that's allowed me to say, What am I supposed to say here? Lead me where you need me. What is this process? How, how do I better understand? It's not mine. This process is not at all something that Rachel Harrison came up with. It is a spiritual path to a happy and healthy life. It is a path to healing and awakening that's been here for eons. It's ancient, it's mystic, it's metaphysics. And it's born out of the 12 steps of AA and Al-Anon because that's what saved my life almost eight years ago. I'd been sober before. I had gone to Al-Anon before, but not really invested myself into the process because I was so still attached to my control and trying to make my husband stop drinking, trying to make my family be a certain way that I couldn't hear the concepts in the rooms of Al-Anon. I couldn't hear them. I really went in thinking that it was going to give me tools to fix and change them, not really understanding the step one in the 12-step process is truly admitting that you're powerless over somebody else's addiction. And then in AA, I had been sober before. I went in to get sober to make my husband sober 15 years ago and never admitted that I was powerless over alcohol. I was positive that he was the alcoholic. I knew I drank too much and it was a problem, but I didn't really admit my own addiction. And so it didn't work there either. So eight years ago in February of 2018, when I stepped into both the rooms of AA and Al Anon and did it for me, I was willing to do whatever it took to heal. And I poured myself into the 12 steps. And in pouring myself into 12 steps, I also was able to finally, finally take in all of the information. I was 48 years old before I got sober and emotionally and spiritually sober. Take in all the information that I had been gathering for 48 years, being raised Buddhist, going to a metaphysical spiritual center for over 20 years, all of the parts that I had been gathering for so long that were these important aspects of my spiritual journey that were my higher self that I had, that I had within me. But I was so consumed with my discontent, with my suffering, with trying to fix, with trying to control, with my codependency, with my people pleasing. I was so rooted in those parts of myself, those dense, intense, sticky, complicated, hard parts of myself that I didn't have access to the higher self that has the wisdom, that has the connection to something even greater still. And so when I went into the rooms for that time, it wasn't for anyone else. It was really honestly the grace to save my own life. I was really to place my own drinking. I was reflecting on this in um reading through and editing the memoir. I was really trying to drink myself to death. I was so unhappy that I knew that I was killing myself, and that's actually what I was trying to get. And now I look back and I think the person who felt that way would never treat herself that way now. Never. And what was so beautiful about going through the 12 steps, which is what the memoir is really around, it's like my walking through what I call the recovery soul process started from the 12 steps, but it was because I had all this other spiritual teachings, all this other metaphysics that flooded in. And the the 12 steps have incredible power, and I would not have been able to get sober without them. But they have a purpose, and then there's this awakening. We want to do more. I wanted more. I wanted to understand more about how to be on the spiritual path. What does it mean on step 12? Having had a spiritual awakening as a result of these steps. What does that mean? What is a spiritual awakening? How do I have a freedom? How do I attain enlightenment? My mom's spiritual teacher often says to them, You are forgetting that the purpose is enlightenment. And I think that we think enlightenment means that we're going to turn into a rainbow body or be like Jesus or be like Buddha and be completely actualized and ascend into the heavens as an idealized master. And I don't think that's what enlightenment is about as souls here. I think enlightenment is about taking in light, enlightening yourself, living deeply, fully from your higher, most actualized self that remembers that love is the way. That's what Jesus taught. Love is the way. And so when I was given the words recover your soul, which was such a profound moment, I'll never forget this moment. It's bringing tears to me as I think about it. It was in my first year of sobriety in October of 2018. And I was working at the spiritual center that I had attended for so many years and was so grateful to be able to be in that environment and things were shifting, but there was still a lot of heaviness. Those first couple years of recovery when you're dealing with addiction are always, always, oh, so many layers are being uncovered. And Bodhi was attending um college for marketing. And I had this idea, which if you really think about the ideas that come to you that are from spirit, it's a knowing in you of something that's calling to you. And you think to yourself, what is that vision? What is that? How can I possibly believe that that's mine? And there was such a part of me still that was afraid and small and living, living from my limiting beliefs and that I wasn't enough. And who do I think I was? And, you know, all of the garbage, the noise that's in there in our minds that is what we're working on in this particular process of healing. But I knew that I was being called to do something. I had no idea what it was. And so he was brainstorming with me in the truck, um, driving to California for a camping trip. And we had two days, you know, in the truck, so a lot of time. But in this particular one, he was saying, Well, what do you want to do, Mom? And he's asking me these questions. And as he's asking these questions, I heard they're just the crispest, clearest voice that said, Recover your soul. Recover your soul. And it was really whispering to me, right? So sometimes we think that, oh, I'm being giving something for somebody else. Recover your soul is for them. No, that's not what it said. Rachel, recover your soul and share it. Speak about it, talk about it. And so out of this incredible place of just being raw and open and in the new healing process and the complexity that was happening still in my life and in my family and my marriage with my kids at the time, I just began to talk about it on my phone using the voice recorder. I didn't know what podcasts were. I didn't know how to do them. I didn't know how to edit. I didn't know anything. I just started talking and uploading those to a website that I found that was a podcast hosting website called Buzz Sprout. I didn't know what I was doing. And I started a website called it Recover Your Soul. I had trouble even thinking that I was the person, right? I didn't, and I wasn't talking about AA. I wasn't talking about Al-Anon because I didn't want to offend the 12 traditions, and I was being really conscious. I didn't know what to do yet. But I was working the 12 steps and I was learning and I was healing and I was growing and something was shifting in my life. And that is the power of doing the work of just putting one foot in front of the other, and I stopped being obsessed with the past. I stopped trying to control the future, and I just started being present in the moment today. And then I began my process of study to be an ordained metaphysical minister, and then I did the Course in Miracles, and everything just blew up from there. It was as if everything that I had ever been learning or thinking or had within me stored up in my mind, moved into my heart and moved into my being. And that is the recovering, the pieces of ourself. That's what I believe that the words were given to me. It's about recovering the parts that we have forgotten. We're recovering our soul. Our soul is whole. There is such purity and such light and such wholeness in this soul that is eternal here in this lifetime, this experience that we chose to come here and have this pretty interesting and often difficult experience. And as we're in this time of the great awakening, which is going to be an era that we will look back on and say, wow, I was part of that. And not only was I part of it, I was, I was present and aware and awakening in that time period. And that I believe that our souls came here on purpose, those of us that are in this awareness, we came here on purpose to be part of this new way of seeing, this new way of being that is that is switching, changing, healing the dynamics that have been handed down for generations and generations and generations around dysfunction, addiction, control, codependence, people pleasing, all of these patterns and beliefs and stories that were handed down for so long as the way. This is how you love, this is how you show up, this is what women do, this is what men do, this is what families look like, this is what you do when you don't feel good. We were given these models, these beliefs, patterns, and stories. And so as I worked the 12 steps and I started doing these metaphysical practices and started really deepening my spiritual practice as my number one priority over my kids, over my marriage, everything. The number one priority was my connection to my higher power of my understanding. And I always am encouraging you, take what you need and leave the rest. You can listen to some of the stuff that I say. And some of it you may like and some of it you don't. Good. Have the discernment. Have the discernment to choose what is your soul's journey, your soul's path. Religion is interestingly, it's falling apart. It's falling apart all over the place. Churches everywhere are struggling because people don't want to show up to church anymore and be told what to do. Some of the greatest places where people gather are spiritual communities where there's an openness, where there's an opportunity to have an opinion that's different than maybe the person who's on the stage. But you feel a feeling, you feel a knowing. And there's still a lot of grasping on some of those organizations to say, no, no, no, no, come back. We're the only way. I think there's more and more evidence. There's not just one way. All paths lead to the top of the mountain, which is around wholeness, awakening, enlightenment, connection to a source that is more than what we could possibly understand. And as I've worked on this over the years, the woo, the super woo that I'm into, I'm going to start to talk about next year in an additional podcast called Awaken Your Soul, that'll be on video on YouTube. Because this place where we are now recover your soul, I was here. I was here for a long time where we are in the depths of the intensity of our lives and we're just barely starting to breathe. We're just barely starting to wake up. And so when I originally created the nine-step, what I called then the soul recovery process, the nine-step process, it was a translation of the 12 steps. It was taking the 12 steps and just making them a little gentler for us. But then in April of 2024, when I came back from my trip to Indonesia with Rich, where I had started working on my book then, but I couldn't. I couldn't work on it. And it was interesting, it was twofold. One was I realized that don't go on a trip with your husband and remember all of the difficult, painful years that you had together, not beneficial, and when you're having a wonderful, loving time now in the present. So that was clear. But the other one was that there was something that was holding me back. And it's because when I came back, I got this massive download about reworking the steps that had nothing to do with the 12 steps. Aside from the letting go of powerlessness to admit that you're powerless over everything, letting go of control, which is step one and 12-step, that that is fundamentally part of the spiritual journey. So it's so essential. But what I realized is that step one, step one is ready for awakening. It's recognizing that your suffering and your dissatisfaction is rooted in whatever these beliefs, patterns, and stories that we have within our life, that we've been conditioned, that we've been taught, that we've been told things that are in our subconscious. Carl Jung used to say that unless you unveil what's in the subconscious, you will always be living from those patterns. This is psychology, but it's also a spiritual awakening where you decide that you are ready and willing to change those fundamental operating systems within you. And as soon as I realized that was one of the most important pieces of starting the journey, then the rest of the nine steps just fell into place in a way that I'm so grateful for because it's a mixture of 12-step, it's a mixture of spirituality, it's psychology, it's metaphysics, it is the progression of us releasing what no longer serves us. I'm not unique to this. This isn't new, this is ancient. This is the spiritual journey. I'm just so grateful that I was given the information, how to have it in a order that then is a cycle, that it's a it's a spiral. Because we're always deepening, we're always learning more. So the second step is releasing control. It's similar to the first step in AA and Al-Anon, right? Like you have to admit you're powerless over alcohol to truly quit drinking. I did. You have to admit you're powerless over somebody else's addiction to really let go of that obsessive, compulsive belief that we can fix them. And in recover your soul, we're coming back to the place it's like we're recovering ourselves if we don't fully admit and recognize that we are powerless over every single thing outside of ourselves. The way that I wrote it is identify attachments, recognize that your pain and suffering come from the attachment to control and the illusion of power over external circumstances and embrace powerlessness. Accept that you are powerless over everything outside of yourself and that true strength and peace comes from within. And then you go to what are these patterns and stories? Once you realize you've been trying to control everything around you that you can't, then you start to be curious about why am I trying to control everything? What is the belief system that makes me think this is my only choice? And that is discovering unhealthy patterns, beliefs, and stories. It says, examine patterns, beliefs, and stories. Identify and acknowledge the unhealthy patterns, beliefs, and stories often formed in childhood and shaped by family, culture, and conditioning that have influenced your life and your behavior, and recognize their impact. Understand how these unconscious patterns have created suffering and shaped your perception of self, others, and the world. Until we know what that deep operating system is, we can't do something about it. And the way that I often describe it is if we were still running on XP, if you had a PC, right? And you have a new computer, but it's still running on an old operating system, none of your apps or your programs are going to work. And your apps and your programs are your relationship, your job, the way that you are in the world, the way you feel about yourself. Because if you're running on an old operating system that was given to you by somebody else, in their fear, in their dysfunction, in their inability to regulate, in their addiction, whatever the situations were in our childhood, if we don't recognize that we need to update those operating systems, they are always underneath. Even if you think, even if you think that you aren't running from them, it's so interesting. You know, the number of people who are like, I'm I'm not sabotaging my relationships, you get underneath and they have a belief that says, I'm unlovable. I'm unworthy of love. And so of course they're sabotaging their relationships. Because if your deep belief is that you're unlovable, you're going to create situations that prove that to be true. And then in the recover your soul process, step four is open to co-creating with a higher power. This is the part where we really step into a spiritual practice on a level that is so profound to truly take whatever spirituality is to you. I say explore what higher power is for you. Define and explore your personal relationship with whatever you call it: source, spirit, God, higher power, light, consciousness, good, love, whatever you call it, you get to determine what that is for you. You get to heal potentially some of the traumas that happened in your life around religion or around spirituality or non-spirituality, as some people have. What is it for you that feels like love? What is it for you that feels like connection? And to begin to see how that's shown up in your life, your entire life, whether you were able to see it or not, that higher self that is always available to us. This is such a huge part of the mystic teachings in spirituality. This dance between our higher self and our fearful self. And this is where we begin to trust and have faith, then walk a path that says, I can be in trust and faith, that there is something greater still, and that I get to decide what that is and cultivate a relationship with it, and begin to have that be the number one priority in my life to allow that to be the flow. It's co-creating. It's not a surrender as if you're small or something's wrong with you. It's a co-creation. And then I say connect with your higher power, begin to co-create your life with the higher power of your understanding, choosing compassion, authenticity, and trust. Trust in the universe that you have everything that you need, that everything's working out for you. And that you can indeed be in the flow even when it's complicated, that you can see that some of the most difficult, complicated situations in your life have value. We're here as souls to learn and to grow and to expand. And the more that in the mainstream we're talking about this consciousness, this soul consciousness, which by the way has been talked about in religion forever. Souls, reincarnation, that we, you know, that there's something beyond life. It's not new. But we're actually opening up to talking about it in such a way that is leaving all the judgment and all the fear. And yes, there is absolutely doctrines that are surrounded around fear. Absolutely. I choose to take what I want and to leave the rest. That does not apply to me. That doesn't feel good. When I read some of the scriptures and ancient texts that are around judgment and fear, and then I'm reminded that there were teachers, there were masters. Jesus, for example, came and talked about love, talked about life, talked about a way that was different, a healing that was different. But we keep going back to the control and the fear. But when you really step into spirituality, you're you're feeling and knowing that you get to see it as you choose to see it. So if you have been raised with, or if there is a conditioning that's around fear and our souls being judged or being, you know, having to live some sort of eternal damnation. This is not at all where I thought this podcast is going, but I'm gonna just go with the with the channel that's coming through. Fear and love have been the two duality sides forever. And there's more and more and more teachings that say it is as you choose to see it, and that the path of seeing through the eyes of love is the path to connect with something greater still, that is the source of love and energy and light. And that we have difficulty here on earth for sure. There is stuff happening all the time, and it is happening right now out in the world in a way that is incredibly difficult to watch. But you can choose to see it in whatever view that you, whatever window that you decide to look out. And if we trust and know that love wins, if we have faith that love wins, and we choose to have a compassionate heart and to not judge and to not be um full of grievance and to believe that we can be a light in the world, we are indeed connecting and co-creating our life, which is the only thing we have control of, our life, how we see it. And each of us who is raising our frequency, who is choosing love, who is choosing to be a light in the world, light is in the Bible over and over and over to shine your light. There's light around angels, those halos, there's energy. I mean, we are energy. So this co-creating with a higher power of your understanding, this higher energy, raising yourself up to that level has so much more impact than you could possibly believe. And now you're in the space where you're feeling this connection, you're feeling your heart resonance, you're feeling this goodness within yourself. Now, now you can release what no longer serves you. It's pretty hard to want to let it go before you have a foundation that there's someplace that you can trust to be. There's some sort of level of safety. Most of us that came from dysfunction or from addiction or from difficult childhoods, safety is not the foundation of who we are. Not safe is the foundation. And so we have to do a lot of work to actually allow ourselves to feel a level of safety and to let go of all those parts of us that have created systems that no longer work for us that are trying to keep us safe. So step five is release old patterns that no longer serve you. Cultivate awareness and insight. Use your growing awareness to gain insight into your old patterns, beliefs, and stories and recognize what you've learned from them. Practice compassion and forgiveness. Release those patterns through awareness, compassion, and forgiveness, both towards yourself and others so that you can make space for healing, peace, and new ways of being. Letting go of that old stuff is not easy because it is ingrained in there. What Joe Dispenses says is what wires, what fires together, wires together. There's a whole train that is totally true about training your mind, mindset, and changing actually the mind map within your mind at how your neurons fire together. And if you've had a non-safe environment and that you've have these patterns, beliefs, and stories that have been set up to try to keep you safe, to try to save you from woundedness, to try to save you from the complexity of the world. And now you're wanting to change those, you have to make a very strong and conscious decision to think and feel and see from a new way. And those old systems are in there tight, they're in your body. A lot of illness comes from places where we've restricted those fears and those pains, all those places we've pushed down for so long, where we're trying to control, we're trying to make it happen, we're trying to utilize all these old mechanisms and systems that are really around our deep beliefs that we're not enough. It's so interesting how almost everybody in the bottom of everything has a belief of unworthiness, unlovability, not being enough. And how that isn't true. That we are these beautiful children of the universe that are having this pretty wild human experience, this dense, complicated experience on purpose. On purpose. I have more and more understanding and clarity about. Us as souls and why we would choose to come in and have this very complex experience. Because even in the depths of life, feelings are one of the most incredible gifts that we can have. Feelings of joy, feelings of love, feelings of despair. They're complicated, they're deep, they're incredibly rich, and they're filled with information. They're filled with capacity for growth and to let go of limiting beliefs that again have been handed down for generations are in our g genomes. We're learning through epigenetics and we're learning through everything that's happening in science, that there's so much that's within us that we are learning has like natural reactions. Think about people who are adopted and they finally get to meet a birth parent, and they have similar traits that they never saw their entire growing up, all the way from the way that they might say things or or the way that they might move their body. I mean, isn't that interesting that there might be something in your genetics that does all that and our bodies are our bodies? And we're learning more and more and more about this incredible ability for us to decide and make a choice in how we are going to perceive and see the world around us. And this is about deciding that you are going to see it and perceive it from a new way. And then we move into embracing new beliefs and rewriting our story in step six. Update your mindset, step into new beliefs and patterns and align with your higher self and your expanded perception. Recognize your gifts, acknowledge your unique gifts, assets, and strengths to rewrite your personal story from a foundation of truth and love. Everything that's happened to us can be told in either a victim story or a hero's journey. Which one are you going to choose? Is life working out for you or is it happening to you? Did you learn from the difficult times, or are you going to be a victim and just think that everything has just been crap? Do you want to update your beliefs? Are you ready to completely update your system? You know how it is when you have a computer and you're like, oh God, why isn't it working? And then you do the update and everything works so much better, and all of a sudden you have more access to more things. Somebody that I interviewed once said that it's like when we do the update on ourselves, we take ourselves out of airplane mode. When you're in that place where all you know is what is in your system already, when you're in airplane mode, you can't get access to anything else. You're limiting yourself to beliefs and stories and patterns that came from a limited perception, from a limited group. But when you unhook yourself, when you open fully to the universe, when you completely release and open to anything and everything, especially the higher thoughts, especially the higher self, especially the love, especially the light. When you open to all of that and let new beliefs, new patterns, new stories rewrite your story. You can go back and look at your life and you can tell the stories of all the times. I could tell the stories all the times Rich did this and my kids did that, and I didn't like this, and this was terrible. And guess what? That's gonna come forward. That energy is what's gonna come forward, those stories are gonna come forward. Yes, those things happened. A hundred percent those things happened. Man, writing the book has brought up a lot of old memories that I probably would have preferred to keep locked away in my healed self-self. But I had to bring them up to be able to share them with you. And as I did, I had another opportunity to look at them from a new perception, to not be a victim, to not think how horrible our lives were at some point, to not be upset and to not have judgment of everybody. And that's really where we get to heal. We get to heal through our willingness to forgive, to forgive ourselves and others. And then step seven is align with this new perception. Shift your perception, align with a new, healthier perception of yourself and the world around you. Choose your reality. Consciously shape your experience by aligning thought, word, and action with your awakened perception and higher self. This place where we are choosing our reality. And even today, I don't watch the news. I don't watch the news because that is someone else's interpretation of what's happening. Do I know what's happening in the world? Absolutely, I do. It's impossible. We don't live on farms way far away from each other where you don't get any news. I absolutely know what's happening. But I get to decide what information I'm going to take in and how I'm going to take it in, and how much of it I'm going to take in, and how much I'm going to let that be in my body. And by doing that, I am making a very conscious decision not to put my head in the sand, absolutely not, but to live from this new perception, to know that every interaction that I have with everybody, from a grocery store clerk to a client to leading retreats, to being with my husband, to how I interact with my children means something. Every moment means something. And that when I'm present in that moment, when I'm aligning with my healthiest, most awakened higher self, it's amazing how time shifts, how you feel about yourself shifts, how you feel about the people around you shifts. The compassion that I feel for the world is so profound. And but it doesn't hurt me anymore. I can feel the compassion in a way that allows me to have sadness and just such a tenderness for the complexity that it is for so many people, but to not take it on in my empathetic, codependent way, people-pleasing way that I used to, and just to send light, to send love, to know that there is opportunities for healing and for change always, especially if we are more of us are seeing it. And to choose our reality and to live in this awakened space so that we are bringing our highest self to everyone. And then step eight is deepening your spiritual practice. Commit, commit to presence. Develop regular spiritual practice that keeps you grounded in the present and connected to your higher self and the higher power of your understanding. We do this work sometimes. We're like, oh, one and done. That's not how that works. You have to stay awake in every moment. You have to work to stay awake. Our ego, our fear, the parts of us that those old systems that are really, really still in there, even when you do this work, we're still uncovering layers. There's layers that want to keep you asleep because being numb is easier. Being an awakened self is actually, there's a more, sometimes it almost feels more exposed or raw or vulnerable, but it's also so incredibly powerful. So deepening your spiritual practice keeps you in this awakened state. Live in alignment. Continue to release old stories and embody the principles of the recover your soul process as a daily way of being. And maybe you had a hard day yesterday, maybe you fell down yesterday and yelled at somebody, or were judgmental, or gossiped, or had bad thoughts about yourself, or slipped in your addictions. Today is a new day. And when we use this process to give ourselves grace to walk through this complicated world, what we're doing is we're constantly connecting more and more and more to our higher self and having more opening and curiosity around this experience that we're having and seeing it as a witness instead of so much of being in it, but watching it, but being present with it at the same time. And then the last step is step nine: shine your light, live authentically, let go of control and judgment, embodying your true self and allowing life to unfold with grace and acceptance, be a beacon of love, allow your presence and peace to inspire others, becoming a light for awakening and transformation in the world. The greatest gift, the greatest way that we can elicit change in the world is to heal ourselves and be the change that we want to see. To be the change that we want to see. We want everyone else to be different. We want the world to be different. We're powerless over that. But you are not powerless over yourself. When we recover our soul, we are taking our power back. We are stopping the part of us that says, I can be okay if everything else is okay. And we're coming to the place that says, I get to determine my wholeness, my awakened state, my perception, the reality in which I choose to see and live. And when I do that, I can recover the wholeness of who I am. And it reflects out. It changes the way that you see, it changes your relationships, it changes how you interact with the people around you. And the ones that don't work, the relationships that don't work that don't align, we stop judging it, but they will fall away or you will step away from them because it does not serve you in your choice and your ability to be your highest self, to live your most aligned full self. We are all being called here to be these magnificent whole beings. And the more that we all express ourselves in our uniqueness and our authenticity and our quirkiness and our imperfection and our ability to be human beings and spiritual beings at the same time, something amazing is happening. And this is the process to recover your soul. So the nine-step recovery soul process to healing and awakening. I feel so gifted to have this in my own life for my own journey. And as you know, life continues to be lifey for me. I continue to have to bump up against complicated things. And I still have kids who are dealing with their own addiction issues and their life issues. And I still have a husband who I've been with for almost 34 years now, who we continue to have our work that we're doing together. But there's something that is so incredible about being empowered to be in your body and in your soul and connected to your higher self as a way of how you are showing up in your life that allows us to be in acceptance of what is and the flow of what happens around us does change. And this is the beauty of a spiritual path to a happy and healthy life. This is about recovering your soul. So you know that I'm here for you. I hope that you feel it in these podcasts. Whether you just are in this community and you're listening to these podcasts, if you love these podcasts and you want more information, go back to the website. There's a search bar, search for topics that appeal to you. Between the two podcasts, the Monday podcast and the Recover Your Soul Bonus podcast on Fridays, there's over 500 episodes to date that you can access to really deepen your journey of healing. This is why I'm here to lead you for me to heal me so that I can share this with you. If you want one-on-one coaching, go to the website book sessions with me. You can do one session or you can have me help you walk through the process. Do the recover your soul steps on your own on the website as well. There's more exciting stuff happening and growing, and I'm excited for 2026 to roll out some group coaching situations that I'm so excited about. And I have the book coming out in the spring that is my memoir and my walk through the recover your soul process that I hope will inspire those that are ready to do this work. But whatever your journey is, whether you listen to this and never again to something else, may you find the path that works for you. May you remember the wholeness of who you are. May you let go of the beliefs and patterns and stories that are not yours to carry any longer. And may you find a connection to a higher power of your understanding that gives you light and insight and the guidance and the wisdom and the wholeness of the truth of who you are. That's what matters the most. Until next time, Namaste. Thank you so much for spending this time with me and being part of the Recover Your Soul community. If today's episode spoke to you and you'd like to connect with the community even more, I invite you to join us on the first Monday of every month for the free online support group on Zoom. It's from 6 to 7 p.m. Mountain Standard Time where I share a little bit more on the Recover Your Soul journey and then we break into small groups. You can register at recoveryoursoul.net, and if you've registered in the past, be on the lookout in your promotions folder for the reminder email and link. I'd also love to invite you to listen to the Recover Your Soul Bonus Podcast every Friday, either as an Apple Podcast subscriber or as a Patreon member. On Patreon, you can become a free member and have access to new episodes for the first week, or you can support this community with the tier that you choose. You can also follow me on social media, Instagram, Facebook, and join the private Facebook group for more connection with this amazing community. I hope you'll visit the website recoveryoursoul.net and you can sign up for emails so that you can be up to date with everything that's going on and maybe even join me for a retreat someday. Lastly, I thank you for sharing this podcasting community with anyone that you think might enjoy or learn from it. I also thank you for giving me five stars on any platform that you listen to and writing a review so that others can find the Recover Your Soul community too. Until next time, Namaste.