May 12, 2025 • 48 mins
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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.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Rev Rachel Harrison (00:00):
Someone you love just went into a treatment
center and you're wonderingwhat do I do?
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 forthem?
In this episode, we talk aboutsoul recovery, the concept of
turning the attention to ourselfand our own healing as the
greatest gift that we can giveto anyone else.
They're being ready to dosomething, whether it is long
(00:23):
lasting or just for thisparticular moment around their
own addiction, their own brokenheart, is really an opening for
you to step more fully into yourhealing.
We are going to talk about whatto do when they go to treatment
and how you can recover yourown soul.
Enjoy the episode.
(00:44):
Welcome to the Recover your Soulpodcast a spiritual path to a
happy and healthy life.
My name is Reverend RachelHarrison.
I started Recover your Soulafter having profound changes in
my life from my recovery ofalcoholism, codependency and
control addiction.
I was guided to share the toolsand principles of spirituality
(01:04):
and soul recovery to help otherstransform their lives, as mine
was transformed.
For us to overcome externalcircumstances, we need to turn
the attention to ourselves,focusing on our inner change and
healing Positive results in ourlives will follow.
Welcome to the Recovery SoulPodcast.
(01:26):
I'm Rev Rachel.
Thank you so much for takingthis time to spend your moments
with me, your recovery with me,your soul recovery with me.
Today's episode is really goingto hit on the head of addiction,
and this is a spiritual path toa happy and healthy life.
But you came here generallybecause you're looking at what
(01:47):
somebody else's choices are andhow they're affecting your life,
and because addiction has beensuch a big piece of my life,
both as a recovered alcoholic onmy own, but being married to an
alcoholic and now having twogrown alcoholic and addicted
kids.
I am well versed in havingaddiction as a main focus in my
life and I get so many messagesfrom people who just say that
(02:11):
this has been a lifeline forthem, and so many of them say my
spouse, my kids, my sister, mywhoever it is, just went into
treatment, and now I'm doingthis work to know what to do
about it.
They just went into theirrecovery.
What's my job?
How am I supposed to show up?
What am I supposed to do here?
And so I haven't really hitthis topic this distinctly
(02:35):
before.
This is our own spiritualjourney, but it comes to us
because somebody else is havingthese situations in their lives
that, in most of us, have beenall consuming for a long time
all consuming for a long time.
So in this episode I want towork on how do we take care of
(02:56):
ourselves.
What is our job here, now thatthey have gone to treatment and
I will maybe also speak about?
Maybe they are thinking aboutit or you think that they should
, but we're going to really hittoday in the main focus of
somebody's just gone totreatment and now you're
wondering what your role is.
How do you show up in it foryourself?
(03:17):
Again, I just want to prefacebefore I even start.
My name is Rachel.
I'm a recovered alcoholic.
I am a codependent, I amsomebody who's been through
Al-Anon and 12-step, I'm ametaphysical minister, I'm a
spiritual person, but these aremy ideas.
This is how I've done this inmy own life to have profound,
(03:38):
transformational healing, andwhat I want you to do is take
what works for you and leave therest.
Each of us are so unique ineach of our experiences and our
stories that there is no onesize fits all.
This really is unique to you,and what I hope that you're
doing is gathering informationthat's going to give you the
tools that you're being guidedto by your own innate wisdom and
(04:01):
guidance.
You've heard me say and maybeif you haven't been here before,
you are already whole no onehere is broken.
Even the person who's going offto treatment is not broken.
We're lost.
We certainly think we're broken, we certainly think it's all
falling apart, but this is ourspiritual journey.
This is our ability to comeback into our own, and it's
(04:23):
their ability to come back intotheir own too.
So if this resonates with you,keep listening.
If it doesn't resonate with you, it's okay.
Go find what does, becausethere's so much out there that
is going to be helpful inwhatever the languaging that you
need.
So this is just the language ofRecover your Soul.
And, rachel, I want to start bysaying that I'm working on a
(04:46):
book right now.
That's going to be my soulrecovery process that I went
through, especially over thelast seven years, but really
since I was born, but since Istarted my own recovery of
alcoholism process in 2009.
And in the midst of researchingand doing the work for getting
(05:07):
ready to turn in my manuscriptfor this to be worked on, in
addition to with my co-writerMaddie, I was reading through
all of my old journals and letme tell you, oh my goodness, to
go back and read through,basically from the beginning of
(05:27):
my marriage.
I have journals that go furtherback than that, but I found the
ones that started when I gotmarried and when I especially
started writing journals when Ihad my kids and to really see
the amount of trauma and painthat was caused in our lives
(05:48):
from addiction, from alcohol andwhat's so fascinating and
you've heard me say this before.
I picked Rich because he drank,like me.
I didn't even know at the timethat I was already an addict.
I grew up in addiction in adifferent way than his addiction
that he grew up with.
He grew up with specificallyalcohol addiction.
(06:09):
My dad had addiction, but itwas different.
It showed up in a different wayand that's his story to tell
and not mine.
But I definitely grew up in anaddictive situation with my dad
and so I didn't do alcohol well,which is very interesting.
I definitely had other waysthat I was already showing up
addictive behavior generally incodependency and in deep
(06:34):
attachment to other people, theneed for other people to fill me
up in some way, to give mesomething in some way that I had
that codependency from being agood little girl of a single
mother and and being raised withsome addiction in my life.
When I met Rich, I had alreadystarted to drink, but I mostly
smoked pot and I mostly was justreally into having a good time.
(06:58):
I wanted to have fun, I wantedto go out and I wanted to dance.
And the night that Rich and Imet was like the fifth night in
a row that I had gone out and Ialmost didn't go out.
And the night that Rich and Imet was like the fifth night in
a row that I had gone out and Ialmost didn't go out.
And he had been up all night onan architecture project and he
ended up going out anyway, eventhough he hadn't had sleep for
two days.
And that's when we reconnected.
And what did I do?
(07:19):
I invited him over to my houseto smoke pot and then he never
left.
That's how we're together.
That's our addiction story,right, and so when you look at
like how we got together and theamount of passion and love and
zest for life that we had, youwouldn't know that that was
going to end up being what wasthe demise, in a way of our
(07:41):
relationship, when I look backand I was reading how
destructive alcohol had been inour life and how desperate I was
for something to change.
And so when we get to this placewhere somebody goes to
treatment, it's gotten prettybad.
And the person that went totreatment in our family was my
son, alex, and he had startedusing when he was around 13
(08:05):
years old, and little did weknow that that was what was
going on.
I thought that he was beingpicked up by someone from church
that was taking him to go dogood things, but it turned out
he was getting picked up bysomeone at church who was taking
him off to smoke pot and starthis addiction process.
And you know what I want to hisaddiction process and you know
(08:29):
what I want to really impart iswhat I recognize that I have now
, with this hindsight of thissoul recovery work that I've
done, and that I hope themessage that I'm giving you to
never take away from the verycomplex and difficult situations
, and it's bringing up a lot ofemotion for me, because this is
difficult.
(08:50):
It's been 10 years since my sonwent to rehab himself, and the
spiritual journey isn't aboutbypassing how complex it is.
It's about giving us tools andresources and our own incredible
(09:11):
opportunity to heal through allof it, start to see the life
and the world around us throughthe eyes of challenge instead of
through pain and suffering.
It switches up how it is, butwhen you're in the midst of it,
when you're in that incrediblypainful, uncontrollable and
(09:35):
unmanageable space whereeverything is just falling apart
and people are making choicesthat are really, really painful
and difficult, it can be veryhard to keep your head above
water.
And the secret isn't thatyou're supposed to know how to
do everything.
The secret isn't that you'resupposed to bypass how it feels.
It's hopefully that yourecognize that you have every
(09:57):
resource within you to be ableto get through it.
What I recognize that happenedin our own life was that Rich
and I were addicts and eventhough we had had a stint of
sobriety for about three and ahalf years, when Alex was at the
end of middle school and goinginto high school, we were still
(10:18):
pretty dysfunctional and I wasgoing 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 Ihave real curiosity Are there
actually families that don'thave some level of difficulty
and pain and heartache?
And I don't think anybodybypasses it.
(10:40):
I think that we look behind thedoors of what seems like
perfect families and there isgenerally stuff going on that
maybe they don't share and maybeit looks different than what it
looks like for us when we haveaddiction in our lives, but this
is what it is for us and Idon't think that we should feel
shame or have guilt over thefact that this is what it is,
(11:03):
but it sure feels like we shouldbe hiding it and I remember how
much I wanted our lives to feelon the inside, like how much
energy I put on them.
Looking on the outside, andwhen you look at photo albums
and you look at Facebook, itpresented a certain way, but
(11:24):
inside there was a lot going on,and one of the things that
happened for Alex was that hewas only responding to what was
the energy and the feeling thatwas around him.
He's a highly sensitive personjust as a whole, and he
experienced this very complexand difficult life the way that
(11:47):
he did.
And when you start looking atthe people in your life who you
love who are experiencingaddiction, addiction is actually
a protector and it's hard tosee that that would be the case
that when Rich and I firststarted dating and we were
partying and having fun.
That is what we think we'restriving for, that's what we
(12:10):
think we're looking for.
But as soon as it getscomplicated, as soon as your
heart hurts, as soon as you arefeeling in despair, the first
thing you turn to is thissubstance or this behavior or
whatever it is that changes yourbrain chemistry, that shuts
down, that covers the actualemotion, that pushes it away and
that becomes the tool, thatbecomes the resource and in
(12:31):
12-step they call it thesolution.
Right that this is the solution.
And when you're looking atsomebody that you love so much
and you're seeing that this haslong stopped being a solution,
this has long stopped being asolution, and they're now in the
place where they are, in thethroes of the despondent,
horrific places that can go fromaddiction, you wonder why they
(12:53):
wouldn't make different choices.
And the answer to that is it'sso complicated.
You can't just have some simplething.
But from the soul recoveryperspective, this is a spiritual
path.
And again, take what you likeand leave the rest To me.
This is about souls.
This is about our spark ofessence that is in this lifetime
(13:17):
, having this experience, wecan't possibly understand what
it is that each of us has to gothrough, and I can't understand
what I had to go through to getto where I am today, when I was
reading those journals and wasjust heartbroken, deeply
heartbroken, to reread thesewords from a woman who was
(13:43):
lonely, who was scared, who wasoverwhelmed and just wanted some
peace and wanted some love andwanted to figure it all out and
was feeling really, reallyunsure of how to change or fix
her life.
Those were the formative yearsof my deep control addiction.
(14:03):
But so much of that journalingwas around witnessing somebody
else's complex sadness and thechoices that they were making in
their life that I wished weredifferent, because my experience
as someone going to rehab was10 years ago.
What I can tell you is that wewere in massive crisis by the
(14:25):
time we got Alex into a rehabcenter and he had stopped going
to school, he was in truancycourt, he was having to be drug
tested, he was failing the drugtesting.
We didn't have insurance thatcovered treatment at that time.
It was prior to the kind ofcoverages that are on insurance
now.
We had some college money savedup for him, but you know, I mean
(14:47):
, I think that's that part, thatthere's so many moving parts
that you have to put into playabout how you're looking for
something to save and fix it.
And so by the time we got tothe place where it was really
apparent that we needed to dosomething, it was really
apparent that we needed to dosomething.
And you know it's interesting,he wasn't into alcohol at that
(15:08):
point, it was really hisdestructive emotional internal
behavior and smoking pot and notgoing to school.
He was just.
He was losing himself.
And we found a treatment centerand we raised a bunch of money
and we borrowed a bunch of moneyand we had friends who gave us
money and we somehow scrappedtogether to be able to pay for
(15:29):
this treatment center.
And here's the thing I thoughtthe treatment center would fix
it and if you have someone who'sgoing into treatment right now,
that is your hope too.
I know that's your hope too, andI understand, I deeply
understand hope to, and Iunderstand, I deeply understand
(15:53):
I just so wanted something thatcould be so straightforward,
that would heal my son's brokenheart.
Because, ultimately, whensomebody's at that level of pain
, it's really their own brokenheart that they're trying to
cover.
And I hoped that that treatmentcenter would do that.
And if you've listened to thepodcast in the past, you've
(16:14):
heard me tell the story, whichis I think I was sitting in the
main area and I overheard thedirector telling somebody else
it's not if they relapse, it'swhen they relapse, and I was
pissed.
Here we are.
We've put so much money andtime and effort into trying to
get him to this place.
That is going to be the answer.
(16:34):
I want you to fix him, I wantyou to fix our family, I want
you to fix it, and I couldn'twrap my head around that because
I so wanted this to be thething.
Now, here's the interestingpiece In those five months that
Alex was in this residentialtreatment program, he was
(16:57):
happier than I'd ever seen himBless his heart, he went in
full-fledged.
And if you have anybody who'sgone into treatment and you go
and visit them and they are,they are engaged and their heart
is open and they are learningand growing and there's healing
energy around them and you justhave such hope, I just remember
(17:19):
thinking, yes, oh, that directoris wrong.
This is it.
This is what's going to makethings better.
But you know where I was notputting energy.
I was not putting energy in meand the truth was, by the time
Alex went to rehab, rich and Ihad started drinking again.
So there was still dysfunctionhappening in our own home.
(17:40):
So this is the place.
This is the place where we haveput all of our attention and
effort on somebody else'sunhappiness, on somebody else's
choices, on somebody else'saddiction.
They do because we want to lovethem, we want to support them,
(18:09):
but we prioritize theirwellbeing over our own wellbeing
and we have a belief that ifthat piece changes, that it's
going to fix us.
And this is where soul recoverycomes in.
And this is what I didn't know10 years ago.
That I know now.
Alex came out of that treatmentcenter and we had gone to the
family counseling and Rich waspretty attached to the rules
(18:32):
that we were supposed to set up.
When he came home, the heavyboundaries we hadn't changed,
our dynamics hadn't changed, ourfamily hadn't changed.
And so Alex left thisenvironment that was peaceful
and had had clear boundaries andhad support and he walked back
into an alcoholic home.
(18:53):
He walked back into arelationship with his dad that
was complicated.
He walked back into arelationship with a mom who was
a control, freak and completepeople pleaser, triangulating in
every single thing that I wasdoing and enabling everything
because I just didn't wantanybody to be upset.
And so what did he do?
He went back to a solution whenhe started to be in pain and by
(19:17):
the time he was 18 years old hehad moved out of the house and
it just was a cluster foranother couple of years.
Are you ready to step into yoursoul recovery?
Visit the websiterecoveryoursoulnet to learn more
about the nine step soulrecovery process.
(19:38):
I hope that you'll join us thefirst Monday of every month for
the free soul recovery supportgroup on zoom, where we learn
more about soul recovery andconnect with each other.
If you'd like to work directlywith me to move through the
nine-step soul recovery process,I'm here for you.
But you can also choose to workthe steps on your own, with
individual modules intended tosupport you, to work at your own
(20:00):
pace and on your own time.
And if you want even more soulrecovery, join us for the
Recover your Soul bonus podcastfor Patreon members and Apple
podcast subscribers, where Iinterview amazing people sharing
soul recovery tips for us andalso do spiritual book studies.
You can also find dailyinspiration on Facebook and
Instagram and join our privateFacebook community.
(20:23):
Visit the website for moreinformation, links and
registration for everything.
Back to the episode.
So here is what I can give youfrom my own experience.
If I had recognized when my sonwent to treatment that it
(20:43):
wasn't about his healing but itwas about mine recognized when
my son went to treatment that itwasn't about his healing but it
was about mine, then maybe thecrash 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 inmyself is that when I stepped
into recovery seven years ago,to recover from my own addiction
not to make rich be soberanymore, but for me to be sober
(21:06):
for me, because I had a momentof grace where I realized that
my life was worth it, that Ididn't want to die anymore, that
some part of me had a moment ofgrace that said that I could
actually be happy and have abetter life.
That's that moment of gracethat you hope, that that person
that you love can feel inthemselves.
(21:26):
Only they can access that ifthat is what they so choose.
I didn't get sober till I was48.
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 seasonsbut they're on their own journey
(21:49):
right.
So if you have somebody who isgoing into treatment, the first
key is to recognize that that istheir experience to have, that
is their recovery to experience.
It is their responsibility tochoose that level of recovery
and to engage in it fully andfor you to see them and open
(22:10):
your arms to their full recoveryand to see them well.
I think one of the foundationalpieces and this is a huge piece
of what I want people to see insoul recovery to see people as
whole and not as broken.
Even if they are showing youbehaviors that are undesirable,
those are just behaviors.
(22:31):
That is not the soul.
That's on the inside.
That is this incredible lightthat is experiencing pain and
suffering and difficulty and notknowing how to show up and be
in the world.
That is their experience on theoutside of who their soul is.
And if all we're reflectingback to them is you're screwed
(22:54):
up, you're broken, you're anaddict, you're not enough, you
harmed me, you're bad, you'rewhatever.
All they can do is reflect backthat shame.
And it doesn't mean that youallow behaviors that aren't
acceptable, and I talk aboutthis all the time.
You can have clear boundariesand you can actually not like
(23:18):
the behaviors.
There are still, to this day,behaviors that I do not like of
my family members my husband andmy kids but that is very
different than the soul that'sinside, that is beautiful and
light and kind and loving.
And when I respond to mychildren or to my husband from
(23:44):
all of the hurt and upset fromthe past, it actually just
happened.
In reading my journals, you knowthat 30, almost 33 years later,
rich and I are still together,which is a miracle all on its
own to show a testament to thecapacity of people to heal.
And it's because we are bothhealing, it's because we are
(24:06):
both working, and he is his ownhuman being.
He certainly is not the husbandthat I would write down on a
piece of paper and say this iswhat I'm ordering.
He's Richard.
He is his own human being, he'shis own soul here, having his
own experience, and it took me along time to stop trying to
(24:26):
make him fit into some mold thatfelt like what I thought I
wanted.
But he's also worked on hisaddiction and he's also worked
on his heart and he's also donethe work that if we had been in
this place today, 10 years agowhen Alex came out of treatment,
that would have been different.
(24:48):
But when I read those journalsthe other day, it brought up of
course it did.
It brought up all of thissadness.
I mean I've cried three timeson 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 protectivebehavior because I wasn't being
(25:12):
present with him of who he istoday.
I was still flooded with all ofthe pain and the emotion and
this is the other piece ofsomebody who's going into rehab.
There is a lot that hashappened.
There's a lot of pain that hashappened.
It is true.
There is no denying that theseexperiences happened.
(25:36):
But we cannot continue torespond and react to anything
that was prior to this momenttoday.
React to anything that wasprior to this moment today,
aside from how you feel withinyourself and the healing that
you are dedicated to have inyour own being, because
everybody has the right and wehave the hope and prayer that
(25:57):
they wake up every single day tomake a decision to be who they
choose to be and want to be andmaybe stepping into their
authentic self today.
We all need permission to showup in a new way today and not be
punished for the past.
And I watched myself as I wasstill in reactivity from 20
(26:24):
pretty hard years that werereally hard.
And so the next day when I madean apology to Rich for snapping
at him, I said I should havetold you I read all my journals
today.
I was in a really, reallypainful space and he said oh,
that makes sense.
He said those were really hardyears for you.
That was a really hard yearsfor you.
(26:44):
That was a really painful timefor you.
Now I thought this wasbeautiful because in our past
relationship there wascompetition over who was kind of
having the hardest time orwhose side or whose view was
real quote, unquote, real andfor him just to hold space for
me and say, oh, wow, I can seethat that is a reason why you're
(27:08):
feeling tender, because thosewere painful years for you is
testament to soul recovery workon everybody's side.
This is the beauty is that weeach get to do our own work.
So, as much as we want them togo and get fixed, it's really an
opportunity for us to step morefully, more deeply, more
(27:28):
completely into our ownexperience of our healing and
soul recovery.
You come here because yousearched Al-Anon.
You come here because there'saddiction in your life or
codependency in your experienceof how you're showing up, but I
hope that soul recovery isgiving you the tools to
recognize that every single oneof us has this spiritual
(27:48):
awakening that we can step into.
That looks different for everysingle person, but it has a
similar formula, which is we allcome from some learning in our
childhood and I believe we comein with karma from previous
lifetimes as well and again,take what you want and leave the
rest.
We come in with an essence ofself and even on a bigger
(28:12):
spiritual level they say wechoose.
We choose these elements of ourlife, and some of us are
thinking there's no way I wouldhave chosen this.
If we are here for challengeand if we are here for awakening
and if we are here to trulystep into our authentic self and
recognize that we can make itthrough anything and every
single thought that we thinkcreates something and to
(28:35):
understand the power of thosethoughts.
I didn't get this before.
I didn't get it before becauseI was so consumed with trying to
hold my family together andmake it all look a certain way,
and of course I did.
I didn't have the tools or theresources or the modeling of
multiple kids and a healthymarriage, and I didn't.
(28:57):
How was I supposed to learn allthat from the movies?
We look at what's been handeddown, even internally,
generationally, you know.
They say that people will meetparents that they didn't know
they had.
Maybe they were adopted ormaybe there was some other
circumstance where they finallymeet their family member, their
(29:19):
parent or a grandparent, long,long into their life and they
have similar mannerisms.
Isn't that fascinating Toreally think about how much of
the doctrine is handed down inways that we can't possibly
understand?
And in this time period, rightnow is a very specific period of
(29:41):
time where we are opening up toa consciousness that hasn't
been there, wasn't even like theability to do that before.
We were just so in the mire oflife, and right now we have the
privilege to contemplate our ownconsciousness and it is they
call it the great awakeningright now, and this great
(30:02):
awakening that we're doing meansthat your responsibility is to
do your own awakening and handthem the responsibility to do
their own awakening.
So when we have somebody who'sgoing to do their process and
all we're doing is putting thefocus on them and believing if
they can be better, than then wecan be better.
(30:24):
We're continuing to give ourpower away because we're
powerless over their addiction.
This is step one.
In Al-Anon, to admit that I waspowerless.
In AA, it's admitting I'mpowerless over alcohol myself.
I had to admit that and it tookme a long time to truly admit
that I was powerless overalcohol, that my life had become
unmanageable.
In Al-Anon we're saying we'readmitting that we're powerless
(30:47):
over addiction, we're powerlessover someone else's alcoholism.
To truly admit you're powerlessover someone else's addiction
or dysfunctional behaviors andthat when we try to control that
, that our lives becomeunmanageable.
That's the 12-step perspective.
And then in soul recovery, steptwo and soul recovery is we're
powerless over every singlething outside of ourself and
(31:12):
that the suffering that we feelin our life comes from this,
this incredible amount of energythat we put into trying to fix
and control and save everythingoutside of ourself.
Well, we're powerless over allof that.
So when we hand it back to themfrom a loving place, from a
(31:35):
place of compassion not empathywhere you think it's yours to
hold on to, I want to carry yourburden.
It's a place where you'reseeing it, witnessing it in them
.
You're seeing that wholeness ofwho they are.
You're seeing them surroundedby their addiction and their
pain with compassion, and you'retrusting that they can do what
(31:55):
it takes to take care of it.
But you're taking your powerback and you're saying you need
to do your work and I'm going todo mine.
I'm going to be curious aboutthese patterns, beliefs and
stories that are ingrained in mefrom my childhood.
Why, why am I picking alcoholicpeople in my life as my spouses
(32:19):
or friends, right?
Why am I enabling this behaviorin my children?
Oh, that's interesting.
That's something that I need towork on.
I need to learn to be okay evenif you're not okay.
Wow, I have feelings that I'venot given myself space to feel,
because other people's feelingsand needs come first.
(32:40):
I'm so consumed with makingsure that everything is okay and
that you're doing, or whateverit is.
We just become consumed,addicted to somebody else's
well-being.
This is our work to do so.
If you have somebody who'sgoing into treatment.
It gives you space to begin towork on your own stuff, to look
(33:04):
at these behaviors, thesebeliefs, these patterns, these
stories that are your operatingsystem and recognize that they
don't serve you, that they'renot benefiting you, that this
solution, your own solution tohow to be in the world, isn't
benefiting you in the same waythat someone else's solution of
an addictive substance orbehavior is trying to benefit
(33:25):
them.
And we separate, we detach.
That's why detachment continuesto be the key word that we're
all coming back to to recognizethat they need to be in their
own experience, their ownhealing journey, and that we
need to be in ours and that weneed to be in ours.
(33:50):
And unconditional love meansthat they can be and do whoever
they are.
You accept it, you do not haveto like it.
And unconditional love does notmean that somebody is in your
life.
Unconditional love means thatyou can hold space enough to
truly recognize that you can letgo of all judgment.
And the judgment is I need youto be like this for me to be
okay.
(34:11):
I need you to be like this forme to love you.
You can unconditionally lovesomebody, let them be in their
process and from this space youcan begin to see what is and
then you can, taking all thelayers off of it, of your parts
of you're trying to fix it andmanage it and enable it and give
(34:32):
them their responsibility toheal themselves.
They are deserving of theirhealing, but their healing is
going to look like whatevertheir soul's journey is to have,
and sometimes it is a placewhere everything comes together.
That's what it's been like inour family.
Our kids are still toying withdrinking.
(34:54):
They're not off the railsanymore.
They're living their lives asyoung people in their 20s.
They are self-supportingthrough their own contributions.
Do I wish that they didn'tdrink?
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 journeyto have and that stint in rehab
(35:15):
that Alex had 10 years ago wasan essential piece of the
building blocks of his journeyof wholeness.
That has been helpful to himover the years, but it certainly
didn't fix him in the way thatI thought that it would.
And I think that so often peoplego back and back and back to
rehabs because it feels like theonly place where they can be
(35:40):
safe and the hard part is thatyou have to take these tools
that you learn in those placesand then you have to step out
into the world and be able to beokay in your own skin.
This is the same in thespiritual journey that you're
working on with me when I'm inmy bubble here, in my spiritual
(36:00):
bubble, that has completelytransformed my life by working
the nine-step soul recoveryprocess, where I have thoroughly
and completely moved into aplace of connection with spirit,
awareness that every singlething that happened in those
journals was part of thechallenges and that everything
is okay, that every single thingthat happened was painful and
(36:25):
difficult and hard.
But you know what thoseexperiences brought me to right
here, where I feel a sense ofself love, self acceptance,
grace and peace in my own lifethat I couldn't have ever
imagined and I needed to gothrough all of that stuff to get
there, including my ownaddiction.
Can I trust that they have todo the same?
(36:48):
Can I put the attention onmyself and say that it's the
most important piece is for meto do my own healing and my own
journey, that they will have thebuilding blocks that they need,
that for me to be this personand to be able to be present is
the greatest gift that I cangive.
(37:09):
But then, just like leaving arehab, when I go out into the
world and I hear people shoutingabout politics or fearful about
this or angry about that orrage drivers screaming or
flipping people off or cuttingpeople off, in that moment I'm
(37:29):
in my own choice of how I'mgoing to show up in my life,
just like the people who are intheir own recovery from
addiction.
And it's pretty hard to go outthere without either the safety
of the rehab environment or thesafety of what they thought
drugs and alcohol gave them.
We're all looking for safety inthe end, but the more that we
(37:53):
can continually come back toourselves and to our own healing
, our own transformation, ourown desire to be unconditionally
loving to ourselves first andforemost and then to everyone
else in their life, then themore opportunity everybody has
to heal, because the pressure isoff of whoever it is to finally
(38:17):
get their shit together.
The amount of shame andaddiction is profound.
They don't need us tocontinually shame them as well.
So time is strange and you areentitled to feel your feelings
and to be able to process what'shappened in your life, but
(38:39):
we're inviting ourselves toactually recognize that we want
them to be better.
But when you're better, you'regoing to be better.
One thing I can guarantee youis that if you do this work, if
you do this internal spiritualwork, you will be better.
But we can't make anybody elsebe better.
(39:01):
I can't tell you how importantthe rooms of Al-Anon were to me
In those years when it reallywas chaotic and there was real
constant I mean fights andpolice and it was horrible of my
(39:30):
being able to give myselfstrength to walk out into the
world and to be with my family.
That was really difficult andcomplex at that point.
And going into the rooms of AAwas where I would show up every
single time and say guess what?
I made it another day withoutdrinking.
Well, here I am seven yearslater and I haven't had had a
drink and I don't even thinkabout it now, so I don't need
that room anymore.
(39:51):
And then I've created the roomsof soul recovery to be that
space where I'm holding acontainer for not only for you
but for me, to remember thatthis soul recovery journey for
ourselves, this is really whereour priorities lie, and when
they come back and it's hard andthey're having ups and down
(40:15):
days.
It isn't easy and we have towork really hard to not be
codependents that need them tobe a certain way.
We need to let go of our ownaddiction to their well-being
and to have gratitude.
Gratitude is such a source ofpure transformation in a
(40:39):
spiritual journey because weoften forget to look at what we
can be grateful for, because wespend so much time and energy on
what we don't like.
You know, we have somebodywho's gone through the treatment
but they're still mad.
They're mad that we made themgo.
They're mad that they can'tdrink anymore.
They're mad that their livesare different.
(41:00):
What if you let them have thosefeelings and you stop talking
them out of them but you takecare of yourself?
You recognize how that's hardand complex for you.
When we give space for everybodyto feel their own feelings and
to be present in their ownexperience, there's an energetic
(41:24):
shift that happens and all ittakes is one person who is awake
and aware and conscious and hasthat higher vibration and the
ability to stay in their heartand in the connection with
source, and those energies doradiate out and help promote
(41:44):
positive change to others.
It won't fix them, becausethat's their responsibility.
But it will indeed change andshift the energy so that maybe,
just maybe, those feelings ofinadequacy or anger or upset
move through them more quicklyand then in the end you have
(42:06):
more clarity to understand whatyour part is and how you can
detach from their feelings toyour feelings and to be able to
see what is and make decisionssuch as does this work for me?
Is this a healthy relationshipfor me?
Can I continue having contactwith a child or with a family
member who may or may not bemaking decisions to help
(42:29):
themselves?
And I will lastly just say Ihave a strong rule with myself
and my boundaries with my kidsthat I will only help them to
the level of which they arehelping themselves.
It is not my job to tag themalong, but if they are present
(42:51):
and doing the work in their ownlife to better their life, to be
self supporting through theirown contributions, to make their
own decisions in their life, tolive their fullest life, I am
more than happy to be givingthem a hand.
But I'm not giving anybodyhandouts.
I am not saving anyone becausethat doesn't give them the
(43:15):
knowledge that they can do itfor themselves.
And then I get whipped backinto their dysfunction.
Being gentle with yourself andbeing gentle with others allows
us to stop needing everybodyelse to be a certain way, and
what I love is the slogan fromAA and Al-Anon.
(43:36):
This, too, shall pass you.
Focus on yourself and your ownhealing.
Something inside gives you thestrength to be present with what
is and to be able to makechoices for yourself that are
aligned with the truth of whoyour soul's authentic being is
and who you came here to be.
If you want to work the ninesteps soul recovery process, it
(44:00):
is just one of many differentmodalities out there to
rediscover who you are,certainly not the only way.
It's the way that's worked forme, and it started from 12 step
and got morphed into a moremetaphysical spiritual journey,
but it is similar to many otherjourneys out there.
(44:20):
So, whatever journey you choose, pick one for you, let them
pick one for them.
Do it side by side, but nottogether.
Together, your healing willaffect other people's healings,
but you are each responsible foryour own, and you can always go
(44:41):
to the website recovery soulnetand look at ways to do the nine
step soul recovery process orwork directly with me.
This is your journey of yourhealing.
This moment is a moment for youto awaken for yourself.
This is actually a gift to you,if you can see it that way.
And it can be incrediblypainful, but feelings part of
(45:02):
what it is to be human.
Painful, but feelings part ofwhat it is to be human.
And when you have this level ofpain, this too shall pass and
there is health and happinessand peace on the other side.
But it's yours to claim andchoose for yourself.
Until next time, namaste.
(45:24):
Thank you for listening and Ihope that that helps support
your soul recovery process.
Until next time, namaste,interview or book study.
That comes with being part ofthat community, but your
(45:45):
subscribing helps support thispodcast and the Recover your
Soul community.
If you want to listen to thosebonus episodes but can't
subscribe right now, do knowthat you can be a free Patreon
member and have access forlimited time to new episodes.
Visit the websiteRecoverYourSoulnet or check out
the show links below for couponsand information for upcoming
(46:06):
events.
I thank you for sharing thispodcast with your friends and
family.
I thank you for giving it fivestars, and the reviews that are
left bring tears to my eyes.
I am honored to be part of yourlife.
Together, we can do the workthat will recover your soul.
Someone you love just went into a treatment
center and you're wonderingwhat do I do?
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 forthem?
In this episode, we talk aboutsoul recovery, the concept of
turning the attention to ourselfand our own healing as the
greatest gift that we can giveto anyone else.
They're being ready to dosomething, whether it is long
(00:23):
lasting or just for thisparticular moment around their
own addiction, their own brokenheart, is really an opening for
you to step more fully into yourhealing.
We are going to talk about whatto do when they go to treatment
and how you can recover yourown soul.
Enjoy the episode.
(00:44):
Welcome to the Recover your Soulpodcast a spiritual path to a
happy and healthy life.
My name is Reverend RachelHarrison.
I started Recover your Soulafter having profound changes in
my life from my recovery ofalcoholism, codependency and
control addiction.
I was guided to share the toolsand principles of spirituality
(01:04):
and soul recovery to help otherstransform their lives, as mine
was transformed.
For us to overcome externalcircumstances, we need to turn
the attention to ourselves,focusing on our inner change and
healing Positive results in ourlives will follow.
Welcome to the Recovery SoulPodcast.
(01:26):
I'm Rev Rachel.
Thank you so much for takingthis time to spend your moments
with me, your recovery with me,your soul recovery with me.
Today's episode is really goingto hit on the head of addiction,
and this is a spiritual path toa happy and healthy life.
But you came here generallybecause you're looking at what
(01:47):
somebody else's choices are andhow they're affecting your life,
and because addiction has beensuch a big piece of my life,
both as a recovered alcoholic onmy own, but being married to an
alcoholic and now having twogrown alcoholic and addicted
kids.
I am well versed in havingaddiction as a main focus in my
life and I get so many messagesfrom people who just say that
(02:11):
this has been a lifeline forthem, and so many of them say my
spouse, my kids, my sister, mywhoever it is, just went into
treatment, and now I'm doingthis work to know what to do
about it.
They just went into theirrecovery.
What's my job?
How am I supposed to show up?
What am I supposed to do here?
And so I haven't really hitthis topic this distinctly
(02:35):
before.
This is our own spiritualjourney, but it comes to us
because somebody else is havingthese situations in their lives
that, in most of us, have beenall consuming for a long time
all consuming for a long time.
So in this episode I want towork on how do we take care of
(02:56):
ourselves.
What is our job here, now thatthey have gone to treatment and
I will maybe also speak about?
Maybe they are thinking aboutit or you think that they should
, but we're going to really hittoday in the main focus of
somebody's just gone totreatment and now you're
wondering what your role is.
How do you show up in it foryourself?
(03:17):
Again, I just want to prefacebefore I even start.
My name is Rachel.
I'm a recovered alcoholic.
I am a codependent, I amsomebody who's been through
Al-Anon and 12-step, I'm ametaphysical minister, I'm a
spiritual person, but these aremy ideas.
This is how I've done this inmy own life to have profound,
(03:38):
transformational healing, andwhat I want you to do is take
what works for you and leave therest.
Each of us are so unique ineach of our experiences and our
stories that there is no onesize fits all.
This really is unique to you,and what I hope that you're
doing is gathering informationthat's going to give you the
tools that you're being guidedto by your own innate wisdom and
(04:01):
guidance.
You've heard me say and maybeif you haven't been here before,
you are already whole no onehere is broken.
Even the person who's going offto treatment is not broken.
We're lost.
We certainly think we're broken, we certainly think it's all
falling apart, but this is ourspiritual journey.
This is our ability to comeback into our own, and it's
(04:23):
their ability to come back intotheir own too.
So if this resonates with you,keep listening.
If it doesn't resonate with you, it's okay.
Go find what does, becausethere's so much out there that
is going to be helpful inwhatever the languaging that you
need.
So this is just the language ofRecover your Soul.
And, rachel, I want to start bysaying that I'm working on a
(04:46):
book right now.
That's going to be my soulrecovery process that I went
through, especially over thelast seven years, but really
since I was born, but since Istarted my own recovery of
alcoholism process in 2009.
And in the midst of researchingand doing the work for getting
(05:07):
ready to turn in my manuscriptfor this to be worked on, in
addition to with my co-writerMaddie, I was reading through
all of my old journals and letme tell you, oh my goodness, to
go back and read through,basically from the beginning of
(05:27):
my marriage.
I have journals that go furtherback than that, but I found the
ones that started when I gotmarried and when I especially
started writing journals when Ihad my kids and to really see
the amount of trauma and painthat was caused in our lives
(05:48):
from addiction, from alcohol andwhat's so fascinating and
you've heard me say this before.
I picked Rich because he drank,like me.
I didn't even know at the timethat I was already an addict.
I grew up in addiction in adifferent way than his addiction
that he grew up with.
He grew up with specificallyalcohol addiction.
(06:09):
My dad had addiction, but itwas different.
It showed up in a different wayand that's his story to tell
and not mine.
But I definitely grew up in anaddictive situation with my dad
and so I didn't do alcohol well,which is very interesting.
I definitely had other waysthat I was already showing up
addictive behavior generally incodependency and in deep
(06:34):
attachment to other people, theneed for other people to fill me
up in some way, to give mesomething in some way that I had
that codependency from being agood little girl of a single
mother and and being raised withsome addiction in my life.
When I met Rich, I had alreadystarted to drink, but I mostly
smoked pot and I mostly was justreally into having a good time.
(06:58):
I wanted to have fun, I wantedto go out and I wanted to dance.
And the night that Rich and Imet was like the fifth night in
a row that I had gone out and Ialmost didn't go out.
And the night that Rich and Imet was like the fifth night in
a row that I had gone out and Ialmost didn't go out.
And he had been up all night onan architecture project and he
ended up going out anyway, eventhough he hadn't had sleep for
two days.
And that's when we reconnected.
And what did I do?
(07:19):
I invited him over to my houseto smoke pot and then he never
left.
That's how we're together.
That's our addiction story,right, and so when you look at
like how we got together and theamount of passion and love and
zest for life that we had, youwouldn't know that that was
going to end up being what wasthe demise, in a way of our
(07:41):
relationship, when I look backand I was reading how
destructive alcohol had been inour life and how desperate I was
for something to change.
And so when we get to this placewhere somebody goes to
treatment, it's gotten prettybad.
And the person that went totreatment in our family was my
son, alex, and he had startedusing when he was around 13
(08:05):
years old, and little did weknow that that was what was
going on.
I thought that he was beingpicked up by someone from church
that was taking him to go dogood things, but it turned out
he was getting picked up bysomeone at church who was taking
him off to smoke pot and starthis addiction process.
And you know what I want to hisaddiction process and you know
(08:29):
what I want to really impart iswhat I recognize that I have now
, with this hindsight of thissoul recovery work that I've
done, and that I hope themessage that I'm giving you to
never take away from the verycomplex and difficult situations
, and it's bringing up a lot ofemotion for me, because this is
difficult.
(08:50):
It's been 10 years since my sonwent to rehab himself, and the
spiritual journey isn't aboutbypassing how complex it is.
It's about giving us tools andresources and our own incredible
(09:11):
opportunity to heal through allof it, start to see the life
and the world around us throughthe eyes of challenge instead of
through pain and suffering.
It switches up how it is, butwhen you're in the midst of it,
when you're in that incrediblypainful, uncontrollable and
(09:35):
unmanageable space whereeverything is just falling apart
and people are making choicesthat are really, really painful
and difficult, it can be veryhard to keep your head above
water.
And the secret isn't thatyou're supposed to know how to
do everything.
The secret isn't that you'resupposed to bypass how it feels.
It's hopefully that yourecognize that you have every
(09:57):
resource within you to be ableto get through it.
What I recognize that happenedin our own life was that Rich
and I were addicts and eventhough we had had a stint of
sobriety for about three and ahalf years, when Alex was at the
end of middle school and goinginto high school, we were still
(10:18):
pretty dysfunctional and I wasgoing 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 Ihave real curiosity Are there
actually families that don'thave some level of difficulty
and pain and heartache?
And I don't think anybodybypasses it.
(10:40):
I think that we look behind thedoors of what seems like
perfect families and there isgenerally stuff going on that
maybe they don't share and maybeit looks different than what it
looks like for us when we haveaddiction in our lives, but this
is what it is for us and Idon't think that we should feel
shame or have guilt over thefact that this is what it is,
(11:03):
but it sure feels like we shouldbe hiding it and I remember how
much I wanted our lives to feelon the inside, like how much
energy I put on them.
Looking on the outside, andwhen you look at photo albums
and you look at Facebook, itpresented a certain way, but
(11:24):
inside there was a lot going on,and one of the things that
happened for Alex was that hewas only responding to what was
the energy and the feeling thatwas around him.
He's a highly sensitive personjust as a whole, and he
experienced this very complexand difficult life the way that
(11:47):
he did.
And when you start looking atthe people in your life who you
love who are experiencingaddiction, addiction is actually
a protector and it's hard tosee that that would be the case
that when Rich and I firststarted dating and we were
partying and having fun.
That is what we think we'restriving for, that's what we
(12:10):
think we're looking for.
But as soon as it getscomplicated, as soon as your
heart hurts, as soon as you arefeeling in despair, the first
thing you turn to is thissubstance or this behavior or
whatever it is that changes yourbrain chemistry, that shuts
down, that covers the actualemotion, that pushes it away and
that becomes the tool, thatbecomes the resource and in
(12:31):
12-step they call it thesolution.
Right that this is the solution.
And when you're looking atsomebody that you love so much
and you're seeing that this haslong stopped being a solution,
this has long stopped being asolution, and they're now in the
place where they are, in thethroes of the despondent,
horrific places that can go fromaddiction, you wonder why they
(12:53):
wouldn't make different choices.
And the answer to that is it'sso complicated.
You can't just have some simplething.
But from the soul recoveryperspective, this is a spiritual
path.
And again, take what you likeand leave the rest To me.
This is about souls.
This is about our spark ofessence that is in this lifetime
(13:17):
, having this experience, wecan't possibly understand what
it is that each of us has to gothrough, and I can't understand
what I had to go through to getto where I am today, when I was
reading those journals and wasjust heartbroken, deeply
heartbroken, to reread thesewords from a woman who was
(13:43):
lonely, who was scared, who wasoverwhelmed and just wanted some
peace and wanted some love andwanted to figure it all out and
was feeling really, reallyunsure of how to change or fix
her life.
Those were the formative yearsof my deep control addiction.
(14:03):
But so much of that journalingwas around witnessing somebody
else's complex sadness and thechoices that they were making in
their life that I wished weredifferent, because my experience
as someone going to rehab was10 years ago.
What I can tell you is that wewere in massive crisis by the
(14:25):
time we got Alex into a rehabcenter and he had stopped going
to school, he was in truancycourt, he was having to be drug
tested, he was failing the drugtesting.
We didn't have insurance thatcovered treatment at that time.
It was prior to the kind ofcoverages that are on insurance
now.
We had some college money savedup for him, but you know, I mean
(14:47):
, I think that's that part, thatthere's so many moving parts
that you have to put into playabout how you're looking for
something to save and fix it.
And so by the time we got tothe place where it was really
apparent that we needed to dosomething, it was really
apparent that we needed to dosomething.
And you know it's interesting,he wasn't into alcohol at that
(15:08):
point, it was really hisdestructive emotional internal
behavior and smoking pot and notgoing to school.
He was just.
He was losing himself.
And we found a treatment centerand we raised a bunch of money
and we borrowed a bunch of moneyand we had friends who gave us
money and we somehow scrappedtogether to be able to pay for
(15:29):
this treatment center.
And here's the thing I thoughtthe treatment center would fix
it and if you have someone who'sgoing into treatment right now,
that is your hope too.
I know that's your hope too, andI understand, I deeply
understand hope to, and Iunderstand, I deeply understand
(15:53):
I just so wanted something thatcould be so straightforward,
that would heal my son's brokenheart.
Because, ultimately, whensomebody's at that level of pain
, it's really their own brokenheart that they're trying to
cover.
And I hoped that that treatmentcenter would do that.
And if you've listened to thepodcast in the past, you've
(16:14):
heard me tell the story, whichis I think I was sitting in the
main area and I overheard thedirector telling somebody else
it's not if they relapse, it'swhen they relapse, and I was
pissed.
Here we are.
We've put so much money andtime and effort into trying to
get him to this place.
That is going to be the answer.
(16:34):
I want you to fix him, I wantyou to fix our family, I want
you to fix it, and I couldn'twrap my head around that because
I so wanted this to be thething.
Now, here's the interestingpiece In those five months that
Alex was in this residentialtreatment program, he was
(16:57):
happier than I'd ever seen himBless his heart, he went in
full-fledged.
And if you have anybody who'sgone into treatment and you go
and visit them and they are,they are engaged and their heart
is open and they are learningand growing and there's healing
energy around them and you justhave such hope, I just remember
(17:19):
thinking, yes, oh, that directoris wrong.
This is it.
This is what's going to makethings better.
But you know where I was notputting energy.
I was not putting energy in meand the truth was, by the time
Alex went to rehab, rich and Ihad started drinking again.
So there was still dysfunctionhappening in our own home.
(17:40):
So this is the place.
This is the place where we haveput all of our attention and
effort on somebody else'sunhappiness, on somebody else's
choices, on somebody else'saddiction.
They do because we want to lovethem, we want to support them,
(18:09):
but we prioritize theirwellbeing over our own wellbeing
and we have a belief that ifthat piece changes, that it's
going to fix us.
And this is where soul recoverycomes in.
And this is what I didn't know10 years ago.
That I know now.
Alex came out of that treatmentcenter and we had gone to the
family counseling and Rich waspretty attached to the rules
(18:32):
that we were supposed to set up.
When he came home, the heavyboundaries we hadn't changed,
our dynamics hadn't changed, ourfamily hadn't changed.
And so Alex left thisenvironment that was peaceful
and had had clear boundaries andhad support and he walked back
into an alcoholic home.
(18:53):
He walked back into arelationship with his dad that
was complicated.
He walked back into arelationship with a mom who was
a control, freak and completepeople pleaser, triangulating in
every single thing that I wasdoing and enabling everything
because I just didn't wantanybody to be upset.
And so what did he do?
He went back to a solution whenhe started to be in pain and by
(19:17):
the time he was 18 years old hehad moved out of the house and
it just was a cluster foranother couple of years.
Are you ready to step into yoursoul recovery?
Visit the websiterecoveryoursoulnet to learn more
about the nine step soulrecovery process.
(19:38):
I hope that you'll join us thefirst Monday of every month for
the free soul recovery supportgroup on zoom, where we learn
more about soul recovery andconnect with each other.
If you'd like to work directlywith me to move through the
nine-step soul recovery process,I'm here for you.
But you can also choose to workthe steps on your own, with
individual modules intended tosupport you, to work at your own
(20:00):
pace and on your own time.
And if you want even more soulrecovery, join us for the
Recover your Soul bonus podcastfor Patreon members and Apple
podcast subscribers, where Iinterview amazing people sharing
soul recovery tips for us andalso do spiritual book studies.
You can also find dailyinspiration on Facebook and
Instagram and join our privateFacebook community.
(20:23):
Visit the website for moreinformation, links and
registration for everything.
Back to the episode.
So here is what I can give youfrom my own experience.
If I had recognized when my sonwent to treatment that it
(20:43):
wasn't about his healing but itwas about mine recognized when
my son went to treatment that itwasn't about his healing but it
was about mine, then maybe thecrash 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 inmyself is that when I stepped
into recovery seven years ago,to recover from my own addiction
not to make rich be soberanymore, but for me to be sober
(21:06):
for me, because I had a momentof grace where I realized that
my life was worth it, that Ididn't want to die anymore, that
some part of me had a moment ofgrace that said that I could
actually be happy and have abetter life.
That's that moment of gracethat you hope, that that person
that you love can feel inthemselves.
(21:26):
Only they can access that ifthat is what they so choose.
I didn't get sober till I was48.
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 seasonsbut they're on their own journey
(21:49):
right.
So if you have somebody who isgoing into treatment, the first
key is to recognize that that istheir experience to have, that
is their recovery to experience.
It is their responsibility tochoose that level of recovery
and to engage in it fully andfor you to see them and open
(22:10):
your arms to their full recoveryand to see them well.
I think one of the foundationalpieces and this is a huge piece
of what I want people to see insoul recovery to see people as
whole and not as broken.
Even if they are showing youbehaviors that are undesirable,
those are just behaviors.
(22:31):
That is not the soul.
That's on the inside.
That is this incredible lightthat is experiencing pain and
suffering and difficulty and notknowing how to show up and be
in the world.
That is their experience on theoutside of who their soul is.
And if all we're reflectingback to them is you're screwed
(22:54):
up, you're broken, you're anaddict, you're not enough, you
harmed me, you're bad, you'rewhatever.
All they can do is reflect backthat shame.
And it doesn't mean that youallow behaviors that aren't
acceptable, and I talk aboutthis all the time.
You can have clear boundariesand you can actually not like
(23:18):
the behaviors.
There are still, to this day,behaviors that I do not like of
my family members my husband andmy kids but that is very
different than the soul that'sinside, that is beautiful and
light and kind and loving.
And when I respond to mychildren or to my husband from
(23:44):
all of the hurt and upset fromthe past, it actually just
happened.
In reading my journals, you knowthat 30, almost 33 years later,
rich and I are still together,which is a miracle all on its
own to show a testament to thecapacity of people to heal.
And it's because we are bothhealing, it's because we are
(24:06):
both working, and he is his ownhuman being.
He certainly is not the husbandthat I would write down on a
piece of paper and say this iswhat I'm ordering.
He's Richard.
He is his own human being, he'shis own soul here, having his
own experience, and it took me along time to stop trying to
(24:26):
make him fit into some mold thatfelt like what I thought I
wanted.
But he's also worked on hisaddiction and he's also worked
on his heart and he's also donethe work that if we had been in
this place today, 10 years agowhen Alex came out of treatment,
that would have been different.
(24:48):
But when I read those journalsthe other day, it brought up of
course it did.
It brought up all of thissadness.
I mean I've cried three timeson 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 protectivebehavior because I wasn't being
(25:12):
present with him of who he istoday.
I was still flooded with all ofthe pain and the emotion and
this is the other piece ofsomebody who's going into rehab.
There is a lot that hashappened.
There's a lot of pain that hashappened.
It is true.
There is no denying that theseexperiences happened.
(25:36):
But we cannot continue torespond and react to anything
that was prior to this momenttoday.
React to anything that wasprior to this moment today,
aside from how you feel withinyourself and the healing that
you are dedicated to have inyour own being, because
everybody has the right and wehave the hope and prayer that
(25:57):
they wake up every single day tomake a decision to be who they
choose to be and want to be andmaybe stepping into their
authentic self today.
We all need permission to showup in a new way today and not be
punished for the past.
And I watched myself as I wasstill in reactivity from 20
(26:24):
pretty hard years that werereally hard.
And so the next day when I madean apology to Rich for snapping
at him, I said I should havetold you I read all my journals
today.
I was in a really, reallypainful space and he said oh,
that makes sense.
He said those were really hardyears for you.
That was a really hard yearsfor you.
(26:44):
That was a really painful timefor you.
Now I thought this wasbeautiful because in our past
relationship there wascompetition over who was kind of
having the hardest time orwhose side or whose view was
real quote, unquote, real andfor him just to hold space for
me and say, oh, wow, I can seethat that is a reason why you're
(27:08):
feeling tender, because thosewere painful years for you is
testament to soul recovery workon everybody's side.
This is the beauty is that weeach get to do our own work.
So, as much as we want them togo and get fixed, it's really an
opportunity for us to step morefully, more deeply, more
(27:28):
completely into our ownexperience of our healing and
soul recovery.
You come here because yousearched Al-Anon.
You come here because there'saddiction in your life or
codependency in your experienceof how you're showing up, but I
hope that soul recovery isgiving you the tools to
recognize that every single oneof us has this spiritual
(27:48):
awakening that we can step into.
That looks different for everysingle person, but it has a
similar formula, which is we allcome from some learning in our
childhood and I believe we comein with karma from previous
lifetimes as well and again,take what you want and leave the
rest.
We come in with an essence ofself and even on a bigger
(28:12):
spiritual level they say wechoose.
We choose these elements of ourlife, and some of us are
thinking there's no way I wouldhave chosen this.
If we are here for challengeand if we are here for awakening
and if we are here to trulystep into our authentic self and
recognize that we can make itthrough anything and every
single thought that we thinkcreates something and to
(28:35):
understand the power of thosethoughts.
I didn't get this before.
I didn't get it before becauseI was so consumed with trying to
hold my family together andmake it all look a certain way,
and of course I did.
I didn't have the tools or theresources or the modeling of
multiple kids and a healthymarriage, and I didn't.
(28:57):
How was I supposed to learn allthat from the movies?
We look at what's been handeddown, even internally,
generationally, you know.
They say that people will meetparents that they didn't know
they had.
Maybe they were adopted ormaybe there was some other
circumstance where they finallymeet their family member, their
(29:19):
parent or a grandparent, long,long into their life and they
have similar mannerisms.
Isn't that fascinating Toreally think about how much of
the doctrine is handed down inways that we can't possibly
understand?
And in this time period, rightnow is a very specific period of
(29:41):
time where we are opening up toa consciousness that hasn't
been there, wasn't even like theability to do that before.
We were just so in the mire oflife, and right now we have the
privilege to contemplate our ownconsciousness and it is they
call it the great awakeningright now, and this great
(30:02):
awakening that we're doing meansthat your responsibility is to
do your own awakening and handthem the responsibility to do
their own awakening.
So when we have somebody who'sgoing to do their process and
all we're doing is putting thefocus on them and believing if
they can be better, than then wecan be better.
(30:24):
We're continuing to give ourpower away because we're
powerless over their addiction.
This is step one.
In Al-Anon, to admit that I waspowerless.
In AA, it's admitting I'mpowerless over alcohol myself.
I had to admit that and it tookme a long time to truly admit
that I was powerless overalcohol, that my life had become
unmanageable.
In Al-Anon we're saying we'readmitting that we're powerless
(30:47):
over addiction, we're powerlessover someone else's alcoholism.
To truly admit you're powerlessover someone else's addiction
or dysfunctional behaviors andthat when we try to control that
, that our lives becomeunmanageable.
That's the 12-step perspective.
And then in soul recovery, steptwo and soul recovery is we're
powerless over every singlething outside of ourself and
(31:12):
that the suffering that we feelin our life comes from this,
this incredible amount of energythat we put into trying to fix
and control and save everythingoutside of ourself.
Well, we're powerless over allof that.
So when we hand it back to themfrom a loving place, from a
(31:35):
place of compassion not empathywhere you think it's yours to
hold on to, I want to carry yourburden.
It's a place where you'reseeing it, witnessing it in them
.
You're seeing that wholeness ofwho they are.
You're seeing them surroundedby their addiction and their
pain with compassion, and you'retrusting that they can do what
(31:55):
it takes to take care of it.
But you're taking your powerback and you're saying you need
to do your work and I'm going todo mine.
I'm going to be curious aboutthese patterns, beliefs and
stories that are ingrained in mefrom my childhood.
Why, why am I picking alcoholicpeople in my life as my spouses
(32:19):
or friends, right?
Why am I enabling this behaviorin my children?
Oh, that's interesting.
That's something that I need towork on.
I need to learn to be okay evenif you're not okay.
Wow, I have feelings that I'venot given myself space to feel,
because other people's feelingsand needs come first.
(32:40):
I'm so consumed with makingsure that everything is okay and
that you're doing, or whateverit is.
We just become consumed,addicted to somebody else's
well-being.
This is our work to do so.
If you have somebody who'sgoing into treatment.
It gives you space to begin towork on your own stuff, to look
(33:04):
at these behaviors, thesebeliefs, these patterns, these
stories that are your operatingsystem and recognize that they
don't serve you, that they'renot benefiting you, that this
solution, your own solution tohow to be in the world, isn't
benefiting you in the same waythat someone else's solution of
an addictive substance orbehavior is trying to benefit
(33:25):
them.
And we separate, we detach.
That's why detachment continuesto be the key word that we're
all coming back to to recognizethat they need to be in their
own experience, their ownhealing journey, and that we
need to be in ours and that weneed to be in ours.
(33:50):
And unconditional love meansthat they can be and do whoever
they are.
You accept it, you do not haveto like it.
And unconditional love does notmean that somebody is in your
life.
Unconditional love means thatyou can hold space enough to
truly recognize that you can letgo of all judgment.
And the judgment is I need youto be like this for me to be
okay.
(34:11):
I need you to be like this forme to love you.
You can unconditionally lovesomebody, let them be in their
process and from this space youcan begin to see what is and
then you can, taking all thelayers off of it, of your parts
of you're trying to fix it andmanage it and enable it and give
(34:32):
them their responsibility toheal themselves.
They are deserving of theirhealing, but their healing is
going to look like whatevertheir soul's journey is to have,
and sometimes it is a placewhere everything comes together.
That's what it's been like inour family.
Our kids are still toying withdrinking.
(34:54):
They're not off the railsanymore.
They're living their lives asyoung people in their 20s.
They are self-supportingthrough their own contributions.
Do I wish that they didn'tdrink?
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 journeyto have and that stint in rehab
(35:15):
that Alex had 10 years ago wasan essential piece of the
building blocks of his journeyof wholeness.
That has been helpful to himover the years, but it certainly
didn't fix him in the way thatI thought that it would.
And I think that so often peoplego back and back and back to
rehabs because it feels like theonly place where they can be
(35:40):
safe and the hard part is thatyou have to take these tools
that you learn in those placesand then you have to step out
into the world and be able to beokay in your own skin.
This is the same in thespiritual journey that you're
working on with me when I'm inmy bubble here, in my spiritual
(36:00):
bubble, that has completelytransformed my life by working
the nine-step soul recoveryprocess, where I have thoroughly
and completely moved into aplace of connection with spirit,
awareness that every singlething that happened in those
journals was part of thechallenges and that everything
is okay, that every single thingthat happened was painful and
(36:25):
difficult and hard.
But you know what thoseexperiences brought me to right
here, where I feel a sense ofself love, self acceptance,
grace and peace in my own lifethat I couldn't have ever
imagined and I needed to gothrough all of that stuff to get
there, including my ownaddiction.
Can I trust that they have todo the same?
(36:48):
Can I put the attention onmyself and say that it's the
most important piece is for meto do my own healing and my own
journey, that they will have thebuilding blocks that they need,
that for me to be this personand to be able to be present is
the greatest gift that I cangive.
(37:09):
But then, just like leaving arehab, when I go out into the
world and I hear people shoutingabout politics or fearful about
this or angry about that orrage drivers screaming or
flipping people off or cuttingpeople off, in that moment I'm
(37:29):
in my own choice of how I'mgoing to show up in my life,
just like the people who are intheir own recovery from
addiction.
And it's pretty hard to go outthere without either the safety
of the rehab environment or thesafety of what they thought
drugs and alcohol gave them.
We're all looking for safety inthe end, but the more that we
(37:53):
can continually come back toourselves and to our own healing
, our own transformation, ourown desire to be unconditionally
loving to ourselves first andforemost and then to everyone
else in their life, then themore opportunity everybody has
to heal, because the pressure isoff of whoever it is to finally
(38:17):
get their shit together.
The amount of shame andaddiction is profound.
They don't need us tocontinually shame them as well.
So time is strange and you areentitled to feel your feelings
and to be able to process what'shappened in your life, but
(38:39):
we're inviting ourselves toactually recognize that we want
them to be better.
But when you're better, you'regoing to be better.
One thing I can guarantee youis that if you do this work, if
you do this internal spiritualwork, you will be better.
But we can't make anybody elsebe better.
(39:01):
I can't tell you how importantthe rooms of Al-Anon were to me
In those years when it reallywas chaotic and there was real
constant I mean fights andpolice and it was horrible of my
(39:30):
being able to give myselfstrength to walk out into the
world and to be with my family.
That was really difficult andcomplex at that point.
And going into the rooms of AAwas where I would show up every
single time and say guess what?
I made it another day withoutdrinking.
Well, here I am seven yearslater and I haven't had had a
drink and I don't even thinkabout it now, so I don't need
that room anymore.
(39:51):
And then I've created the roomsof soul recovery to be that
space where I'm holding acontainer for not only for you
but for me, to remember thatthis soul recovery journey for
ourselves, this is really whereour priorities lie, and when
they come back and it's hard andthey're having ups and down
(40:15):
days.
It isn't easy and we have towork really hard to not be
codependents that need them tobe a certain way.
We need to let go of our ownaddiction to their well-being
and to have gratitude.
Gratitude is such a source ofpure transformation in a
(40:39):
spiritual journey because weoften forget to look at what we
can be grateful for, because wespend so much time and energy on
what we don't like.
You know, we have somebodywho's gone through the treatment
but they're still mad.
They're mad that we made themgo.
They're mad that they can'tdrink anymore.
They're mad that their livesare different.
(41:00):
What if you let them have thosefeelings and you stop talking
them out of them but you takecare of yourself?
You recognize how that's hardand complex for you.
When we give space for everybodyto feel their own feelings and
to be present in their ownexperience, there's an energetic
(41:24):
shift that happens and all ittakes is one person who is awake
and aware and conscious and hasthat higher vibration and the
ability to stay in their heartand in the connection with
source, and those energies doradiate out and help promote
(41:44):
positive change to others.
It won't fix them, becausethat's their responsibility.
But it will indeed change andshift the energy so that maybe,
just maybe, those feelings ofinadequacy or anger or upset
move through them more quicklyand then in the end you have
(42:06):
more clarity to understand whatyour part is and how you can
detach from their feelings toyour feelings and to be able to
see what is and make decisionssuch as does this work for me?
Is this a healthy relationshipfor me?
Can I continue having contactwith a child or with a family
member who may or may not bemaking decisions to help
(42:29):
themselves?
And I will lastly just say Ihave a strong rule with myself
and my boundaries with my kidsthat I will only help them to
the level of which they arehelping themselves.
It is not my job to tag themalong, but if they are present
(42:51):
and doing the work in their ownlife to better their life, to be
self supporting through theirown contributions, to make their
own decisions in their life, tolive their fullest life, I am
more than happy to be givingthem a hand.
But I'm not giving anybodyhandouts.
I am not saving anyone becausethat doesn't give them the
(43:15):
knowledge that they can do itfor themselves.
And then I get whipped backinto their dysfunction.
Being gentle with yourself andbeing gentle with others allows
us to stop needing everybodyelse to be a certain way, and
what I love is the slogan fromAA and Al-Anon.
(43:36):
This, too, shall pass you.
Focus on yourself and your ownhealing.
Something inside gives you thestrength to be present with what
is and to be able to makechoices for yourself that are
aligned with the truth of whoyour soul's authentic being is
and who you came here to be.
If you want to work the ninesteps soul recovery process, it
(44:00):
is just one of many differentmodalities out there to
rediscover who you are,certainly not the only way.
It's the way that's worked forme, and it started from 12 step
and got morphed into a moremetaphysical spiritual journey,
but it is similar to many otherjourneys out there.
(44:20):
So, whatever journey you choose, pick one for you, let them
pick one for them.
Do it side by side, but nottogether.
Together, your healing willaffect other people's healings,
but you are each responsible foryour own, and you can always go
(44:41):
to the website recovery soulnetand look at ways to do the nine
step soul recovery process orwork directly with me.
This is your journey of yourhealing.
This moment is a moment for youto awaken for yourself.
This is actually a gift to you,if you can see it that way.
And it can be incrediblypainful, but feelings part of
(45:02):
what it is to be human.
Painful, but feelings part ofwhat it is to be human.
And when you have this level ofpain, this too shall pass and
there is health and happinessand peace on the other side.
But it's yours to claim andchoose for yourself.
Until next time, namaste.
(45:24):
Thank you for listening and Ihope that that helps support
your soul recovery process.
Until next time, namaste,interview or book study.
That comes with being part ofthat community, but your
(45:45):
subscribing helps support thispodcast and the Recover your
Soul community.
If you want to listen to thosebonus episodes but can't
subscribe right now, do knowthat you can be a free Patreon
member and have access forlimited time to new episodes.
Visit the websiteRecoverYourSoulnet or check out
the show links below for couponsand information for upcoming
(46:06):
events.
I thank you for sharing thispodcast with your friends and
family.
I thank you for giving it fivestars, and the reviews that are
left bring tears to my eyes.
I am honored to be part of yourlife.
Together, we can do the workthat will recover your soul.
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