#438 How to overcome addiction and find inner peace, emotional wellbeing, and soul recovery, with Rachel Harrison.

EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

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Rachel Harrison 0:00
But when we see only the addict, when you see only the dysfunction, you miss the opportunity to be in union and connection with a source that's within that is not damaged.

Agi Keramidas 0:18
You are listening to personal development mastery, the podcast that empowers you with the simple and consistent actions to take that will help you create a life of purpose and fulfillment. I'm your host, AGI keramidas, and this is episode 438 Have you ever wondered how to truly reclaim your inner peace and rediscover your authentic self. Then this episode is for you. By listening to today's conversation, you will discover how embracing self awareness and spirituality can help individuals overcome addiction and achieve inner peace, and you will also discover practical steps for emotional well being. So if you're seeking inspiration and guidance on any of these topics, keep listening before we dive in. If you enjoy listening and appreciate what we're doing, the quick favor I'm asking you is to click the subscribe button as this helps us make the podcast better for you. Now, let's get started today.

Agi Keramidas 1:30
It is my real pleasure to speak with Rev Rachel Harrison. Rachel, you are a spiritual coach and host of the recover your soul podcast, you have transformed your life, overcoming alcoholism and codependence through soul recovery, a powerful method that combines spirituality, positive psychology, 12 step programs and new thought, metaphysics. Your mission is to empower others on their journey of personal growth, self awareness and healing, and you are passionate about helping them connect with their higher power, self compassion and forgiveness. Rachel, I am delighted to have this conversation with you today.

Rachel Harrison 2:17
Thank you Agi, I'm excited to be here with you.

Agi Keramidas 2:20
It is certainly very intriguing topics. And the lens I would like to look through for this conversation, or at least my initial thoughts of it, was finding inner peace, finding purpose. There are some things that I think very important, very relevant. And before we go there, I would like to get a little bit more of your background. I read in your story that you have a very specific date in 2018 where everything changed for you. You talk about the spiritual awakening. So can you take us back and describe how were you at that time and what happened that changed you?

Rachel Harrison 3:06
Yeah, thank you so much. Augie, you know, I think I have to go back a little bit further, which is, I was raised in New Mexico in the 70s. My mother discovered Tibetan Buddhism when it first came to United States, and I feel really blessed that that was such a big part of my upbringing. My middle name is Little Flower, so I am definitely a daughter of a hippie, and so I was really immersed in spirituality from a very early age. And on some level, that was really beneficial, but on the other level, it didn't prepare me for the complexity of life. And so I think that because I was raised in such a peaceful, compassionate place, I was an only child of a single mother, there was no conflict in my upbringing, and I learned to be a very good girl at a very early age, not out of any like aggression, but more like I just knew that being quiet and peaceful and good was was helpful in this situation. And so when I went out into the world, it was complex, and there was all of this stickiness with people, and relationships were hard, and I found that the way that I ended up dealing with those uncomfortable feelings in my body was as soon as I I didn't start drinking till I was 21 but when I turned 21 and I discovered alcohol for the first time, I was like, Ah, this is, this is the secret to feeling more comfortable in your skin, and this is how I can handle this sort of strange feeling that I feel out in the world. And so alcohol came into my life at that time and became, I wasn't an alcoholic very in the beginning, but it sort of became how it could handle the intensity of life. And. And then you marry somebody who meets your energy and met another partier that enjoyed partying and had big energy, you end up having a couple of kids, and then all of a sudden your life is full. And in the midst of all that, I lost myself. I really deeply lost myself. And I think that there was such a part of me, and we all do this, especially in that desire to create what you think that you wanted, the control of what you think that you wanted, an attachment to what you had in your mind, of what you thought that it was going to be like. And it turned out that my husband and I had different values of how we saw raising children. We had different ways of being in the conflict, and he was used to sort of more intensity, and that was safe for him, but it never felt safe for me. And so even though it turned out that I was safe, I didn't know how to feel those feelings. And so I started becoming a classic codependent and people pleaser, to try to navigate through the complexities of all the relationships and try to keep it from getting out of hand while I'm drinking more, while I'm controlling more. And so by the time 2018 came, it was pretty bad in all areas. My marriage wasn't good. My kids had were teenagers at that point, and one in particular was not doing well at all. Was in drugs and alcohol and not going to school, and it was bad. And my husband and I were fighting all the time, and I was blackout drinking. I was I was, I was addicted to a point where alcohol now had become my everything. So, you know, I was in a place in life where, from the outside, nobody knew what was going on on the outside, because we work really hard to keep that at bay, right. But on the inside, I was really I had lost myself. So by the time I came to 2018 it was actually my husband who came and said, I think we should quit drinking. And he had become an athlete, and the drinking was getting in the way of his athleticism. So it wasn't a spiritual thing, but for me, I had that moment of grace that said, if I don't do something, this is it, I won't have a chance. And I was 4048, years old, and my mom and I were going to go to Thailand for three weeks. And I took that trip to detox and to reset. And when I slowly, I brought a whole bag of shooters, which is crazy to think about how much alcohol I used to consume, but I brought a whole bag of alcohol with me, and slowly started to wean myself off of of alcohol. And when I got off the plane in February of 2018 it was the first time that I did recovery for me, for me not to make my husband quit drinking, not to try to control my family, I realized that I needed to heal myself. And in that moment, something profound happened, that all of the spirituality that I had been immersed in, I was raised Buddhist, I had been attending a metaphysical church all these years, but I I was, I wasn't living it. I was taking it in, and it was on the surface. It was keeping me just above water, but I had this moment of grace that just said it's time to completely surrender. And that was the real changing point for me that is what I now call soul recovery, because it's not the alcohol that's the problem or the addiction. It's really the hole in your heart, and it's the the lack of connection to spirit that really drives this, you know, demon that continues to try to feed you and fix and control you. And so that was the beginning of my soul recovery. Wow,

Agi Keramidas 9:05
that's a fascinating story. Rachel, thank you. So you stopped cold turkey at that time. Then there was no others. You decided I'm going to stop drinking, and you did. I wanted, if that fact, because that, I can only imagine, that took a great deal of determination to stop the habit that you had for so many years, that it was anyone that has drunk more than they more than normal, myself included, we are familiar with that it can be difficult. So I wonder how much this determination that you showed was the catalyst for what happened with your spiritual awakening. It gives out this tremendous this. Determination that this is what I'm going to do to change things. So I don't know if there is a question in there,

Rachel Harrison 10:10
yeah, what I hear Augie is we when I was in the darkness, I just felt like life was happening to me. I felt like I didn't have any place in it, even though I knew the concepts of co creation, even that I knew that spirit was there within me, even though I knew the law of attraction, it felt like I didn't have any say. And when you in 12 step, they call it to make a decision. And in spirituality, it's determination and commitment. You know, I'm listening to Patanjali Yoga Sutras right now, and it talks a lot about the dedication to practice. And so I think that when you make a decision, a lot of people are so wishy washy, right? They're like, they're different parts of their mind are working. But there is something especially not only in addiction, but in in life. When you make a decision, you step onto a pathway that is in co creation, that you begin to understand that you have to be responsible for your own behaviors. And there's a lot of people who are an addiction. That's pretty far and people say, Oh, the they have a disease, they can't help it. 90% of that is the addiction is running the show. But there is a portion of you that always can make a choice. And to make that choice is to turn the lane and and move in a different direction. And so you know, if you don't go, if you go to meetings and you haven't made a decision to really not stop drinking, it's going to take you a long time. So that weaning that I did while I was in Thailand with my mom was essential, because it could be very dangerous just to stop drinking right, right off the bat if you're a heavy drinker. So, you know, I did wean off for those three weeks, right? And that moment, man, did I want drinks after that, you know? I mean, every part of me was like, maybe tomorrow, maybe tomorrow. But I had made a decision, and that decision that I made was to save my life. And it wasn't just to save my life, it was to save my soul, which is why soul recovery is such a profound word that came to me, this term that came to me to recover my soul.

Agi Keramidas 12:31
If you enjoy this episode, can you think of one person that would find it useful and share it with them? I'd really appreciate it. It helps the show grow, and you will also be adding value to people you care about. Thank you. And now let's get back to the episode. Definitely, I will, as much as I'm tempted to carry on talking about addiction, I will steer now to the soul recovery system. Yeah,

Rachel Harrison 12:57
let's do now, because it's just the top of the iceberg and we can put it to the side. Of course,

Agi Keramidas 13:02
there are some things about addiction that we can also discuss a little bit on, but I'm very curious now to find out about the soul recovery. So can you explain that concept and how it integrates all those things are mentioned in the introduction, spirituality, positive psychology and so on.

Rachel Harrison 13:24
So the way that recover your soul started is not what it is today. I mean what, what is amazing is that when you step into this place and you allow spirit to be in charge, how it how it unravels, step by step, each little moment. So by the time that I was in my addiction recovery, I went to AA for addiction recovery, and one of the main other things that I did was I went to Al Anon, and I hadn't really dealt with my codependent behavior and the energy that it was to have a husband who was an addict and to now have two teenage sons that were addicts too. So I started going to Al Anon. And when I would speak in meetings, people would say, there's just something about the way that you talk that is really inspiring. And so I idea came to me right like those, those moments of inspiration that I believe are divinely guided to create a podcast, and the and the term recover your soul is what was given to me. So I started by recording on my phone, you know, just a voice memo on my phone, no editing, uploaded it to the podcast, and it was just me sharing the raw, gritty experience of beginning to look deeper. And so initially, Soul recovery had a lot more 12 step in it, because that's where I was in my life. And then it's it's grown and shifted as I've grown and shifted, because we're all growing and shifting. You know, one of the beautiful things is that spirit has brought you. To have your own spiritual awakening, your own experience. You know, just as you said before we started recording, there's nothing that we have to offer that isn't already available in some way. The truth is the truth, but we need somebody to spark that light within us, to remind us of what we already know within ourselves. And so as I got out of the compulsion to drink and something in me just opened, and it was as if everything that I'd ever heard before finally flooded in and filled my heart in a way that I can't even describe, because I had been sitting on the surface. And so then it just, it started to come in and and so the process of soul recovery started to evolve over time. The steps that I initially created were really, really the 12 steps in a in a little bit compressed format. And then over the years, as I've, as I've, I've grown, and the podcast has grown and the community has grown. And now I became a metaphysical minister, and now I'm a spiritual coach, and I speak at spiritual centers almost every weekend, and I lead retreats. And you know, as it's all grown, I'm still taking in all these teachings, and it's providing me with more information of what is mine to say. And it's not the only way. It's just what has related to me and my own healing, because I'm not sharing anything that I'm not working on myself. So now the nine steps of soul recovery, the process of soul recovery, which is around letting go of your perceptions and your beliefs and recognizing the suffering that we experience is based on these old beliefs that are not working for us anymore, moving into a relationship with spirit for whatever that is for you, your your connection to Source, releasing what no longer serves you, and really stepping into a new way of being. And so it's it's this gentle process of allowing yourself to shed the skin of dysfunction or pain or woundedness and and really move into who you were brought here to be, and we were all brought here to be somebody incredible.

Agi Keramidas 17:33
I agree with that, 100% so beautiful the way you say that about shedding the skin and becoming who we are meant to be. It's a, it's a, it's a great description that you just gave. I would like there is actually, I will make a comment here that all this, it's incredible to find out that all this started by you, following your inspiration. You know that idea that came to you through spirit to start the podcast, you know on your phone, very so it is, I think, one of those examples, generally speaking, you know what happens when we follow an intuitive at the idea that comes to us. It is, it is incredible. I would like, since we started talking now about soul recovery, I would like to ask you something a little bit more practical so I hear what you said about, you know, the overall description offer some practical step or some practical exercise. And since the question, as it is, is very broad, like this, I would, let's say, let's focus on one particular element, which I believe most of the the mastery seekers listening now are very much interested in and that is emotional well being. So are there any any any practical steps, any exercise that you can recommend or invite people to do anyway?

Rachel Harrison 19:15
Yeah. So what I think is so fascinating about emotional well being is that we tend to put so much energy on the outside for our emotional well being, and one of the things I talk a lot about is that we give our power away. We give our power away by needing others to feel a certain way, needing others to provide for us something emotionally in a certain way for the world to be a certain way. You know, in politics right now, it's so divided here in the United States. So, you know, it's like, if this wouldn't be like this, then I could be like this, right? So you're handing your well being to somebody else. And one of the tenants that is, you. Important in soul recovery came from the tenet of 12 step, which is to admit that we're powerless. And when you're an addict, you have to truly admit that you're powerless over your addiction. If I think for one minute that now that I've been sober for six and a half years and I can I'm good now, right? Like I'm emotionally good, I'm strong, like I can have a glass of wine. Every once in a while, I'm full of it. I have to admit that I'm powerless and that that is not, that is that is not, I can't have that. When you have an addict in your life, you have to admit with the same tenacity that you're powerless over somebody else's addiction, and in soul recover, we put addiction on the on the shelf, because truth is, everybody has addiction in their lives somewhere, but put it on the shelf. When we look at spirituality, all the spiritual masters teach us that we are truly powerless over everything outside of ourself. This is one of the major tenets of Buddhism, that life is suffering, that our suffering is attachment, and our attachment is the attachment to it being different. And so we try to exert this energy. We try to exert this power, this illusion that we have the ability to control something outside of ourself, and it erodes our well being. And so I think the key to really looking at our well being is to begin to look at, am I trying to control the uncontrollable? Am I trying to be attached to an outcome or to a circumstance or to how someone's showing up, and in that, am I giving my power away if we're powerless over everything outside of ourself, but we're asking it to tell us how we are. We don't have our innate well being in our hands. And so through this experience, what's fascinating is, I'm still married to the same man 32 years later, and we still have some of the same issues that used to drive me crazy, and they don't make me crazy anymore, because I I'm more present with just what is and this, this concept that we're we are these souls in these human sleeves, in this incarnation, and we're all just here figuring our own stuff out. And so when we try to believe that we're like, try to crunch it all into this small space to make it certain, to make it what we want. We're attached to an outcome. We're attached to how we want it to be, and we're missing the flow. And so for me, well being has been around being so much more open, so much more flexible, so much more allowing of other people to be themselves, and that has given me more strength to have understanding of where boundaries need to be, where I need to choose how I'm going to show up, who I'm going to show up with. It's changed everything I'm in charge of my well being, definitely,

Agi Keramidas 23:23
and I will ask again a different way in order to have the self awareness to understand what you just said, that right now I am attached to an outcome that I am projecting, that I would like that for many people, as you know, happens very intensely. They are really on Twitter. They don't It is not easy to step back into the moment and realize that this is happening. So is there something that you would say as a method, something to bring you back to have that self awareness. That's right, I'm stealing now on a completely,

Rachel Harrison 24:07
yeah. So I love that, you know? I mean, I think the first thing is awareness, the word awareness that if we're really honest, most of us don't really see how much we're trying to control around us. So the first real, honest step is to start to look more deeply at where you're finding discomfort, dissatisfaction or irritation. If you were irritated, you are wanting it to be different. And you're driving, and you think, look at all these drivers. I can't believe this driver did this thing. I can't believe they're swerving. I can't believe they cut into my lane in that moment when you step into your spiritually grounded self and you recognize this tool, which is to say out loud, I'm powerless over how this person is driving. I'm powerless over how many cars are on the highway right now. I'm powerless over the city's planning of how they have this traffic pattern going. I'm powerless over how this person is irritated in the car. And instead of just saying it as if, like I'm giving my power away, I'm powerless. You really are actually bringing your power and your energy back to yourself and letting go of this tightness that you have that thinks, Why can't that person drive like that? Well, you take that into your life, and you move into your relationships, and you use that same sense of kindness and compassion to release the energy that you have around the people in your life. I'm powerless over if my husband's in a good mood or a bad mood today. I'm powerless over how he feels about his job. I'm powerless over whether he's stressed right now. And we realize that we don't think that we're powerless. We think it's our responsibility or job to take care of those people and to do for them. So this tool of taking your own energy back by saying this mantra, which isn't about being weak, it's about releasing this energy that we're trying to fix and do for everyone else and and all of our energy gets depleted because it's everywhere else, worrying about trying to control them instead of coming back to yourself.

Agi Keramidas 26:37
Thank you. That was a very it is a very useful tool, as you said. And also thank you for the clarification toward the end that because the word powerless, you said releasing, not being weak as a sense of the powerless, which is a very good explanation of that. You know, I will go back, Rachel to what I wanted to ask earlier about the addiction, since I think the conversation is going around it in a way or and there was something I read on your website regarding distinguishing between the behavior of addiction and the actual person affected with addiction, and how this, you know, understanding can lead to a different approach this distinction. So I would like to hear your thoughts of that, because I find it very fascinating.

Rachel Harrison 27:34
Thank you. I love that question, because I think that the way that I describe it, and the way that I see spirituality, and I see our experience is we are souls who come for learning. I call it Earth school. We've all come to earth School. And in Earth school there's lots of opportunities for experience, for expansion, for complexity, for darkness, to choose darkness, to choose light, comes back to that to make a decision. And if we look on a very grand, big spiritual scale and and can see this concept that we are perfect children of the universe, within ourselves, having different trying on different experiences. We can get very caught up in this. I call it the cloak that we wear. You know, you have your soul, and then you're trying on different experiences. You're trying on different ways of being and addiction, as I said earlier, there it gets more and more progressive. It is a progressive disease and and it becomes more encompassing of who the person is on behavior levels, but it is never who they are as a perfect soul inside. And so often, people get very caught up in the what's happening, and what's happening is real. So I'm not saying it's not real, but we we lose sight of what's really underneath in that person's experience, and we try to fix it. We try to change it. We're angry about it, and all those things are okay feelings to have. But again, it comes back to the unpowerless over this person's choices. But when we see only the addict, when you see only to dysfunction, you miss the opportunity to be in union and connection with a source that's within that is not damaged. I don't believe there's anything wrong with any of us, and I don't think we're broken. I think we're having an experience, and the experiences are very true. They're very 3d they're very real. So having had. Kids who are addicts, have a having a husband who is an addict. Having been an addict myself, I can have very boots on the ground experiences of how difficult it can be to look past that dysfunction. But I can also tell you from the experience that I've had of my own awakening and transformation in our family, that in the last six years, we have all come to become our whole selves. We are all sober at this moment, which is a miracle, all in its own and not because I've been forcing sobriety on everybody. It's because I've been healing myself, and I've been looking at them as the light that they are, and being willing to talk about the experiences that they're having with their addiction and with their pain, but not identifying them as broken addicts. And in that they've been had. If we see them as broken, they see us as seeing them as broken, they think that they're broken. So I have seen them all as whole, and the more I've seen them as whole, the more they're showing up as whole. So am I, you know, a miracle worker? I don't know, but I will say that regardless of whether they dabble in addiction, they are human beings having their experience, but I I see it totally differently.

Agi Keramidas 31:25
Thank you. That's beautiful. You reminded me of that phrase that says, When you love people for who they are, they turn into the ones you love. It is, I think it is what you were saying in a different work. And I said, I want to, I'm going to start concluding this wonderful conversation. I have two questions that I always ask my guests on the podcast before I go there, would you like to share with the listeners where, where they can connect with you and find out more? Where will you direct them?

Rachel Harrison 31:57
Thanks. Agi, the website, recoveryoursole.net, has everything that's going on in the soul recovery community. I have a once a month free zoom support group, and that is a really powerful group that comes together, and we have a little bit of a topic, and then we break into groups to connect and support each other, and the podcast recover your soul is available on all streaming platforms, and I have a YouTube channel as well. Thank

Agi Keramidas 32:25
you. And my two quick questions in the end, the first one is, what does personal development mean to

Rachel Harrison 32:34
you? Hmm, personal development, you know, what I really think is that we have this opportunity to step into our fullest self at every moment, and it comes back to make a decision. There is no right or wrong way. There is no path that we can take that is the wrong path. And if I look back and I think, you know those 15 years, 15 solid years of darkness, I look at them now with an entirely different viewpoint, because I see them as learning and an opportunity to really step out of a perception and a belief system that I was holding on to in my attachment. So I think personal development is this opportunity for us to accept ourselves for exactly who we are to see the dark and the light and to recognize that it's all an opportunity to allow us to see the wholeness that we were brought here to be. You know, it's not about being famous or being better than anybody else. It's Who was your soul brought here to be in its fullest expression. That's development.

Agi Keramidas 33:41
That's great. You use the word wholeness quite a few times. So I just wanted to repeat the word wholeness. Thank you. And a hypothetical question, Rachel, if you could go back in time and meet your 18 year old self, what's one piece of advice you would give her? Oh, thank

Rachel Harrison 33:58
you. You know she was so unsure. She was so unsure about how to be liked by others, and she spent a lot of time trying to meet other people's standards. And I think I would tell her to step more fully into herself, without fear, to be more fierce and fearless.

Agi Keramidas 34:22
Thank you so much, Rachel for this wonderful conversation. I think there were some very important messages there to be found. I want to wish you all the very best with both your personal life and your career. I would like to leave it to you for some actionable part in wisdom for our listeners.

Rachel Harrison 34:49
You know, I think that everybody has what they need within them. I think if we all trust ourselves and our intuition and our guidance and allow that inner voice that. Is speaking kindness and love to you to be the loudest voice that ultimately, if you're here listening to Agi and you're in this space of personal development, you already are on a path that's bringing you to your fullest self. So it's about trusting that voice more and allowing the noise of the outside world and the noise of not enoughness to fall away so that you can step more fully into your authentic self.

Agi Keramidas 35:31
And before I end today's episode, if you enjoy this podcast, can you think of one person that would find it useful and share it with them? I'd really appreciate it. It helps the show grow, and you also add value to people you care about. Thank you. And until next time, stand out, don't fit in.