Stop Being a Victim of the World You See and Take Your Power Back with Soul Recovery

The greatest power we have is the choice to shift our perception. Before we discover Soul Recovery, so many of us live in a constant loop of “why is this happening to me?”, feeling like victims of our circumstances — whether it’s our family, our health, or the state of the world. 

In this heartfelt episode, I share how my own journey taught me that while we’re powerless over what happens outside of us, we hold absolute authority over how we respond inside ourselves. This is sovereignty — not denial or spiritual bypassing, but a profound remembering of our divine nature and a commitment to see life through the eyes of love. Together, we explore how to stop feeding fear, how to meet challenges — including health struggles — with compassion and practical action, and how to stand firm in our wholeness no matter what storms rage around us. 

Soul Recovery invites us to witness our responses without judgment, release old patterns and beliefs, deepen our connection to something greater still, and live from the sanctuary of our heart. From this space, we’re “in the world but not of it” — participating fully in our human experience while rooted in a higher perception that keeps us centered, peaceful, and empowered. You are not alone — you are not a victim — and your inner power is waiting to be awakened.

Ready to take your Soul Recovery journey deeper?

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

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

Chapters

• 0:00 Breaking Free from Victim Mentality
• 8:29 Taking Back Your Power
• 14:56 Sovereignty Amid External Chaos
• 20:31 Looking Through the Eyes of Love
• 27:19 Healing Beyond Victimhood
• 33:43 Choosing Love in Difficult Times

Transcript

Rev Rachel Harrison: 0:00

Before we stepped into our soul recovery, we may have believed that we were victims of the world that we see, that we were victims of our circumstance. We were victims of our past. We were victims of what is happening around us and the people in our lives. But in soul recovery we've learned a new way that, although we are powerless over everything outside of ourself which is giving us freedom we can be sovereign in our own experience and how we choose to see it, how we choose to be present in our life, the consciousness that we hold to see our lives, to create our lives, to speak into our lives, what we want to attract and call to ourselves. This episode is about how to be connected to that sovereign state. Enjoy the episode. Welcome to the Recover your Soul podcast a spiritual path to a happy and healthy life.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 0:58

My name is Reverend Rachel Harrison. I started Recover your Soul after having profound changes in my life from my recovery of alcoholism, codependency and control addiction. I was guided to share the tools and principles of spirituality and soul recovery to help others transform their lives as mine was transformed. For us to overcome external circumstances, we need to turn the attention to ourselves, focusing on our inner change and healing, positive results in our lives will follow. Welcome to Recover your Soul. I'm Rev Rachel. Thank you so much for choosing in into your soul recovery with me. Thank you for being part of this amazing community. I'm just so honored and privileged to be here with you as we're all learning how to take our power back, how to really step into our spiritual practice. Soul Recovery is a spiritual path to a happy and healthy life, and spirituality can be whatever it is for you. I'm not here to dictate what that looks like for you. I'm here to open the window just a crack for you to be able to explore that for yourself. I definitely have a heavy metaphysical lean as a metaphysical minister and I do believe that there is a ultimate fundamental truth that focuses on love and light and kindness and compassion, and that there's a lot of complexity in being human and being here with others on this wild ride of earth school, as I like to call it. And for this episode today, I wanted to really lean in more about what we talked about last week, which is we get to choose the world in which we see, by the thoughts and the words that we use, that we can actually work on what we want our lives to be like and will look like and feel like, based on what we choose in how we see it. The power of our thoughts and the power of our voice. The power of our thoughts and the power of our voice, and one of the things that I wanted to use in this episode as a catalyst is on Spotify, you can leave comments on the episodes, which is cool, and one of the community members said I loved this episode.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 3:17

Can you talk more about how soul recovery works with medical issues and that it's hard to stay positive? It's interesting because I'd already wanted to talk about this concept that we're going to move into, which is this belief sometimes that we think that we're victims to our circumstance, that we're victims to the people in our lives or to what's happening to us, and we use the terminology in soul recovery about taking our power back, because we tend to put a lot of energy on what's happening outside of ourselves as being the dictate whether we're okay or not. This was a huge piece of my life because when my kids were in their crazy years and we all go through crazy years, right so I think this is the really big piece of really understanding the different chapters. We are in our experience that there will be chapters in your life that are complicated, and when I was in that chapter, with Alex being in his really complex place that he was with drugs and alcohol and all of the things that were happening with him and his dad and Bodhi was in his own experience that he went through, which is also using drugs and having issues when he was younger as well, and the family dynamics that we're in and Rich and I were alcoholics and we were drinking and had moments of sobriety but really we were still not having done the deep work of healing and I'm just trying so desperately to hold on to all of it.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 4:50

I felt pretty victimized by my life and I often tell the story about how, when I heard somebody say you're only as happy as your least happy child, that that made so much sense to me because I wasn't very happy, because I had these extenuating circumstances that were very complicated and, like most of you that are here, I had part of me that really felt like it was my job to be on top of it, to fix it, to take care of it. That was my codependent people pleaser in me and I felt like I was a victim to my circumstance. I felt like my husband. If he did something different, if he could just show up in a different way, if he could just be somebody else, if he could be what I wanted, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah right, then it would be different. And I was constantly in this victim mentality of life is happening to me. This is another thing happening to me. Why is this happening to me? And as I've gotten more clarity around the spiritual journey and the spiritual path and more space to begin to see things from a different perspective and to have that clarity like we talked about last episode that our thoughts are so powerful and our words that we use are so powerful that I can actually see more clearly about how I was claiming myself as a victim and it was showing up to me and providing me more evidence of such.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 6:26

Brene Brown is famous for saying that you're going to go out in the world and you're going to find what you're looking for. If you're looking for the world to show you that you are belonging and that you are enough, you will get evidence of that. If you're looking for the world to show you that you don't belong and that you aren't enough. Guess what? You're going to get more of that, and I think this is the piece of metaphysics and spirituality that is so profound. As I deepen my spiritual practice, the teachings all come back and say the power of your internal dialogue that you have with yourself is so much more compelling than you know, has so much more power behind it than you know. So when we take our power back and we stop saying that everything on the outside if it was different, then I would be okay you connect to your true nature, which is a magnificent, perfect child of the universe. You were brought here on purpose. No matter where you are on the spiritual or religious spectrum, we are all of the same body and mind to really reflect this truth that we are divine beings. If you're a Christian, we are made in the likeness of God himself, and if you're metaphysical, we are the essence of the universe, we are the creation of the universe. So, wherever you are in that spectrum, look at how we're all being offered this knowledge that we are part of something even greater still. And we don't give ourselves credit for that, because we think that we are somehow being inflicted with suffering, with pain, with all kinds of situations that are happening to us.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 8:21

Are you ready to step into your soul recovery? Visit the website. Are you ready to step into your soul recovery? Visit the website recoveryoursoulnet to learn more about the nine step soul recovery process. I hope that you'll join us the first Monday of every month for the free soul recovery support group on zoom, where we learn more about soul recovery and connect with each other. If you'd like to work directly with me to move through the nine step soul recovery process, I'm here for you, but you can also choose to work the steps on your own, with individual modules intended to support you to work at your own pace and on your own time. And if you want even more soul recovery, join us for the Recover your Soul bonus podcast for Patreon members and Apple podcast subscribers, where I interview amazing people sharing soul recovery tips for us and also do spiritual book studies. You can also find Daily Inspiration on Facebook and Instagram and join our private Facebook community. Visit the website for more information, links and registration for everything.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 9:18

Back to the episode as I'm recording this, it is June 14, which is a big day. I have the meditation that is going to be live streamed later this afternoon and I'm very aware of the energy that's happening around us in terms of our politics. There's so much going on in the world and then I was going through Facebook quickly and there's the now Iran and Israel are fighting and there are protests and violence in many, many, many countries. It feels like the world's on fire and on some levels, emotionally, it is because we're changing so much. We're so full of this incredible shift in our consciousness, and I'm not going to get into politics and I very important to me to not get involved in the storylines of all the things but what I want us to really understand is that it's really a macrocosm of the microcosm that is our own lives outside of ourselves, and how that is such a fearful place. And so then we go back to I'm only as happy as my country is. I'm only as happy as who my family members are. I'm only as happy as whatever the health is of my own body or of the people around me and the health of their bodies.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 11:55

And we recognize that we're constantly giving that power away to forget that actually you have the ability to be present within yourself in a way that you have sovereignty. Sovereignty means that you're not giving anything or anyone else the control over how you are internally, how you feel internally, what you think internally. We've spent our lifetimes checking in with everything and everyone about what's going on with us. So as I contemplate what's happening out in the world, I've dug in even deeper into my spiritual practice, not to put my head in the sand, not to pretend like nothing is happening, but to remember that the power that we have is to stay present and awake in our own consciousness and our own choice of how we choose to see it. And I choose to see that, regardless of what's happening, there is an element of awareness and awakeness and that I can choose to see with the eyes of love.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 13:00

And just moving into the concepts and the words that were used, I remember a long time ago or maybe some people still do it now. You know the what would Jesus do, and people had wristbands that said what would Jesus do or the initials for that. And it was this real moment, I think in time, where people were saying you know, if I was actually to look through the eyes of Christ, if I was able to look with that Christ consciousness, what would that look like? And that's a really beautiful place to start. So if those terminologies work for you and that's something that resonates with you, use that.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 13:38

If you're like me and you're metaphysical, then I look through the eyes. I actually look through Christ consciousness eyes, because that's important to me, but I look through the eyes of the masters that have come and walked before us, who've been able to see above and beyond what feels and is very complex and dense here on the ground. And it's never about denying that there are real, real things happening that are complicated, because I think that if we dismiss that and we try to go straight to that spiritual place where you're like, oh, just pretend, like everything's okay and have a higher thought, that's not it at all. I think that when we really look at what it means to be human beings here, if we are divine, if we are here to have this experience, regardless of what your spiritual belief or practice, of what it is, if you step up and you wouldn't be here and you wouldn't be listening this far in if you didn't already have some of these thoughts right that there's so much more to who you are and and to who everyone else is, and that we're noticing more and more and more that those wisdom teachers that came, those masters that came, regardless of who they are for you all taught about love and compassion and oneness and peace and tenderness to others. That at the essence and the core of all of those teachings is a foundation of love and of energy, of consciousness.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 15:16

And so when I look at this question that says I've been diagnosed with something, how do I move actually in the soul recovery, into not moving into fear? It is the same as the question of this particular situation is happening in my family. Maybe you have a kid who's struggling with addiction. Maybe you're looking at the world and you're feeling like everything's falling apart. You really recognize that there is some level of what is the experience on the outside and how it wants to affect what's on the inside. And my hope is that soul recovery is giving us a process to be able to witness and notice in step one. You're witnessing and noticing that ready for awakening moment where you're like, ooh, this, this is hard, this doesn't feel good.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 16:07

Well, if you have a medical issue, you can use this to actually bump up against it and say I'm fearful, I think that something wrong with me, I don't know how to handle it, and it actually gives you information about patterns, beliefs and stories that are inside, usually about our feeling like a victim, right that something's happening to us. Why is this happening to me? How can this be happening to me? And underneath that is often a belief or a story that we have for ourselves that we can't handle it, or that we brought it on to ourselves or that it's going to make our lives miserable. And then step two in soul recovery is admitting that we're powerless over every single thing outside of ourself, outside of ourself. So if you have a medical situation, you can remember that you're powerless over so many things. Right, you're powerless over, maybe, other people's reactions to you. You might be powerless over what your doctors are offering or saying that might not align with what you're thinking. You're powerless over some of the circumstances that bring on some things.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 17:23

There's definite belief in spirituality that there's a marriage, like a working together in a way, of who we are spiritually and how clean our energy is to be in our most healed and clear state, to make sure that whatever toxins or situations that are happening with your body are cleared out. And then there's also the piece that you're just a body and it has problems. It's like asking a car to never have any issues. You can change the oil in your car and take great care of it. Eventually it's going to need some things to be fixed. Your body's wear out, there's genetics, there's all kinds of things that are at play, and you can admit that you're powerless over whatever the genetics are that you came in with, that you might be predisposed to something.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 18:13

But when you start looking at it from a spiritual perspective, what you're doing is you're taking out the part that says I'm a victim of, and you recognize and you remember that you can connect to something greater still, which is step four in soul recovery, that deep connection to your higher power that gives you the strength to be able to handle whatever's coming. Then, when you look at step three in soul recovery, which is, you know what are these limiting beliefs, what are these underlying patterns and stories? So often they're layered with unworthiness or that victim mentality again that, like this, always happens to me, or I can't handle it, or there's no one there for me. Those are stories that we tell ourselves. Those are stories that we tell ourselves. Those are stories that we tell ourselves that everything's overwhelming, that it has to be like this for me to be safe. Those are those patterns and beliefs that are in our subconscious that are keeping us from moving into that connection to source.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 19:15

All the spiritual stuff that I read and hear reminds us that there is so much more available to all of us that if we trust in this universal, creative cosmic force of light and energy and just unlimited nature, that we actually move into the quantum. I love that there's so much more information about the quantum. We actually can move into a pretty wild space that says I get to choose how I'm going to see it. And when I look at the world right now, the way I choose to see it is yes, it is very complicated, yes, it is very painful. There are definitely things happening in people's lives that are affecting people in very real world ways and at the same time, if I look at it from the eyes of love, even Jesus had to come and turn the tables. He turned the tables to say this isn't working.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 20:21

So are we as a human species, on some level turning the tables to be able to raise into a higher consciousness, to be able to see that there is unity, that we're awakening on some level, to recognize that there's so much more to be seen in all of us and to remember that, no matter what anybody thinks on either side, no matter what anyone thinks on either side, at the foundation of who we are, we are these incredible souls who are connected, incredible souls who are connected. And if we can come into that unity space, that place of really recognizing the connections, and that the thoughts and the feelings and the beliefs that we have have so much power that we can choose love, that we can choose to see through those eyes of love, through that Christ consciousness, through the eyes of the Creator, through that Christ consciousness, through the eyes of the creator, I find myself. The channel, clearly, is coming back to Jesus, and however you see Jesus, see him, however you see him, but as a historical figure or as a spiritual figure. This is somebody who came and reminded us that this isn't about caste. It was about looking at people who were of every race, of every gender, of every socioeconomic class, and those were his disciples, those were his people. And he also reminded us that you are able to heal yourself, that it was through the belief in something greater still that offered the healing, that he was just a mirror for people to heal. And that's where we are right now in a society.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 22:16

I think that if we really look at this, we are not victims, that we take our power back and you start just observing what is, and in that I can recognize and see that so many people are so affected by fear and fear. Of course they are, there's reason for it. But then we stand in our soul recovery space and we think I actually get to decide how this is going to reflect to me. How am I going to show up for this? What am I going to do about it? Can I connect to my higher self? Can I connect to the inner sanctuary of my heart, where we move into a space where that heart, consciousness, it radiates out an energy that is very different than our mind and our intellect. It's completely connected to your higher self.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 23:10

There is almost always a space for compassion and forgiveness and grace when you're in your heart, and it doesn't mean that you don't take action in your life if you have an illness or if somebody in your life is struggling or if you see some place that needs to have change. It isn't about laying down and just saying, well, we're just going to let everything just be. That's not what the spiritual teachings say. What the spiritual teachings are saying is that you're not a victim, which means that you have sovereignty over how you are showing up and you stop having the outside world dictate whether you're okay or not. And when you do that and you stay in your heart and you see through the eyes of spirit, you can show up in ways that are strong, that have voice, that have action.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 24:01

If you have a medical procedure, you go into those situations, you ask the kind of questions where you really make sure that you're getting the questions that you want answered and that you feel like you have sovereignty over your own medical situation. And then you remember that your mind has power and that if you think from fear, then you're actually feeding whatever that situation is medically fear. But if you feed it love and light and healing and you ask questions on a metaphysical perspective, there's a whole other side. Like I talked with Christine Lang in Ask your Spirit, who's a medical intuitive, like I talked with Christine Lang in Ask your Spirit, who's a medical intuitive, and she talks about how medical issues often are giving us information and when we listen to that information and we take in what that is offering our soul to learn about ourselves. Then, whatever the healing is, it becomes part of the healing. It can have a better resolve from that place.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 25:00

Instead of thinking that you're sick or there's something wrong with you, in soul recovery we're remembering there's nothing wrong with us anyway. We're remembering our wholeness in everything. We're coming back to our heart in everything and more and more and more. As complicated as life is, I see the beauty in all of it and I know that this is hard when you have difficulty knocking at your door or feels like it's running over you. And in those moments, the more you can just be in touch with what you actually feel, the depth of the feeling that's within you that might have heartbreak or despair or courage or frustration or love or excitement, whatever those feelings are, to allow yourself to let those feelings wash through you, because that is the value and the power of the human experience. But as spiritual beings we want to be able to be in the body and also not of the world at the same time.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 26:13

Sometimes in spirituality they say to be in the world but not of the world. In spirituality they say to be in the world but not of the world. And the teachings in the Bible and the New Testament are the kingdom of heaven is within you. That this concept of being a victim means that you are choosing to not allow yourself to feel that power, that that wholeness, that ability to handle and do difficult things is the incredible innate being of who you are. And that we can choose love in every action, in every word, in every situation. And remember that, whatever is going on either with you or with the world around us, we are not victims of the world that we see, that we get to choose how we're going to interact with it. And sometimes there's little baby miracles that happen and sometimes there's big miracles that happen.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 27:13

Staying in gratitude that, regardless of what the situation may look or feel like in that moment, that there is something more to learn and understand in it and that you can connect to something greater still and there is an opportunity for you to remember the strength of who you are, to heal in everything. And that, when you stand in that clear space within yourself and that, when you stand in that clear space within yourself, from your higher self, really being able to look and feel that, knowing that you're connected from your heart space, the sanctuary of your heart that there's a capacity to radiate out love that reaches in ways that no action can ever take. We do not have to fix everything around us. We can't fix everything around us. We're powerless over that. And these are the steps in soul recovery where we're releasing what doesn't serve us.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 28:14

Step five and step six is moving into the truth of who we are, recognizing the incredible gift of who we are and these new beliefs, these new ways of being, where you understand that sovereignty that you have. And, yes, it's scary to be in a medical situation, but you don't have to live in the fear of it. You can use it as a challenge to get through and to teach you something about yourself and to remember how strong you are. And as a society, we can remember that we are one, regardless of any of the beliefs that everybody has, and that we can always choose love and union and connection, and that we can trust and know that we are being guided and held into new ways of being that are around light and compassion and tenderness to each other, and that it will be complicated it has never been without complications to be human beings but we're here at a very specific, powerful time. That is around an awakening, an awakening of ourselves, an awakening of our world, and if we can hold the space of knowing and I almost used the word hope, but the guidance came through and said hope is not the word to use, because hope has a vision of what we think it should look like.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 29:43

But knowing and faith is beyond that, because it gives us a space to move past our limited view and to see beyond that into a place of faith and trust. And a trust is that you. You need to be part of the healing. It is your mission, it's your soul's purpose, on whatever way it is large or small, to release, deeply release, all of this dense shackles of beliefs and pain that you've been holding on to. That is being really like, oh God, I'm seeing this vision of just this shattering of all these old beliefs and all these old stories as if they were real, and it's as if the view in which you had seen the world could only be through your limited perceptions of yourself. And it's being shattered and it's opening up a view that is so bright and so beautiful and yet, at the same time, I think, if you're like me, I want so much for everything, just to clear and for it all just to be perfect without hardship. Of course I do, and you probably feel the same way that we could all just open this part of our heart and that then everything would be okay. Then everything would be okay. But that being okay is something that's on the inside, not always what we see on the outside, and that is where that power of we are not victims of the world that we see and we get to choose how we are going to see it, and we choose to see it through the eyes of love. We choose compassion, we choose peace, we choose healing, we choose faith, we choose love.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 32:00

Be mindful of what you're bringing in, what you're seeing, what you're paying attention to, because that sovereignty means that you only allow in what is benefiting you for your higher self and your higher consciousness. And so there is such a part of us that, like wants to stay abreast. But be mindful of what you're putting into yourself and how much you have the news on constantly, or scanning things that are giving you the information. We're powerless over all those things. We are not putting our head in the sand. You're not putting your head in the sand about what's happening on a big scale with your family and then personally with you. But you're really taking that sovereignty back. You're taking your power back. You're choosing your spiritual healing and your connection to your higher power. That is the peace and the wholeness within you, which is why you are here to remember Until next time, namaste, thank you for listening and I hope that that helps support your soul recovery process.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 33:06

Just a reminder that every Friday is the Recover your Soul bonus podcast. This podcast is for Patreon members and Apple podcast subscribers and not only do you get an incredible interview or book study that comes with being part of that community, but your subscribing helps support this podcast and the Recover your Soul community. If you want to listen to those bonus episodes but can't subscribe right now, do know that you can be a free Patreon member and have access for limited time to new episodes. Visit the website Recover recover your soulnet or check out the show links below for coupons and information for upcoming events. I thank you for sharing this podcast with your friends and family. I thank you for giving it five stars, and the reviews that are left bring tears to my eyes. I am honored to be part of your life. Together we can do the work that will recover your soul.