Letting Go of People Pleasing: Stop Betraying Yourself and Choosing Your Authentic Self

Free Recover Your Soul Mini Workbook — your soul journey starts here: www.recoveryoursoul.net/whatisrecoveryoursoul

There is a movement happening right now, and if you have found your way to this community, you are already part of it. A movement away from codependency, people pleasing, and betraying yourself to keep everyone else comfortable.

So many of us have spent a lifetime in the supporting role and forming ourselves around what our partners want, what our kids need, what our families expect — without ever asking: who am I, and what do I actually want? 

That question is at the center of the Recover Your Soul process. And it is at the heart of my new memoir Recover Your Soul: A Spiritual Journey of Healing from Addiction, Codependency, and People Pleasing — launching April 13th. (Help me to get the book out into the world!! Make this a Best Seller, and then write a review ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️)

We talk about what happens when you begin to disrupt the roles others have come to expect from you, and why the discomfort you feel when you finally choose yourself is not a sign you got it wrong. It is a sign that something real is shifting.

This episode is an invitation to get curious. To ask yourself where you are still forming yourself around someone else's approval. And to recognize that choosing yourself — fully, finally — is not selfish. It is the most healing thing you will ever do. 🤍

The NEW book is here! Recover Your Soul- A Spiritual Journey of Healing from Addiction, Codependency and People Pleasing Get Your Copy !!!!! 🧡

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

Transcript

A Movement Away From Codependency

Rev Rachel Harrison 0:30

There is something that's happening. It is a movement that is not just us here in the Recover Your Soul community, but a movement on a larger scale around letting go of accommodating, letting go of people pleasing, recognizing that codependency is not healthy, not only for us, but for the entire system. And the Recover Your Soul book, which comes out a week from today, on April 13th, is the big launch day. Let's make it a bestseller on that day, is my path, my walk through a spiritual healing journey, recovering from my addiction to alcoholism, but mostly my addiction to people pleasing and codependency, my control addiction. And as we've learned how to be more authentic and to stand in our true self, sometimes that's meant, at least it did for me, that I've had to learn who that is and actually put that in the front of everything else. Who am I and how can I be my most authentic self, letting go of people pleasing? Let's talk about it. Welcome to the Recover Your Soul podcasting community, a spiritual path to a happy and healthy life. My name is Reverend Rachel Harrison. I started Recover Your Soul after having profound changes in my life from my recovery of alcoholism, codependency, people pleasing, and control addiction. I was guided to share the tools and principles of spirituality and the recover your soul process to help others transform their lives as mine was transformed. For us to overcome external circumstances, we need to turn the attention to ourselves, focusing on our interchange and healing. Positive results in our lives will follow. Welcome to the Recover Your Soul podcast and community. We are a week away from the official birth launch date of the Recover Your Soul memoir, a spiritual journey of healing from addiction, codependency, and people-pleasing by Reverend Rachel Harrison in collaboration with Maddie Murray. And I just continue to be so excited about it on so many different levels. And today, what I want to talk about is our letting go of what people think about us, which at its core is letting go of our people-pleasing part of us that has our compulsion to worry and think about everybody else over ourself. And at the demise of our being our true essence of who we are, because it's layered with a lot of our old patterns, beliefs, and stories that kept us safe for so long. And the reason why I want to talk about this is because not just because it's a foundational part of the recovery soul process and so much of the continued uncovering of myself and my own spiritual awakening of learning who I am. I mean, part of that is just even the question of, well, who is that? If I could have whatever I wanted, what would I want? If you've been in life like I was with my family, I never asked what I wanted first. It was always, what did my husband want first? What did the kids want first? And not even realizing to the degree in which I was doing it, because I still do it to some degree with my husband. And I notice it and I think, wow, you're still forming yourself around what you want somebody else to approve of you for, or to make sure that they're not upset, or to make sure their day is easy, or to um be mindful of their feelings to save them from their feelings. And ultimately, that's a beautiful aspect of who we are. And part of what I want to really talk around is how do we step into what's going on right now energetically as a collective in the raising of the consciousness and the shifting and changing of what's happening in our world? And there's more and more and more discrepancy between what feels like a movement towards compassion and a movement towards power. And that is real. I mean, that is an absolute energy truth that is happening right now. And it's happening because there is less and less willingness to play nicey nicy and for us to accommodate and to betray ourselves for the sake of somebody else, for the sake of somebody else's well-being. And I think it's really interesting because for most of us, for those of you who have found this community, you're affected by somebody who's making particular choices that are complicated and difficult. Maybe it's addiction, maybe it's mental health, maybe you've just been in a system in your life that you're just now waking up from and saying, wow, I don't even know who I am or what I need. I'm in a cycle in my life where it's more and more important for me to learn who I am. What, what do I need to heal? What is going on for me? And sometimes that comes in big, heavy, harsh, you know, situations, either by having uh what feels like a catastrophe happen in people in your life and the consequences they're hitting, or maybe you're just finally hitting consequences on your own. One of the things that I think is really important is for us just to take a step back and to recognize that we want to figure it out. We want to have all the answers so that we can figure it out. Why is this happening? What can I do about it? What is the solution? Because if I can find the solution, if I can find the magic stardust to sprinkle over the situation, then it will all smooth out and go away, and then I'll be safe. Well, part of this transition that we're making around letting go of what people think about us, what what's going on with them, so that we can attend to more to ourselves is because we are becoming more and more aware of the fact that we can no longer tolerate not actually being in our experience for who we came here to be, that the supporting role isn't working anymore, that there is no why, there is no figuring it out. It is actually beginning to accept and allow it. In Recover Your Soul, what I feel like this soul journey that we're all being invited on is to actually be curious about who that is, who you were brought here to be, and to be curious about the gifts that you have and how you can show up as your full self in situations where the people around you are not necessarily clapping their hands and encouraging you to have boundaries, to choose yourself, to make pretty intense decisions around how you're gonna be with the people in your life. And that is totally understandable that then we almost want to fall back into the old systems that we've had that accommodated them. But it's becoming clearer and clearer that we can't do that. One of the reasons why we wanted to talk about this is because it's at the heart of the Recover Your Soul memoir about taking responsibility for ourselves, turning to the attention to ourself, and that our healing, our healing is the way that we can elicit positive change in our world. What we see on the outside, and this sometimes can be kind of a affronting concept, what you experience on the outside is a direct reflection of how you feel about yourself on the inside. And most of us have spent a lifetime not feeling all that great about ourselves or not even realizing in our subconscious that we are protecting, that we're playing roles, that we're putting on a mask, that we're being something else. And I think that if we give ourselves grace, we don't even know, like I said, what that is, what who we were supposed to be, or we had successes in our life, places where we um got rewarded for specific behaviors. Maybe you have a family where you got a lot of a lot of reward for being the one that makes the plans, gets everybody together, makes sure that everybody's happy, that all the gifts are all in beautiful boxes, that everybody's happy, that all everyone's activities are happening. And you've been the uh cruise director of your family. And for some people, that's been a job that they loved, that that was something that brought them joy and excitement and fulfillment, and you looked forward to it. And then it became a responsibility, and then it became a burden, and then it became an expectation that everybody had, so that if you were, God forbid, to make a different choice and say, I need help with this, or I'm not gonna do that this year, or I need more people to come in and do it. They all have become so habituated to this role that you play. And if you stand up for yourself, they have a backlash. And then that hurts. And then we were question ourselves and we have doubt about whether we can choose ourselves or ask for help or make a different choice. We are all changing constantly. We are not the same person we were even yesterday. And as we are opening our eyes and seeing anew in the Bible, it says, through me you will see all things anew. And as you know, spirituality is the foundation of recover your soul for whatever that is for you. I'm not Christian, actually. I'm metaphysical, but I love the teachings of Jesus and I love the metaphysical interpretations of Christianity, but I have nothing against Christianity. It just isn't the languaging that speaks to me. And yet I find myself continuing to come back to some of those terminologies because they are representational of everything that's happening in the spiritual realms. There are words and concepts that have been used that when you look at them from a metaphysical perspective, have this deep shift in how we can see it. Through spirituality, all things are made anew. Our ability to see what is happening is made anew. Our ability to be with ourselves is made anew. And when we step into this place of letting go of what people think about us, it doesn't mean that we don't care what people think about us, but we're not gonna let it determine how we are going to be and the choices we are going to make. We have been on this particular timeline that had women being accommodating, people pleasing, codependent. And if you stepped out and you were strong or independent, there was a lot of backlash for that. It's pretty amazing to think that the Me Too movement was just in like 2019-2020. And that wasn't that long ago, regarding women standing up and saying things have happened to us that we have kept quiet that are not okay. There are standards and industries regarding how we have to give ourselves away to be able to be successful. And if we did not do those things, then we didn't get to be in the club. And that was a big deal. It's part of this letting go of the people-pleasing, part of the accommodating, part of the abandoning ourselves that's been happening for a long time. So that was in the big picture in the industries that that had become the norm. But if you look at the micro families around how we're disrupting systems right now, we're disrupting how we do family, what the roles are. And it's not about thinking that the roles are bad, it just is shifting in how it works for us to be our most sovereign self, to be our best self. And I think that what's really interesting is there's a movement in this age of Aquarius away from intensity and into softness. But the softness does not mean we roll over. It actually is a softness that has even more strength. That if you look at the goddesses and the women in past history that were rulers or that were really seen in reverence for their energy, they almost all had a strength in them, a power within them that had the ability to be soft and to be strong. And we're moving more and more and more into this awareness of how to be that. This abandoning ourselves is over. But it gets complicated about how to do that in your life. So in recover your soul, part of the process is having real deep honesty within yourself to look at the subconscious and unconscious belief patterns and stories that have been running what I call our operating system, so that we may not even know how accommodating we're being or how much we're denying ourselves. So when you make that shift, when you're working through the process and you're beginning to make the shift and you're seeing these beliefs, we kind of want to jump right away to the, well, how do I show up differently? And I'm having a situation in my life where I have somebody who's kind of being affronted with some pretty intense, the world is giving them some reflection on how it could be different. And we always say, you know, the common denominator sometimes when you look at your relationships, if you have a lot of relationships that aren't working, somebody's the common denominator and it's you. And we don't want to take responsibility for it being us. We continue to sometimes play into the well, they don't understand, they are not seeing, they don't uh get who I am. This isn't fair, victim. And the victim is not actually bad, it's actually a woundedness that doesn't know how to be in those feelings. Those feelings are very complicated. You feel rejected, you feel dismissed, you feel unseen. Those are big energies. And if you give yourself the capacity to go under and look in what are the beliefs and stories that make it so that it's so painful to be dismissed? And then what are the protectors that we do when we feel that way? There's an edge, maybe, there's a defensiveness, maybe, maybe there's a judgment that you don't even recognize that you're having judgment. And we're so blind. We're all so blind on some level to our defense mechanisms or our control or our judgment of others or our self-righteousness, not because it's bad, but because there's systems that we've been using for so long to protect ourselves that we don't even see them. We don't even see that they're the view in which we see the world. But as I was talking to this person, there was this real softness, this ability to stop and be curious and to recognize that oftentimes we don't see that the continued problems or situations that are coming up are opportunities for us to learn more about what needs to be healed. It's coming up again and again and again to say, look at this. This this is something that isn't working. It actually doesn't align with you. And their response was, yeah, but how do I change it so that I can go out there and make it be different with them? And I thought, God, that relates to every single person that's in recover your soul. How do I change deeply the healing that's happening within myself, the awarenesses it's happening within myself, and then go out to a family who's not changed, to um spouses who are not growing with me, to kids who are still making difficult decisions, to family members that have very different views and opinions. And the answer is it's it's not necessarily easy, but it doubles down for us to be more and more aware of our soul and to recognize that the more and more and more awareness that we have within ourselves, the more capacity we have to witness them without judgment, to stop making them be the other, to stop making them be the enemy, to make their choices be bad choices, and to look with more and more compassion of whatever their suffering may be, and to recognize that the love that we're looking for is within ourselves, that we can love ourselves deeper, and that that shadow that's being offered is actually the shadow that is the belief pattern or story that's been running the operating system that no longer aligns, that doesn't fit. And that when you slowly, slowly see it, it isn't about trying to get rid of it, it's about transmuting it into a more aligned truth of who we are and how we can show up in the world in these complicated situations, releasing judgment, releasing our grievance, releasing our belief that they are doing something wrong. And in that, you have more and more clarity. Again, I mean, I say this all the time, around at some point, things are some things are just not gonna work. Not that they have to change or that they're bad, but at some point, that relationship just doesn't align no matter how many years you've had. And sometimes it's about letting go of all the pain and all the grievance and all of the woundedness and saying, I'm gonna put that to bed. I'm gonna offer it forgiveness and I'm gonna start anew. I'm going to see all things anew. And if I let go of all of that attachment to what was and what didn't feel good, and I'm present here today, can I actually look at myself and the people in my life and the situation in my life from a new lens? And sometimes it turns out you're like, okay, I actually can be in this situation in a new way. But the call and the the big piece that I want to make sure we're getting in this episode is in the midst of all that, you're being invited to stand more in the truth of who you are and to be curious about what you love, what feels good, what lights you up, what is the light that you shine. How can you have voice from your most authentic self? And how can you begin to do things that are the actually the things that you like to do? To be brave enough sometimes in some families to say, I don't want to go do that. It doesn't, it actually isn't fun for me. I remember one of the examples is stand-up paddleboarding was this huge part of our family when we came back from Hawaii over 15 years ago. And I had gotten in really good shape to go to Hawaii because I knew I was going to be in a swimsuit for a month. And I was, I was in my 40s at the time. So I had a whole different outlook on life and a whole different body. And I had gotten really fit before we went to Hawaii. As a matter of fact, I went for runs in the morning in Hawaii, which just seems crazy compared to today. And when we came back, and and all of a sudden, surfing was back in our life, and we got stand-up paddle boards and we were doing the rivers on mellow runs on the river. And I was doing those. And of course, Alex and Bodhi and Rich immediately excelled in their skill set because they're already board sports people and they already have that skill set. So doing these mellow runs on the river became boring, and they wanted to do more and more and more exciting things. And I was trying to keep up with them because I wanted to be part of the family. And at one point I recognized I actually wasn't having fun. Getting in the water and falling off and being cold and exerting myself. On that level, it was not enjoyable for me. I was sucking it up and I was playing a role that I was being the wife that I thought Rich wanted. This was during the time actually when things started getting really complicated for us, but it was how I was trying to relate to him and how I was trying to be a good wife. And at one point, I finally just realized I can't keep doing this because I'm betraying myself. I'm not enjoying it. As a matter of fact, the whole time, all I'm thinking of is when is this going to be over? And so I said to him, I'm actually not having fun. You guys are way better than me. I'm not enjoying it. I would like to just be here with you guys, albeit the side of the river, but I don't want to run the river anymore. And that was a big deal for me. And it seems so strange that asking for what you need sometimes is really scary. And ultimately ended up being just fine because they needed someone to run shuttle. And then while they were doing the run, then I got to be by the side of the river by myself or with friends and just hanging out. It was way more aligned with what I wanted. But it was interesting how hard it was for me to ask for what I needed. I still do that to this day on a lesser degree. I'm not sporty. I spent an entire marriage pretending or trying to live up to some sporty aspect of who rich would like a wife to be more sporty. I'm not sporty. And the older I get, I think that's the beauty of age, the more I'm perfectly okay with not being sporty. And if I'm married to somebody where that's a problem for them, that's actually not my problem. That's their problem. But the discomfort that we feel or the rejection that we perceive in those situations can keep us from really standing in the truth of who we are. Well, the more that I just become my meditation spiritual self, I actually am watching somebody fall in love with and enjoy more and more and more of who I am because I'm more and more comfortable in my skin and just being me and not dressing for how I think he wants me to dress, not acting or behaving in the way that I think a good wife or that he wants me to behave. Those are all things that I do to myself out of my own fears. And it's been through this process that all of that has happened. And it's it's the journey that's described pretty cleanly in the book, because a lot of what's in the Recover Your Soul book is around our marriage and around my healing from my own codependency. But we're at a place, again, where not just not just us on our journey. If you are here in this journey right now and you're learning how to let go of people-pleasing codependency, you're part of a movement. You are not alone. And I think that is so cool to think about the fact that we are in this moment in time right now where this is becoming so important to us that we're willing to do whatever it takes in our own soul's recovery's journey, whatever it takes to be more authentic to who we are. We cannot tolerate not being authentic to who we are or having the opportunity to discover who we are, to truly step into our life of who we are here to be. And below all the checked boxes of who we think should, should, shoulds, we are letting shoulds go. And in that, there's this explosion of creativity, which I have this card. And if you're on video, um, it's a card from one of my decks that I pulled. It says, doubt is part of the creative process. I loved that I pulled this card because I think doubt has been a nemesis for me, where to stay safe meant that I had surety or I had perfection, or I thought that I was doing exactly the right thing to stay safe. But the more that I've stepped into this recover your soul spiritual world, the more the safety lies within me and my connection to my higher power of my understanding, to truly have faith and trust that I'm being held and guided and resourced at every single moment. And it's okay to have doubt because who wouldn't? And even in releasing this book, it's really interesting how I continue to move up against the parts of myself that want to keep me small or to not go out there too far for fear of rejection. I'm gonna be rejected. Not everyone's gonna love the book, not everyone's gonna stand behind what I'm doing. I'm just doing what I feel guided to do, that is the true essence of who I am, not to be showy and not to be out there as somebody who thinks they has all the answers, because I certainly do not have all the answers. But I can tell you from my own experience, which has profoundly changed my life. And I was I was talking to my friend about this situation where they're being affronted with this opportunity to heal these parts that have been eroding their relationships for a very, very, very long time. This automatic system that they don't even know that is keeping them separate from people, when what do they really want? They really just want to be part of. They really just want to be part of and connected. And for them to truly see that this is not working anymore, the pain that they're experiencing is big because when we let go of what no longer serves us, it's letting go of an entire system that we've had for our entire life that is so attached to the past and so attached to our perceived pain and wounds and not enoughness. Part of this moving away from people pleasing, part of this moving into our determined to be our authentic self is to recognize that we have to be who we are. We have to, and that sometimes that being who we are means that you are gonna have people who don't get you, or people who got you in the past and they don't get you now, and it's okay because you love yourself, because you have more awareness and within yourself of the beauty and the truth of who you are, and in that, when you shine your light, which is step nine in the recovery soul process, to shine your light, it's through your authenticity, it's through that strength that has a softness and a strength, a willingness to be present with what is, a letting go of all judgment and a being present from a place of grace and compassion and willingness to accept acceptance as a path to peace is our theme for this year. So, just as a pitch for one week away from the Recover Your Soul book, and uh again, doubt is part of the creative process. It's hard for me sometimes to pitch myself in all the work and all the work that I'm doing ever since the recover your soul process really came online. I'm not trying to sell it for me, and it's not the only process, it's not the only path to awakening. There are so many paths. My my desire is for you to find the one that works for you. And if mine is, I'm honored. I'm truly, truly honored. If it's not, it's okay. Go find what works for you. Continue to search because your soul knows the way. And if you would be oh, so kind as to help me to bring this book out into the world, April 13th is the launch day. So you may go on Amazon and see that it's available now because it, because it is, it's a soft, soft launch. But my request is if you wait till April 13th, kind of like a Christmas present, right? If you wait till April 13th and we can all buy it, if everybody who listens to this podcast buys the book on April 13th, it will hit a bestseller, and that bestseller will forever give it the push to be in the world in a way that only happens with that, and then to review it. An honest review. If you loved it, tell Amazon that you loved it. If you didn't like it, I'd be perfectly happy to have a review that gives in-depth information. I don't need any smoke blown up anything. I want you to honestly take in what this book has to offer. And I've gotten so much amazing feedback from the people who have been reading it already at how it's touching them and what it's offering for them. So I believe really strongly that this book has a potential of helping not only all of you, the thousands of you in this community, but also thousands and thousands more who are yet to come. And I also hope that you'll go to the website and look at the different ways that you can work the process in community. You can be part of the collective, which is the self-study that has monthly teachings, live teachings with me, and has a private group. You can do the soul circles where you meet with other people who are in the same situation. Maybe you have partners or family members, maybe you're a parent of an adult child, or you're an alumni who came to a retreat or has worked the steps with me. Those soul circles are group coaching that meet on certain days a month. Really powerful groups already. And then we have one-on-one coaching with me. Pick the one that works for you, or don't do any of those and just download the free mini workbook that's on the About Recover Your Soul website page and do it yourself, either through the podcast or just taking that outline and then going out and being in the world. My goal is for you to learn who you are. My goal is for you to touch in with yourself and see your wholeness, to remember that you are love, that you are enough, and that whatever these limiting beliefs and stories that have been holding you back and the patterns that have been repetitively not bringing you to your most idealized, healthy whole self, they no longer work for you and they no longer fit. But there is a process, either mine or somebody else's, that will lead you through it because it is the soul's hero's journey path. And it does have a progression to move through. And there is light on the other side. Light on the other side is for you to love yourself deeply and fully and completely. And when you love yourself, you can love everything that's happening around you, even the hard stuff, from a place of strength and compassion and grace. Thank you so much for being part of this amazing community. Thank you for trusting me. Thank you for being on this journey with me. Thank you for sharing this with people. And I know that we're doing this together. Oh, and I forgot the free once-a-month recover your soul support group on the first Monday of every month on Zoom. Join us. We're a community. And I hope that this community will just continue to thrive and grow because I believe in us. Until next time, Namaste. Thank you for trusting me to be part of your journey to recover your soul and being part of this incredible community. There's so much going on, and I hope that you'll get involved. First, I want to invite you to our free first Monday of every month support group from 6 to 7 p.m. Mount Time on Zoom. This is where we come together in community, meet in small groups, and connect on our Recover Your Soul journey. I'm so excited to announce that on April 13th, the long-awaited Recover Your Soul memoir around my walking the steps that created the Recover Your Soul process and how it profoundly changed my life from codependence, addiction, people pleasing, an unhappy marriage, an unhappy life to what I am living today, peaceful, happy, and free. I also would love to invite you to join me for the Friday Recover Your Soul bonus podcast, where you get an additional episode taking a deeper dive into this amazing restorative process. You can become a Patreon member or an Apple Podcast subscriber to receive over 200 past episodes and get a new episode every Friday. Free members on Patreon have access to listen to new episodes for the first week. And of course, I'm on social media and I'd love to have you follow Recover Your Soul on Instagram and Facebook and even join the private RecoverYour Soul Facebook community. If you enjoy Rev Rachel's meditations, I encourage you to follow me on InsightTyber for an entire catalog of guided spiritual meditations. All of this, along with ways that you too can work the Recover Your Soul nine-step process to healing and awakening, can be found on the website recoveryoursoul.net. And lastly, thank you for sharing this podcast and community with any friends or family that you think it would support their spiritual journey to healing and awakening. And those five stars and great reviews help us spread the word and increase the algorithm so we can reach even more people. Together, we can do the work that will recover your soul.