Choosing Yourself Isn’t Selfish: Boundaries, Saying No, and Taking Your Power Back

For so many of us, saying no can feel almost unbearable. We want everyone to be okay, and somewhere along the way we learned that keeping the peace often meant abandoning ourselves.

But there comes a moment on this journey where something inside says… this doesn’t feel right anymore.

In this episode, we continue the conversation around helping versus enabling and move into the sacred work of boundaries. Not boundaries as punishment or control, but boundaries as clarity, self-respect, and learning how to come home to yourself.

Through the Recover Your Soul process, we begin to recognize the patterns and beliefs that taught us we were responsible for everyone else’s feelings. We start learning how to trust our own inner knowing, stop overexplaining ourselves, and make choices that align with who we are becoming.

Choosing yourself is not selfish. It’s sacred, and so is setting healthy boundaries.

This work can feel uncomfortable, especially when old relationships and patterns push back. But there is also freedom and peace that comes when you stop abandoning yourself in order to keep everyone else comfortable.

You are allowed to have needs.
You are allowed to say no.
You are allowed to choose yourself with love.

Together, we can do the work that will Recover Your Soul.

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

Why Boundaries Feel Overwhelming

Rev Rachel Harrison 0:30

As recovering codependence and people pleasers, saying no or having healthy boundaries can feel completely overwhelming. We don't want to upset anybody. We don't want to hurt their feelings. We don't want people to feel uncomfortable. But in that, we actually have lost ourselves. We're abandoning ourselves and what we need. In recover your soul, we're learning how to take our power back and how to be clear about what we need and how to have a voice that can ask for that, even if the other people around us may not really like what we're saying. Choosing yourself is not selfish. It's sacred. And so are setting boundaries and learning how to do what is right for you in your life. It's treating yourself to who you are here to be and who you are becoming from your most aligned and awakened being. 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 recovery soul process to help others transform their lives as mine was transformed. For us to overcome external circumstances, we need to turn the attention to ourselves, focusing on our interchange and healing. Positive results in our lives will follow. Welcome to Recover Your Soul. I'm Rev Rachel. Thank you so much for choosing to be here with me today. Recover Your Soul is a spiritual path to a happy and healthy life by using the process that I call the nine-step recovery process to healing and awakening. And it's really about coming back to ourselves. It's about taking our power back, coming back to our own wholeness, remembering our wholeness and being able to be in a world that is very complicated and relationships that are very sticky at times and have a lot of different layers to them, and learning how to step into our soul's heroes journey. And today I want to dovetail on last week's episode, which was around how to help and not enable, how to be supportive without overdoing it, saving versus supporting. And so the next step would be boundaries. I talk about boundaries a lot, but I wanted to really talk about it in this more detailed place because I know that I still am working on it. And when we're people pleasers and codependents, and when we have that part of us that feels people's feelings and we care deeply about the people in our life, it can feel selfish to choose ourselves. Choosing yourself is not selfish. It's sacred. And boundaries are part of this sacred process of us learning how to come home to ourselves, to be in healthy relationships and have clarity about what might not be healthy relationships and to make choices that are aligned with who we are becoming instead of choices that are around somebody else's needs and the fears that are part of the process that we've been working on in where we think we belong, whether we think our worthiness, do we think that we're lovable? Do we think that people will be there for us if we choose ourselves? And so boundaries are this beautiful way for us to come into our sovereign state. But when we're not having clear boundaries, it's very overwhelming. You feel at completely at everyone's beck and call, you feel like you're being controlled by other people's emotions. And when we're in relationships with people that are unhealthy, the enmeshment within those unhealthy behaviors has so many different layers and ties and tethers. And it can be very difficult to separate yourself from their needs, from what they're trying to do. And what I love about Recover Your Soul, it's different than maybe where you hear it in other places. Nobody's wrong here. We're not defining people as toxic or bad or narcissistic. That's a very high word right now used by people, narcissistic. There are a lot of people who are self-serving in a way that isn't healthy. And so as we're having this conversation, we're flipping it, which is interesting because I'm saying choose yourself, which can feel like it's being self-serving. But when you do it from a spiritual lens, you actually have the capacity to be present for everybody in the situation in a way that can that can manage how you're showing up so that the best opportunity of potential outcome is being offered to everyone. But you're not losing yourself or um sabotaging yourself or losing that part of you that knows what you need, right? And again, oh my gosh, I'm just getting like this whole image of this separation in looking at things from this very selfish way, which there are definitely people who are very self-serving, and the way that you can take care of yourself that allows you to choose what's right for you, even if the people don't like it. So I think it's fascinating this concept about boundaries because there's lots around it. There's some very, very, you know, Brene Brown and Terry Cole, these are people that talk about boundaries in really clean, defined lines. And so if you want to know more about boundaries, I would point you in those directions. And I want to talk about it from the recover your soul lens of our own awakening and how we're using the process of the steps to learn more about ourselves and what might be uncovered in having clear boundaries. Because boundaries are not about making somebody else behave a certain way. It's about saying, when this happens, I'm going to choose this for me. Because the boundary is really your life, your energy, your well-being, as if it's your land, your property, right? Your soul is your property. And we've become very enmeshed with the people around us, and there isn't clarity about who's taking care of themselves and their own well-being. That's what we talked about last week in the enabling versus helping. When you step into boundaries for what you're going to do, we may not even know how we feel because we've been so accommodating to everybody else. We've been so in the people-pleasing, which goes back to step three in recover your soul, which is that there are belief systems in your operating system that tell you that you are responsible for other people, that if someone's upset with you, it's the worst thing in the world that could happen. That if you don't make sure that everybody is happy, you failed somehow. It's pretty hard to choose yourself if that's where you're coming from. And again, last week we talked about being uncomfortable, the discomfort that we can feel ourselves in our own bodies, and also the discomfort we feel about somebody else's discomfort. So if you have a boundary and you're making decisions for yourself and someone doesn't like it, they're uncomfortable, but we don't like that. We want to make sure that they're okay. And so we're unpacking these many, many, many, many layers and coming back into our soul's journey, which is what I love about recover your soul. There's lots of great psychology, there's lots of great mindset, there's all kinds of ways that you can be looking at this from a lot of different lenses. But I want to step into your soul lens, which says if you do not align with the purpose in which you are here to be at this particular time and your particular experience as you, you won't feel right. You'll feel it in your body. You'll be in situations where it just doesn't feel good. And in the past, we would push those feelings down and we would say, Well, I know that um I don't want to be here, or I don't want to be doing these things, or I didn't want to be um participating in whatever it was. But I'm not gonna make that choice because I want to make sure everybody else is okay. No longer. And what's interesting is if you actually look at those people that sometimes we think are acting selfishly, they're picking themselves. And maybe they're just doing it in a really kind of ugly, destructive way. But there's some aspect that says, what if we all stepped out of needing to be so a mesh with everybody and could choose love as our number one way to be, not love like in the human way. I love you because you give me this, or there's terms and conditions, there's a transactional love, but just the love that says we're all here, we're all spiritual beings, we're all part of source, spirit, whatever it is, and that we are an element of it, and that we can love people in their experience, but we're gonna choose and we're gonna have more and more clarity about what aligns with us. What happens so often, and I think this is so interesting, is that when we try to stand up for ourselves and speak for what we need, because you're entitled to speak for what you need, we completely shut down because we haven't had a lot of practice at it, because we haven't had boundaries. We haven't even had clarity about what we need and how we want to ask for it. It could be a boundary that's as simple as somebody asking you to do something on a weeknight, for example, and you have to wake up early in the morning and you don't know how to say no because you or don't want to disappoint this person. They're not gonna get to go do their thing or they're gonna go by themselves. And you play into this whole I should because they need, but you know that it's gonna be too late and you have something the next day at work that you need to be really present for. That's a very basic place. One of the things that I love about getting clarity on boundaries is that part of our journey right now is to learn that we don't have to defend our reasons. We want to come up with a reason that's good enough for them to understand what we are saying for ourselves. And so if somebody says, hey, I want to go do this thing, it's on a Tuesday night, uh, it starts at eight o'clock, we'll be home by 10 or 10:30. And you know that means that you're not gonna go to sleep for another hour after that because it takes you that long to unwind, which means you're gonna be a mess the next day. We'll go into our entire story of how we're gonna A, say no in a way that lies, right? We're learning now in Recover Your Soul and as our soul's journey to be in integrity. Being impeccable with your word is one of the four agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz, right? Be impeccable with your word. But then we want to tell all these stories and all these justifications for why we're saying no. Well, this is something very simple, this thing we're talking about right now, and that's hard. So to say no to something even bigger is almost feels impossible. But what the experts and boundaries say is you don't have to give a reason. Because the other person, this is recover your soul, we're powerless over everything outside of ourselves, step two. And so when you really recognize you can you can give them a reason if you want to give them a reason, but you're not giving them the reason because you think they're gonna get it or they're gonna approve of it, or they're gonna think that's a great reason. Because for them, going out on a Tuesday night sounds like fun, right? They they don't care if they go to work and feel crappy the next day, but you do, and you're learning to have sovereignty in yourself and to protect your energy and you know what you need, and we've never been able to stand up for ourselves before because it felt too hard to say no. So you say, Thank you so much for the invitation, it's not gonna work out for me that night. That's it, right? How crazy is it how hard that is. I want you to reverse the roles and think about how when you're in your most healed state and someone says that to you, it's fine. You may have a little piece that goes, Oh man, I really wanted you to come with me, or I thought it'd be really fun, or or even a judgment that, man, she has to go to sleep really early. I should have known better. But we're learning to let go of all of this need to control everything around us. So this is a simple one. Let's move to family. We have people in our lives who have been manipulating us, who have been gaslighting us, who have been talking us out of our feelings for as long as we can remember. And it be can become very destructive in those relationships to a place where we don't actually even know how to speak or how to stand up for ourselves and how to have these boundaries. These boundaries are us having sovereignty over what we need and what will create safety in our lives. Well, the first thing to look at is if you're in a relationship on a regular basis with somebody who talks you out of your feelings, gaslights you, manipulates you, there's something to look at. Because they're not gonna love any answer that you have that is you choosing yourself, because they've created a whole system in their life from their limiting beliefs, from their limiting patterns, from their way of being, from their operating system that is creating the need and want to keep you in controlled. The interesting thing is that we're working on our side of control and recover your soul, but there's a lot of people who are on their side who are very controlling, and they're not looking at it or working on it at all. But we're not trying to fix them. You cannot make anybody change. You cannot make anybody want to be healthy or better, and you cannot make anybody see where you are coming from, no matter how perfectly and beautifully you say your words. But you can stand up for yourself and have clarity about what you need and what you want, even if inside in your stomach you're just turning over and you're sweating and you feel so uncomfortable, there's something so important about having clarity about what you need. Because as we get healthier and better and better and better, we get more aligned, our resonance of who we are will not tolerate what doesn't align with us. Because the more you're around people who see you, love you, appreciate you, and have value for who you are, you can have difficult conversations where not everybody has to agree, where everybody has the right to have the boundaries that feel good to them, that are not selfish in the way of people who can be very self-serving, but are sovereign, right? It is not selfish to choose yourself. But when you when you are more resourced within yourself, you have more capacity to be in all of the world and your relationships with a witness ability to see the situations with more clarity for what is, instead of the projection of what we don't like or how we want it to be or what our limiting beliefs are. And you can also just be present with looking at what is without the judgment. And some of what is is just fine, and some of what is is not that great. Us choosing not to have feels like we're rejecting them, but we're not. You are potentially rejecting a behavior, you're rejecting a system in which they have, but when you look at souls, when you look at it from the soul's perspective, everybody's entitled to have their soul's experience. And we can have more compassion potentially for people who really are in a destructive or unhealthy place. And we can quit trying to save them, we can quit trying to fix them and make it better for them. Because this goes right back to one of the things I talked about in other episodes about being a lifeguard. You're out there trying to save them in the water and they're drowning and they're pushing you down, and you have the life preserver and you're doing all the right things. And at some moment you realize, I'm gonna die here. I'm gonna drown if I don't save myself because this person has no desire to be saved or to be well or to do whatever. And you leave them with the life preserver and you go back to shore and you take care of yourself. That's not selfish because you are here on purpose to have some of these lessons. And some of these lessons are about choosing yourself, choosing yourself in a whole way, not a vindictive way, not as out of resentment, not out of hate, not out of um a screw you attitude, but as a compassionate, like I am giving you your world and your life. And whatever that was that is may not align with me. So let's talk about an example that's that might be extra hard. Maybe you have a parent or a family that you want so much to try to figure out how to be with them, but you all just don't align anymore. I have lots of people who have family members that are of opposing political parties, which used to not be that big of a deal. It's a really big deal now. And they just see the world in such different ways. You cannot get somebody to see it how you see it, just like how you can't see it how they see it. And so sometimes those boundaries are if you're gonna talk about these things, I'm gonna remove myself from the room. You're not saying I don't agree with what you're saying, you're not saying I think you're an ass. You're not saying, you know, screw you. You're saying I realize I don't want to talk about these things. And if we talk about them, I'm just gonna remove myself. When you have people battling over who's right, and you stop the battle, there's nothing to push against. And no is a complete sentence. And sometimes not explaining yourself is the greatest strength that you can have just to say that won't work out for me. When this happens, this is the choice that I'm gonna make. And I know it sounds really easy when we're talking about it here, not nearly so easy when you're in the midst of it. So you practice, you practice in places that feel safe. I remember uh Susan, I'm not gonna remember her last name right now, was talking about boundaries on the bonus podcast. And she said, practice at Starbucks. You don't get your order right, go gently, kindly up to the front and say, excuse me, I ordered this and that's not what I got. Can I get a new coffee? That's a great place to start to learn how to ask for what you need without it being as big as if you're asking your husband or your kids or your parents or your siblings for what you need. I love stories. I've had stories of people that I've worked with who have just really recognized, like in some capacity, something just doesn't feel right because we're paying attention to our feelings in a way we never did before. So instead of pushing it down and saying, I know I don't really like these family Zooms, for example, is one of them. I don't really like it when we have these family Zooms. It's all these conversations that I don't feel comfortable with. The whole time I just feel like I don't like it, but I don't know how to say no. Part of what we're doing is we're recognizing our feelings are telling us something, they're giving you information. And so this client eventually just said, Hey, I'm just gonna step out of the family zooms. Her siblings probably have a lot of opinions about this. We're powerless over their opinions. And if somebody wants to have a healthy conversation, we want to have those healthy conversations. I'm always saying, don't go searching for the talks, don't go pushing in and saying, here's what I want to talk about. But when the door opens in those relationships to be able to have a real heart-to-heart and maybe even a difficult conversation from a healthier place, don't be afraid to walk through the door because you are entitled to be able to have what you need, but we're taking the judgment and the justification out of it because nobody needs to, no one needs to justify themselves on both sides. And there's many views of everything that's happening, and every viewpoint is their viewpoint. There is no right or wrong view.

unknown 22:57

So

Boundaries Build Safer Relationships

Community Support And Next Steps

Rev Rachel Harrison 22:58

So this family members might not love the fact that she's stepping out of the family zoom. They're entitled to those feelings too. And hopefully, if they're healthy enough, they'll be curious to want to know well, what is it about that that doesn't feel good to you? And maybe there's something to learn. But we can't make anybody again want to be healthier or better in the first place. So the boundaries might be big. If you do this, I'm going to do this. Leaving marriages, leaving relationships, leaving jobs. But if we're standing in the recover your soul experience of our connection to something even greater still, don't we feel that we'll be supported? Don't we trust that this intuition, this guidance that we're having, that this doesn't feel right to us, that we can listen to it, and that it's important for us to listen. And that there will be openings along the way that are more aligned with who we are. We don't need to be in a life that is constantly us abandoning ourselves and we don't have to justify who we are to anyone. But we have to love ourselves so much and have such respect for ourselves that we are willing to stand up to people and to situations where we have made ourselves small for so long, not to fight them, but to choose ourselves, to choose ourselves and our own well-being. But if we continue to trust in a higher power of our own understanding and we continue to do this deep dive work into ourselves and into our wholeness, the next right step will be handed to you along the way. And I know in my relationship with my husband and with my kids, setting boundaries has created a more safe, healthy, and stable relationship with all of them. We all know what to expect with each other. And you know what? My kids have set boundaries for me. They've said, Mom, this is what I need. And when you do this, we're gonna do this. And my husband has done the same. You want to be in relationships that create this safety where people know what everybody needs and there's more compassion to open the space to allow everybody to be seen. Because ultimately, isn't that what we want? To be seen and to be safe. And when you align yourself, you will continue to align yourself into connections, timelines, people, relationships that are more true to that element of who you are. So when you feel that bumping up, it's like the most amazing opportunity, right? To like be courageous and fearless in your capacity to ask for and stand up for what you need. Until next time, Namaste. If something that you just heard resonated with you, I want you to know there's a whole community waiting for you. The recovery soul process is a spiritual path to a happy and healthy life, and there's many ways to walk it together. Start with the free mini workbook at recoveryoursoul.net. It's a beautiful first step. You can join us for the free monthly support group on the first Monday of every month. And if you're ready to go deeper and work the nine steps, you can join the self-study collective or a soul circle or come to one of our in-person retreats or workshops. And if you want to work with me personally one-on-one, coaching is available. You can also find bonus episodes every Friday on Patreon, Apple Podcasts, and I'm on YouTube with new videos that are posted weekly. And grab your copy of the new Recover Your Soul Spiritual Memoir. It is a spiritual journey of healing from addiction, codependency, and people pleasing available on Amazon, and it's our journey of healing through this process. You can follow me on Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, and all of is recover your soul. Just remember you're not alone in this. Together, we can do the work that will recover your soul.