Living in Alignment: How to Trust Yourself When Change Feels Uncomfortable

Living in Alignment: How to Trust Yourself When Change Feels Uncomfortable

Living in alignment isn't about having all the answers. It's about learning to trust the quiet inner knowing that calls you toward a new way of being, even when change feels uncomfortable.

In this episode, I share a personal example of what it means to live Step 7 of the Recover Your Soul process: aligning your thoughts, words, and actions with the person you are becoming instead of the fears, expectations, and old patterns you've carried for so long.

As we heal, there comes a time when we realize that the old ways of doing things no longer fit who we are becoming. Making a different choice can bring up fear, uncertainty, and even the worry of disappointing others. But healing invites us to trust ourselves, listen to our inner guidance, and take the next right step—even when it feels uncomfortable.

I also share an exciting new chapter for the Recover Your Soul podcasts.

Beginning now, you'll receive a new Recover Your Soul episode every Monday, alternating between the main Recover Your Soul Podcast and the Recover Your Soul Bonus Podcast. This new rhythm will allow me to be even more present with our community through coaching, the 9-Step Self Study Collective, retreats, and the many ways we continue to walk this healing journey together.

The next Main Recover Your Soul Podcast will be released on July 20.

In the meantime, I hope you'll lean on the incredible library we've created together. Between the two podcasts, there are nearly 600 episodes covering everything from codependency, boundaries, anxiety, depression, adult children, addiction, forgiveness, people pleasing, grief, and spiritual awakening. Use the search bar on your favorite podcast app or at recoveryoursoul.net and let the library meet you exactly where you are. My hope is that you'll always find an episode that reminds you that you're not alone.

If you'd like to continue the journey between Main Podcast episodes, the Recover Your Soul Bonus Podcast is released every other Monday and includes deeper conversations, guided meditations, spiritual book studies, reflections on Al-Anon through the lens of the Recover Your Soul process, inspiring interviews, and our new Recover Your Soul Practices series—grounded spiritual tools and practices for everyday life.

You can listen to the Bonus Podcast every other Monday:

 ✨ On Apple Podcasts with a subscription for $4.99/month
✨ On Patreon as a Free Member, where new episodes are available for two weeks, or as a supporting member at $5, $15, or $25/month, with full access to the complete Bonus Podcast library and additional community offerings.

Thank you for being part of this community. Whether you've been listening since 2020 or you've just found the podcast, I am so grateful you're here. Thank you for trusting me to walk beside you. It is one of the greatest honors of my life to share this journey with you as we continue remembering our wholeness, choosing love over fear, and creating lives of greater peace, freedom, and joy.

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

Rev Rachel 🧡

The Recovery Your Soul Podcast courses and content is for educational purposes only and is not affiliated with or representative of any organization, recovery group, or religion. And reflect the personal experience and opinions of Rev Rachel Harrison and her guests. RYS claims no responsibility, any person or entity for any loss, liability, damage caused or alleged to be caused, direct or indirectly by the use application or interpretation of the information presented within. 

Transcript

Living In Alignment

Rev Rachel Harrison 0:00

Today we're talking about living in alignment. Step seven of recover your soul says align with a new perception. Consciously shape your experience by aligning thought, word, and action with your awakened perception and your higher self. Sometimes that means that you have to make big choices. Sometimes that means you have to shift how you've been doing things into a new way. And that can bring up some fear. But as we're moving into these new parts of ourselves, we're recognizing that living out of old expectations does not serve us. So I've made a big decision. I've decided to adjust and change a little bit the way that I do the podcasts. And it feels very aligned for me. And a little fear comes up around not meeting somebody's expectations or all of the way that the world is in podcasting. But I know that it's right for this community and I know that it's right for me because I'm here to serve you. And we're here in this together to recover our souls. I hope you'll enjoy this episode and remember that sometimes doing the best and right thing for you means that you need to make some changes. Enjoy the episode. 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,

Welcome To Recover Your Soul

Rev Rachel Harrison 1:43

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. It's Reb Rachel. Thank you so much for choosing in to spend time with me here today. In Recover Your Soul, this journey that has been so incredibly profound in my life, I am just so honored and grateful to have you on the ride with me. For some people, they've been listening since May of 2020 when they were also in COVID and they found this raw uh podcast about me in recovering from my own addiction and alcoholism, still dealing with some very complicated situations in my life with my husband and trying to reset a marriage that had gotten very complicated. And at that time, you know, my kids were in their, gosh, it's been eight years since I got sober and six years since I started the podcast. So they're now 29 and 27. So they were in their early, early 20s, dealing with their own addiction, still struggling with the complex leftovers of being raised in alcoholic home and all the hurt that had happened over the years and all of the aftermath that comes from it when they're trying to figure out that they're their own people. And, you know, detachment was the episode that really brought people in this concept of us talking about Al-Anon, wanting to go outside of the lines of Al-Anon, talking about loving detachment. How can we utilize these principles and concepts that were so beautifully given to us in 12 step, but move outside of the lines, right? Move outside the lines and take in what's coming to us now. And in that experience that I've had, you've

From Pandemic Chaos To Healing

Rev Rachel Harrison 3:40

come along the ride with me, whether it's from 2020 or whether you've just stepped in. And one of the things I want to demonstrate in my work with you is to live these practices and principles. I don't want to just be a talking head that is saying all these things. And then I walk outside of my studio and I'm dysregulated, I'm unhappy, I'm not doing well. That's not at all the purpose. I continue to get understanding that sharing it with you is only part of it. The biggest, most important part is that we do this work for ourselves, that we actually have substantial change within ourselves. That we wake up, that we love ourselves, that we remember our wholeness, that we let go of the woundedness from the past and the beliefs and the stories that were created from them. And we understand that we are souls here. It still is so wild for me to really take that concept and put it into practice in my own life. And you know, I have a lot of moments of doubt, I have a lot of moments of fear because I'm a human being and because that is the appropriate feeling in those moments, and I want to share them with you. And I've been sharing them two episodes a week between two podcasts for a very long time. And it is my honor and privilege to be in your life because you've helped me so profoundly in coming into a place of healing and awakening and peace in my own life. You know, it's pretty wild one day when you wake up and you start seeing that your message is reaching so many people. And I've said many, many, many times that in the podcasting world, there's all these um, you know, Facebook groups and things like that. And they have all these conversations about downloads. Do you get these download numbers and what happened to your download numbers? And I noticed there was a dip in my download numbers. I never think of it as downloads. I think of each person who listens, even if it's only for 20 seconds, as reaching uh a part of themselves. And this is a community. And some people come for a minute, some people stay. These are human beings. You are human beings, you are souls. This is a collective of people who resonate with each other because we have hard stuff happening, and we've had hard stuff happen, and we're ready and desiring to know and to feel and to do better, and that often means that we are learning how to let go of the other people. So I've been doing all these episodes. The other day I was uploading something, and it was like you're almost at 600 episodes between the two podcasts. You know, and initially I started the main podcast, the Monday Recover Your Soul podcast, honestly, having no clue what I was doing, talking in the voice memo on my phone, no editing, just raw uploads. I mean, those first episodes are rough. And I had a comment on Spotify recently. It was like the sound is kind of muffled. It's like, oh yeah, it was not having any of the technology that I have today, any of the knowledge I have. I had no idea what I was doing. But people didn't care because we were in this incredible state around the pandemic. We were in our own struggles, we were just beginning to wake up. And then as things moved on a couple of years later, I was trying to figure out how I can do this full time? How can I step into what I'm really passionate about? How can I have um deepening the people who are here? How can I create income? How can I make money in this so that I can keep doing this? And I started coaching and spiritual coaching, which has been one of the greatest gifts in my life, is to be present one-on-one with people. And the nine steps

Building A Podcast Community

Rev Rachel Harrison 7:55

evolved, but I also created this other podcast that I thought would be a way to um deepen and also to have subscriptions to have income. And over the years, that has grown and it is a very important part of how I get to be here and to do this. So, what I've realized, and this is so powerful for me because I still am up against the part of me that doesn't want to disappoint anybody, that is a Capricorn and is a hard worker. I work really, really hard and I love working hard. I'm very dedicated, and um, I've loved doing everything that I do, but it's not sustainable. And as the community has grown, it has become really clear that this work that we're doing, both in my one-on-one coaching, but in the collective where people are doing the process on their own, the nine-step process through the modules that feel like one-on-one coaching with me in the videos, and then doing the teachings on Zoom and the soul circles where parents of adult children and the integration alumni groups, and all of the capacity for us to continue to do work in in union together, to have these Zoom communications to be able to really be fostering the community. I I'm I'm overwhelmed to be honest. I can't quite keep up. So doing the two episodes a week starts to, you know, I'm I'm just kind of always on this thing. And I'm not following what I want to be following with you, what I want to be teaching you with you, which is step seven in the recovery soul process, which reads, align with a new perception. So this comes after, I'm just gonna run through the steps really quick. This is where you are living your practices. This is where you're living your principles and your healed self. So step one is ready for awakening. It's that moment where you're like, oh, I can be different in this. Step two is

Step Seven New Perception

Rev Rachel Harrison 10:02

letting go of control, recognizing you're powerless over everything and everyone around you. Step three is discovering what those core beliefs, patterns, and stories that are in your subconscious that are your operating system that might not actually align or be true to who you are or who you're becoming. Step four is connecting, co-creating with your higher power of your understanding, understanding that you are a spiritual being. You are having a human experience as a spiritual being. And are you ready to really step onto a spiritual journey? Step five is releasing the patterns that no longer serve you to really recognize you do not have to live from these limiting old operating systems. You don't have to live from fear. Step six is stepping into those new systems. What is the truth? Who are you? How can you really live from your light? How can you live from your most authentic self? What are the updated belief systems? If you let go of fear and you chose love, what would that look like? And how could you be in your life? And then step seven is aligning with a new perception. Shift your perception, align with a new, healthier perception of yourself and the world around you. Choose your reality, consciously shape your experience by aligning thought, word, and action with your awakened perception and your higher self. So if I check in with myself and I say, okay, you've been doing this a certain way for six years, and you set up these systems and these practices, an old belief system is I have to stay with it, that if I let go of that, then it's all gonna fall apart. I'm gonna not get new people, people will be disappointed. That, you know, all these belief systems that I have around fear of rejection, of not being enough, of not meeting people's expectations, those are legitimate things that I continue to work on, as we all do. So then when I had this moment of clarity, like it just came like a bolt of lightning that just said, Rachel, you have two podcasts. If you do one every other week, you still are giving them one new episode every week. And there are 600 previous episodes that deal with all of it that are evergreen, that you know, even some of those older episodes are where some of you are, where you're in despair. I mean, I have episodes that go back. I

The Schedule Change Decision

Rev Rachel Harrison 12:41

was just thinking of one the other day. You know, my kids are so much better now. They have found their way, they're still in life, life continues to be lifey, but they're not in chaos or trauma anymore. There's an episode about my kids when they had a physical fight when I got a call because Alex was afraid that Bodhi had broken his jaw. Now, you might be in that right now. Well, I have an episode on that because I've been there. I have been there. I have been through all of these things with kids who struggle, adult children who struggle. I have been through a marriage that was complicated and difficult. I still am working it, but I'm not in the depths of what it used to be. And so sometimes I feel like the episodes, I want to make sure that I'm meeting you where you're at in this whole shift that we have, these little baby steps of awareness and healing. And being in the rawness of it is essential because it is the feelings, it is the life, it is the experience that your soul came here to have. And when you're in the middle of it, it's pretty hard sometimes to think about this whole soul thing. You're just thinking, what the hell? How can this possibly be my life? What happened here? I get that, man. That's where I was. And sometimes the memories come flooding back. And I think I think of all of you, and how we're on this ride together, and so I want you to be able to get what you need, and sometimes I recognize that I'm not speaking in the same way that I did because I'm different. There's this incredible peace that has come in this spiritual practice, but there's also a um a gap between this old kind of chaotic life and what now can be kind of boring, peaceful. I kind of like that it's boring, but it's it's totally different. And I don't engage in the drama of my children, I don't engage in the drama of my friends or the world in the same way, and so it's just very different. And I want to be here for you for all of it. I want to support you in your journey to help you get out of the fight or flight and into a place where you can choose, you don't have to have a life that's as sort of boring as mine, but you can choose the one that's your reality, choose your reality, it says in step seven. How are you gonna show up in your life? So for me to make this big bolt of lightning awareness that came that said back off of feeling like you have to produce to be good, to be the good girl that makes these episodes constantly. You know, part of me is like, well, what if the subscribers feel like they're getting half as much? There's fear there, legitimate, understandable fear. And you know, some people might make those decisions and you're entitled to, right? Because we all have the capacity and the free will to do what is right for us. So make the choice it's right for you. But this choice is right for me because I want and need to be present for you in new ways, and continuing to produce on this same level is making it so that I can't be here for you in the way that is really what I feel being called to do next. And you know, we are in a time that is unbelievably profound. Sometimes it's difficult to name it in ways that don't bring up fear because there's a lot of legitimate, very complicated things happening that are affecting people financially, physically. Um, you know, I went to the bank the other day, and my favorite teller, who is from another country, not actually sure where she's from,

Choosing Reality In Hard Times

Rev Rachel Harrison 17:11

and she was clearly upset. And I said, Oh, what's going on? And she said, I was just about to get my citizenship and it got canceled for me to have the appointment because of the government. And my heart just broke for her because her whole family's here, and some of them have finished the process and some of them haven't, and they won this lottery and they've been working really hard. And so it isn't saying like that that stuff isn't happening because it's absolutely happening. People are being affected in in decisions that are that are big. But like never before, we are being invited into a space that says we have been living from a way of being, old operating systems individually and as a collective, and there is a new way where it's almost like we're in a huge step one of recover your soul as a as a society. There is a different way to be, and it's gonna be messy, and it's gonna mean that you have to look at all the dark corners, and it means that you have to go through it, but there is a path forward, there is a way forward. So, this capacity for me to be curious about what is my next way to be as part of this, is what I want to open up to. And that is me stepping into my step seven. That is me aligning with my new perception, that is me saying, my higher self says this is the next right step. And I have to let go of the fear, I have to choose a different way. The way that that's gonna look, how it's gonna pan out is um it used to be the Monday, Fridays. Now everything's gonna drop on Mondays. So every other week, every other week, there'll be the main podcast, and then every week the bonus podcast. And in that, there's a new podcast episode every Monday, starting this Monday, July 6th, I think it is. My hope is that you listen to both podcasts. So you can get the bonus podcast on Apple Podcasts by being a subscriber.

How To Subscribe And Search

Rev Rachel Harrison 19:13

So I think Apple Podcast is $4.99 a month or something like that. And then Patreon is by your choice. It's free, $5 a month, $15 a month, $25 a month. Your decision to pay for it is really your offer to me to say this is valuable to me, but don't feel like you have to. If you want it, get it for free on Patreon. The episodes will stay open to free members the first couple weeks. I'm actually gonna, it used to be the first week. I'm gonna start to elongate that to two weeks so that it's available for two weeks. If you are a member or subscriber, you've got whatever that is, like 300 episodes from the past to go in and start searching. That search bar, I'm working on a widget with uh AI to try to figure out how to create a widget on the website so you can have search key phrases, but it works on the search already. If you go to the website for the main podcast and you type in your keywords, codependency, adult children, um, detachment, whatever, whatever it is that you're looking for on the website, there's all of the episodes that align with that. I think Spotify does that as well. I'm not sure about Apple Podcasts because I don't really use that platform much. Same thing on Patreon. You can go to Patreon, it has a search bar. Use the search bar. Go in and find episodes. If you hear my voice and it speaks to you, go back. It's like a library, right? It's like a library of information for you that has all the different paths and it goes all the way back to the old steps before they got reformed. It goes back all the way to like really talking about Al-Anon in the bonus episodes. I used to read a lot out of Al-Anon and then do a discourse about how that um related to what I used to call soul recovery, which now is the recover your soul process. So, you know, it goes all the way back. But we are going forward, and sometimes we have to review the past to go forward. But there's a call for me to deepen my commitment to bringing you forward, and I need more time to do that. So we're doing this journey of awakening, and it means that we have to be willing to step into places that feel frightening, that feel uncomfortable, that feel outside of what we've known. But we cannot get where we're going if we continue to live from the fear. Of those old systems, and without trusting that this inner guidance that comes within you, that has the whispers, that has the answers, that has the knowing of who you are, is leading the way. Your soul knows the way. And the more we move into our hearts, instead of up here in our heads, the more that we move into this knowing in our heart that we are supported, the more that we can just be present with what is in a way that is different than ever before. And I believe strongly, and the guidance that I continue to get by this thing that's starting to come through me more and more, right? This is how we are going to usher in a completely new way of being. We are breaking the cycles in ways that we won't understand until much later. And you're part of it. And you're important part of it. We're an important part of it. I wish that everybody that listens to this podcast and relates to this would join us in the collective, the nine-step collective. It's a subscription. Rich off often says, Oh, of course it's a subscription to all these other things. I'm like, how else are we supposed to make money? It's $44 a month. It has the nine-step modules that are these videos. If you have limited resources, reach out to me.

The Nine-Step Collective Invitation

Rev Rachel Harrison 23:34

Reach out to me. I I don't want to keep it from anyone. Email me. I'll help you. This collective allows us to work these steps and to begin to make profound changes, profound changes in how we see it. It is how we choose to see it. And I am just one person saying the same thing that a lot, a lot, a lot, a lot of people are saying. So if you hear it from me and it speaks to you, I would love for you to join this group. Twice a month we get together on Zoom for a live interactive teaching and call. It is a way for us to be in community. It is a way for us to do this work on our own. You know the way when you get out of your way. You know the way. And leaving behind the old, pained, wounded selves strangely enough, feels frightening. But you're being called to be something greater still. And if you don't do my program, it's okay. Let your soul guide you to the one that is right and correct for you. And just like how one came to me, maybe the system that is right for you, the guidance that'll come to you will allow you to discover what it is for you. There's so much that is inside of us, and we're just remembering, we're remembering our wholeness. So thank you for loving and supporting me. Thank you for being here in this community. Thank you for understanding this. What feels kind of like a big decision and a big choice, but feels really right for me. And I hope that you'll join the Recover Your Soul Bonus podcast. I hope you'll be on the main podcast and follow and subscribe. I still am on YouTube and find the platform that works for you and get a new episode every Monday from one or the other, one or the other. Back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. Together, we can do the work that will recover your soul. I love you so much. And I want you to love yourself so much that you can leave behind the old wounds and see the beauty of who you are. We're doing it together. 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 recoveryursoul.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

Support Options And Closing

Rev Rachel Harrison 26:17

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 on Patreon, Apple Podcasts, and I'm on YouTube with new videos. 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.