Empowerment Through Receiving Criticism: Transforming Wounds Into Strength with Soul Recovery

Ever wondered how criticism can actually become a tool for your personal empowerment? Join me, Rev Rachel Harrison, as I take you through my transformative journey from battling alcoholism and codependency to finding strength in self-reflection. This episode unpacks how handling criticism, whether it's coming from your partner, workplace, or friends, can trigger old wounds but also illuminate areas in need of healing. By focusing inward and embracing these triggers, we can use them as stepping stones to profound personal growth and stand stronger in our truth.

For more information about Rev. Rachel Harrison and Recover Your Soul- visit the website www.recoveryoursoul.net  use the code TRYASESSION for 40% off your first Spiritual Coaching session when you book on the website.  Visit the website for all events and groups to get involved in Soul Recovery and the community.

Join others on the Soul Recovery journey on Monday July 1st from 6-7PM on Zoom for the FREE Soul Recovery Support Group. This month we will be talking about 'Criticism and Judgement.' I will give a brief talk, open for questions and then we will break into small groups.  Register on the website, or if you have already registered- be on the look out the day of the meeting in your inbox for a reminder email.  

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.

Transcript

Rev Rachel Harrison: 0:59

When someone criticizes us, whether it's a life partner or at work, or a friend it is incredibly painful and it's like a button that's pushed on your chest that releases all the past pain and all the grievance and all of our insecurities and they just rise up and can take over. Through the soul recovery process, we're learning how to look at those experiences in a more empowered way, how to allow others to have their experience, their thoughts, their words, and to really use it as an opportunity for us to look at ourselves. What is it telling us? What are those feelings that come up? What is that telling us about what might need to be revealed and healed? How can we make this empowerment? How can we stand more in our strength by letting others say and do and be whoever they are, and how is it giving us more information of who we can be in our lives? Can we accept it? Do we need to change it or do we let it go? Enjoy the episode.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 2:10

Welcome to the Recover your Soul podcast a spiritual path to a happy and healthy life. My name is Rev 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. Hello and welcome to the Recover your Soul podcast, but mostly welcome to the Soul Recovery community. I'm Rev Rachel and it is my absolute privilege and honor to continue to be a guide through this incredible journey of self growth and turning the attention to ourself and healing from our past wounds and traumas, letting go of control to grow and thrive. And it's such gratitude for everyone who is here listening today on a returning basis. Or maybe you're new to the community, new to this podcast, new to these concepts. Maybe you've come from the door of Al-Anon or codependence or addiction and you're walking through the door, and it is not to fix somebody else. It is to heal yourself, to remember your wholeness, to come back to the truth of who you are. And through that door we all get to experience and explore this incredible being that we are in new and profound ways, found ways. So I'm never here to take away from anything else that you may be doing, whether it's another 12 step group or any other places in your life where you're getting filled up. I hope that I am just part of a larger swath of spiritual development that you're getting, of inspiration, that I'm here to really connect the pieces, connect the dots, maybe in ways that I know for me were transformational, and I hope that I can share that with you as well.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 4:31

Today I wanted to talk about criticism and I wanted to share that because on the private Facebook group and if you're not on the private Facebook group, I encourage you to join it's a wonderful place for us to come together as a community. I have my posts that I do almost every day, and then it's a place where people can ask questions or share what's happening in their life. Both the hard parts and the beautiful parts share inspirations. I love, love, love it when people are really connecting with each other there, and there was recently a post around receiving criticism from others, specifically her husband, and I wanted to address that because this was a really powerful turning point for me in my recovery and how I started to look at and see the world differently and started to really apply these principles. So I'm just going to jump right in and share my own experience of criticism and how we can use the soul recovery tools to really be able to be in the strength of who we are in the midst of anything that's coming towards us. So the post itself says that she's having a hard time with her husband asking questions why don't you do this? You should have done this. Why are you doing this? And when I think about this, I am reminded of my relationship with Rich first, but I want to go back to some place that was really powerful for me and that I recognize that within myself was one of the profound healings in my own life, and I've told this story before and again. If you've been listening to the podcast for a long time, you might hear some repeats, so if that's the case, hopefully it has a little bit different perspective this time.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 6:19

In my work life I got a lot of positive reinforcement that was feeding and fueling and healing the part of me that had believed that I wasn't smart from growing up, and it's interesting how we have our core wounds and our places where we're looking for either resolution to or proof that these beliefs that we have are true, or we're trying to fix the fact that we know that they're not true. So we're trying to readjust that Generally until we wake up and we have this awareness around ourselves of like, oh, I get to choose how I see it. The world is what I think and feel and believe it is. For the first half of our life generally, or the first beginning parts of our life, we're just reacting to the experiences of which we've had that were very real, that were very true, and all of us come away with some level core belief of pain and grievance and not enoughness, whether we're unlovable, whether other people's needs come before ours, whether we feel unworthy. And it's so interesting that our entire future life experience has this opportunity to heal or prove these beliefs that we have around ourself.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 7:45

I always had this belief that I wasn't smart, based on my upbringing, my learning disability, which was never diagnosed. Back in the 70s they didn't do that kind of thing. I'm pretty sure I'm dyslexic and have some other learning disabilities and now that I can see that they're not necessarily disabilities, I just learned differently than how it was being presented, so I always felt like I was behind, that I wasn't getting it. I was in the classes for the not as smart kids. I struggled with being able to retain information and when I started working I found ways that I could show up in a different format. That proved that I actually had some worth, that I knew what I was doing, that I was a good leader, that I inspired people, that I was in very good I'm very good at finding computer programs and how to work those computer programs to their fullest and how to see how to really use the systems, to set up systems within an organization, to best communicate and have all the processes really work together smoothly. And so when I was in this environment I really felt filled up.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 9:00

And then as soon as somebody would push my value button and push the button that said not smart, that was still a pretty big button on the front of my chest then I got really affected, I got really triggered and it went back down to those core misbeliefs about how I wasn't smart enough that I couldn't do it, all those woundings that were in there. I wasn't smart enough that I couldn't do it, all those woundings that were in there. And I had this opportunity again and again and again to have that button pushed. Because that's really what is happening in our life is, we're being offered opportunities to look at within ourself what we need to reveal and heal within our own human experience. So, specifically in my job that I had when I worked at the church, I can now see that my way of being in that organization.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 9:56

I wanted somebody to be validating and giving me kudos for this piece of me that really likes to be validated for setting up these processes and being smart and being a good leader. And I recognized that my bumping up, my scratchiness that I had with my then supervisor was pushing that value button for me and I was feeling it as criticism and she was saying why don't you do this? Why can't you do this part of the job that we think is more important? And I was very much caught up in my ego part of me that wanted to do it the way that I wanted to do it, that saw it from the perspective in which I was feeling value for myself. And this criticism that I felt was re energizing a lot of past pain for me around not being enough, about not being seen, not being recognized, not being valued.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 11:01

And it's interesting because it does also mirror my relationship with Rich, which he always is saying still to this day that I have this level of stubbornness. He says it much less than he used to, but there is a truth in his reflection of me that I have this level of stubbornness and it's really a protection around my own pain. It's really a protection around not wanting somebody else to tell me that I'm doing something wrong, which, again, is so, is what it felt like to me when I was about three or four years old, at the cusp of three to four years old, and that that trauma set up for me that I don't want to get in trouble, I want to do it right. I want to be in a way that I can show up feeling like I'm worthy, consistently, constantly trying to prove that I know what I'm doing. I know what I'm doing, I know how to do it, I know what's right, and this is a level of control. This is me taking the world and trying to fit it into the box that feels comfortable to me, and so when somebody comes and has different ideas or has ways of coming and questioning my ideas, the pain. Part of me doesn't like it and feels like it's really re-triggering the part of me that is afraid that I'm really not enough and everyone's going to see that I'm really just this absolute, stupid, worthless person, which of course is not true. But inside of me there's a part of pain that is afraid that that might be true, because that's the wounding from a child.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 13:08

If you're ready for soul recovery, as spiritual coach I can support your healing to help make real changes that will bring you a life of peace, happiness, connection and abundance. You can also work in smaller groups by taking a deep dive in a zoom workshop or with me in person at a retreat or an event. Join others on the soul recovery path, once a month for the free zoom support group or daily on the private Facebook page. Visit the website recover your soulnet to book coaching sessions with me or find all the information you need about soul recovery dates that are coming up and how to register for those groups and workshops. To support the podcast and the community, check the links in the show notes to make a small monthly donation or a one-time donation of your choice. That will make a huge impact to support this community and the soul recovery mission. Together we can do the work that will recover your soul.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 14:07

So here I am. I'm in this situation at this church that I work at, and this is, oh my gosh, three or four years ago, so it's a couple years into this incredible spiritual explosion that I was having around soul recovery, and I had already been starting the podcast and I was starting to really just bring in spiritual tools. And I'm just soaking up all this information. And I was starting to really just bring in spiritual tools and I'm just soaking up all this information and I am pissed that she is criticizing me. I am pissed that I'm being questioned at my job. I'm pissed that I'm not being seen for who I am and the value in which I think that I'm bringing to this organization. I'm mad and I'm really consumed with them and what they're doing and how they could be different and if they would, just right. So I'm in this consumed place of wanting to control something outside of myself. And the reason why I'm bringing this story up is because I went to the gym and I wear glasses and so I wasn't wearing my glasses, but I had my phone and I said, okay, well, I'm going to listen to a podcast while I'm working out.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 15:33

Heard of the name Abraham Hicks, but I had never actually listened to Abraham Hicks and I assumed that Abraham Hicks was this old man that kind of looked like the guy on the front of the oats container, right. I had this image of a bearded older man who was droning on and on about spiritual ideals or prosperity. And it's kind of funny because the people that used to tell me that they listened to Abraham would say, oh, I listened to 15 minutes of Abraham this morning and I'm I'm feeling refreshed, but somehow in my mind I saw it as drab and old and a man and I never engaged in it. So here I am at the gym and am. I'm telling you I was consumed at this very moment with this criticism that I was feeling from my supervisor. I was just sick, my stomach hurt, my throat was in knots, it was all of my entire being. Life was being wrapped around this situation and I was just, oh my gosh, I was so consumed with it. So I put up my phone and I see a podcast and it's so funny.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 16:43

You know how Spotify just throws something up as a suggestion and maybe it's something you've looked at before or not and it says Abraham Hicks. And I think, okay, and I can't see cause I don't have my glasses, so I can't see what the episode is. So I just press play the little. I could see the triangle, so I press play. You know what it was? How to receive criticism, and I started to cry. Receive criticism and I started to cry. And I started to cry because I could feel in that moment that the universe was there for me. Makes me emotional just talking about it.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 17:23

I didn't know what was going to be said, but as soon as I heard the title, I knew, I knew. I knew that this journey that I was on, which was around my own healing, was always providing me what I needed next. And then I was shocked and amazed that Abraham was not a man. It's a woman named Esther Hicks, and she has, over the last 30 or so years, translated this higher consciousness that came to her, that is wisdom that is within all of us, as she always says that she is not special, she's just open to it, she's just listening. She's honed in this skill of listening to the divine, to something greater still, to this master wisdom that she named Abraham, abraham Hicks, and she travels all over the country and has workshops and books, and she and her husband, jerry, did this together and he has since passed away and I've gone to see her now twice in person and she does indeed open up to something that is not her and shares these wisdoms which, in a way, way, is what has become what happens to me that I am sharing my experiences. But through my sharing experiences there's something else that comes. So here I am, I'm in the gym and I'm just filled with emotion around this awareness that this was given to me with the words that I exactly needed, with the concepts that I exactly needed.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 18:56

So this morning, before I recorded, I went back and I listened to that episode and it's an episode from her speaking out in the world at seminars that they record these different situations that she has with questions, answers, with people, and I'll share a little bit about what I received from that specific speaking that she did. But I want to really share it as well from this larger perspective of what now has come to me in this soul recovery perspective. What she shared in that episode that hit me so hard at the gym that day was when people are criticizing us. We think it's because they're pushing the button that is on our chest, that they're pushing that value button or unlovable button, or not enough button, or whatever the button is. We think that that's why we're upset in that criticism why are you doing this? Why can't you be like this? What's going on with you?

Rev Rachel Harrison: 19:58

And her response, or Abraham's the cosmic consciousness response, was what really hurts when we're in these situations, if we're really aware of it, is that we are actually also judging them, that it's this interplay between feeling judged and also judging. And this goes along with everything that I've learned from the Course in Miracles, from Buddhism, from all the spiritual practices that I've been just downloading and really taking in for these years this concept around the pain of judgment and this piece where we give our power away when we need somebody else to show up for us or to heal us or respond to us in a specific way for us to be okay. And that goes back to my core place where I started this whole journey, which was realizing that I couldn't live my life being only as happy as my least happy child and not only my least happy child, but my least happy friend or family member or world that I couldn't base my happiness on whether you are okay or not. I needed to learn how to be okay. I needed to learn how to be okay. And so when we have somebody who's reflecting their pain to us, their upset, their place of discontent, of course it's this rub that we have with each other, this interplay, this dance of us having opportunities to see and mirror and recognize, and how much projection we have on each other, of seeing from our woundedness into them and they're doing the same. If we start to really realize, it's really a reflection of us being able to see ourselves better, to understand ourselves better.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 22:04

And in that very moment in the gym, listening to this first episode that I ever heard, this first little 15 minutes of Esther Hicks channeling Abraham, which became a gateway into really listening to those teachings pretty intensely over the next years, what I recognized was that I was feeling this very complex emotion around how to, how to work with somebody else's discomfort, how to work with the fact that she was upset with me. Me and her being upset with me made me not feel good enough and was pushing that button. But the truth was I was equally upset at her for who she was and how she was being, and that reflected on my relationship that I had with Rich, which was I was so pissed at him for all those years of how he was treating Alex in particular, so pissed at him. And when I actually took the time to reflect upon myself, what I recognize is I was treating him exactly the same way that he was treating my son, exactly the same way, with the exact same agitation, the same criticism. I was replicating that same behavior, that I was pissed in him, and the truth was, I was really upset with me as well, for the fact that I couldn't be open, I couldn't be loving, I couldn't see him for who he is, and that particular podcast that morning was a major turning point in how I decided to start to look at the situation with the supervisor and to look at myself and to recognize that what she was saying was hurting me.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 24:01

How she felt about me was hurting me. There's no doubt that that was true. I felt like my value button was being pushed. I felt insignificant. I felt invisible. I felt like everything that I had done for this organization for 20 years was being snuffed. I was devastated, and that's real.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 24:26

But how much of my energy was I giving to the agitation, to her, instead of turning that attention to myself and recognizing that this was a place for me to be able to see what was going on for me and in that particular situation of the work environment, what ended up happening was I had incredible clarity that this was not a healthy place for me to be. This was not a work environment that filled me up, that I was trying to make something be, something that that I wanted and it couldn't be that ever. Eckhart Tolle says accept it, change it or leave it. It wasn't going to be what I needed or wanted and I needed. I needed it to be so intense for me to be willing to leave something that I had had in my life for so long, that had meant so much to me, to leave an organization that had grown me, fostered me, given me so many incredible tools. And you know what? It wasn't a judgment on her. What I recognize is that that was her journey and those are her things to figure out, and my deciding that she was doing to me was giving her the power to determine whether I was okay.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 25:59

And it was in that moment that I realized that criticism can be one of the greatest gifts for us to recognize. Does this work for me? What are my feelings here? Can I actually have compassion for that other person and recognize that whatever they're coming at me with is from their experience, from their pain, from their protectors, from their journey in their life to wholeness, if they choose to see it, and my desire to fix and control and make it be different. I tried a little bit. I went in and I did attempt at some mending and I tried to take responsibility for my side, which I probably at that time didn't do a good enough job of because I was still early in the journey. But what I recognize and see now is that it took the heat off of this place where I was putting so much energy on everybody else, continuing to be something for me, and I just saw a human being who's on their own path, doing their own thing, and no judgment of her being good or bad or right or wrong, or me being good or bad or right or wrong, just really noticing that this is an opportunity for each of us to see our sides. And it was an opportunity for me to choose a different path. And so I gave my notice and I quit, and I quit and I stepped into recover your soul 100%, and I was terrified to do that. I was terrified to leave this job at an organization that had been in my life for so long and do something that was unknown and step into being Rev Rachel and leading this community. But if I hadn't had that bump that was so difficult, I would have stayed in something that was safe and that I knew.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 28:02

Now, in my relationship with Rich in which I have continued to stay in this relationship I have also changed how I choose to see and how I choose to respond to what can feel like criticism from him, to recognize that we have expectations of somebody else that can be very, very difficult for those people to meet. On both sides I have chosen and I could never tell any of you whether you should be in or out. Only you know what the truth is in that and you'll have friends that will tell you one thing and you'll have even professionals that will tell you something. Only you know whether this is a healthy place for you to be, whether you're learning here, whether you're getting what you need here to stand in your strength and be the truth of who you are. When we look at this concept of giving our power away to somebody else and saying, if you can be this way for me, if you could just see me the way that I want to be seen, or if you could just hear me the way I want to be heard, then I'll be okay. We're constantly handing our power over.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 29:28

I have stayed in my marriage with Rich. This is actually going to air right before our actual official 30th wedding anniversary. I know we went to Indonesia to celebrate in February, but June 18th is our 30th wedding anniversary and what I recognize is that he still pushes the buttons that I have on my chest and he can still say things that I receive as criticism and he can still say things that I receive as criticism. But the work that I've been doing allows me to have a lot more space around how I interpret it, how I feel about it, and the main piece is that I don't see him as a perpetrator and me as a victim. What I see is I see two human beings who are in this very complex human experience and when I look at him, if I look at him as somebody who's hurting me, he's going to hurt me, and if I look at him as somebody who's just trying to figure it out, it doesn't affect me in the same way. But I've also gotten much better at having clarity around communication, around what my needs are, and that doesn't mean that I'm controlling him with those needs. It means that I'm sharing with him what's going on with me, and I've said this before and I'll say it again I don't go into a space where I think Rich and I will be together forever, because I can't say that, I can't promise that, because I am who I am here today and today it feels healthy for me.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 31:14

Happens that hits me so hard that I recognize I can't be my full self. As soon as my spiritual growth is hindered or I don't feel safe emotionally, physically, whatever those safety features are, I may make a different choice, like I did with my job, that I have to accept it, change it or leave it. And changing it is not changing them. Changing it is seeing it different, being different, recognizing myself different. So criticism is one of those things where, when we interpret it through the lens of our suffering and our pain, it is incredibly painful and we're defensive and I have another podcast called getting off the emotional battlefield.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 32:01

But what I want to really share in this episode is I want you to be tender to yourself and recognize that it is telling you something, your feelings are telling you something, and if something continues to not feel good, not feel good, not feel good, not feel good, how many of those do you need to take until you start to look at what am I supposed to get from this? How am I continuing to show up in this in a way that is perpetuating what doesn't feel good? Am I asking somebody to change when that isn't going to happen? Can I accept them for exactly who they are? And that is not easy. Accepting them doesn't mean you have to like it. It means that you stop trying to fix it and change it. And as I was looking out at Rich this morning, as he was out having his coffee in the backyard, and I was thinking about the irritations that I can feel, I was sending out love and gratitude to him for this opportunity for me to continue to learn more about myself and this awareness that, over these 32 years that we've had together, I've had more and more chance for me to stand. I stand more fully in who I am, so that I can stop hearing criticism and I can start hearing potential feedback, or I can start to recognize other people's pain, or I can start to realize that this is telling me something about my life and what I need to do to move forward to be my best self.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 34:01

These concepts are complex and there's so many layers, and each of your lives is unique to you and has your filters of your experiences that you've had. And although there's always some layer of us having similarity, you are uniquely you. Someone recently told me that that's your superpower. I love that. Your uniqueness is your superpower and my goal in soul recovery is for you to begin to understand and see the absolute beauty of who you are in your experience, to spend more time working on your spiritual growth, your inner healing, and less time on what other people are saying, doing, thinking their situations, their lives, their feelings. Thinking their situations, their lives, their feelings, letting them have their stuff and putting way more attention on what's happening and feeling for you.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 35:02

As always, if you need any help with this, I encourage you to sign up for coaching with me to work the nine steps of soul recovery. You can start doing the steps on your own through the programs that I'm slowly, very slowly, adding to the website the first ones up on step one letting go of control and listen to the podcast. Go back to the beginning and allow yourself to just absorb these teachings so that you can very slowly change your perception and take your power back. Until next time, namaste, thank you for listening to the Recover your Soul podcast and if you loved what you heard here, every Friday we have a bonus episode and you can access this by becoming a subscriber through Apple Podcasts for only $3.99 a month, or become a Patreon member, and on this platform, you can choose $5, $15, or $25 a month to show what you want to support the show with On both of these subscriber platforms is an entire catalog of back episodes intended to inspire and support you on your soul recovery journey.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 36:17

I really want to invite everybody to attend the free once a month, every first Monday of the month support group. This is on zoom. Everyone is welcome to attend and by giving a like or a review and sharing this with your friends and family really helps us to share the soul recovery message with even more people. We are on social media. We are on all the platforms. I am on TikTok. You can listen to guided meditations by Rev Rachel Harrison on Insight Timer. Thank you for supporting the show. Thank you for being part of the community To find out more about soul recovery and everything that's being offered, visit the website wwwrecoveryoursoulnet. Together, we can do the work that will recover your soul.