'Let Go Now' Detachment is How we Express Unconditional Love for Ourself and Others

Ever wondered if letting go of control could actually strengthen your relationships and bring inner peace? Join me on the Soul Recovery journey as I share how navigating my son's addiction led me to discover the transformative power of detachment. Inspired by Karen Casey's "Let Go Now: Embrace Detachment as a Path to Freedom," we'll explore how allowing others to forge their own paths can be the most loving act. You’ll hear firsthand how focusing on our own healing and recognizing the autonomy of others can reshape our understanding of unconditional love.

In this episode, we tackle the delicate balance between loving someone unconditionally and practicing detachment. Through honest reflections and real-life anecdotes, we delve into the challenges of relinquishing control and maintaining emotional boundaries. We also underscore the value of building a supportive community for soul recovery, whether through personal coaching, retreats, or our vibrant online groups. Tune in to learn how embracing detachment can nurture both your self-love and spiritual growth, helping you and your loved ones lead happier, healthier lives.

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

Chapters

• 0:00 Understanding Detachment in Soul Recovery
• 14:45 Navigating Unconditional Love and Detachment
• 31:07 Building a Supportive Soul Recovery Community

Transcript

Rev Rachel Harrison: 0:00

One of the foundational pieces of soul recovery is detachment. It's actually how the Soul Recovery Podcast started to gain some momentum. Was me reading about the seven detachments from Al-Anon? Because I was struggling with my son and his situation with drugs and alcohol and the choices that he was making in his life. It was tearing me apart, and detachment has become a key piece of soul recovery Understanding why we're attached, understanding what our beliefs are, understanding what we think love is. And I'm reading out of Karen Casey's Let Go Now Embrace Detachment as a Path to Freedom on the section that reads Detachment is a swift and sure way of expressing unconditional love. We're going to talk about how to love in a healthy way. That, by letting someone have their own experiences, whatever that is, is actually the most loving thing that we can do. That when we detach we are truly loving them unconditionally. And even though it doesn't feel that way, we're going to be, step by step by step in our soul recovery journey, learning how to let others have their own experience, turning the attention to ourself and healing from within. Enjoy the episode. Welcome to the Recover your Soul podcast a spiritual path to a happy and healthy life.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 1:24

My name is Reverend Rachel Harrison, I started Recover your Soul after having profound changes in my life from my recovery of alcoholism, codependency and control addiction. I was guided to share the tools and principles of spirituality and soul recovery to help others transform their lives as mine was transformed. Recovery to help others transform their lives as mine was transformed. For us to overcome external circumstances, we need to turn the attention to ourselves, focusing on our inner change and healing. Positive results in our lives will follow. Welcome to the Recovery Soul Podcast. I'm Rev Rachel and I thank you so much for being here today and being part of the Soul Recovery community. Look at us. We're doing this thing. We're learning how to be okay when the people around us and the world around us isn't okay. It's just one baby step at a time and as you listen to these podcasts, I hope that my experience and my journey that has been so incredibly profound, using the tools of spirituality to learn how to detach, to learn how to step into my authentic self and my soul's journey, regardless of what is going on around me, and to begin to see myself as whole and see the people in my life as whole, having their own experience.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 2:46

I want to talk more today about detachment because it really is such a foundational piece of the soul recovery journey and the path that we're all on, and I've used many of the different meditations from Let Go Now by Karen Casey Embrace Detachment as a Path to Freedom. It was a book that was suggested to me by one of my clients and I can't believe I had never heard of this book before. It's fabulous. It is everything in soul recovery. It is so beautiful around this concept of learning how to let go a path to freedom, right? I love that because here we are working on being free to freedom, right? I love that because here we are working on being free.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 3:28

I'm going to read out of Meditation 127 on page 149. And what I like to do is I like to read and have it be an inspiration and then I'll reflect and just riff off of it, based on what soul recovery is and how we can use these tools and these principles to help better our lives and our spiritual growth. As we know, soul recovery is a spiritual path to a happy and healthy life. Number 127 reads detachment is a swift and sure way of expressing unconditional love. And I opened the page to this one. I didn't even pick it and it just seemed so perfect because we're learning how to love detaching with love. And I was telling a group last night that when I first stepped into Al-Anon again over six years ago, when I started this soul recovery journey and I was really in this place of like detaching with an iron fist, I couldn't grasp the detaching with love yet. I was really in a place where I just I had to sever the part of me that was so upset with how enmeshed we all were. And I think that's important. I think it's important to understand and realize that sometimes that anger and that frustration and the new step one in soul recovery where we are ready for awakening, we recognize our suffering, you have to be at a place where sometimes you've got to detach with that intensity before you can move into the understanding that detachment is unconditional love, that we're expressing unconditional love. So I'm going to read what Karen Casey has to say with this. She says detachment may not seem like love, but it is.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 5:13

Being too involved in someone else's life, whether for an hour, a day or a lifetime, means we are loving ourselves far less than we deserve Did you hear that? And not showing others the kind of respect they deserve. Wow, what a great lead in. We are not crossing others paths to be in charge of them, but we are to compliment them. Right, not to be in charge of them, but to compliment them. To not make them be or do something, but to be in addition to to be a compliment to it. The journey is intentional.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 5:53

What we learn is by design. What we are being invited to teach is by design as well. Right, like that is so interesting, and we just had an episode that was around fate, this concept of detachment in the idea of fate, that on some level, there's a design, and I think it's really important that we really look at the choices that each of us make in our life. That allows us to be on different timelines and these fates are not determined. These by designs are an opening. It's all an opening. It's not like your life has been predetermined, but it is by design that we are learning and growing and expanding as our souls. And so, when we look at, what we are learning is by design and what we are here to teach is also by design really allows us to step into this opportunity, to step into our soul's full expression, from our healthy, whole, happiest space.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 6:56

It says, one of the primary lessons for all of us is to respect the natural boundaries between us. This we do by detaching from the emotions, the behaviors and the opinions of others. This line I mean if we just spent our life realizing that we need to detach from the emotions, behaviors and opinions of others, we'd be fine. We wouldn't be going through all the things that we're going through. We are so attached to those things emotions, behaviors, opinions of others and you know most of you are here because there's someone in your life that's having either an addiction or a dysfunction. But I'm looking at this line and I'm just looking at human beings and the complexity of human beings and where we are in the world today with so much division, human beings and where we are in the world today with so much division. If we didn't have an attachment to how people felt and what they were doing and what their opinions were, we wouldn't be so riled up, it says. Hopefully, our example will serve to show them how it's done to this idea of learning how to step into our authentic self, how to heal ourself.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 8:05

You've heard me say over and over again that your healing is the greatest gift that you can give to not only yourself but the people around you, that when we do detach from love, when we open up to this place where we can say I am powerless over your emotions, I'm powerless over your behaviors, I'm powerless over your opinions, I'm powerless over the choices that you're making and they are not my responsibility and I don't need to allow them to affect how I feel about myself and what choices I'm going to make in my life. I get to determine my fate. I get to be on my timeline. I get to connect with spirit in my way to choose what's right for me and hold you with compassion and grace and love as you're doing the same. When we do that, we're actually showing them how they can do for themselves. One of my favorite things is the original third step prayer in AA, and when I work with people I still use that as part of our co-creating with spirit.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 9:10

The last line says take away my difficulties. The victory over them could bear witness to those that I could help with your power and your love and your way of life. And it isn't about helping, fixing, making, determining for them. It's really by saying life is complicated, but when you're in this space of soul recovery, and in recovery you realize that life is going to show up in the way that it is. But this change in the way that you see it, that it's not a difficulty, it is a learning tool that when you come in that space with spirit at your side, then you have victory over it, you have freedom over it, and that you can have others bear witness to that.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 9:58

You know, one of the things that's said in 12 Step is around showing up as who you are. You pick somebody who has what you want, and when you look around your life, there are people that have inspired you Teachers, family members, friends, people in the community who have inspired you by how they walk in their shoes, how they stand in their life, how they handle their life situation. And those people are inspiring, not the people that we covet over their lives. They have more money, they have a more prestigious job or they have a nicer car. That's the ego. Really, our soul is saying, ah, I'm inspired by how that person is handling the situation and I hope I can do that too. And this is the level of detachment that says I get to choose for myself how I'm going to be, regardless of what's happening around me and what other people's emotions, situations and opinions are, then from that we can be an inspiration to someone else.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 11:00

She says staying on our side of the street isn't as hard as it first appears to be, but until we experience the behavior, we can't know the relief it offers and this is something that's said all the time in recovery. Staying on our side of the street or cleaning up your side of the street and people talk about being in your lane. If you really think about a huge highway of lanes or a busy street with everyone having their houses and their parking spots and the busyness of the cars, if you're in everybody else's business, if you're weaving between the lanes, if you're not minding your own business, then you can't really be present for yourself and what you need. Are you ready to step into your soul recovery? Well, I am here to support you as your spiritual coach. Visit the website to book one on one coaching sessions with me as we transform your life through working the nine steps of soul recovery. You can also choose to work the steps on your own through the modules, at your own pace.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 12:12

I'm excited to also be announcing that there are retreats every year both in Colorado and other places in the country, workshops and events, and I hope that you also will join us the first Monday of every month from 6 to 7 pm Mountain Standard Time for the free Zoom support group. This is an amazing place for us to connect, learn and share our stories. And don't forget to join the private Facebook group for soul recovery, inspiration connection, answering each other's questions and giving shout outs. I thank you for supporting this podcast, either by being a Patreon member, apple podcast subscriber and getting that extra episode every Friday, or by your one time donations or your small monthly donations that are found in the show notes. You are helping spread the soul recovery message and supporting this community. Visit the website recoveryoursoulnet for dates, times, everything that's happening, register for the support group and how to stay connected. Together we can do the work that will recover your soul.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 13:09

And when we realize that when we let go of what everybody else is doing, when we detach with love it's an unconditional love to allow it to be as it is and you tend to in mind your own environment, your own place in the lane, your own side of the street. What does your house look like? What does your yard look like? How do you tend to yourself instead of being judgy and being all over someone else's business. And what I love is that she says we can know the relief it offers. From our shoulders down to our toes we actually realize the visceral freedom when we turn away from those affairs of others that are not ours to manage. God, do we think that other people's stuff is ours to manage? It's fascinating to me, and you know it doesn't mean I say this all the time. It doesn't mean that you don't show up with yourself with strength in each situation. It's really inside of ourselves which you notice. Do I need to manage that? Do I need to make that happen? Do I believe that it's mine to do? And when we do that for people, we aren't giving them the respect that it is theirs to do. We're not giving them the power in their own lives to make their own choices, which could be great success or could be hardship, but it must be tried to be appreciated and then sought again for its own reward.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 14:45

Detachment is an expression of unconditional love. It's easier than we first might imagine. Now, one of the things that I think is interesting about unconditional love and really being conscientious of the power of that particular word unconditional, conscientious of the power of that particular word unconditional you don't have to like it. To love unconditionally, it's the same thing with acceptance To truly accept something means to see it for what it is, and to love unconditionally means that you love regardless of what it is. But we have a lot of baggage around what love looks and feels like and how we are supposed to show up in love. A lot of us have messages that says love means doing for others, or love means putting yourself last, or love means that if someone else can't have it because they haven't worked for it, then you can't enjoy it. There's so many different belief systems that have been ingrained in us from our younger selves that were the definition of what love is. Love is doing for love is smothering. Love is whatever it is. Love is pure and unconditional. Love means that you allow someone to be exactly who they are and you love them anyway. You don't have to be in love with them, you don't have to have them in your life, you don't have to put up with a bunch of bullshit. It means that you can have compassion and grace and space and non-judgment, unconditional love. Remaining quiet when we want to speak is a good beginning, she says. And this is that not being in other people's business, not managing other people's business.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 16:39

Rich is doing a project for me at the house. Rich is doing a project for me at the house. My closet bar was starting to bow and I realized that my clothes were all going to fall down, and it's a big deal to me because I allow a lot of other things to go unfinished and I just am mindful that the spaces in which I inhabit mostly I'd like to be mostly finished right. So that's one of my unconditional loves and letting him be exactly who he is. And so my desire was that the closet got finished sooner, that I wanted this project to be done sooner, right, and staying in my own side of the street in this is something that I am working on, because it's something that I really want. I am not going to be okay if it goes on for a long period of time, and it is perfectly okay for me to ask for it to be done sooner than later. And this is the communication that he and I are working on that doesn't have all the stickiness and all the old resentments and everything in it. So I had to work on this part of keeping my mouth shut from a healthy place in soul recovery that allowed him to do the project exactly how he's going to do the project, and my other self that he struggles with.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 17:55

I go in and I ask a lot of questions or I have ideas and I'm just thinking I'm being myself, I just think I'm showing up and being engaged, I don't build, I don't actually know what I'm doing. He feels like I'm discounting and disrespecting him. When I come in and I say, well, why do you have to do it that way? Can't you just put the screw in the wall and then glue the screw in? And isn't that enough? What he feels like is I'm actually saying I don't trust you to know what you're doing. And this is part of the unconditional love detaching detaching from how he does the project. My ask is that you do this project for me, and his response is I will get this done for you. And then I have to let go of managing it and having my little sticky fingers in it. So when we don't speak, when we remain quiet, when we want to speak, I really am really cautious all the time about not quieting your voice. That is an important voice to be heard, but quieting the voice, that is the little bit of a nag, or the little bit of the why don't you do it this way? Or the here's my opinion around this when there was an opinion asked for. That's the part that we're learning to keep on our side of the street, to keep that within, because really that's control and that isn't detaching, that's attached.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 19:20

So she says, offering a silent prayer rather than a suggestion is another way of offering this unconditional love and detachment. Prayer is such a beautiful way to use your mind because your mind has to think something. There's just no doubt about it. Like you can't just say I'm not going to think anything, but if I'm going to have a thought, I might as well have a thought that is going to produce what I want, which is peace, kindness, love, compassion, grace, patience, tolerance. So if those are the values that I really want to be bringing to myself in that moment, when I want to say why can't he do this, or why didn't he work on this tonight, or why doesn't he do it the way that I think that he should do it, what I'm offering myself is help me see this a different way. Thank you, spirit, for giving me the space to open with tolerance and compassion here when I'm afraid for my children, when I'm in a space where I'm heightened the closet isn't really a heightened place but when I'm in a space of like heightened awareness, you're watching something happen that doesn't feel good, that you're afraid of, that you're scared of.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 20:35

When you use the silent prayer, rather than a suggestion or a fear or a resentment, you're giving your mind something to do that is going to actually bring you closer to the result that you want for yourself. I often say thank you, spirit, for holding my boys in the light. May they make choices that align with their highest good and may their road be made easy. Now I know that their timeline is whatever their timeline is, but this silent prayer offers me a place to put my mind instead of getting all controlly and managey and mothery and trying to speak and trying to give my opinion and trying to control right. So she says, removing ourselves from the setting is also an obvious way to detach.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 21:30

Leave. Leave the room, do not go to the dinner, do not show up to something that doesn't feel right for you, do not go because you feel obligated If you are in a situation where it is not going well. It's perfectly okay to say this doesn't feel comfortable for me right now. Or I just need a couple of minutes or I'm just going to take a breather. It is okay to detach with love by removing yourself from the situation so it doesn't escalate.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 21:59

And many of us have people in our lives who are pretty complicated and it seems like a pain in the butt that you're the one that has to leave, but you're the one that has control over you. And when you don't have control over them, then we just sit in resentment, wishing that they were different, doing a different thing. And if you have to leave, a lot that's telling you something, that's giving you guidance to show you something. And all of this is around unconditional love, not only for the people in our lives but mostly for ourself, to truly love ourselves fully and deeply, our light, our dark, to begin to see things in a way that allows us to make choices for ourselves that align with our true nature. So she says I'm going to go back to the.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 22:45

Removing yourself from the settings entirely is another obvious way to detach. But emotions may still be ensnared. Acting as if they aren't is great practice until the real thing comes along, but it will take time. Patience is a virtue. Now I'm going to say there's a whole acting as if. That is helpful in some situations, as long as you're not pushing down the emotions that need to be felt. There's also a piece around how we can just be continually drudging up and whipping and being in resentment and being in a continued cycle of upset. That isn't beneficial to us.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 23:31

So, talking about the closet with Rich, so last night I come home late from a women's gathering that I went to, which was so great, and I was exhausted. I've had a lot of things going on. I just knew that the best thing for me to do, because I was a little hurt that he hadn't worked on my closet and instead of being bitchy about it, which would have been my old thing I just said I love you, I'm exhausted, I'm gonna go get in bed and watch some some silly TV and get to bed early. And he said okay, and I went to bed. Now this is the acting as if, because if I really leaned into the feelings that I was feeling with him, it wasn't the time or place and the truth was I wasn't in the emotional bandwidth to be able to handle it well. It probably would have gone off not well, but I went to bed. I had a good night's sleep.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 24:31

We woke up this morning and over coffee I was able to say hey, I just wanted to share with you a little bit about what's going on with me and, from this place of open connection and conversation, we're able to talk about it. And then he was able to give me some information that I didn't know about the project and what it's going to take, and that he had gone and bought in the brackets and that he had to do the glue and the blah blah, blah, blah, blah, right. So if I had wanted to jump in last night, I wasn't in the state of mind to be able to handle it. And those are the times that acting as if it isn't a big deal is a good time. But if you are clamming up because you are afraid to stand up for yourself or you're afraid to say how you feel, that isn't the choice to be making right, because unconditional love for everyone involved means that you never are pretending to be someone else. It means that you're standing more and more fully in the truth of who you are and sharing from that place of authenticity, kindness, compassion and honesty about what's happening for you.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 25:38

Her final little meditation that she has at the bottom says our greatest gift to someone else is unconditional love. We all crave it, we all deserve it. Most of us have not experienced it very often. It's very true. Let's commit to breaking this cycle now.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 25:55

Detachment is one of the ways. The other thing I want to talk about with unconditional love is conditions expectation this part of us that says that we would be loved or feel loved if it looked a very specific way. And part of the work that we're doing in soul recovery is by loving all of us, looking deeply at aspects of ourselves, our old patterns, our beliefs. If you're interested in the nine steps of soul recovery, it's on the website, the new nine steps and there's such a importance around us looking at what are our beliefs and our patterns. Why are we attached? What are we attached to, and what if these beliefs and patterns no longer serves us? What are we expecting in a relationship that they can never give us? And can we not have conditions set on people? It's disrespectful to have a condition set on somebody that if they are this person, then they receive love from us. And again, love does not mean that you show up and allow them to just dump all their stuff on you or you are responsible for their happiness. It's really this separation from that that says love is truly seeing someone for who they are and not having those expectations and detaching from who you think they should be, what you think they should be doing, how you think they should be. Showing up, and sometimes the greatest love, the greatest detachment, the most unconditionally loving thing to do is to say this situation, this relationship, this, whatever it is, doesn't align with me or either one of us any longer. That is unconditional love.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 27:48

Soul recovery is a slow and steady, step by step of finding yourself, and I meet with so many people who are like in the first meeting show me how. But how do I let it all go? How do I change? Oh, it is a lifetime of work that we're working on. But these switches that we can switch within ourselves, that have this change of perception and how we see it, make such profound changes in such a short time that it's almost like they say that there's a compression of time. That happens, you know, time is really an illusion on the quantum physics side of it, but that when you have these breakthroughs, it's as if there's a compression of time and there's so much healing that happens in a very quick period. And that's what we're doing because you're here, because you're ready. So learning to detach with love, to be unconditionally loving to another through the act of detachment, is one of those massive switches that can happen. They can open healing in ways that will change everything. And that's the offer. You know that I'm here for you and in whatever way that you need.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 29:06

Listen to all the podcasts. There's over 250 of the regular podcasts, five seasons. Go back, listen all the way from the beginning, when I was just starting this journey, and hear the little seeds that are given to begin to change how you show up in your life. Join us for the once a month soul recovery support group such a beautiful, beautiful group of souls where we learn some soul recovery tool and meet into small groups and connect with each other. Work with me one on one with coaching.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 29:37

Do the steps on your own.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 29:38

I'm continuing to work on recording the new nine step work the steps on your own. I'm continuing to work on recording the new nine step work the steps on your own courses. This is a spiritual practice that will profoundly change your life. And it is not me, it is spiritual modalities that I've gathered from a lot of different places, not only 12 step course of miracles, buddhism, new thought, just everything. Mindset. Oh my gosh, so many places where I'm inspired by and I'm bringing it to you because you are ready. I want you to feel and know that you are ready, that you are already whole. It just is time for you to remember, until next time, namaste both to Apple podcast subscribers for $3.99 a month, or it's available for both free and paid Patreon members. So as a Patreon member, you can choose. Do you want to support the podcast with $5, $10, or $25 a month? Totally volunteer. But to let you know that if you want to listen to those bonus episodes, incredible interviews, wonderful book studies you don't have to be a paid member. You can access them in the first week or two that they're available free on Patreon.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 31:07

This community is so important to me and I want you to know I treat it with love and consideration. If you want coaching, I'm here for you. You want to come to a retreat? I'm here for you. You want to come to the free Soul Recovery Support Group. The community is here for you. Watch us on Facebook, instagram, follow us on all the social media for daily inspiration. Be part of the Facebook group. And one of the most important things is that you share this podcast with people that you think that it will resonate with, that you think that they're interested. Give it five stars, give it a review. We are growing this community together because together we can do the work that will recover your soul.