Blame Is Poison: How Soul Recovery Transforms and Heals Relationships

Have you ever wondered what it truly means to reclaim your personal power? This week, I share my deeply personal journey of overcoming alcoholism and codependency and how I stopped blaming my husband for my unhappiness to discover genuine healing. The focus is on the transformative power of turning inward and embracing personal responsibility to foster growth and empowerment.

We explore the detrimental effects of the blame game on our lives and relationships. Holding onto resentment and waiting for others to acknowledge their wrongdoings only keeps us trapped in cycles of pain. I share heartfelt personal stories to illustrate the importance of Soul Recovery, internal forgiveness, and raising our consciousness. By shifting our focus from external validation to internal healing, we can detach from restrictive expectations and reclaim our personal power.  The episode underscores the strength that comes from releasing blame and connecting with our true selves and a higher source. We'll discuss how letting go of past traumas and adopting love and compassion can heal us and strengthen our boundaries. 

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 Ending the Blame Game
• 11:53 Healing Through Letting Go of Blame
• 24:16 Releasing Blame, Finding Strength
• 32:45 Building a Supportive Community

Transcript

Rev Rachel Harrison: 0:00

I spent years in my marriage blaming my husband. I blamed him for everything. I blamed him for why I was unhappy. I blamed him for the kids. I blamed him for our marriage. I blamed him for our life. And you know, ultimately there was very complex and dark night of the soul things happening in our lives. We were alcoholics and our kids were difficult, but I wasn't taking responsibility for my side of the street. I spent all my time and energy just blaming somebody else. It's easy to want to blame. In today's episode we're talking about how to end the blame game that when we spend our time and energy blaming, we're actually losing all of our ability to be in our strength, we're giving all of our power away and we're believing that somebody can make us feel a certain way. And it doesn't mean that hard things don't happen. They absolutely are happening in your life. But when you stop blaming and looking for the person that is the perpetrator and you stop being the victim, you actually move into a place of healing, empowerment and the opportunity to truly step into your life in a way that releases the pain from the past, because when you can accept what is, you can start choosing what you want when you move forward. Enjoy the episode.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 1:25

Welcome to the Recover your Soul podcast 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 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. Welcome to Recover your Soul. I'm Rev Rachel and thank you for joining me here today. Thank you for being part of this soul recovery community. I know that so many of you have walked through these doors through Al-Anon or codependence or having someone in your life who's an addict, and we are coming together to learn how to be okay when others aren't okay, to step into our soul's recovery, to open into our soul's journey and to begin to reflect on how we can change our lives, how we can make choices to heal what has happened in our past, to transform how we show up ourself and others, and how to let go, how to detach and today's topic is around blame.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 2:53

The words that came to me were stop blaming others and find healing in your relationships. And I think this is something that's in my mind recently, because we're in a time in society I think we've been in a time always, but especially with the division of politics that there's so much that we're pointing the finger and blaming, blaming, blaming, and it's easy. It's easy to want to blame the others, to have them be different than us, and what I recognize in the larger scale of things is how destructive that is, because there are so many others that can be the thems and so many of the us's that can be the us's, and we forget that there's actually all of us as one, always, and the spiritual path that we're on is around us. Opening completely to this concept of how can I take responsibility for myself, how can I stop putting all the energy and being attached to other people being how I want them to be? Now I have no doubt that you're along with me, that I have a position. I have a position, but I'm working really hard on not dehumanizing, not getting in a catastrophizing sense of myself, not losing my way, not forgetting to be kind, not wanting to choose a battlefield, and when I do that, I find so much more peace in my heart, so much more trust that things are indeed working out in a fashion that you know. It isn't like it's working out for the best, which sometimes is hard. It's really just saying it's working out. We're learning to accept what is instead of wanting it to be different, and sometimes what is isn't easy.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 4:54

Being a human being is incredibly complex. So when we take it down to a more micro level, a more level, that's within our own lives, where we were looking at the whole world right then and blame, but we start looking at in our own lives how easy it is to be looking outward and pointing the finger outward and saying you are to blame for my pain, you're to blame for how I feel, you're to blame for why this relationship isn't working. You're to blame why my life isn't what I want it to be. You're to blame parents for how you raised me, and so this is why I am like I am, and I think it's just natural that we do that, and I think that it's societal that we've moved into a place where this is how we speak, that when we have conversations with people, very few people have conversations that are around. Well, this is how I felt, and I recognize that this is what was happening for the people around me. No, we're in this place, it's. If we could find who's to blame, then maybe it would stop. If we could figure out who was to blame, maybe it would stop.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 6:07

And there's lots of famous sayings around do you want to be happy or do you want to be right? Do you want to have connection or do you want to be right? And I think it's even bigger than that. I think that when we start doing our soul recovery work, we stop needing to have this level of separation and we begin to just look within ourselves, turning the attention to ourselves and our own experience and recognizing that we're so used to gameplay. I know you've heard me say this before, but you know there's different aspects of gameplay. There's the aspect that says winner takes all, someone's the winner, someone's the loser. And then there's gameplay where it's all around everybody benefiting. Well, we are not raised in a society about everybody benefiting. We're raised in a society which is around hierarchy, dominance and power.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 7:07

Time period, these last 50 years in particular, where things have radically changed in terms of how we are as human beings, and then that's the fear I think that's around some of the stuff that's happening in the world that a lot of the higher consciousness that was beginning to really flourish might be shifting, and I feel like everything just has to be rattled out. It's the same in our families, in a way. When you shake the tree hard enough, when you blow it up, when you have the huge storm within your family, sometimes those are the things that are needed to begin to start over, to reevaluate, to get out of old patterns and old systems. And so, as a society, I believe strongly that we are moving to a higher consciousness, but I also think that it's bringing out the fear of people that doesn't want to take responsibility for themselves and their own actions. It's so much easier to, it's so much easier to blame, so much easier to blame. So when we look at our own life and our own relationships and we start really looking at how we are in our soul recovery journey, the first part of us is to really start to recognize and this is the new step one in soul recovery, which is to be aware of our suffering that our dissatisfaction and suffering is caused by our current perceptions, beliefs, patterns and stories and so much of that is around.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 8:38

Who's at fault here? Now, when I work with you as a coach, when we do spiritual coaching, we go back and we look at some of the core wounds. You have to be able to identify what those beliefs are, how those stories were created, what are the patterns that you're living out, what are the perceptions in which you choose to see the world. You have to be able to see those. But we're never going back and saying this person was to blame. Blame is like poison. Who's the person to blame for why I am this way or why it is this way?

Rev Rachel Harrison: 9:17

And I think it's just our human nature to want to understand. We're curious beings. Being human has this incredible sense of depth of emotions. We are curious by nature. We want to learn, we want to grow, we want to understand, but we also can go and become so mired down. With whose fault is it that we are stuck in the past? We're just rolling around in the old stories, in the old systems, and we aren't able to really look and grasp the pieces that are the learning and then bring those forward to this present moment, right now, so that we can understand ourselves better and show up in our own lives in the most authentic way that we can for ourselves.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 10:12

In the retreat that I had last weekend, we talked a lot about this responsibility that we have in our own lives to choose how we're going to see it, to recognize that at every moment we're opening ourselves up to understand our co-creation with something greater still with our own way of seeing it, with our own choices, and recognizing that out in front of us at every moment is a different path, a different way that our life could go, and we can actually miss those really, really powerful moments that allow us to make choices that are aligned with our highest good, because we're so caught up in the pain and the resentment and the grievance from the past that we're missing the doors that are opening for opportunity for us in every moment. And this is blame, who's at fault here? And when you're in a relationship with somebody and all you're doing is throwing blame back and forth, like a pickleball court or a tennis match, it's this very toxic environment of trying to make the other be at fault, just like in the big world issues the other. If you would be like this, then we wouldn't be like this, and all that does is continue to allow us to bulk up our own pain. It's feeding our own pain bodies. It's setting us up to continue to live by the patterns that we're working hard to change.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 11:53

When we're in blame game, we're not actually seeing things as they are. We're spending way too much time contriving all of these little moments that we can throw at the other to say if you had been or done this, then what? Well, here we are, regardless of what's happened in your life. Here we are right here right now, and whatever happened happened, and it's never about diminishing what actually happened, because a lot of very difficult things happen to each and every one of us, and it's also not about diminishing that somebody else may have had it worse. Your experience is uniquely your own. But when we stay in those feelings and we stay in that pain, trying to force a blame on somebody and that blame is really around wanting that person to recognize, to take responsibility for that person, to recognize, to take responsibility for and then to amend or ask forgiveness, for there's some part of us that wants them to see what they did to us, wants them to recognize the pain that they caused us, and we hold on to that so tightly and we hold on to that so tightly.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 13:18

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. I'm excited to also be announcing that there are retreats every year, both in Colorado. Also, choose to work the steps on your own through the modules at your own pace. 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: 14:38

This is actually what happened with my husband and I recently, that I had been holding on to a resentment that I felt that he hadn't truly recognized the level of harm that had happened to myself and my children through his years of alcoholism, my children through his years of alcoholism. And what I recognize is that it isn't that we can't ask for that. I needed to be able to say what I needed to say to him to let him know that this was still in my subconscious and underneath this grievance, this resentment that was rolling around in there. But what I recognize for myself is I'm the one who's rolling the grievance around, I'm the one who's replaying those stories, I'm the one who's holding on to that harm and wanting something from somebody else that they may or may not ever give. And the power of soul recovery and the power of deep internal forgiveness is the work that we do on ourselves and I've said this in the past as well, which is we want to process and have conversations with the other person because it would be helpful to us, because we're human beings, because we want connection, and in the most perfect, ideal environment that would be true, we would be able to have these conversations where each person could truly see the other person's side and hold space for them and say they were sorry.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 16:16

But generally we're not in a healthy enough place to do that. Everybody's so locked into their own blame that they can't even see their peace. So when we come into a situation in our lives where there's an upset, where there's something that's hitting us, to a place where we're ready to do something, that's the new step one in soul recovery. Right, you get to this place where you have been sick and tired of being sick and tired, where you hit the wall and you finally say I actually don't want to live like this anymore. It's the first step to letting go of blame, because blame, ultimately, is going to keep us round and round and round from moving into a place where we actually get to, where we have any control whatsoever, and that's with our own heart, with our own healing, with our own ability to change how we see it, this is the new step two in soul recovery.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 17:18

Admit that we're powerless over everything outside of ourself, that the illusion, the illusion of power over external circumstances is causing us suffering when we can allow ourselves just to feel the pain from the situation. And again, it's so important that we feel our feelings as human beings. That is the gift of being a human. Our souls have this opportunity, this precious life, to be this unique you. Only you are you, with your unique talents, with your unique way of thinking, with your body, with your eyes, with your hands. It is spirit as you, and we forget what a gift it is because we're afraid to actually step into our truth and step into our wholeness. We feel that we need other people to be for us, to tell us, to validate us, to save us. And this is the human condition. This is the part of stepping into a spiritual life is to choose to raise your consciousness and begin to separate out, detach from, untie, untether all of these restrictions in yourself, from these hooks that you have in your expectations of relationship.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 18:45

And blame in particular is one of the main places we are giving our power away. Blame is needing and wanting somebody else to be the reason for you make me feel this way. I have said that. I can't even tell you how many times I've thought that or said that out loud in my relationship with my husband. You make me feel Well. Ultimately, yes, they are behaving in a way that is creating a condition that creates feelings. They are behaving in a way that is creating a condition that creates feelings. But the healthier I get, the more transformed I get, the more recovered my soul gets. It's fascinating to me how I don't get bothered by that much. I used to get bothered so easily, so quickly, so much. You know, this weekend was an interesting couple. Things that happened in the weekend and they were things that happened with Rich and I that would have like blown my mind in the past. I had the retreat, so I had a lot of part of me that was really filled with trying to want it to be perfect for everybody and setting up the spaces.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 19:55

And Saturday morning the retreat starts at nine and he wants to use my car for the day and so I go to my mom's house. I have him drive me to my mom's house. We're already running a few minutes late because when you have another person, you're not just on your own time, you're on somebody else's time. And he ran back in to get some more things or do something, I don't know get a coffee or I don't know what it was. So by the time we got to my mom's house which is about four or five minutes away, and she was out of town for me to drive her car he waited for me until I got in the house, but then he drove away and now it's about 20 minutes until my retreat starts and my treat is 15 minutes away and I go into the garage to get in my mom's car and there was no power in her car. Her battery was totally dead. I go to start the car, there's nothing.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 20:47

So I go to call Rich on his cell phone and he, of course, has left his cell phone at home because we were just running to my mom's and I wanted to blame him for my stress. I wanted to blame him for not bringing his phone. I wanted to blame him for not waiting for me to make sure that the car started. I wanted to blame him for the feelings that I was feeling because I got really activated, because I didn't want to show up late to the retreat and I hadn't been that activated in a long time. So it was actually this beautiful opportunity to be like oh, this is how this used to feel. Right, I don't like how this feels, but I observed that you can put all this energy on the other person. He didn't know the car was not going to start. He didn't want to put me in a situation where I was uncomfortable.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 21:44

We make these assumptions in our own mind. We demonize the other as if they are not there for us, as if they didn't do something for us, and I just had the call on constant calling, knowing that when he stepped into the house that he would hear his phone ringing, which he did. He answers the phone. He's like, oh my gosh, I'll be right back. He zooms right back, drives super fast to the location. I get there right on time, and I could have let that totally blow my whole day. I could have let that be one of those things that blamed him for not being there in the way that I needed. Why didn't he have his phone? Why didn't he wait for me? Why did he have to use my car in the first place? Why couldn't he have just used his own extra car, right? Those are the pieces where we can really spin out. It's just using these tools of soul recovery.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 22:30

And this is a very teeny, tiny, small example. There's big examples. I could I actually could go into an entire storyline of all the times Rich has disappointed me and that I have blamed him for what happened to our children, what happened to our marriage, what happened in our lives and this is what I'm talking about is there's a part of us that wants to go into the other, being the one at fault. And what I recognize in this work that we're doing in soul recovery is we are we're cutting those ties and allowing human beings to be human beings in their faultedness, in their messiness, in their soul's learning and journey, and falling down and not showing up for us that we can stop blaming people for just being human.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 23:25

And what I did when we ended up having that situation was while he was driving, I just centered myself. I just centered myself, I breathed. I thought to myself no one is making me feel any way, no one is making me feel any way. I am going to choose to make my mind right and I said my prayer that I say every time before I do anything in soul recovery with other people. Soul recovery with other people. Oh, holy Spirit of God, protect me from all forms of self-centeredness and direct my attention into the work at hand. This prayer for me has helped me to get out of my own way. It's similar to the third step prayer in AA that in the middle of the third step prayer it says relieve me of the bondage of self.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 24:16

When we can stop blaming, we actually turn to ourself, and in our turning to ourself we're actually turning to God, to source, to spirit, to the universal energy, whatever you call. It is yours to decide. And if I truly believe and I know that I'm here to learn and to grow and for my soul to have its experience alongside all these others, in all of the messiness that is human, then I can stop blaming and I can start being curious. I can start being open to learning what I need to learn, to understanding that in every situation I participated on some level, I showed up in some level, either in my best self or my not best self, and I can stop blaming myself for the fact that sometimes I don't show up in my best self either. Still, today, I don't show up in my best self. Always, more often I do. But when we look at, especially those dark, dark nights of the soul, the times that were the toughest and the hardest, and we stop blaming others and in that we stop blaming ourself, energy releases the intense tightness around the wanting to fix it, wanting it to be different, wishing that it was something else, thinking that if the other would just be, we actually let go and open it up for spirit to hold space for it and especially for you to be released of the energy that it's holding in your body.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 25:59

Blame is like a poison. It's like a toxic poison that you are ingesting thinking that it's going to hurt somebody else. I was reading that poison dart frogs. They eat their natural environment food and it secretes the stuff on their skin that's poisonous. If you take a poison dart frog and you put it in a different environment where it doesn't eat that food, the stuff stops being poison on their skin. We can do the same thing in our own lives. If we're ingesting all of the pain and all of the grievance and all of the irritation and all the yuckiness that has come to us and that's the diet in which we are ingesting into our soul, we are going to have poison oozing from us and we end up struggling from that poison. We end up having that poison hurt us actually. But if you move to a different emotional, spiritual environment and you open up to ingesting love and tolerance and compassion and peace and tenderness and grace, then the poison dissipates and is no longer harming you or others.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 27:23

And it doesn't mean that what happened in your life in the past didn't happen. It's interesting how hard it is for us to let go of those things because we think, well, if I just let it go, then what? I'm just giving them permission to have done that to me? No, of course not. And blame doesn't say, as I said earlier, that very, very traumatic, very, not okay, things didn't happen. But you get to decide how you're going to have it work in your life going forward. You get to choose whether it's going to continue to be a toxin in your being or whether you can say here's what I learned from it. Here's the things that have changed in my life from it. Here's the awarenesses that I have about how I'm going to show up in the world, who I'm going to have in my life, who I'm going to have in my life, how I'm going to allow myself to be treated.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 28:16

There's a lot of stuff that happens when we're younger that we're completely powerless over. But it does not define you. You do not have to let it define you. No one can make you be or feel or do anything, and the stronger we get within ourselves, the more we recognize we have control, we have dominion over our own experience, and it takes the blame off and we end the blame game. Now, if you're in gameplay and somebody switches from a winner take all to an, everybody wins. The other person is going to move into the same style.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 28:57

It may not happen right away, but you change the rules of the game and, as I've said in other episodes and I have a specific episode calling called coming off the emotional battlefield, when you stop battling, stop playing this back and forth who's to blame? And just hold compassionate space for both people and work on you. How does it feel to you? What are you going to do for you? Instead of needing to process it with them, you're processing it in your journal. You're working with a spiritual coach. You're working with a therapist. You're working with the healthy friends in your life.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 29:35

Who won't let you be a martyr? Who won't let you just continue to victimize yourself and have the other person be the perpetrator and you step into your power and you recognize that you get to choose the life that you want to live, that by stopping the blame game you can actually heal those experiences that you happen in your life and you can change the dynamics in every single relationship. And in this, instead of becoming weaker and somebody who people roll over you and do whatever they want, you get stronger. They don't have power over you. It doesn't matter what they say or what they do, because you choose how you're going to interact with it and you actually connect with source and you become stronger and more clear in your boundaries, more clear in what aligns with you, more clear about what you need and able to ask for what you want from a healthy perspective. It's fascinating that this tool that we've used, this protection mechanism that we've used to blame, has really been weakening you in all this time, and now we're ready to let it go.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 30:52

As always, if you want help with any of this, I am here as your spiritual coach to work the nine steps of soul recovery together and be able to release these ways that we show up and change the belief systems and update into a more authentic way of being. That's what we do. You can also work the steps on your own. We're working on getting the new ones up and going and I hope that you'll join me on the first Monday of every month for our free support group, where we all come together and learn and grow about this stuff. You're doing it. Just by being here, listening, just by participating in the soul recovery experience, you are beginning to shift how you show up, letting go of blame. Don't forget that.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 31:39

It would be really helpful if you would go onto whatever platform that you use to listen to this podcast. Give it five stars I never asked for this, but it really is helpful for bringing it up higher into the algorithm five stars and leave a review. Let people know how soul recovery is changing your life. Until next time, namaste, thank you for listening and I hope that that helps support your soul recovery process. I just wanted to give you a quick reminder that every Friday is the recover your soul bonus podcast, and this is available 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: 32:45

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.