Unhealthy Soul Ties

An unhealthy soul tie is an emotional drug…

How does someone become tied to our soul? What is it about a soul tie that makes them sweet and poisonous at the same time?

An unhealthy soul tie blurs the line between healthy and unhealthy love.

Before we start, let’s just make a few things clear…The word “Soul Tie” or soul tied, is not a biblical word. Soul Tie is a description of an emotional affliction or condition that creates an unhealthy connection with another. The most accurate, physical definition of a soul tie is trauma bond, or a bond based unhealthy emotions. For the sake of conversation, we’ll use the word soul tie but remember that a soul tie is an emotional drug to medicate an emotional affliction. 

Now some folks will erroneously point to 1 Samuel 18:1, to try to spiritualize a soul tie, give it biblical permission or to try to put a positive spin on it, but this passage is not referring to emotional infections or afflictions, or unholy connections. This scripture is clear and defines a healthy bond between Jonathan and David based on Godly love, respect and honor. 1 Samuel 18:1, says: “Now when he had finished speaking to Saul, the soul of Jonathan was knit to the soul of David, and Jonathan loved him as his own soul.”

1 Samuel 18:1, is referring to a “Kindred spirit.” A bond based on mutual respect, honor and most importantly, Godly or Agape love. An unhealthy soul tie has nothing to do with the bond between David and Jonathan, Godly love, and neither mutual respect or honor for that matter. For a beautiful explanation of Agape love read 1 Corinthians 13:1-13.

A soul tie on the other hand is unhealthy.  There are three main types of soul ties or unhealthy connections, or should I say three reasons that unhealthy connections are created:

1. Gossip
2. Sex
3. Brokenness/Emotional Unhealthiness

You can probably come up with some more but these 3 cover the majority of the reasons why we’re unhealthily connected to another person. The word for a healthy, divine, intimate connection between two people is “soul match” or soul mate. These are not biblical terms but descriptions of healthy connections. A soul match or mate is who your gift, your beauty (inside and out), your emotional wealth, your promise and your prosperity was designed for. A soul tie is almost always the opposite of that.

A soul tie — like any other affliction or condition that results in an unhealthy influence over our behavior, is not so much about the other person as it is about what is going on in our soul (James 1:13-15). The emotional affliction that causes our addiction to poison. Now, to be fair, a soul tie or person we’ve established a soul tie with, can have attributes and qualities that are good. The issue isn’t whether they have good qualities or the ability to make is feel good, the issue is that the connection is emotionally destructive.

Every soul tie requires that we burn down our emotional house to stay in the soul tied relationship. The soul wants what the soul wants based on the condition of the soul. If the soul is unhealthy, hurt, suffering from afflictions or brokenness, it will want whatever medicates it — and will tolerate almost anything to get it. We don’t think about it that way, and we almost never start out saying to ourselves, “Let me find some medication for my affliction,” but the fact is, that’s all a soul tie is — a fix for our affliction.

In the demonic world, unholy soul ties can serve as bridges between two people to pass STD’s — Spiritually Transmitted Diseases – 1 Corinthians 6:15-17.  An unhealthy soul tie can create a portal through which the enemy can exploit our contaminated emotions and use our brokenness to sabotage our greatness. Unhealthy soul ties can do things such as allow one person to manipulate and control another person, and in many cases cause one person to emotionally suffer while the other person is unaware of what is going on — or knows what is going on but for no real or healthy reason allows it to continue.

Everybody we meet makes a deposit into our soul. Some shallow, some deep, some healthy and some unhealthy. The unhealthy soul tie is not like other connections.  An unhealthy soul tie is not simply an emotionally or spiritually unhealthy person, an unhealthy soul tie is any person or relationship that medicates our unhealthiness.  That’s hard to swallow but the truth is, unhealthy mates with unhealthy. 

An unhealthy soul produces unhealthy thoughts, attractions and addictions that control or dominate feelings and behavior. An unhealthy soul tie is a reflection of our soul condition — despite our spiritual position. Our spiritual position — belief in God and the bible, can co-exist with our emotional affliction or unhealthy condition. You can be saved and emotionally broken or suffering at the same time (Romans 7:19-25).

Consider this: Holy people can have holes in their heart — issues of blood. A hole is simply an unhealed wound from the past that exposes us to emotional addictions. Addictions aren’t “to” something, addictions are “for” something.  Listen, an addict is not addicted to drugs, an addict is addicted to pain — unresolved, unacknowledged, unhealed pain. The drug of choice medicates the pain — and usually ends up being abused (drug abuse).  People can be our drug of choice — and a soul tie is almost always our drug of choice “for” unacknowledged emotional pain, trauma or brokenness.

Pain does not always make us miserable, emotional pain can be silent but deadly. If we’ve lived with pain our entire lives or if we’ve been trained by toxic teachers, pain can hide in our soul and, make crazy seem normal or make dysfunction feel natural.

An unhealthy soul tie always tells us something about ourselves that we didn’t know, need to know or have denied knowing. If you think about it, what could cause us to be hopelessly in love with someone who is emotionally poisonous or causes us to become self-destructive, forfeit our happiness or be enslaved to unhealthy emotions? It’s not them…Alcohol does not make people alcoholics, pain does. Alcohol, or whatever the drug of choice, is abused to medicate the pain.

Listen to your soul. Listen to the emotions that an unhealthy soul tie motivates — can you hear it? Do you hear what you sound like? Does your rationalization, your Emotional Reasoning, sound anything like what an addict would say about their drug of choice? Justification, rationalization for abusing anything or anyone to our detriment is confirmation that we’re not OK, something is wrong, we need to heal.

Whenever our soul has been unhealthily connected to another the signs include:

• Obsessive preoccupation with another or inability to move past an emotionally, mentally or spiritually unhealthy relationship
• Tendencies to seek to recreate or reproduce feelings from an unhealthy relationship
• Pattern of behavior that consistently engages in relationships with unhealthy people
• Treats relationships like a drug or a fix for a temporary high and easily discards relationships after the high wears off
• Tendency to be domineering or controlling in a relationship

What is left out this message, but not ignored, are those of you who are currently in a relationship with your soul tie.  While most people are not in a relationship with their soul tie — present tense, many are. Yours is a double burden — you are both emotionally and physically bound — present tense. I will address this difficult but possible exodus in a separate message but suffice it to say, you have an emotional and a physical burden that will require you to do your work to be free.

To begin the work to untie an unhealthy soul tie, we have to acknowledge and respect that they aren’t the issue. Repeat that as often as you need to. “They are not the issue.” The unhealthy soul tie does not tie us, we tie them to us through unhealthy emotions that are medicated by them. This is where the work comes in.

Prayer will open our heart to God’s will and desire for our lives. However, change comes from putting boots on our faith and going to work (James 2:17).  Soul work is not easy work…it’s intentional, honest, humble work. It is often the most difficult work to do because it requires acknowledgement, humility and uncommon conviction to dig up our deep, negative roots.

We can be negatively influenced, emotionally contaminated, from a childhood that lacked positive or functional love role models. Neglect or lack of training/modeling can have negative emotional consequences for some.

Soul work requires getting the knowledge and support to help us to do the work to renew our mind, address and heal unhealthy emotions, and to create emotional boundaries to stay sober. You’re not just working on your healing but you’re also working on loving yourself on a conscious level, a level that honors your potential and your temple.

Untying an unhealthy soul tie begins and ends with us (Proverbs 4:23). Even if today’s unhealthy soul tie leaves our life, if we don’t heal the hurt in our soul that abuses that drug, tolerates unacceptable behavior and controls our mind, another soul tie will come along to replace them.

Every soul tie is a lie. The truth is, their attention or affection is our unconscious drug of choice to medicate our addiction to a pain, an unhealthy desire, an unhealthy belief, or dysfunction, that we have to do our internal work to uproot.

No matter what the tie is, remember, “With you it is impossible but with God, all things are possible” (Matthew 19:26).  With God’s help, we can untie the toxic root in order to untie ourselves from unhealthy people.

 

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