Figuring out how to break soul ties when you’re in one becomes the need of the hour. Though the damage caused by your soul tie will be visible to friends and family, the ones going through it will be blissfully unaware of the dangerous obsession they are cultivating. Why are the words “dangerous obsession” being used to describe a soul tie? What is a soul tie, and how to know if you have a soul tie with someone? Let’s figure it out, with the help of psychotherapist Sampreeti Das (Master in Clinical Psychology and Ph.D. Researcher), who specializes in Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy and Holistic and Transformational Psychotherapy.
What Is A Soul Tie?
A soul tie, said to be an intertwining of the souls, is a deep emotional and spiritual bond formed with someone, usually after engaging in physical intimacy with them. However, simply calling it a deep soul connection is a massive understatement since a soul tie ends up consuming all areas of your life. A soul tie causes you to feel an obsessive connection with a person, physically and spiritually. When they’re not around, a feeling of being incomplete may irk you as if you’re connected to them through inexplicable forces. In an attempt to feel whole again, you must always be with this person, since your individuality now ceases to exist. When the two of you are physically apart, you’re constantly yearning for them. You might even feel an emptiness, as though a tangible part of you has gone missing. Without this person, you are nothing. A part of you stays with them and a part of them is always connected to you, as if you can tangibly ‘feel’ it with you. Since it can only be described as an addiction that slowly takes control over every aspect of your life, understanding how to break soul ties becomes crucial. Sampreeti talks about why such obsessive relationships develop in the first place, “It is hard to determine the reason behind an unhealthy obsession with a partner unless assessed thoroughly. Possible reasons may be personality factors, past relationship trauma, childhood exposure to unhealthy relationships, or even unresolved issues with significant people in your life.” Now that you’re aware of the soul ties’ meaning, figuring out how to spot it is of equal importance since the people in such a dynamic will turn a blind eye to the signs staring back at them. Let’s take a look at the types and symptoms of soul ties. And let’s explore how breaking a soul tie affects a person, so that you can be sure if what you’re calling love is just that or if there’s cause for concern there.
Types Of Soul Ties
A soul tie is a connection that binds us to another person emotionally, physically, and spiritually. This connection – healthy or unhealthy – tends to stay for a lifetime. It is extremely difficult for both parties involved to disassociate from each other. The actions of one affect the other. Now that we know what a soul tie is, let’s explore the different types of soul ties you can form in life.
Emotional soul tie: An emotional soul tie is meant to encourage, guide, and protect you through thick and thin. It is meant to help you grow. Whoever you tie emotionally with will stay beside you under any circumstances. No matter what happens, you will always be able to lean on them for support. They will be your strength in trying timesPhysical soul tie: A physical soul tie usually happens after sexual intercourse. It’s a tie you develop while being intimate with someone you love. This one is quite a difficult tie to break. There’s always a chance of coming back or being pulled back in despite it being an unhealthy or toxic relationshipSpiritual soul tie: A spiritual soul tie is when you connect with someone on an intellectual level. You exchange skills, wisdom, and knowledge. You share the same passions and have the best interests of each other in mind. You feel fulfilled and satisfied on a deeper, spiritual level. However, watch out for those who walk into your life only to use you for their own benefitSocial soul tie: You develop a social soul tie with your friends and other social groups. It doesn’t matter whether you’re a loner, we’re all social beings at some level. We all need people we can connect and have fun with. We all need someone we can take care of and who can take care of us. That’s where friends come in
These are roughly the different types of soul ties that a person develops in their life. However, keep in mind that each of these can be healthy and unhealthy depending on the kind of person you are and connect with. If the soul tie makes you feel happy and loved, it’s healthy. If it makes you feel worse about yourself, it’s unhealthy.
What Are The Signs Of A Soul Tie?
Do things like ‘an inexplicable connection’, ‘an addiction of sorts’, or ‘an incapability to survive without the other’ all sound like vague descriptions to you? Perhaps you’re still confident that the overwhelming rush and the true feelings of ‘love’ you’re experiencing are just that, and nothing else. “It will take genuine and stern efforts to break off from a relationship when partners are addicted to each other,” says Sampreeti. “But since the devil you know is better than the one you don’t, you might not be entirely convinced you’re in a soul tie.” With the signs of soul ties we’ll list out for you, you should be able to make a better judgment on what your dynamic is like. Read on to find out if the “I miss you so much it hurts” messages you send each other actually indicate something more serious than it seems.
1. The only thing you think about is this person
No, we don’t mean the cute texts you send each other where you both go “I can’t get you off my mind” but then proceed to get them off your mind the minute you switch to another app on your phone. When an unbreakable soul tie hits you, it leaves you pretty much incapable of being able to think about anything but this person. Even during tasks that require your attention, you may find yourself wandering off and thinking about this person or even feeling as though they’re with you. In other words, you’re obsessed.
2. Every decision you make is influenced by your soul tie
In the drama of your life, your so-called ‘partner’ now takes center stage, and nothing else comes close to them. Every decision you make is now influenced by them and what they might make of it. Their opinion matters the most to you. They are the first person that comes to your mind before making a decision. You think about how your actions or decisions might affect them.
3. Any other relationships you have are now insignificant
If you didn’t sense the pattern already, we’ll break it down for you: Nothing else matters, except your soul tie. Since you’ll choose to invest every second of your day with your soul tie bond, the relationships you have outside of them, even the one you have with yourself, will invariably suffer as a result.
4. You feel ‘complete’
You feel so complete in each other’s presence, as if you’ve found the missing piece of a jigsaw puzzle while you didn’t even realize just how ‘incomplete’ you were before this. Every time you’re not with your soul tie, you’re mournfully yearning to be with them so you can experience being whole again. As a result, being apart may literally seem like it causes physical pain. You may even feel a part of you is missing since you’re essentially now intertwined.
5. The thought of losing them panics you
Moving on after a breakup is hard, and losing a soul tie might not even be a thought you are willing to entertain. You’d do absolutely anything to avoid the possibility that this dynamic, that is so pivotal in your life and that you might have conveniently confused as love, ever falls to the danger of collapsing. Besides these glaring signs of soul ties, something you need to know about this damaging dynamic is that it can also happen if you detest the individual for wronging you in some way. Despite the animosity, you won’t be able to help but feel connected to them. Can soul ties be one-sided? That’s another interesting aspect of this bond, it can even exist in a purely one-dimensional scenario. An equation as perplexing as this one can eat away at your confidence and individuality without you realizing it. Let’s take a look at how to get rid of soul ties, lest you become one of those stalkers Netflix makes documentaries about.
How To Break A Soul Tie
Even though it may feel like the best thing that’s ever happened to you, the negative implications of a soul tie will manifest in other areas of your life, like your career, education, and every other relationship in your life that you no longer have time for. Once you know that you have a soul tie, trying to end it is crucial, despite how much the idea of letting it go may hurt you. If we fail to convince you, a rant from your best friend (who you haven’t spoken with in ages) might help you realize what you need to do. And when you’ve made up your mind, this is how you can go about breaking soul ties:
1. Acknowledge that yours is a toxic relationship, not a fairy tale
No, it’s not true love. No, they’re not the one. Love is supposed to be pure, not overwhelming. Love permits room for growth and does not dissuade individuality. Soul ties’ meaning is a dynamic that does not include room for personal growth, and is one that will set you back years if you let it. The first step to recovery, as is the case in any sort of addiction, is to acknowledge that you’re in a soul tie, a bond that’s inherently toxic and damaging for everyone involved.
2. Do not leave any room for doubt
Once you decide to end things, you must be completely on board with your own decision. Ditch any ideas of this relationship magically turning into a fruitful venture, and stop daydreaming about the “what ifs”. Unlike the movies you grew up watching, the toxicity in a soul tie relationship doesn’t just vanish into thin air once you both go through a period of retrospection. In all likeliness, this soul tie will never turn into a healthy equation, and your decision to end it must be resolute.
3. The most important step in learning how to break soul ties: no contact
Just like a relationship doesn’t work without trust, mutual respect, and personal space (which is why you’re ending things), a breakup cannot really work unless you employ the no-contact rule. Being in constant contact with the person you’re trying to cut out of your life is like trying to fight lung cancer with cigarettes, priding yourself on going from two packs a day to one. “Ending all contact abruptly may not be a lasting behavior if such mechanisms have not been successfully used before. Yet, if it can be exercised, it can provide a break. It can cut you off from major energy-draining figures and provide a rehabilitative process,” says Sampreeti. Granted, you may not be immediately able to cut this person away from your life, but it will help you process your feelings. You’ll understand why your dynamic was toxic. It will give you the time you need to truly understand how to break soul ties and what you need to do next.
4. How to get rid of soul ties: Engage and rediscover yourself
Your life was consumed by a single entity who took up most of your day. Now that you have all this time on your hands, you’re bound to let your mind wander and obsess over your ‘unbreakable’ soul tie. “To recover from this stage, rebuilding social resources like friends, family, new acquaintances, and personal resources like hobbies and passions can help,” says Sampreeti.
5. Seek professional help
Trying to figure out how to get rid of soul ties is no easy feat, especially if you’re doing it all alone. “Therapy can be helpful in figuring out a lot of dilemmas that may be arising in the context of ending a relationship. Through therapy, you’ll gain new perspectives, discover unresolved issues, become aware of underlying triggers, and how to have control over them. The process allows for gaining much more subjective insight into your behavioral patterns making it easier to break them,” says Sampreeti. If you’re currently struggling with intense spiritual bonds that you can’t seem to shake off on your own, Bonobology has a multitude of experienced mental health professionals, including Sampreeti, who are willing to help you. Breakups of any kind are hard to deal with. Without some external help, cutting off what seems like an unbreakable soul tie is going to seem like an insurmountable task. Now that you have a better idea of how to get rid of soul ties, we hope you can stop thinking about this person and spend your Sundays thinking – like the rest of us – about where you want to order food from.
Breaking Soul Ties – What Happens After You Break A Soul Tie
Breaking a soul tie is an immensely difficult thing to do because it feels like your whole being is bound to this one person for life. It feels like your life depends on or revolves around this person. But it is important to break a soul tie if it’s getting toxic or unhealthy for you. It is difficult but necessary. Every individual reacts differently to breaking of a soul tie. You may feel unable to think rationally or take basic care of yourself. For a lot of people, the hurt and agony caused by breaking a soul tie is similar to physical pain. You may find yourself not being able to function or get through the day because you are so used to spending all your time with your soul tie. You may want to contact them just to hear their voice once. You may feel a strong urge to get back together. You probably feel like your whole world has come crashing down. But it’s important to understand that your soul tie was unhealthy for you and that it’s in your best interest that you leave the toxic relationship behind.
Unbreakable Soul Ties
While it is possible and important to break toxic soul ties, there are some that you just cannot break. They stay with you throughout your life. You will always remain connected to them emotionally and spiritually. Soul ties offer pure happiness if they are mutual. Such people are soulmates – whether it’s a twin flame, karmic, or platonic soulmate. They are a part of your being. You will always feel an unbreakable connection with them. They are people who’ve stood by you through thick and thin, helped you grow and evolve as a person, given you a reality check when you needed one, and helped you move forward in life. They help you understand yourself and bring you back when you deviate from the right track. If it’s not one-sided, a soul tie can make you feel euphoric – a feeling you’ve probably never experienced before. It may be difficult to break away or get rid of a one-sided soul tie or even a mutual one, but it’s not impossible. It’ll require a lot of effort as well as some help from a professional, if things spiral out of control. When you develop a soul tie, understand and analyze whether it’s a healthy relationship or a toxic one. If it’s a healthy soul tie, go ahead and experience it to the fullest. But if it’s an unhealthy or toxic soul tie, make the effort to disassociate yourself or get rid of such a tie or relationship.
