Soul Ties... A Man's Perspective
How Free Will Changes the Narrative
It’s been nine months since I hit “publish” and bore my soul tie struggle. I had no grand expectations of the piece; as far as I saw it, it was either sit down and express myself through writing, or call him to thrust fleeting euphoria inside my soul.
More than 30,000 people have clicked on that story and so many women have reached out to me via social media to thank me for being open and helpful. It has affirmed that we all have battles, we’re more alike than we think, and many of us just want to be free, happy and experience love in a healthy way.
I’ve decided to extend the soul tie conversation by interviewing the man with whom I shared that intense connection with, and also provide an update on where I am today in my journey.
All my love,
Sade Jheanell
“I don’t know how to explain it…it felt like more than just sex…”
I’m listening to Brandon’s voice note and it’s taking me back. Maybe I should have thought this through. There’s a kind of wonderment in his voice as he describes the sexual soul tie he had with me with a “lit” here and “bloodclaat” there. I didn’t even know he had an acknowledged soul tie with me. His recollection is cute, my memories give me the spooks. I resume.
“You know like how you can feel your hands rubbing up on each other?” he analogized. “It felt like my soul was rubbing up on another soul. It felt like my soul and your soul were intertwining and mingling and it felt so good. That was some different level of shit.”
Friends with benefits
I asked him because I trusted him with my body. He would know what to do, how to touch me, and most importantly, he wouldn’t text me the next day with heart-emoji epistles and relationship proposals. I just needed a sex buddy; he got that, he delivered that. There were no sappy conversations or dates, just sporadic messages of “Where are you?” and he’d put on his cock cape. Hey, that rhymed.
I remember when it changed though. Cars sped by on the highway while I was riding towards my own high on the backseat. The scene and sex were intense; from the gangster dancehall that failed to diffuse my moans, to the foggy windows that concealed the magnetic skins grinding into carefree glory. My appetite for him became insatiable from that day, and he lived within me.
There’d even be times when I was feeling down and a text would pop up asking if I’m okay. I could conjure up Brandon, manifest him even, and it was giving me the otherworldly creeps.
He remembers it changing for him too.
“It wasn’t like I was sitting down thinking about soul ties, but I started craving you sexually, physically and spiritually,” he said. “I’d dream about you, I’d want you around… It was strong, but because I’m a man who can control myself, I tried my best to stick to the agreement which was that we were just going to have sex. I tried my best despite what I was feeling to ‘easy myself’, give you your space and respect your decisions.”
He’s very good at the latter. He didn’t contest my decision to pull the plug on our activities when I told him it wasn’t the same for me anymore. My lowest point found me in bed crying, and the saddest, most gut-wrenching darkness feasted on my spirit. It was as if I was desperately weeping my way to an emergency exit, or mourning my death as it engulfed me.
The mind-fucking part was, hours prior I was in total bliss riding Brandon for what would be the last time in our Jamie-Dylan arrangement.
But he didn’t sweat my decision, though his experience was different.
It’s all in the mind
Brandon uses a logical reasoning style. He believes everything can be controlled by the mind so he doesn’t regard soul ties with mysticism.
“Soul is used interchangeably with mind and your mind is where everything has to happen before it can happen anywhere else,” he started. “I think the mind is the middle ground, the battlefield, the space in between the physical and the spiritual… Before anything can come to the physical you have to speak it and believe it in your mind… A lot of people would like to associate it with just sex, but you can get soul ties from various things, even by spending a particular amount of time with someone. It just requires a certain level of intimacy.”
With this reasoning, he posited that people have a choice to create soul ties. It reminded me of something American author Dr. Seuss (Theodor Seuss Geisel) said:
You have brains in your head,
You have feet in your shoes,
You can steer yourself in any direction you choose.
The end. Well not quite, I’m not sure I agree.
While I know that there are different kinds of soul ties, I don’t completely agree with his “mind” argument. When babies are conceived or born, do they “choose” to have a soul tie with their mother? Was I leaping with excitement to “choose” to create a soul tie with you?
I headed to the Googler and three terms were recurrent: choice, mind wandering and cognitive control.
Choice
We all make choices every day. I’m choosing to do this blog post instead of a 10-page mid-semester paper due tomorrow (badass or dumbass?).
According to psychology researchers Lauren Leotti et al, choices provide a perception of control which could be essential for healthy functioning. For Brandon, this kind of authority is proof that the nature of a soul tie can be controlled through choice.
“Soul ties can be good or bad, it’s not always something negative,” he said. “I think I had a good one because I believe we had a good relationship as it pertains to how we related to each other…but I also believe a soul tie can be good for one person and bad for the other. Apparently it was bad for you and made you feel consumed, uncontrolled and out of whack… But for me, it was more of a good feeling knowing that this is a person I felt a very strong bond with. I loved you with all my heart and I looked out for you in every way, shape or form that I could.”
He added, “I think a soul tie can only become toxic when you make it become toxic…when you start mixing negativity or constraints in it,” he said. “You have a say…it’s not something that just overwhelms you and you have no power. If that were the case, everything would be in everybody and no one would be able to control themselves regardless of anything that anybody else does. They would just be all over the place doing a bunch of things because of soul ties and the absence of choice.”
But there are intentional choices and unintentional choices, which brings me to mind wandering.
Mind wandering
We’ve all been there; you’re doing activity A and find yourself thinking about something totally unrelated. One would say it is a choice to let your mind wander, but researchers argue that mind wandering can be unintentional. So let’s say I’m in a casual fling with a dude. One day, I intentionally choose to watch a video about the history of ballerinas. Suddenly, I start thinking about homeboy. That could be unintentional mind wandering; I didn’t intentionally choose to think about him, it was not something I could control. Philosophy researcher Joshua Shepherd explains further.
“Unintentional mind wandering is caused by the cognitive control system precisely when, and because, the expected value of whatever the agent is doing — usually, exercising control towards achievement of some occurrent goal — is deemed too low,” he said. “This ‘too low’ judgment generates a search for a better goal, or task.”
In other words, if activity A isn’t bringing you the value you thought it would (the ballerina documentary sucks), the mind wanders to search for something that will be more satisfying. It is deemed unintentional because the mind was fixed towards activity A.
Brandon, too, highlighted that choices can be unintentional. He believes one can subconsciously agree to a soul tie, but reiterated that an intentional choice can be made after the realization.
“When you realize what you’ve done you can always cut it off,” he said. “It’s like you’re walking and step in some shit, but you never consciously stepped in the shit. I’m not trying to say soul ties are shit. It’s not until you look and see the shit on your shoes that you can clean it off.”
Cognitive control
Cognitive Studies experts Marion Rouault and Etienne Koechlin describe cognitive control as “mental processes that evolve as regulating adaptive behavior beyond basic reinforcement and associative learning processes.” This suggests a system which oversees the completion of tasks and deployment of attention. But there are other findings.
Shepherd cites peer Adele Diamond who limits the processes to circumstances requiring dire focus and attention. For Shepherd, the processes can operate outside of one’s awareness (unintentional) which can influence thoughts and actions in subtle or imperceptible ways.
More so, in a 2018 study conducted by the San Francisco State University, researchers discovered that people have less control over their thoughts than generally assumed. Using two experiments and a sample of 35 students, sets were used to gather information on what people thought when given specific instructions.
“The data support the view that when one is performing a desired action, conscious thoughts about alternative plans still occupy the mind, often insuppressibly,” said Associate Professor of Psychology Ezequiel Morsella.
While I would have appreciated a wider, more representative sample, it is evident that this mind control thing isn’t linear. Choice and thought can be intentional and unintentional. In the case of The People v. Soul Ties, the verdict supports Brandon’s point that one can foster intentional thoughts of disengagement to prevent a soul tie, regardless of its nature.
The leather belt effect
In my other article, I spoke about pieces of leather being stuck to the other when glued then ripped a part. It not only relates to souls being perpetually connected after a sexual exchange, but also traits or moods of one person manifesting in the other. I’ll elucidate using a Casanova example.
John is sleeping with Mary and Kate. Mary is a happy-go-lucky broad, Kate is a walking dark cloud. At some point of her sexual relationship with John, Mary begins to feel sad all the time. It is most apparent after each sexual encounter with him. On the other hand, John is feeling great, and Kate is between the two vibrations. I believe pieces of leather are being transferred and shared among John, Mary and Kate.
Brandon disagrees.
“A lot of people believe that with sexual soul ties, whatever spirit the person has inside of them will become attached to you and I don’t necessarily believe that,” he said. “To say the spirit will dwell inside you — and I guess having sex with the person is giving the spirit consent to live inside of you — would imply that you have no free will, no control, and you cannot refuse a spirit. I personally believe that if you are having sex with somebody or are around somebody, the only thing you’ll pick up from them are the things you’re already susceptible to doing.
“Yes, everybody is capable of doing anything but there are certain things that you lean more towards than other things. For example, not because you fuck a thief means you’re going to end up stealing. Not because you hang around one means you’ll end up stealing either.”
He added, “If you pick up any form of bad habit from anybody, whether it be through sex or hanging around them, once you discover that you have that habit…and are aware of what is happening, you can change, you always have a say. I don’t think people should feel as powerless as they do as it pertains to soul ties. You get the last say.”
To top off his overall message of free will, he shared some tips on how to overcome negative soul ties.
“Identify where the soul tie is being attached, communicate less with the person and give yourself time,” he said. “Just like any other thing, if you don’t feed the habit it can’t get stronger. If you don’t feed the dog it will only get weaker.”
To that I’ll add, it wasn’t easy to form, so it won’t be easy to break. In my case, I needed to distance myself from Brandon for a long time to recognize what was happening to me. It wasn’t enough to weep, I had to fight my way out of that airless space. It took a lot of discipline, time spent alone, prayer and exercising of choice to arrive at a better space.
I’ve also been abstaining from sex. The experience taught me how spiritually-binding it can be and opened my eyes to other pieces of leather I need to identify. I’m still not where I want to be but I know I’ll get there.
Until then, I’ve made it to the last voice note.
“You’re gonna have bouts of flashback and memories for a good little while but just like everything else, this too shall pass,” he said. “It can only come back if you allow it to. Leave it to time.”
