Written by: Eric Deeter, Executive Contributor
Executive Contributors at Brainz Magazine are handpicked and invited to contribute because of their knowledge and valuable insight within their area of expertise.
Do you want prosperity and health?
Of course! We all want health and prosperity and a good full life. But you may be missing out on all of these if you have a fractured soul!
Living with a fractured soul is a common malady. Your upbringing and education probably caused this fracture, and the society you and I live in perpetuates and enables it.
So, how does your soul get fractured? And what does your soul have to do with prosperity and health? What is your soul, anyway? You probably have some idea that your soul refers to who you are, deep inside yourself somewhere. But the definition is like a shadow of a shadow and hard to put your finger on.
The one place you’d expect to understand the soul and what it does in the Christian Church. But preachers and teachers in the Church pass over the topic with the phrase: your soul is your mind, will, and emotions. They say this phrase with the kind of authority and cadence to make you think knowing the “definition” is all you need. Just move along to more important matters.
This attitude from pastors and teachers in the Church began to annoy me. I grew up in the church, and I can’t recall any substantial explanation of exactly what the soul is or why it matters. And then I read a prayer in the Bible that says, “May you prosper and be in health, even as your soul prospers.” This sounds like the soul is plenty important, doesn’t it? Prosperity and health! Who doesn’t want both of these?
I began asking questions and looking for answers. The journey brought me to conclusions that might offend religious people while, at the same time, be too “religious” for others. But this topic has been churning in me for too long, and every time I hear a preacher use the mind, will, and emotions line, I grit my teeth so I don’t scream.
There is an epidemic of people who are struggling through life with fractured souls. And a fractured soul won’t give you prosperity and health.
To begin to understand the issue, let’s get clear on some definitions. Merriam-Webster defines “mind” as: the element or complex of elements in an individual that feels, perceives, thinks, wills, and especially reasons. The preachers are too careless with their words, using “mind” instead of “thoughts” or “intellect.” So when we talk about mind, it means the same as the word soul–the thoughts, the emotions, and the will.
As human beings, we are body, soul, and spirit. In non-religious language, we are body, mind, and consciousness. Of course, neuroscience is still debating the relationship between the body, the mind, and consciousness. I’ll leave the theories and debate to the scientists. What I am interested in is practical application rather than theory. I want to talk about what the soul has to do with prosperity and health. But first, we have to look at what led to so many of us trying to navigate life with fractured souls.
I believe the doctrine of the Protestant Church is one of two influences leading to the fractured condition of so many souls.
Protestant Church doctrine, in general, focuses on the spiritual condition of humanity. The human body is, at best, a temporary shell to carry the soul and spirit through this life. At worst, the body is a corrupt distraction, always craving corrupt desires that will drag the spirit to hell. It’s a battle between the spirit and the flesh that lasts a lifetime.
The soul is somewhere in the middle of this battle, but its role is relegated to a simple definition–mind, will, and emotions–as if knowing this flawed definition is all that’s needed. The soul is said to be eternal, like the spirit. And the soul and spirit are connected somehow. But the spirit is elevated while the soul is ignored.
The second cause of so many fractured souls is because we are trained to believe that our intellect defines who we are as human beings. I think, therefore I am. Descartes, the philosopher, made this phrase famous. He and his contemporaries elevated reason and intellect to become the driving force of our world. We call ourselves homo sapiens, literally meaning wise man. By this definition, the ability to think and reason makes you who you are. And, in our world, we elevate the smartest people to places of honor. I’m all for having smart people making wise decisions. But your conscious thoughts–your intellect–don’t make you who you are. You are much more than the sum of your thoughts.
Your conscious thoughts are only one part of your soul. And your soul is fractured when you treat your intellect as the center of your identity.
Your soul, or mind, is made up of your conscious thoughts, your emotions, and your unconscious thoughts (also called the will). Psychologists claim that between 90 ‒ 95% of all your decisions and actions come from the unconscious part of your mind. This means that your belief in logical, rational, and unbiased decisions is fantasy. In reality, your unconscious mind and emotions are in the driver’s seat.
The net result of having a fractured soul is that your intellect wants prosperity and health and tries to make wise decisions to that end. Meanwhile, your will pulls you off in a completely different direction. And your heart and emotions are on a roller coaster that never stops.
This state of affairs makes you a prime target for marketers and self-help gurus. Marketers know how to trigger your emotions and your will by linking their products to your craving for comfort and significance.
Self-help gurus keep you buying books, courses, and seminars by telling you that you can “think and grow rich.” This idea is like trying to put a rope around a wild elephant and lead him where you want to go. “Thinking” will lose against your unconscious will and your emotions every time.
Your soul cannot prosper when it is fractured.
Religion uses this same “change your thinking” approach that the self-help gurus promote. Every religion expects you to change your thoughts and behavior when you enter their ranks. Or, if you are born into a religion, you’re educated in the orthodox thoughts and behaviors of that religion and sect. Religious teaching is about what you should think and how you should act. The doctrine may talk about soul and spirit, but the practice still comes down to thinking and doing. I’ll use the Protestant Christian Church as an example because that is where my background and knowledge is grounded.
The process one goes through to enter the Christian religion usually starts with a personal decision to become a Christian. The details vary depending on the Church denomination involved. But, in general, this involves a declaration of intent and belief, usually spoken as a prayer. Usually this prayer also includes a renunciation of one’s past failures and acceptance of a clean slate. In most cases, baptism is the next step, seen as a public declaration of faith and a symbol of washing away the past and starting a new life.
From this point, there is a disconnect between practice and teaching. The new believer is encouraged to devote himself or herself to attend worship services and Bible studies as well as volunteer for church activities. This immersion in the culture and community of the church helps the new convert adopt the thinking, beliefs, and vocabulary to fit in with the group. In other word, the conversion process focuses on intellectual knowledge so that the new believer learns to think and act “Christian.”
In contrast, most churches teach that the transformation of a believer comes from the ongoing work of the Holy Spirit of God in his or her soul. Most pastors and church leaders will argue that this work of the Holy Spirit happens within the context of the teaching and community building activities of the church. But too often, church leaders rely heavily on peer pressure and our human desire to stay within the fold. The role of the Holy Spirit is an afterthought at best.
Your intellect and how you use it is the prime focus of both the self-help industry and the Protestant Church. Both of them say that you change your life by the power of your intellect and what you think. The expectation is that if you can only learn to think “correctly” you can mend your fractured soul. But the result is that you stay trapped in a futile attempt to wrestle your will and emotions in the direction you think they should be going.
“May you prosper and be in health, even as your soul prospers.” But you can’t think your way into the prosperity of your soul.
I think that the path to the prosperity of your soul lies in understanding how it interacts with your body. Religion and the self-help industry tend to ignore the fact that the soul is intertwined with the body. The focus is on the spirit, in the case of religion, and the intellect. The view for them is that the body is a burden to the spirit and not all that important to the intellect.
But I think a better way to see the soul is that it’s the interface between the spirit and the body. Or, to say it in psychological terms, The mind is the interface between the conscious and the body. Think of your body as the hardware, the soul as the software, and the spirit as the code within the software.
Every thought you have produces a neurochemical response in the body. These chemicals are tied to emotions which then reinforce the thought you have. This process is repeated at lightning speed for each of your thousands of thoughts every day. The relationship between your thoughts and your body isn’t merely one direction. The body adapts to the “normal” balance of neurochemicals that make up your typical day. And your body will conspire to stay with the familiar feelings it has accepted as “normal life.”
You can use your intellect to “think and grow rich” or become more Chrisitan or change a habit, but those thoughts create different chemical responses in your body. You are pitting your intellect against the other two parts of your soul, and they have their own neural networks they use to team up with your body and derail all your best intellectual reasoning.
Your body has three areas of neural networks. The brain, of course, but there is also the neural network for the heart and the gut. There are studies that suggest a level of awareness in both the heart and the gut. We even say things like “having a gut feeling” or a “broken heart.” When you’re using your will to push yourself, we say you have “guts.” If the soul is the software, then the heart and gut are the hardware for the emotions and the will.
Some believe that the neurons in the heart and gut are merely subroutines of the brain. But there are several documented cases of heart-transplant recipients with access to memories of their donors and adopting preferences and habits their donors held. Studies continue to show that more is going on in the heart and the gut than we first believed.
Mending your fractured soul starts with a deep and conscious connection between your soul and your body.
Prosperity of the soul comes from a deep connection to and awareness of the workings of your intellect, emotions, and your will as you move through time and space in your body.
It starts by paying attention. The common phrase is to “be in the moment.” In other words, pay attention! Pay attention rather than moving through life on autopilot with your thoughts chattering like a pack of monkeys. Mending a fractured soul comes from learning how to live in your body: intellect, emotions, and will. It’s getting your thoughts, emotions, and will to all pull in the same direction.
Why does it matter? You will be in health and prosper as your soul prospers. If you’re like me, you want robust health and epic life. The key to both lies in your soul.
Eric Deeter, Executive Contributor Brainz Magazine
Eric Deeter is an entrepreneur, published author, certified life coach, podcaster, and barefoot/minimalist ultramarathon runner. He says that the mindset for life transformation and the mindset for ultramarathon running is the same. A goal that seems impossible at first becomes a reasonable challenge to work towards. He helps his clients discover and go after their EPIC THING: that big dream or goal they have put away in the back corner of their minds.
