When You Can’t Move On: Understanding And Breaking Soul Ties (Part 2)

Part Two: Familiar Spirits and the Patterns That Keep Pulling You Back

Some chains don’t look like chains. They look like habits. Or preferences. Or even like the kind of people you’re always drawn to, even though they always end up hurting you. Maybe you’ve prayed, you’ve walked away, or you’ve repented. But something still keeps pulling you back into the same cycles, the same emotions, the same shame, the same story, just with a new face. That’s where familiar spirits come in.

What Is a Familiar Spirit?

A familiar spirit is a demonic influence that’s familiar with your history, your wounds, and your family line. It often works through memory, pattern, and emotional attachment to keep you in bondage, quietly, subtly, consistently.

Familiar spirits aren’t always loud or dramatic. Often, they show up as patterns. They whisper lies that feel like truth. They guide you back into cycles that feel safe… but are spiritually toxic. Familiar spirits feed on familiar pain. They use what’s unhealed to keep you bound to what God’s already delivered you from.

The Pattern Is the Problem

Not every soul tie is with a person. Sometimes, your soul is tied to a pattern. These are what I call familiar soul ties or unhealthy spiritual or emotional connections tied to places, memories, generational cycles, or sinful comforts you’ve grown accustomed to.

They can show up as:

• Habitual sexual sin (pornography, masturbation, fantasy)

• Repetitive emotional dysfunction (always drawn to the same toxic personalities)

• Generational cycles (abuse, addiction, codependency)

• Unhealed trauma linked to specific people, places, or behaviors

• Comfort patterns that feel like escape—but function like bondage

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Psychologically, trauma traps your brain into repeating what’s familiar, even if it’s harmful. In those moments you’re not always chasing a person. You’re often chasing the emotional familiarity of pain.

In the Bible the Israelites longed for Egypt, even after God set them free. “We remember the fish we ate in Egypt… but now our appetite is gone” (Numbers 11:5–6). Their appetite had been shaped by slavery. That’s what familiar spirits do. They keep you craving the place God already rescued you from.

Real-Life Examples of Familiar Spirits at Work

1. Sexual Comfort Patterns

You’ve broken off relationships. You’ve deleted the apps. But something still draws you toward sexual fantasy, casual encounters, or emotional flings. It’s not always lust, it’s a familiar spirit using past comfort as a doorway to new bondage. In those moments, You’re not tied to a person, you’re tied to the pattern of escape!

2. Triggering Locations

You drive past a building, and your chest tightens. You walk into a certain room and feel shame wash over you. That’s not nostalgia, that’s your soul still tied to a moment. Familiar spirits attach themselves to unhealed trauma and try to keep that wound open—so you never fully move forward.

How to Know If You’re Dealing With a Familiar Spirit

Ask yourself:

• Do I keep ending up in the same emotional cycle, even with different people?

• Do I feel pulled toward sin or dysfunction that I’ve already repented of?

• Do I feel stuck in patterns my parents or grandparents struggled with?

• Do I feel shame, fear, or heaviness in certain places or when thinking of certain memories?

  
  

If those sound familiar, it’s not a coincidence. It may be a spiritual assignment against your freedom.

Breaking Free from Familiar Spirits

Deliverance doesn’t just mean casting something out. It means replacing what was familiar with something that is holy. Here’s how we deal with familiar spirits:

1. Identify the Pattern

Ask the Holy Spirit to reveal what’s familiar but not from Him.Write down the patterns you keep returning to. Call them what they are.

2. Repent and Renounce

You’re not just repenting of a moment, you’re renouncing the agreement you made with the lie.

“In Jesus’ name, I break every agreement with the familiar spirit of [lust, fear, control, etc.]. I renounce its right to speak, influence, or linger in my life.”

3. Close the Door

Don’t leave access points open. That might mean deleting old conversations, avoiding triggering locations, ending toxic relationships, or cutting off generational sin patterns through prayer.

“I close every door of access through past pain, sin, or trauma. I seal it with the blood of Jesus.”

4. Fill the Space

Now invite the Holy Spirit to fill what was once familiar with His newness.

“Holy Spirit, make unfamiliar what was once familiar. Rewire my cravings, reshape my thoughts, and renew my heart.”

Genuine Freedom Feels Different

Familiar bondage may feel safer than unfamiliar freedom but Jesus came to make you free!

If something feels off… if you’ve done “all the right things” but still feel spiritually stuck… it may not be about the person anymore. It may be the pattern. And the good news? Jesus breaks patterns!

Let Him heal what’s behind the behavior. Let Him speak to what’s driving your dysfunction. Let Him untangle your soul from everything that’s still pretending to feel like home. Because genuine freedom may feel unfamiliar at first, but it’s the only thing that leads to peace.

If this post helped you, leave a comment or share it with someone else who’s walking this journey. You don’t have to fight these patterns alone.

And if you missed Part One, go back and read it:  When You Can’t Move On: Understanding and Breaking Soul Ties

You can break free from every negative influence present in your life! If you want to go deeper into the spiritual and emotional wholeness that God has for you, check out my book, Encountering Abba’s Heart, or use the purchase link below.

Encountering Abba's Heart