Human Nature Dynamics Affect On Committed Relationships
Welcome to part two of the Human Nature Dynamics introductory discussion. In part one, we did a shallow dive on the effects our physical human nature has on our human behavior and how that eventually leads to committed relationship failure. In this blog, we take this a step further. We do so by discussing what I feel is a very unacknowledged player in the committed relationship failure epidemic...the soul.
So, what is the soul? The soul is an abstract but very real part of our human existence that can be very challenging to explain. Because it’s not easily perceptible, many discard any notions of it. They do because knowledge of it doesn’t easily coincide with our physical five senses. But I believe understanding what the soul is and its influence on our human nature is vital to understanding the human nature dynamics that cause committed relationship failure. The soul has been defined as that immaterial essence, animating principle, and actuating cause of human existence. It’s also defined as the essential part of something. When we compare it to the word heart, we’ll notice that their definitions are very similar. For heart, the definition is the central inner-most and most vital part of something. In the Christian bible, the heart is often used as a metaphor for the soul. And when we think about it, it makes sense. Right now, heart disease is the number one cause of death in America. The heart muscle is responsible for pumping blood throughout our bodies. Therefore, if it’s not working properly, oxygenated blood can’t get to our vital organs. This makes our heart the most important organ inside our bodies. This also makes it the core of our body’s life source and operation. The bible’s use of the heart as a metaphor shows how important a person’s soul is to God as the soul is not only thought to be eternal but also the person inside the person.
Like the heart organ is the core of our body's function, our soul is the core of our human existence. Consequently, it plays a huge role in our human behavior. Not only is it that immaterial, intangible essence that is housed inside our physical bodies, it’s home to our mind and subconscious. Therefore, it’s the reservoir for both our conscious and subconscious thoughts, and the place of execution of those thoughts. Our mind is the part of our soul that deals with our conscious state and is the filtration system for our conscious thoughts before those thoughts gain permanent storage inside our soul. Our brain provides the physical connection to our mind and soul and carries their commands throughout our body by way of electrical and or chemical signals and hormonal impulses. Thoughts that gain permanent storage in our soul, be they conscious or unconscious, end up becoming a part of our subconscious. But what’s the difference between conscious and unconscious thoughts.
Conscious thoughts are thoughts we knowingly filter in our mind. And the more often they occur the more likely they are to get written to our subconscious soul. Why? Because our conscious mind is finite. And thoughts we often dwell on moves to a more permanent dynamic place that doesn't require conscious execution. These thoughts often get acted out without permission from our conscious mind. This is because they're stored in our subconscious soul and our subconscious soul is dynamic. In computer mechanics, its function would be similar to a computer's cache. Cache is a type of computer memory where routine commands and computer instructions are kept so the computer doesn't waste resources relearning the same commands and instructions it already learned but forgot...commands and instructions it uses over and over. Like computer cache, we off-load routine everyday thoughts to our subconscious cache. And doing so is like breathing for us. It's just that automatic, dynamic, and natural.
Unconscious thoughts are thoughts we never deliberately filter and often come from what I call environmental third-party telepathy. Meaning, if we trust our environment, we naturally absorb or take in information from that environment without consciously questioning or validating that information. And we can't question it. Because we can't question what we're unaware of. Unconscious thoughts also get written to our soul’s subconscious registers. And it’s often these subconscious thoughts that threatened committed relationships most. Why? Because of their subversive and blinding nature. Because we're unaware of their presence and the consequential actions and behavior they promote, we lack the resolve needed to realize, own, address, and correct the resulting erroneous human behavior they influence. In other words, they stifle our self-awareness, which stifles our ability to self-correct. And as far as committed relationships are concerned, nothing is more frustrating or more unattractive to a loving partner, or any partner for that matter, than when he or she clearly sees relationship damaging truths about our behavior that we can't. Why?
Because over time this unawareness and refusal to own our bad stuff drains him or her of the hope that the union can evolve to a place of peace, fairness, understanding, and oneness. And the additional side effect of this sickness is hypocrisy. When this condition exists, we easy blame our partner for things we do. And when he or she righteously fire back, we accuse him or her of wrongly going tit for tat just because he or she won't accept the truth, when the truth is he or she is just begging us to practice what we preach. And we all know how hard it is to listen to someone who has the raw audacity to correct us about the very thing he or she did, done, does, still does, and won't first fix before telling us to correct it in our own behavior. That kind of pontification just doesn't fly...does it? Now, let's use another computer analogy to further assist us with understanding our subconscious soul and how it processes our conscious and subconscious thoughts.
When a computer is running, all the open apps or applications run in what is known as random access memory or RAM. This is temporary storage. Meaning, if one shuts down his or her computer without saving open files, those files would be lost because they weren’t stored in permanent storage like the computer’s hard drive. This is why Microsoft Word prompts a user to save a file if a user closes the application without first saving the file. Our minds are like RAM. We can only store so much conscious data there before we have to move it to a more permanent place. Our souls are like the computer’s hard drive. This is where we store both our conscious and unconscious thoughts. And because our soul is the place our thoughts get dynamically acted upon, it’s also the place where our thoughts become actions. And when these thoughts, be they conscious or unconscious, get stored in our subconscious, we often act on them without realizing it.
For example, have you ever driven home from work, and when you pulled into your driveway, you didn't remember making any left or right turns? You didn’t remember going through or stopping at the usual traffic lights you navigate daily on your trip home? Has that ever happened to you? Or have you every gone into the kitchen to get one thing but got something else instead? And you made it back to the living room or wherever you intended before realizing it? If you've done either of these or something similar, why did you? You did so because you were consciously thinking about something other than what you were actively doing. And you could because of your subconscious.
In the driving example, you’d made that trip so many times that the direction on how to get home was stored inside your subconscious. You didn’t have to consciously think about the trip home. But when you pulled into your driveway, you needed to reinstate your state of consciousness to encounter new obstacles such as a family member running up to the car or an unknown car parked in your driveway. This process is a human nature process. In this example, our subconscious is like our co-pilot. Imagine if we didn’t have it. We couldn’t multitask. Using this same scenario, if we’d just moved to a big city we’d never been to or lived in, our subconscious wouldn’t have the data it needed to allow us to consciously think on other things while it guided us home. We’d have to consciously navigate our trip home.
True story. When I was 16, my girlfriend at the time spent the summer with her sister in New York. When she returned to Georgia, she didn’t have a lick of southern twang in her speech. She enunciated all her words effortlessly, dotting all her I’s and crossing all her T’s. We wanted to know why she was talking all proper and stuff. Her friends, her family, and I…we called her on it. What…think you all that since you been to New York? Y’all know how they do, when they country southern, know they pretty and all, then they come back from the big city enunciating all their words. On top of that, she came back acting all stank towards me. Didn’t wanna be around me. Wasn’t doing the things she used to do with me. I was like, what’s up? You too good for me now that you all articulate and whatnot? Or is it that New York brotha that's got you dotting your I’s and crossing your T’s and no longer feeling me? I probably wasn’t that poetic with it, but you get the picture. Of course, she swore there was no one else and that she wasn’t talking proper. She swore she hadn’t stopped loving me and she hadn’t changed her usual speech at all. Now I couldn’t prove she hadn’t been seeing another guy in New York, but I could prove she was talking like she was from New York. Truth is, she didn’t realize how she’d subconsciously picked up on and emulated that New York sound in such a short time. In my ex-girlfriend’s case, she didn’t consciously choose to change her speech pattern. It was an unconscious thing that registered in her subconscious. And it showed up in her daily speech. This is human nature at work by way of our soul. It's very sneaky and nearly undetectable in many if not most committed relationships. And the behavior it produces can and does wreak havoc on all relationship types but especially on committed relationships.
In summary, the human behavior that leads to failed committed relationships are just symptoms of human nature dynamics. Often, people in committed relationships treat these behaviors as the root cause when they’re not. Throughout this blog series, I will methodically prove why and how committed relationship failure is a human nature root issue and show how human nature dynamics are masked by human behavior. And in upcoming blogs, we’ll dive deeper into human nature dynamics and show how human nature influences like the soul are directly responsible for destroying solely committed relationships. Now let’s recap by highlighting the takeaways of this blog post. In this episode, we discussed:
1. Human nature, what it is, how it is root tributary to all human behavior, both directly and indirectly. And how it produces the human nature dynamics that destroy relationships, especially committed ones.
2. How Human nature is both Physical and Soulful. Our physical human nature deals with hormones, genes, and electrical and chemical impulses. Our soul human nature deals with the natural way we process, interpret, and store information in the form of both conscious and unconscious thoughts. It also deals with the way we consciously and unconsciously act on those thoughts. And it's often the soul’s unchallenged influence on our human nature that leads to committed relationship failure.
3. How Human Behavior is a symptom and not a root cause.
In closing, in this episode, we’ve established the vital foundation all the other episodes will be built upon. And on the next episode, we’ll be discussing what I call the “I” Principle, which is the next human nature process and building block essential to understanding why committed relationships fail.
As always, if you’ve enjoyed this blog series, please share it with others. And if you haven’t, please consider subscribing to receive the latest updates about future books, podcasts, and materials. I won’t sell your information. I value your patronage too much to do that. And always remember, committed relationships often cost more than their price tag!