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Limerence with Michelle Akin
102 Plays5 months ago
What is it like to have intrusively strong romantic feelings? What are the causes, and what techniques can improve it?
Vynn and Francis interview life coach Michelle Akin about what it is like to experience limerence. This is a common, yet not talked about, obsessive love addiction which can repeatedly break relationships.
What is the difference between limerence and love? How do limerent people behave with their object of desire? What does it feel like inside their body?
The conversation goes into the possible causes of limerence, both innate and relating to attachment in childhood. Michelle describes different methods of therapy and group programmes that can help with it.
How do people visualise the object of their limerence? What is the impact of attending to negative traits of the object of limerence on bodily feelings of despair?
To finish, Michelle describes how many people messaged her directly when she posted on social media about limerence, and advice she gave them.
Timestamps:
01:15 What does limerence feel like?
02:45 Is it a physical experience?
03:22 Sex and Love Addicts
05:57 The commonness of limerence
07:44 Dorothy Tennov the coiner of limerence
11:00 The difference between limerence and love
13:56 Is limerence a type of crush
17:17 Anxiety in limerence
18:21 What causes limerence?
21:56 Vibrational Harmonic Healing
22:30 Limerence therapy specialist
26:20 Limerent connection as healing the father wound
28:10 New friendships
28:27 Visualising the objects of limerence
32:10 How to handle limerence
34:16 Number of people being impacted by limerence
Show Links:
- Limerence: What Is It And How Do We Let It Go? - video by Heidi Priebe
- Michelle’s AMA about limerence
- Michelle’s Twitter account
- Inconvenient Epiphanies - Michelle’s substack
- Dorothy Tennov - Coiner of Limerence
Contact Details:
Please follow us, get in touch, tell us about your inner experiences!
Twitter: @imagine_apple @SurenVynn @frabcus
Email: [email protected]
Theme written, performed and recorded by @MJPiercello
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Transcript
Introduction to Limerence and Guest Michelle
00:00:00
Speaker
What does lemons feel like for you? if i If you had asked me a long time ago, I would have just said, love and excitement, and it's like a rush of feelings, and it's so great. But now, my answer is, it feels like panic.
00:00:29
Speaker
Welcome to Imagine an Apple with Vin and Francis. Today, we'll be talking with Michelle on the topic of limerence. So today, instead of imagining apples, we'll be imagining what limerence is like.
Michelle's AMA and the Limerence Spectrum
00:00:41
Speaker
So this all kicked off a few weeks ago when Michelle did an AMA, Ask Me Anything, on Twitter. Long story short, there was a flurry of responses with wildly different experiences of limerence. Some people claimed to experience limerence on a frequent basis, since preschool even. And then there were others who claim to have not experienced it at all. And then there's everyone else who falls in between these two extremes. I'm going to call this the hypo to hyper limerant spectrum.
Michelle's Evolving Perception of Limerence
00:01:09
Speaker
So the question I have to ask you today is what does limerants feel like for you? if i If you had asked me a long time ago, I would have just said love and excitement and it's like a rush of feelings and it's so great. But now my answer is it feels like panic.
00:01:30
Speaker
It feels kind of like careening toward the edge of a cliff. I'm about to die kind of sensation and um mixed with love and happy and oh my God and this is so great but you're also careening toward a cliff. So to the extent that you're aware of that, it feels scary. It actually feels, it registers now in my body if I feel it with someone as a huge, nope, runaway, kind of like if a drug addict was offered drugs after they've gotten clean and they have this sensation of like moving forward and then being like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa no, no, no, no, no, no, stop. Right. So it's a big warning. There's a strong withdrawal element to it as well, because you liken it to drugs.
00:02:17
Speaker
Yeah, at this point. and i feel i'm I don't think that... Well, I've heard some people say that they used to experience it the way I do and now they don't, which is fascinating to me because I'm not quite there, but I do have and a level of awareness about it that is embodied now. it's not I used to have it mental, I had a mental awareness, and now I have a physical awareness. Do you think it was always physical, but you've just only recently discovered the awareness, like notice it in your body? Yes. Yes. Okay. I think I just thought it was normal because as I mentioned, my AMA said, I've been experiencing limerence since preschool. So obviously when I was in preschool, I didn't know, I just was like, I'm in love with a boy who doesn't want anything to do with me, which makes me love him more.
The Impact of Limerence on Relationships
00:03:14
Speaker
And that is normal. Yeah. So the mental awareness version, did that come in like words or images or concepts? can you like How did you become, um what was the mental experience of it like? I started researching. I mean, I feel like I was researching for years without actually finding this term, first of all. And I would just, the only place I got pointed to was sex and love addicts. And I even attended a meeting and I think after about 15 minutes of listening to people in the meeting, I was like, no, this isn't my problem. This is different. And well, that's because I think that they should split that 12 step program up into sex addicts and love addicts.
00:03:58
Speaker
because the limerant folks would go would actually relate to the love addiction part. I think that they're synonymous personally. But the sex addiction part was not that didn't resonate for me, because you can have limerants and have no sexual feelings. Or it's not about that at all. So like, I did it frequently it is it is about that, but it doesn't it's not the number one characteristic for everyone. It's really easy to confuse that. I agree with you. Very. Yeah. Okay. So I've got a really interesting question because you mentioned that you only discovered the term limits fairly like recently or like later in life. What, and whereas you've been feeling the emotion all the way up to like preschool. So what did you call it before you knew about the term limits?
00:04:45
Speaker
I called it me being a horrible person because I would be in a relationship with one person and then have these strong feelings for somebody else and have to contend with that. Why is that happening? What does that mean? What does it mean about me? What does it mean about the relationship? So I used to take it to mean the relationship is doomed and I need to get out of it. And so I'd get out of it and then date the person I became limited with and then repeat the process over and over and over and over and over. And this has happened like more than once. Oh, yeah. Many times. That's really intense. Yes. It's pretty much the way that all of my relationships started in some way, shape or form, because without the awareness around it, that's, it's just, again, it's,
00:05:31
Speaker
It seems normal or you just assume everyone's having this exact same experience. So this must just be what it's like. And I even, I mean, I've heard people say this. I said, well, I guess I'll just marry whoever I'm dating around the age of 25. I don't know. How else would you decide? Everyone feels the same to me. Yeah, that sounds ah like a very uncommon experience. Yeah.
Understanding and Acknowledging Limerence
00:05:54
Speaker
Francis? Yeah, that doesn't sound like a good experience. and yeah But again, when you don't know you don't know anything else, so it's just like, oh, relationships are really intense and crazy. Yeah. i ah Just really quickly, I probably felt this maybe twice in my life, whereas you've had this much more often, so I can see why you would congratulate me for only having it twice. Yes.
00:06:22
Speaker
Yeah, I think I've come near to it, but it was more in the crush category. It's like fundamental difference of the experience. the How common do you think it is? Do you think- Oh, i it's it's extraordinarily common. Yeah. And I say that because of the number of people I've encountered who I mentioned something about it and they're like, wait, you know about limerence? Like it's this underground taboo topic and I've had hours long conversations with friends about it ah who have done deep dives like me or even random strangers I've met that have gotten a conversation and I've been talking to them for a while. And then I'm like, have you ever heard the term limerence? And they go, wait,
00:07:09
Speaker
You know about it too. So I do, I feel like a lot of people are experiencing it and I'm also a coach. So I talk to a lot of people and I don't, I don't bring it to a client, but if they're, I hear people having these experiences often. Hmm. Okay. Wow. So it could be like half of people have had it or that kind of amount. Yeah. I mean, there's, there's been. There are a lot of studies and different people. if you really If you dig around, I read some of Dorothy Tenov's book. Dorothy Tenov's the one who coined the term. and ah and i had It was very dated and I had a hard time getting through it, but I have a hard time getting through most books, so that's not even anything against that book in particular.
00:07:58
Speaker
But yeah, there were some statistics in there about it, and I can't recall them off the top of my head, but but it does seem that there's probably a huge spectrum. And my my take is that the extent to which you experienced childhood trauma, especially in the realm of emotional abandonment, will determine how limerant you are. That's just from my cus because that was a primary my primary ah traumas in life are around emotionally being emotionally abandoned. and so it's like i'm The is trying to point me to
00:08:40
Speaker
heal something, to work something out with this person. Maybe if I get them to return the love, it'll heal the thing in me that is yet to heal. And it's a misguided attempt because even when the limerence is returned, well, usually it ends. If the person, one of the ways that limerence ends is that the person confirms their feelings. Oh, I feel the same way. And then it will dissipate. And it doesn't actually heal your wound. Do you think it will? Sorry, so if they feel the same way, it doesn't dissipate and turn into love or a proper relationship. It dissipates in a kind of vanishes way. I think it often vanishes, yes, almost entirely. And not for everyone, but I found that stories about it working out are quite rare and take a lot of work.
00:09:33
Speaker
Yeah, so it's yeah making it hard to form good relationships basically. Yes, it does. And
Differentiating Limerence from Real Love
00:09:41
Speaker
my husband and I started out with limerants and it went away after three months. and we've but we've we've been together 15 years and we have taken apart and put our relationship back together a number of times. So I don't think we have the same relationship as the one when we started and we're certainly not the same people. I mean, just the amount of personal development work and healing work that we've done together over the years is I think above average.
00:10:09
Speaker
It's above the average what the average people go and do. but when ah I've talked about this and on other podcasts, but when I got together with him, and he was different because we knew each other for a whole year as friends and I didn't have those feelings. But then like our whirlwind started after that once I was out of my relationship that I had been in. And I said to him, I was like, i don't you shouldn't date me because I do this thing where I get together with people and then three months later I could lose all interest in them and I fucked them up. So like don't don't date me. and um And eventually he was just like, okay, I get it. You have a pattern and you think you're a terrible person and you think you're going to break my heart.
00:10:54
Speaker
That's a risk I'm willing to take. Can we stop talking about it now? Right. And now you're here. You are 15 years later still happy. Yes. Yeah. So I guess it's fair enough to say that you love your husband and you know what romance and true love feels like. And you presume we also feel sexual attraction to him. Can you like go through the differences between now that you've come up at the end of the spectrum, and you know what they're how it differs from limits. Can you explain to us like what it feels like and and how would they differ from each other? Well, first of all, real love can feel very boring to a literate person. Very boring. Like ho hum. What is even this? Just like being sober could feel boring to an addict, right? But but at the same time,
00:11:47
Speaker
you can actually experience life. You're here, you're present, you're not wasted, you're here. And I feel like it takes a long time to to start to find the pleasure and the normality and to not need that chaos in order to feel something. So for me, the love I have for my husband or my daughter, we could include her in that too, is is not obsessive. It's not grasping. They are their own person. I don't need them to be a particular way. And when it's limerence, it's like the person isn't even a person. They're an object. I need them to behave in a particular way so I can feel a certain way about myself. So it's almost like I'm not in love with the person. I'm in love with the way they make me feel about me.
00:12:39
Speaker
And a real relationship needs to be able to have disagreement and hard truths and difficult conversations. And if you're sometimes the limerence I had with my husband will creep back in. so Occasionally when he doesn't see even this when I was going to say when he doesn't like one of my ideas. No, when I present one of my ideas and he's like, well, have you thought about this? which is his primary mode of speaking. I picked someone who likes to debate. Even if he doesn't fully believe in what he's saying, he just likes to debate. And I will, I will receive it like this attack on my person.
Limerence and Risky Behaviors
00:13:21
Speaker
And I have to separate in that moment and be like, no, no, no, no, that's not what's actually happening right now. And that's taken a lot of work for me over the years, but I can do it. I can even do it when he sounds like he's directly attacking.
00:13:35
Speaker
where I'm like, nope, this is the person I love and so I can see that he needs something and he is upset and I will move toward him rather than away and I won't shut down and I'll ask questions and I'll lean in. So there's a willingness to allow the other person to be exactly where they are when it's love and the opposite when it's not. So how does this compare to like, crushes? Do you think like, limrins are a type of crush? And if so, what type of crush is that? Well, it's the word crush is funny, huh? Because there's this song, I can't remember what which song this is, but the line is, this crush is kind of crushing me. And I think about that, like, you're literally, you're getting crushed.
00:14:25
Speaker
And there's there's kind of, I don't understand the a light level of attraction to another person because I have not really experienced that. like It's kind of all or nothing to me. But from what I hear, maybe you just sort of like somebody and you kind of get giddy around them a little bit and it doesn't take over your person. So the the big difference is that with limerence, you will do things in order to stay in connection with that person that are not good for you. And again, I will liken it to drug addiction because when an addict can't get their fix, they will do some bad things to get it.
00:15:06
Speaker
you There was a description that it feels different in the body. so this Because obviously one of the things that's useful if you're if you're experiencing limerence is to learn when you're experiencing it and when you're not and pay attention to it. Is there like a different part of your body that you that you feel it in when you know it's limerence as opposed to love or a different tone to the feeling physically? Very different. And I'll go back to the thing about love it love feels a little boring. Love is sort of like a i radiating warmth and a groundedness. Whereas limerence, I will get dizzy, physically dizzy.
00:15:51
Speaker
hot like hot around my face my chest is burning my heart is pounding i'm being kind of sucked like let's say i'm texting i'm like i am sucked into the phone i'm not even there anymore i lose track of time i'm not here so there's like tunnel vision and like a heart place just like going up okay yeah yeah yeah that seems really where's love like the easiest way for people who haven't experience that grounded companionable love, that that real appreciation for the person that you're with. i I think I understood it better once I had a kid and I could just be with her and just be like, I just love her so much. And there's that parental sense of, oh my God, I have to keep this child safe and what if I lose her? And parents can be very obsessive in grasping with their children.
00:16:50
Speaker
Thankfully, I am not afflicted in that way with my kid. um' If anything, I'm the opposite, if anything. But no, I just, I really, I respect her. Kind of a funny thing to say about your kid, but I respect my kid. I'm just like, yeah, you're your own. Wow. Look at you. You're like an object a person. Yeah. Thanks. Yeah.
00:17:13
Speaker
It's really interesting. I'm just trying to think because some of those things you get from a passion I think isn't necessarily limerence as well. like ah attention going to the person and like heart and dizzy and pounding heart and so on. Right. my like I feel like there's some element of some of the experience of anxiety or something may be mixed in in limerants as well. There is. the different Yeah. but Yeah, like I've had insomnia when I was limerant, disordered eating, putting myself in bad situations.
00:17:51
Speaker
ah going to that bar in that neighborhood that I should not be going to at 21 alone in New York City and things like that.
Origins and Therapeutic Approaches to Limerence
00:18:00
Speaker
So ah I think you there's a difference between feeling very passionate about another person and being like, yeah, I'm going to go out on a date. I'm so excited versus I'm going to put myself in physical danger in order to spend time with this person. And I know it's not a good idea. Right, so what do you think actually causes it? So you you said briefly earlier to do things from childhood, is there like a particular, is there something that do you think it you think it triggers in people in general or is it more a kind of
00:18:40
Speaker
ongoing personality thing that's attracted to it. What's the kind of- I mean, given that it started for me so early that I really think it's just wired, you're wired. and Again, the same way some people can... i Actually, my dad's an alcoholic and I'm not, but but I am addicted to people. I get addicted to people, but I can handle alcohol. you know and like Some people really can't handle alcohol and they need to stay away from it. And it's like, well, what triggers that? Oh, it's it's in the genes. So I wonder i do wonder whether whether it's inherited in some way.
00:19:23
Speaker
I don't know, but I do think that that abandonment wounding is across the board. Everyone I've talked to who experiences a lot of limerence has that experience of I didn't have safe people to receive my emotions when I was young. And so it wasn't okay to be human, basically. it wasn't I didn't have confidence. I didn't have it people who hurt people heard me and maybe made fun of me or maybe brushed me off or something like that. So I was very just always feeling left and not not sufficiently gotten and held and heard and understood.
00:20:10
Speaker
Yeah. So it makes it makes me think about obviously lots of therapy partly is treating the habeas that happened in childhood that were necessary then but then don't work anymore as as an adult and it's quite interesting that so in Heidi's video it's super interesting that she helped process it herself by paying attention to the bodily feeling and then ah and that helped her understand it which obviously some therapy does as well gets you to think about your bodily feelings
00:20:42
Speaker
ah But it also sounds like for some people, the like talking therapy would help as well. I'm not like, can yeah which is closely related to coaching. So I sense you probably know about it. So yeah, well, isar glad right so is there a general thing that generally improving your mental health will lead to reducing the symptoms of limerins? I think so, yeah. I do think that any any inner work that you can do will help. and i've the ways I will just list off ways that I've
00:21:15
Speaker
tried to address this and and coaching is certainly one because simply confiding in another person and hearing anything reflected back or having inquiry gifted to you by another person. hey have you like Here's a question and to look at it is awesome. I've done a talk therapy with three different, maybe four different practitioners over the years. Yeah, some longer term than others. but I've also gone to a variety of different spiritual healers, one of whom is not a marketed medium, but he kind of does some of that. It just happens in the sessions, but it was ah what he does is called vibrational harmonic healing. I can't even explain it to you. It kind of looks like talk therapy. It kind of looks like coaching and then it's not.
00:22:06
Speaker
I did a lot of work with him and and he he I would call him up and be like, the thing's happening again with a person. and He would just laugh because it was always the same pattern and dynamic and he would have me understand that it's not about the other person. I am objectifying this person. a I think after I found out the term limerence, I was trying to find a therapist who specializes in this. And I'm just going to say, if any therapists are listening, you could you could make a lot of money ah if you actually look into this and put yourself out there as someone who wants to work with these specific people because there aren't really any. It's very, very thin. But I found someone, I went to an event here in Jersey and it was a business networking event for women and I got put into an icebreaker circle and you go around and you say what you do. And this woman across from me, it gets to her, she's like, hey, I'm a therapist. I specialize in eating disorders and love addiction.
00:23:04
Speaker
And i jump I literally jumped out of my seat and was like, do you have a card? And then the woman next to me was like, wait, me too. Oh my God. And we all started flipping out that this woman said she specializes in love addiction. And in fact, her practice has been full for years. She is incredibly sought after. And she's very good because I did EMDR with her around it. And in addition to just the talking and let's say iman
00:23:36
Speaker
related Yeah, so if people listening don't know, there's a they use a light bar that you the light goes back and forth or on Zoom you can use a bouncing ball. They have these apps that they use. It it worked for me either way. but you focus your eyes on it and it does something to your mind and allows buried memories and things to to surface. And I was always very surprised by what would come up and what what childhood events were connected to the present day feelings. It was never what I would have gotten to myself.
Personal Reflections and Management Strategies
00:24:13
Speaker
And I'm... really i
00:24:16
Speaker
Yeah, and I know so it doesn't work for some people or they're like, yeah, I tried that and you have to be pretty open. You gotta be pretty willing to allow thoughts and allow the first thing that comes up to be the quote, right answer and just allow it out of your mouth. But I had a lot shift for me with that. and Didn't take it away, obviously, but it helped me with a lot of the buried pain around the things that happened to me as a kid that would lead to me being more limerant because I'm still trying to heal this thing. So there's not always a front door. So that was that. But before I found her, I tried to address it in 12 step programs. Um, specifically there's a bunch for people who are affected by alcoholics. So there's Alan on big BBA, big book awareness. And then there's what I did was adult children of alcoholics.
00:25:16
Speaker
And man, did I need to be in that program. I did it for five years and I had never heard of any anyone talking the way people were talking in those rooms. And it was so helpful to just have my childhood normalized and my adulthood, frankly, just have it normalized and also hear people who had it even worse than me and not in a way that made me feel like I shouldn't feel the way I do, but just going, oh, It could be worse. Okay, that gives me a little access to well compassion and also i do have I have some blessings I have been overlooking here, which that's good to notice and be grateful for what you can be grateful for. And I've actually gotten at this point in my life, I'm 39, I fairly recently had a new layer of forgiveness with my dad and the way that my life went with his alcoholism.
00:26:12
Speaker
And he's still alive, but he's not really mentally here. So he for all intents and purposes isn't here, but he's physically alive. a And I really genuinely for the first time just a few months ago was like, wow, I. I think all of this these limited connections that I've had have been me just trying to heal that father wound over and over and over. I mean i use the phrase, I keep picking dad-shaped men to have this dynamic with. The grasping was looking for the things that you had missed as a child. ah yeah Yeah. Yeah. Wow.
00:26:53
Speaker
So it's, yeah, so it's similar to, yeah, in fact, with lots of mental health conditions, it's a similar thing that you're doing a behavior that that responds to that. And in this case, yeah, to do with de attachment that makes sense. So, so though that experience helps you have you you reduced the amount of time amount you feel it to so that then when you were than 10 years ago or 20 years ago? Um, I can't say that for certain. But I do know now, that when anything feels like that to me, that grasping obsessive thing, if that pops up with a person that I meet, I just back away. Like, don't feed it.
00:27:37
Speaker
Oh, interesting. And then it won't grow. Yeah. So it's very practical. You can avoid it, i'm like an alcoholic avoiding alcohol. Yeah. Yeah. And the people I am getting closer with right now, we're doing it very slowly and on purpose. So it's like, I formed some new friendships and we're just going slow. And they know. i've And I've told them, i'm like I usually get into these these things with people and then we're just talking constantly and we're, you know. And so what's really nice in this moment is I ah have a few, I have a little handful of new friendships I've created that are kind of boring in the best way possible. and That's great. I've got like another phenomenology kind of question relating to this. stuff i
00:28:29
Speaker
So this was again in Heidi Pribis' video. She talked about, she noticed, because one of the things you you described earlier, the bodily feeling being different of like quite intense, dizzy, hot face, pounding heart, burning face. She also talked about the way she imagined. So in her mind's eye, the way she pictured the object of her limerants, they would appear like above her, almost like they were ah a sort of secure father kind of figure that she wanted in her mind's eye. um And then she actually did an intervention with that when she realized, a why are that why, when I imagine them, are they above me? When other people I imagine them and they're just normally at my level, they're not above me. And she started forcing herself to imagine them lower. So she actually actively altered what she was imagining while she was being limerant.
00:29:26
Speaker
And it had this fear feeling, like it made her feel scared, like slightly, it gave her access to the real feeling that this was avoiding. And I wondered if if you had any like visual things like that or to do with your your your experience of limerence. I never thought about it visually like that. But hearing that, that's so interesting. That sounds like it would it would do a lot. I think that instead of that, what I tried to do to get out of being limerant with someone was get really present to their negative traits. So in ah in a different way, have them below me.
00:30:11
Speaker
Oh, interesting. it Like, ah yeah, emotionally or just what you think about them as a person. Yeah, just start to diminish them and look for it because what when when you're in limerence, they are a God. they are They can do no wrong. Everything they do is art. It's perfect. and And anyone who thinks otherwise is an enemy. And it's like, you have to deify them because that's how it works. And so, and this happens a lot when people get rejected as they'll like, they'll turn it and be like, I always hated them and they're terrible. But I feel like that was a strategy to try and get out of it was to start just flipping that really quickly. And did even doing that, bring up feelings and you'd be like trying to resist that or that would make you feel scared. anxious or anything what would the what would the
00:31:03
Speaker
I have a few friends who are almost like my limerence sponsors and I feel like like if they started to point out negative things about the person, I i would i can feel it in my body actually now just thinking back on it. I would have this sort this kind of sad panic, this sort of despair in my body of like like a hollow chest feeling. and shortness of breath, like, Oh no. Oh no. Like what if they're right? And that, and I feel so bad. Oh no, I don't, I don't want to disparage that person. No, no, no, no. They don't deserve that, that they're a good person and just wanting to fight it, you know? But yeah, very visceral. So yeah, I could, there's a panic. So I guess, yeah, fear. Right. Cause there's always an interesting thing about that, whether it helps or harms, cause
00:31:59
Speaker
Yeah, my sense is to fully recover from anything, you need to experience the bad part of it. But at the same time, I sometimes wonder, like, sometimes people are like, well, I'm avoiding it for a reason, it's better to say avoid it. Right. Did it, how did that work for you in terms of was it too much like having that feeling or did it help you like break it to have that feeling? ah I think it, has okay. What really helped me the last time that this happened was that I had some friends who were very like, no.
00:32:32
Speaker
don't like it. Here's all the negative things. And I had like two friends who were like, you know what? I think you need to just but allow the feelings because you always try to repress them. So maybe maybe not. And I think what helped is that I had this time period where I just didn't talk to the friends who were like, no, no, no. And ah I just like let that left them over here. When I'm ready, I will go to them. And I hung out only with the people who were like, good job. Yeah, but but let's talk about all the good things going on in this relationship and who were ah kind of allowing it to play out.
00:33:07
Speaker
I think that helped me a lot because it just let me be where I am. and I had so much shame around this that anytime it came up, I would immediately start to squash it. It needs to go away, make it stop. and I would just repress it and push it away and pretend it's not happening, which shockingly doesn't help.
Limerence, Mental Health, and Community Support
00:33:26
Speaker
oh yeah Unless you're going to move to a different country and never see the person again, and in which case, there's always a little candle waiting. It's always waiting to be relit, which is why I'm not friends with any of my exes. And the one time, and I was single, and like one of my exes came back into my life and we got right back into our fucked up toxic dynamic. And it was like, some maybe some people can be friends with their exes and some of us really shouldn't. Period. That makes sense. Thank you.
00:34:02
Speaker
Thank you. Yeah, that was that was really interesting and yeah connected um and embodied, which is great. Anything else you want to you would once a talk about, about limerence? Well, one thing that happened when I put up that AMA is that I got a lot of DMs from people. people who experience it and just wanted to relate, hey, me too, and I don't want to put this in public, but here's how it's affecting my relationship and here's all these things. I even had people reach out and say, hey, I have a friend who's going through this. what How can I help her?
00:34:45
Speaker
Do you have any words of advice and all this stuff? And I'm like, can I talk to her? i I very much felt, obviously I said, I didn't even know what it was for the longest time, but I felt so alone and so ashamed for such a long time, just for having these feelings and really genuinely thought I am not a good person. period and no one should date me. and and you know it's not easy It's not easy to date someone who has who's very high highly, highly-limerent. You can ask my husband. It takes like a crap ton of patience. But
00:35:29
Speaker
I mean, then again, we all have our stuff. you know everybody Anybody you get into a relationship with, you're getting into a relationship with whatever whatever their particular stuff is. and Your stuff's got to match in its intensity in some way. so ah so I feel like we have that. there's plenty that i I make allowances for, and I'm very patient and forgiving with him, and then he's he makes allowances and is very patient and forgiving with me. so It can work, but like ah yeah the reason I'm talking about this in just an answer to your open-ended invitation to talk about anything is because
00:36:04
Speaker
I think there's a lot of people suffering because they just think, oh, something's wrong with me and, you know, get me out of here. I don't belong with people i and wrong. And it's like, you're not, you're just hurt. And it's really hard to convince someone who's in limerence that it's limerence and that it's not good for them because you genuinely feel under a spell. Like you're in an alternate universe. And no one can talk you out of that. It's similar to other mental health conditions. Like when I was younger, 20, 30 years ago, depression was in the same category. that It was rarer that people would admit to having had it and there wasn't the understanding. the But we'd come out of the depression. trap and the self yeah
00:36:50
Speaker
um But now yeah more prepared it's known somewhat, at least. right yeah right and and wow and half come People shit on it still, but like anyone who has experienced a period of depression, when you come out of it, and I have i've i have like low level depression. But whenever I've come out of it, and whenever I've heard clients say they've come out of it, it truly is like waking up in a different reality. It's like, this is not the universe I was in yesterday. And whenever I have cut off contact with someone that I had limerence with, which I've had to do multiple times in my life, unfortunately, ah one time he left the country, that was really, really convenient and lovely. It doesn't usually happen. That was like, that was a wild gift that time in my life. I really look back on my call.
00:37:38
Speaker
God, spirit, universe, whatever. Something that had my back and just had him leave the country. That was fantastic. Good job. But like I i ah would feel like it's a different it's a different world I'm in all of a sudden. and I snapped out of it. Just snapped out of a spell. I can see, I can see clearly now. Like you're, you're just all of a sudden. Like spring or something. Yeah. Yes. Yeah. And so you have to.
00:38:11
Speaker
to To anyone who's in it, it's like, they probably don't want to talk to me because I might tell them something that takes them out of the the cycle. And the cycle, you think it feels good, but you don't know that you're in pain until you're out of it. So the the people who messaged you, you said you got lots of direct messages. Did you have like what was your did you give standard like advice or sympathy? What was the kind of Well, there was a, you know, I will say people online are very polite and they would be very, I don't want to take up your time. I don't want to take up your time. I'm sure you're getting a lot of messages and they would kind of back off. And so I didn't, I offered, it's like, Hey, if you ever want to talk, let me know.
00:38:54
Speaker
And nobody took me up on it. I feel like a lot of people were like, well, you know, I don't want to abuse this or er overstep. And it's like, yeah, I think I need to create some kind of container to support others with it. And not that I'm an expert, I'm just a, like, it's like the fellow traveler model in Tall Step. It's like, yeah heal with the people who are also healing, which can be very problematic and difficult. yeah That's probably why I haven't created a container for it because I'm like, I don't really super know how to hold the space for it, but I do.
00:39:30
Speaker
I do relish the opportunity to just answer some questions and point people to resources like Heidi's videos because those things, I just started mainlining her videos. I'm like, you know what? Here's part of how we're going to get through this is we're just going to watch a lot of information on it and it's going to help and it's going to hurt. And having more information usually helps you make better decisions.
Conclusion: Reflections on Limerence and Personal Growth
00:39:57
Speaker
Oh, yeah, I'll definitely put a link to those in the show notes. yeah And yeah, and it, it does sound like it. Yeah. It's a very horrible and pleasant like situation to be in, to be in that state and the ways out are always difficult. Yeah. And it's a combination of yeah therapy, coaching, talking to friends that you trust about it, that you can talk to, that will be empathetic. Yeah.
00:40:22
Speaker
It's feeling your body, trying different, like trying and imagining them a different place and and so understanding the difference in feeling all of those things. One other thing I'll say, one of the things that happens when you're in it is you you stop paying attention to your own goals and your life. Oh, interesting. Yeah. It's like the the priority is this connection with this person. So other things kind of suffer. And one thing that's always helped me is to just refocus on my life and allow allow that person to drift into the background a bit and try to spend more hours a day prioritizing me and my life and my goals and the people that that are closest to me and lessen. Just don't cut it out if you're heavily in it because you know it's like trying to it's like bing binge that people go into or whatever.
00:41:21
Speaker
Yeah, fad diets, fad diets, that's why I meant that. Yeah, you can't you gotta to kind of start to balance it. I always say with addiction of any kind, focusing on stopping is not it. You need to add things in that are healthy and they start to become they start to become more attractive to you because you're engaging with your goals and you're engaging with your life and you're trying to enjoy your life and then you can you can kind of feel the difference in how you feel when you're engaging your life and you're winning and you're moving things forward versus spending all your time sucked into a whole talking to this person.
00:42:00
Speaker
Mm. Great. Yeah. That's that's that because that's also uniquely to limerence in that changing your exposure to the person and how you relate to the person, how you pay attention, and what else you're doing with your goals is, yeah, the aspects that specifically, yeah, to do the responses specifically to that. Wow. Great. Thank you very so much, Michelle. That was that was really, yeah, really wonderful and lightning. I think it's, yeah, it's so important to hear how people experience the world and how different people do because, yeah, we're all human and there's a lot of, ah although we're all very different, there's a huge overlap in the the the experiences. And I think nobody is, yeah, nobody's actually alone in their in their experiences. There are other people who share them, however unusual they are, um quite like lots of people. And yeah, very interesting, thank you.
00:42:56
Speaker
Yeah, my pleasure. Yeah. And great. Cool. And that concludes another episode.
00:43:27
Speaker
you