Lust, Love or LIMERENCE? Uncut with Thais Gibson

It’s the buzzword of the internet at the moment - LIMERENCE! But what is it? Where is the line between lust and limerence? How can we spot the difference between limerence and love?
Joining the podcast today is Thais Gibson. Thais is a counselor, author, podcaster and co-founder of The Personal Development School. She has a Ph.D. and over 13 certifications in modalities ranging from cognitive behavioural therapy to neuro linguistic programing. Thais is also a leading expert in attachment theory. 

We unpack:

• The key signs of limerence & what triggers infatuation
• How you can fall into limerence with someone outside of your relationship
• If we can’t get our needs met in the present, we get them met by fantasies of the future or memories of the past
• Pedestals, people pleasing and maladaptive behaviours caused by limerent relationships 
• The 3 stages of limerence; infatuation, emotional addiction and dissipation phase
• Navigating different power stages with a partner
• Which attachment styles suffer from limerence the most
• What to do if you find yourself the object of someone else’s limerence
• Can limerence turn into stalking?
• Conscious dating and wired patterns

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
This episode was recorded on cameragle Land.

Speaker 2 (00:12):
Hi guys, and welcome back to another episode of Life Uncut.

Speaker 1 (00:14):
I'm Laura, I'm Brittany.

Speaker 2 (00:16):
Now today's episode, we are talking about something which I'll
be honest, When originally brought the idea of doing an
episode on this, I was like, I don't even know
what that word means.

Speaker 3 (00:24):
You like, you're totally googled.

Speaker 1 (00:26):
I was like, that's such a good idea, but I
don't know what that is. But the word is limerens.

Speaker 2 (00:29):
Now, you might have heard of it, you might not
have heard of it, but I would dare bet that
so many of us have experienced it. And it's kind
of understanding the concept between that really infatuated love, that
feeling of obsession around someone, but identifying the difference between
what is a limerent state of love and what is
actual love. Now we're going to be unpacking like how

(00:52):
to define what the difference is and also what patterns
might be in your relationships and how you're showing up
on your relationships. And we have literally the most qualified
expert that has ever been on the podcast in order
to talk about it.

Speaker 1 (01:05):
We have Tias Gibson.

Speaker 2 (01:06):
She is a counselor, author, podcaster, and co founder of
the Personal Development School. She has a PhD and over
thirteen certifications immodalities ranging from cognitive behavior therapy to neuro
linguistic programming. She's also an expert in attachment theory. And
so today's buzzword of limerens, which we're going to be unpacking.
There's a few other parts of this as well, but

(01:26):
the parts of this and talking about limerens that we're
going to be unpacking. If you've found yourself in those
sort of patent relationships, or if you've found yourself in
a very unfulfilling love cycle, I think that this is
an episode you're going to get so much out of.

Speaker 3 (01:40):
Or maybe if you found yourself just super obsessed with someone,
we're talking to you as well.

Speaker 1 (01:44):
Tias, Welcome to the podcast.

Speaker 4 (01:45):
Thank you so much for having me. I'm sure this
will be a whole bunch of fun to be here today.

Speaker 1 (01:49):
Well, we start every episode the same way.

Speaker 2 (01:51):
I know that we just put you on the spot
to try and think of what yours is, but actually unfiltered,
your most embarrassing story, and you have one from right
back in the trenches of memory from grade nine okay.

Speaker 4 (02:02):
So this is the first one that came to mind,
and this is a true true story. So I was
in ninth grade. I went on a first date. I
had gone out earlier with friends and had been drinking
and went to meet this guy that at the time
I was like, okay, really interested in. I literally went
to meet him on a first date and went to
this movie theater and arcade afterwards. And I was in

(02:24):
the movie theater and I like really had to pee,
Like I really had to go to the bathroom. And
I kept being like, Oh, it's fine, I'll just wait.
I didn't want to be rude. I was doing other
things before. I felt badly because I was already running
late to get there, so I just kept waiting. Now,
mind you, like I had never piped my pants in
my whole life, so I just like that wasn't even
a thought process or like that this would happen. And

(02:45):
sure enough, we finished the movie and his parents were
going to come pick us up, and he was like,
there's a really bad snowstorm. They're running late. They have
tickets to do a hockey game afterwards. We cannot be late.
Like He's like, let's just play at the very front
by the arcade, and his parents were kind of going
to pick us up and drive us home. And I
was kind of a wild kid when I was young,
like doing all sorts of stuff all the time, and

(03:06):
I just kept thinking like, Okay, I'll wait, I'll take
it easy. And We're playing this basketball game in the arcade,
and I kept like being like, oh my gosh, I
really have to pee. But I had said that we're
going to wait, so as soon as his parents we're
going to arrive, we'll jump in to the car and go.
And at one point I started laughing during the basketball
game and I just peed and I like literally could

(03:29):
stop peeing. Like I'm laughing during the game and peeing,
and then I'm like I cannot believe this is happening.
And you know, at the end of the game, there's
there's just this little tiny puddle on the floor.

Speaker 1 (03:44):
Oh my god, yes, like a little bit.

Speaker 4 (03:47):
And I thought I would die of embarrassment. Like I
thought I would die. But I was like, Okay, what
do I do in this situation, Like the only opportunity
I have is to own it, So I did. I
was like he he like looked at me after the
game He's like, what's wrong, and I'm sure it was
white like a girls, and I was like, I was laughing,
and I peed my pants and like fully fully my pants,

(04:09):
and then he was so sweet about it. He went
on to be my boyfriend of like a year after.

Speaker 3 (04:14):
There's actually so much wrong with this conversation.

Speaker 1 (04:18):
Firstly, the fact that the fact that his women, who.

Speaker 3 (04:21):
Were so trained to not disrupt a situation or not
be put anyone out. The fact that you're like, I
didn't want to be rude and go to the bathroom.

Speaker 2 (04:29):
Being inconvenience basically like if you need to come to toilet,
it's not rude.

Speaker 1 (04:33):
But you're like, yeah, I didn't.

Speaker 4 (04:34):
I had so many, so many people pleasing her shoes
as a ninth grader for a show. So that was
like the manifestation of that definitely.

Speaker 3 (04:41):
God at that age too, like prime teenage years. You
are so lucky it went that way and he became
your boyfriend and not went to school and just like
told he told everyone and everyone started bullying you, I.

Speaker 4 (04:51):
Know, and he didn't tell us Aul, which was good
for him. He was a good guy for sure.

Speaker 1 (04:56):
Yeah, because your girlfriend can't of wet herself.

Speaker 3 (05:00):
Guys, let's start from the beginning, because, as Laura said,
I think that the word limerence it is a buzzword
right now.

Speaker 1 (05:06):
It is a word we're seeing everywhere.

Speaker 3 (05:07):
But I understand there'd be so many people that have
never heard of it, whilsty'll know what it is when
we explain it. So let's go back to the basics
and give us an explanation of what limerence is.

Speaker 4 (05:18):
So ellimerence itself is basically addictive and obsessive infatuation. It
was a term originally coined by a psychologist named Dorothy Tenoff,
and she talked about how essentially there is a huge
difference between just a crush and actual limerence. Limmerence is
usually something where that tends to be in a one
way dynamic. It usually doesn't last for very long, and

(05:41):
there are different stages of limerens where if you look
at like just healthy feelings, they're generally secure and balanced.
Somebody is not going to people please their way into
a relationship. They're going to have steady and supportive emotions.
They're going to generally be able to communicate and share
themselves naturally with somebody. But limerence is like obsessive intrusive thoughts.

(06:05):
It is like checking somebody's social media NonStop all day
every day. It tends to be full of U fourkies
and then crushing lows when you don't get what you
want or when the situation isn't going as you hoped
or planned, or the person doesn't notice you. And really,
when we're in limerens, we have this really idealized version
of somebody and we filter out any red flags. And

(06:26):
also the uncertainty tends to fuel the attraction when it
comes to limmerens. Almost like there the more there is mystery,
the more our mind fills in the blanks with all
of these amazing scenarios or seeing the best in somebody
all the time. And there's this huge fear of rejection
and constant over analyzing when it comes to limerens, and

(06:47):
usually it really robs a person's ability to be themselves
around their object of Limerens as a whole.

Speaker 1 (06:53):
What trigger is it?

Speaker 4 (06:54):
So?

Speaker 2 (06:54):
I mean like for some people who might feel like
they have go into the state of Limerens, and especially
when it's like one side infatuation with someone, like what
is it the triggers that type of infatuation verse just
being like normally infatuated with a person who you've come
in contact with and you think is amazing.

Speaker 4 (07:11):
It's such a great question. So generally it boils down
to two major things. One is if somebody meets your
deeply unmet needs. So what that looks like is like,
let's say, for example, somebody grows up and they felt
really unseen as a child, and so maybe their parents
weren't available, weren't really present with them very much, and
they were always aching to be seen because that's what

(07:32):
children are wired for and that's what they're needing. And
let's say that they grow up it never really had
somebody be super present with them, and all of a sudden,
as an adult, they meet somebody who's really present, really attuned,
asks them deep questions, makes them feel like they're so
interesting and unique and special, and really goes out of
their way to connect with them. Well, that is going

(07:53):
to make the brain light up, essentially, because somebody is
meeting in that moment you're deeply unmet needs in that
particular case. I actually had a story once where I
was meeting with a client and this is back when
I was running my practice, and she came in one
day and we had been working for three sessions on
her like basically doing premarital preparation to have the best

(08:13):
relationship possible with her fiance, and she came in to
be like, Oh, I'm just gonna work out my attachment
wounds or different things. She came in three sessions later
and she said, te use, I'm calling off my wedding.
And I was like, wait, you're calling off your wedding?
Why everything was going so well? And she said, I
was in Starbucks at a coffee shop and I spilled
my coffee everywhere and this man came and he stopped

(08:35):
what he was doing. He helped me mop up the coffee.
We sat down and spoke for a moment and she's like,
I think it was love at first night. I think
this is the love of my life. And to me,
I was like, wait, I hear limerens here like this
isn't you know because you don't know somebody in that
instantaneous moment And I said, okay, Well, what was so
special and unique about the interaction and what we found
was exactly that he made her feel super scene, super important.

(08:58):
He was really present with her, and when we looked
at her history, she felt like nobody was really there
like that growing up for her. And when we looked
at her fiance, there's a lot of great qualities about him,
but he also wasn't very present. And I said, look,
let's just invest for the next six weeks in trying
to get your fiance to be more present. Request that
that's a need, have different strategies to connect that way.

(09:20):
She did it within week number four or five. She
was like, I can't believe I was thinking of calling
off the web. So limbers a lot of the time, yeah,
a lot of the time is needs. Now. The other
pillar is traits. So if somebody has a trait that
we feel is very separate from ourselves, if we think
somebody is really assertive and we've always been boundaryless, if
we think somebody's really smart and we struggled in school

(09:42):
growing up, we'll often put that person on a huge pedestal,
and then when they like us, we'll be like, oh
my gosh, and so infatuated. And you actually see this
really commonly with people who grew up feeling like the
ugly duckling growing up. Maybe they had a funny haircut
or braces or an awkward stage in high school will
put so much emphasis on f all appearance. And I
had a client once as well come in one day

(10:03):
and he said that this woman who he felt was
so attractive, she was very flirtatious with him and sort
of touched his face, and he just went into full
He was married with two kids and went into full Limerens. Like,
just like, I think I should leave my wife all
of these things because he had that trade of physical
attractiveness on such a big patstal that it just derailed

(10:23):
him completely.

Speaker 3 (10:24):
But I think also from what you're saying, it sounds like,
and we talk about it all the time, once you
get into a lot, like a really long term, stable
and quote unquote boring, safe relationship, that you often don't
feel that chemistry and connection. You don't feel seen, you
don't feel the attention. So does that play into the
confusion of limerens? Like can you think you're in Limerens

(10:45):
but your brain hasn't actually gone into a state of Limerens?
And is that just because you've had the attention from
a third party or an outside source.

Speaker 4 (10:52):
This is such a great topic. So here limerens outside
of like sex addiction and narcissism, the main reason people
cheat it is because of librence. And what I mean
by that is this is what I would see time
and time again, people would cheat because to exactly your point,
they were in a relationship for a long time. It
was always the same kind of storyline. They felt really connected,

(11:13):
got married, settled down, had kids, and there was always
a significant theme where they just didn't prioritize the relationship.
They didn't prioritize still dating, still getting to know each other,
and eventually they drifted apart, and then somebody started aching
for something, aching usually for things like to feel seen
or validated, or wanted or important, or have novelty or
exploration or fun in the relationship. And these things got

(11:35):
ignored and outsourced because we have young kids, were too busy,
we're stressful. All of the rationalizations and justifications for this,
and then somebody comes along and guess what they represent
those deeply unmet needs that this person's yearning for. And
our subconscious mind is literally a needs meeting machine. It's
wired to get your needs met. That's how we evolved

(11:56):
for so long as a species, So it is designed
to get your needs met. And what happens is then
people start justifying. They say, oh, well, my wife doesn't
really care about this anyways, Oh well, my husband hasn't
been present or paying attention to me for years, and
start justifying these feelings, and then these feelings feel like
an addiction. And as soon as you're in this like
really tremendous state of euphoria, it's almost like you're not

(12:17):
of sober mind and neurochemically are not Limbrence is characterized
by like extremely elevated phenol ethylalamine, which is its attraction
neurochemical oxytosein the bonding neurochemical and people tend to bond
more with their objects of limerens in the fantasy world,
but in reality.

Speaker 2 (12:33):
When you say that, you mean as in like the
perception of what they've made about this person and the
person that they've kind of imagined them to be, than
who they actually are exactly.

Speaker 4 (12:42):
And it's interesting because people who are the object of limerens,
they'll often say, like, this person's obsessed with me. They
don't even know me. This person likes me so much
they think that they know all these things about me,
and they really don't. And it's because usually what we're
doing is we're outsourcing our mind, if it can't get
its needs met in the present, gets its needs met
through fantasies of the future or memories of the past.

(13:03):
And you'll see this like if you've ever seen somebody,
I remember this client I had one since she this
is somewhat related, but she said that she had a
boss and she grew up like never being able to
have a voice. She had four older brothers. She had
this boss who made her feel really small. She would
come into client sessions with me and she would tell
me these elaborate stories. I remember she would stand up,

(13:23):
you know, instead of sitting on the couch. She would
stand up and she would tell me these really elaborate
stories of I'm going to tell my boss this, and
then I'm going to say this, and I'm going to
tell her what I really feel. And she would say
all these things, and it was I could tell that
in that moment that was her way of taking her
power back. Is fantasizing about what she was gonna say
and how she was going to show up. And we
do this in all sorts of forms, and limerence is

(13:44):
one of them. So if we can't get our needs met,
we'll often also project this whole fantasy of how this
person would show up and all the places we'll travel
and all the things we would do. And really it's
the mind starving for needs that we haven't consciously identified
and actually been able to action out. And that's where
it plays a crucial role, a huge role in terms
of cheating and relationships, and so much of the work

(14:05):
that I used to do with people around limerens, if
they were having limreents outside of their marriage, would be Okay,
let's identify the needs that you're projecting in this fantasy realm.
Let's start actually communicating about them and having strategies to
meet them in your marriage, and literally the limerens would
go away and the relationship would dramatically improve.

Speaker 3 (14:23):
Instead, we talk all the time about the fact that
we fell in love with someone's potential, and I think
that that leans into what you're saying. It's like we
romanticize and fantasize about what could have been. And I've
never heard it said in a way that you just
said it, because I've never thought about it in that way.
I know most of the time, limerence is something that
is not reciprocated. It's like an unrequired love. But can

(14:46):
you be in a state of limerens in a relationship
as well.

Speaker 4 (14:49):
Yes, so you definitely can, but limberent relationships don't tend
to last very long. And the reason being is that
when you have this addiction and you have somebody on
such a high pedestal. Whenever somebody's on a pedestal, you're
like in the pit next to them, And when we
have somebody on this huge pedestal, we end up engaging
in behaviors that are really maladaptive for relationships. So you

(15:11):
people please because you're so scared of losing the person.
You don't communicate your authentic needs in a relationship because
you're scared that, oh what if I'm too much or
what if they don't like who I am? And so
we end up connecting inauthentically and we end up building
a relationship based on that. And with that obsessive infatuation
also comes this addiction to that person's approval, and so

(15:34):
you build a relationship from the very ground app based
on things that are not actually healthy, that are not
actually going to increase the likelihood of that relationship lasting.
And so generally you'll see even if we get into
some sort of relationship with the object of limerens unless
we do the inner psychological work to be like, hold
on a second here, let me take on some of
the traits that I think there are so special. Let

(15:56):
me see how I have some of those traits as well.
One exercise that would often give people when they're in
limerens is okay, well, if it's needs based, let's start
to meet our own needs. Let's learn how to self
footh and self regulate by being like, if this person
makes me feel seen, maybe I start meditating, maybe I
start journaling. I actually start to see myself and understand
myself better. And what you'll see is it's correlated with

(16:16):
decrease of limerens. And now the relationship can last without
all these extreme expectations. And if it's traits based, we
get a person to see how they also have those traits. So,
for example, if somebody is like, oh my gosh, my
partner is just the smartest person. They're so intelligent, Oh
my goodness, And that person maybe grew up feeling not
smart in school, We're like, okay, well, where is your

(16:39):
area of genius. Maybe you're like a creative genius. Maybe
you're amazing with people and that's your area of intelligence,
but you're judging it by like, oh, they're really intellectual
in this capacity. So when we start owning those traits
or meeting those needs, then we can get out of
that obsessive, addictive infatuation and it becomes really this invitation
to self growth. It's like, Okay, cool, here's why I'm

(17:01):
in Limerens. Here's what it's actually telling me. Let me
use it for something good that will grow me. And
that's how we can get on track and actually make
those relationships work. If you're not doing that work, statistically,
there's literally very little chance of that relationship everlasting or
making it beyond just that dating stage of relationships.

Speaker 1 (17:20):
Tias.

Speaker 2 (17:20):
You mentioned early on that there's stages of Limerens. Can
you talk us through what those three stages look like?

Speaker 4 (17:26):
Yes. So the first stage is really that stage of infatuation.
It's that stage where we meet somebody who are like,
oh my goodness, we're overwhelmed. We have all of the
rumination and often a lot of that bonding and connecting
in the fantasy realm with that person, and so that's
a huge first piece, and then eventually that moves into
what we think of as emotional addiction. An emotional addiction

(17:49):
is that you then have your entire emotional state or
so much of it throughout the day or week based
on that relationship and your interactions with that person. And
you'll usually see things like, in that emotional addiction stage,
somebody is maybe driving to work in the morning. They're
rich in the fantasy world with what's going to happen
with that person. They're spending so much time not even

(18:12):
present in their own life because they're so preoccupied with
the fantasy of this individual. And so there's this emotional addiction,
and then usually what ends up happening is that emotional
addiction component is going to naturally have very high highs
and very low lows, and a lot of times, you know,
you see people that have a huge infatuation or an

(18:33):
ellimerens with their coworker. They get to work, they clam
up around their coworker because they're so terrified of saying
the wrong thing, and they have them on such a
big pedestal, and then all of a sudden they're like,
oh my gosh, I didn't say the right thing, and
then they feel terrible about themselves. Oh my gosh, they're
never going to like me? Why did I not speak
in front of them? Why was I you know, not
normal in front of them? And so you just have

(18:54):
this roller coaster that's waiting to happen, and then eventually
you have this dissipation, really, this deterioration of limerens. And
usually it's not because that person's limbrence goes away. For
the individual, it's because they're met with such consistent and
unfortunate rejection from that person, because again you're just not
connecting on authentic terms, or you're not able to even

(19:16):
be your normal self around somebody, and so that usually
leads to big feelings of dejection, sometimes even depressive episodes
or a lot of sadness and defeatedness. And then eventually
that person may move on, and if they don't course correct,
usually they move on by eventually falling into some sort
of limbrent dynamic with another person who still represents those

(19:37):
deep needs that they're hungering for.

Speaker 3 (19:39):
It's interesting how much of our emotional stability we put
on our romantic partner. I know you just said it
could be a work colleague as well, but I was
just thinking so much of your week and how great
you feel, and how healthy you feel and how productive
you feel is a complete direct correlation to your romantic
partner and what they bring into a relationship and how
they're making you feel. The fact that sometimes we put
so much pressure on it, we're like, oh, if they

(20:00):
don't write back, it's ruined my day. All I've thought
about that whole day. And I'm assuming that probably doesn't
happen in a very healthy, stable relationship, and maybe that
could be an early sign of limerins.

Speaker 4 (20:13):
Absolutely, So what's really interesting is there's six stages of relationships.
So we have our dating stage right the vetting stage.
It usually lasts like three, four or five months getting
to know somebody. Once we make a commitment, we move
into the honeymoon stage. And this is like rose colored glasses,
all these different things. Every relationship, even with very secure people,
goes through some form of power struggle stage. And in

(20:36):
the power struggle stage, we're actually supposed to really communicate
and let somebody in and share our needs and our
fears and our feelings. And if both parties really take
each other into consideration, like, oh, you're sensitive to criticism,
let me be more mindful of how I communicate. Oh,
you really need consistency or more texting. Let me be
thoughtful about that and make an effort, like if we
do that work to bridge those gaps. When we deeply

(20:58):
know somebody, we move into the stability commitment and then
bliss stage, which is almost like the honeymoon stage, but
you really deeply know somebody. And what's so interesting about
what you just said is that usually the things if
we end up in some sort of relationship with somebody,
that we were limberent around because we put such high
expectations on the person because they have so much control

(21:19):
over our emotional state. Like you said, usually the very
things that we infatuate with so strongly in the dating
stage are the things that we come to resent in
the power struggle stage the most and often lead to
its downfall. So I don't know if you have any
examples you can think of, but I'll share a few example.
Maybe we meet somebody and we're like, oh my gosh,

(21:39):
they're so assertive. That's so attractive. We're so, oh my gosh,
you're so confident and assertive, and we put this on
a pedestal and we're so infatuated with that trait. When
the power struggle stage, we're like, they never compromise that,
like what's going on and we get frustrated, Or maybe
we meet somebody and we're like, oh, they're so easy going,
they're so go with the flow, and we think it's
so attractive. And then the powerstre stage, where like they're lazy,

(22:01):
they never make an effort, they never initiate. So often
these very things that we start off by having on
a pedestal because they come with such high expectations, because
this person has so much to weight over our emotional state.
Over time, as we keep getting closer and closer, if
in fact that lement relationship even lasts that long, those
will be things that really frustrate us later on because

(22:23):
of those very same difference.

Speaker 2 (22:25):
The thing you just described about how couples go through
these six stages or six phases of a relationship.

Speaker 1 (22:30):
Can you fluctuate in and out of stages?

Speaker 2 (22:33):
And I say this because like being with my partner
for eight years now, like you call it the power
struggle phase, Like I feel like we have periods where
we go back into a power struggle phase because we're
in a different phase of life. It might be that
we've had another kid or something else has happened that
I feel like those stages must be also related to
what it is that you're experiencing in your life, because
you know, there's always new things that's being thrown at

(22:54):
you that you have to overcome as a couple.

Speaker 4 (22:56):
Generally, what happens is if we still have lessons to
learn with each other, we'll navigate back into the relationship.
And I want to differentiate here being in the power
struggle stage of relationship versus having a blip, having a
challenge or disagreement, being able to navigate that things like that. So,
sometimes what happens is if we still have these things
where we know, for example, that our partner is sensitive

(23:19):
to criticism or inconsistency, or we know that our partner
needs transparency, but we haven't had that conversation, or we
think maybe that's the case, but we haven't communicated about it.
That's not a natural state of us having normalized the
communication of needs in the relationship, then we will find
ourselves going back and forth. If instead, we really normalize open,

(23:41):
transparent communication of needs and relationships, we're really usually pretty
smooth sailing when it comes to challenges. So, for example,
let's say that you have a couple and they just
had another kid, and let's say, oh, my goodness, like
life is already really busy. There's a lot of time
and commitments and demands. Now you have two young children
and there's just a lot If you know, for example,

(24:02):
that Okay, one person really needs their time alone and
we have to make a little bit of space for that,
and the other person maybe really needs a lot of
validation that they're a good parent, that they're showing up,
then if we know that in advance, those blips that
would come up are going to be so much more
smooth to sail through because we're able to go, hey,
I know you need a little bit of time. I
know there's a lot of demands. I'm going to make

(24:23):
sure that we block off that one hour twice a
week for you to do your own thing. And we
can remind our partner if we're the one that needs validation, Hey,
you know, I haven't heard a lot of validation in
the relationship and I need that reassurance sometimes. Can you
come back and just let me know, like you think
I'm doing a good job or you know, So if
we can normalize communicating openly, we'll usually get out of
the power struggle stage and stay. But if there's still

(24:45):
needs that we haven't fully identified and communicated consistently, or
don't feel like we can just kind of raise our
hand and bring back to the forefront as needed, then
we may find ourselves going back and forth a little
more frequently.

Speaker 3 (24:57):
You'll expectase using attachment stalls.

Speaker 1 (24:59):
How did if attachment.

Speaker 3 (25:00):
Styles effect or show up in a sight of limerens?
And is there one attachment style that's more prone to
experiences as you.

Speaker 4 (25:08):
Can probably guess, our anxious attachment styles, the ones that
are afraid of being abandoned or alone, they tend to
have limerens the most frequently and persistently. Okay, they often
go from one object of limbrens to another, sometimes even
back to back or sometimes with overlap. Because we also
tend to outsource the most into the fantasy world, the

(25:30):
areas that we struggle the most in the relationship to ourselves. Okay,
So because anxious attachment sells, they struggle to self soothe.
They're constantly seething throughlimbrians externally right in their fantasy or
because they struggle to really make themselves feel seen or
heard and important then they're going to fall into huge
infatuation with that when they meet somebody who does things
like that. So that's our anxious attachment style, and they

(25:51):
will often pursue and try to gain proximity and closeness
with their object of limns. If we look at the
flip side of it, here's something really interesting. Are of
avoidant attachment styles. They tend to actually fall into limmerens
sometimes too, contrary to what people would often initially imagine,
And the reason is that this type of limreans for

(26:12):
them tends to specifically be with people were not available
to them. So dismiss avoidants are much more likely to
fall into limreents with movie stars, with people that are
in relationships with people who are not actually available, because
it's like, Okay, this is a safe way to get
my needs met in the fantasy world without ever having
to confront my fear of vulnerability or do much with

(26:33):
this fearful avoidance tend to fall into limerence as well.
But if they feel rejected or hurt, they're very quick
to turn those feelings off because that's their coping mechanism
to really retreat quickly and strongly so they can have limerents,
but shut it off very quickly and usually it's not
as long lasting. And then lastly, securely attach people highly

(26:54):
unlikely to fall into limerens. They usually that well in dating,
they don't let their feelings get the best of them,
secure and balanced feelings. When they get into relationships, they
communicate their needs openly, and that's because they have those
cornerstones of like they already know how to meet their
own needs and self suit to begin with, and so
they're sat up for success to not have limerents sabotage relationships.

Speaker 2 (27:15):
Wouldn't it be so nice to be that well rounded
as a person?

Speaker 1 (27:18):
Like well done? Well, yeah, how do you know?

Speaker 3 (27:24):
I'm just thinking back to like when I first met
my filon safe as an example, and we met and
we only had a couple of days together and then
we were long distance. He lived on the other side
of the world, and I remember our early days of
communication were literally saying things like to each other, not
just one sided, I'm obsessed with you. How do you

(27:44):
know if when you're in the early throws of dating
or a relationship, if it's crossing the border or crossing
the line into limerens, or if it's just like quite
a healthy lust, like that, quite that healthy early day relationship,
because I think a lot of people experience that nearly
days where it's probably not stole courage and unhealthy, but
there are those feelings of like you are all I

(28:06):
think about you, all I want you imagine your life together.
What are the actual signs in red flags that it's
in fact not just less and you have one hundred
percent cross that line.

Speaker 4 (28:15):
So usually it's number one that you feel like you're
on an emotional roller coaster. So I'll give you some
of the signs together you can kind of track them.
The one you feel like you're on an emotional roller coaster,
you don't hear from them. Maybe you can't eat, or
you can't sleep, or you just feel this sense of restlessness.
And that's because number two, there's usually a pretty high
degree of self abandonment taking place, So you're thinking about

(28:35):
the person non stop, you're not present in your own life,
you're not soothing yourself as a result, very effectively, number three,
a lot of your behaviors in that relationship are motivated
by who you think this person wants you to be
rather than who you are, and actually showing and sharing
your true self. And number four, you probably find when
it comes to relationships that there's this sense of truly

(28:59):
obsessive and of thoughts like you'll hear with Limerens all
the way to I dream about this person all the
time at night, I think about them like non stop obsessively.
Whereas when it comes to and by the way, number five,
you'll see a huge fear of rejection and just constant
overanalyzing of things to the point where it can actually
leave you to clam up or be in paralysis. Juxtaposing

(29:21):
that if you're like, oh my gosh, I'm really excited
by this person. I feel this really strong sense of
lust and excitement and connection. But I'm able to be
present in my everyday life. I'm able to be myself
with this person. I'm able to communicate about my needs
with this person or my boundaries or concerns. I'm able
to really showcase who I am with this individual. And

(29:42):
I'm not like people pleasing and over analyzing everything so much.
And I'm able to still focus on my career goals
and my friendships and have balance in these other areas
of life, rather than constantly using my spare time to
maybe check their social media or fantasize about them. That
would be the difference between really strong less and connection
is actual elements.

Speaker 2 (30:01):
I finally so fascinating because for a turn that I
honestly prior to, like I said, bringing it up, I
was like, I've never really had heard of this or
discussed it, And how now I can see it links
into so many ways in which people show up into
their not just dating life, but into their relationships or
their fantasies about relationships. They find it utterly fascinating. How
if you are somebody who is inclined to have these

(30:24):
sort of limbrient style relationships one side of relationships, how
do you identify it and break that pattern behavior.

Speaker 4 (30:31):
The first thing is to go through and recognize, like,
am I somebody who a this is a big theme
in my life? I see myself doing this from relationship
to relationship. I see this fixation and preoccupation with people.
Maybe I notice myself connecting with them way more in
the fantasy realm than actually in reality. If you have
a lot of those signs that we just talked about,
then that's the first step, is that awareness piece. The

(30:53):
next step, and this is one of the fun parts
that what I find to just be so interesting is
that the next step is that you have to look
at Usually there's a theme during every object of limerens.
So let's just say, for example, somebody's like anxiously attached
and they realize, Wow, I'm often in limerens throughout my
whole adult life, Like I usually have somebody who I'm
in limereents with every few months or a few times

(31:14):
a year, and this is a theme year over year.
You'll actually see if you look at the types of
fantasies you have when you're in limerens, that there's very
similar themes. So some examples might be and this is
where we start to identify the needs that are getting
met by the fantasy. A lot of people will say
things like, oh my gosh, I always imagined that this

(31:35):
person would see me doing something I'm good at, And
usually the need is to feel validated. Right to be
seen is good enough and you know that you're capable.
Some people are like, oh my gosh, I imagine that
we go away together, and we run away and we're
just with each other, and we're so connected and we
have such deep conversations. And usually it's like, Okay, that

(31:56):
person just wants to feel connected, seen, heard, understood. Other
times it's the person will drop everything in this grandiose
way to make me the center of their universe, and
it's like, well, I want to feel like I'm important,
like I matter. So what we do is we actually
start basically dissecting the themes from limberin object to limberitin
objects in the fantasy, what specifically are you fantasizing about

(32:20):
and what needs is your mind actually attempting to meet
in those fantasies. And then as a result of this,
then we're like, okay, from one to ten, how much
are you meeting those needs in your own life in
a healthy way? And usually it's like a zero or
a one. Usually if somebody's like, oh I want to
feel seen, they really don't see themselves much. They don't
really listen to their own feelings or attune to themselves.

(32:42):
If somebody wants to feel important, usually they're the very
same people that constantly put themselves last because they're people
pleasing and putting everybody first, so they're yearning for somebody
to make them feel important instead. Sometimes people want safety,
right or certainty. They just want somebody to commit to
the future because they're lacking safety and certainty in their
own life and their own lifestyle choices. So we start

(33:02):
dissecting those needs and then we go through an actual
twenty one day game plan of how to get those
needs met and start building a healthy relationship to yourself
in those ways. Because it takes about twenty one days
to rewire or recondition our own subconscious patterns, and so
we do that work meet your needs every day for
twenty one days. At first, it feels kind of mechanical

(33:24):
for people like, Oh, it's not that fun. But actually
around day seven, ten eleven, people start to be like, oh,
I actually like sitting with myself and seeing myself more,
or actually setting boundaries and prioritizing things that are important
to me. It's actually making me feel good. And then
they start to take what was limericks as feedback. Do
the underlying work improve the quality of relationship to themselves

(33:47):
and their lives in general, and also not fall so
victim to constantly trying to outsource this from the outside in.

Speaker 2 (33:54):
Would this also require a aspect of no contact or
reducing contact, because I would say, I know that we
speak about it being one sided. But I wouldare say
that there are people who have these limit relationships and
they're not entirely one sided. They're getting enough that's fueling
the consistency of wanting it to continue. You know, like
they might be getting the flirting, or they might be

(34:14):
getting the affirming text but doesn't go anywhere, there's nothing
more to it. In that instance, would you say that
someone would need to cut contact with that person in
order to do this twenty one day kind of detox from.

Speaker 4 (34:25):
This fantastic question. So the answer to this would be yes,
if you're seeing yourself in a position where this person
isn't investing back in you. So if you're getting breadcrumbed,
if the person's clearly not making an effort and isn't
interested in you. Because if somebody is interested, and it's
like early days, we can do the underlying work and
still try to like salvage the connection and relationship Befo're

(34:46):
willing to show up, and oftentimes that can move in
a positive direction. But if it's like your coworker and
you text the whole time and they text you one
word answers back or like you know, these types of things,
and it is like no contact, give yourself the break,
detogs with all, and do the underlying work to heal,
so you don't have to just constantly feel like the
band aid's being ripped off.

Speaker 3 (35:05):
What's the connection in the crossover with limreents and stalking?

Speaker 1 (35:08):
And I say that, sorry, no, I say that it's
so extreme.

Speaker 3 (35:13):
Well, when you think of the two they share characteristic,
it's intimate stalking. When you think of both characteristics of
limerents and stalking, it stems down to an obsession. We
talk about limerens being detrimental to yourself, your mental health,
your relationship, but how often does it crossover and become
detrimental to somebody else because you develop this obsession that
results in intimate stalking.

Speaker 4 (35:32):
It's actually the exact root of stocking. Yeah, so you
can imagine it exists along a continuum. Right, So anybody
who's like, oh, I've been in limerens before, it does
not mean that you're a starker. Okay, just to make it.

Speaker 3 (35:42):
If you're in their garden outside their house, that is stalking.

Speaker 1 (35:45):
You crossed over.

Speaker 4 (35:49):
Exactly. And so there's this the state there. Like I'll
tell you a story. So I had a client once
and he came to me and he's sad, I want
to win over this woman. And I was like, oh, hey,
you know, usually I help people do the inner work,
not really like the outer work. But I was like,
I'll hear him out and there's probably going to be
patterns or themes that we can work on. So he
told me that he had been on three dates with

(36:10):
this woman. First date, he said, he didn't really think
he was going to be that interested, and it went
super well. Second date, he said, he started like feeling
really strong feelings, like really obsessed. And one of the
things that she gave to him, which is one of
the most common themes in liments, is she made him
feel really seen, and he always felt really badly about himself.

(36:30):
It wasn't that she just made him feel seen. It
was like she made him feel validated, like she gave
him a couple of compliments. And between date two and
date three, he said he was like the infatuation was
just through the roof, Like he said that he was
uncontrollably like thinking about her NonStop. Anyways, it turned out
as the conversation unfolded that he was driving by her
house every single day. They went on the third date,

(36:52):
it didn't go well, and when it didn't go well,
she said, I'm not really like looking because he started
to clam up right, He started not being he was panicking.
He was so obsessed with her. And what ended up
happening is after the third date, she was like, yeah,
I don't want to continue, sent him like a full
breakup message or like ending dating message, and he said
he kept going by her house, bringing her gifts, dropping

(37:14):
her things off after it had ended, and she came
out one day and said, you cannot come to my house,
like you're not allowed to be here. And by the time,
like I was still getting to know him. During this
initial conversation, I was like, did you go back? And
he was like, yes, I think she just didn't like
the first couple of gifts, and so he was rationalizing
and justifying, and he when you looked at his childhood

(37:35):
in his background, he had a lot of really intense
trauma around some of these different things, being deeply unseen,
being made to feel really terrible about himself. And so
you see how like trauma actually impacts the subconscious mind
this way, where like, oh my goodness, somebody's doing something
to bring me the opposite of this, and it is
so completely addictive. So we ended up having to do
the work on like wait a second, here, here's reality,

(37:58):
here's where we're going. And good for him, he was
willing to do it, and eventually like really moved away
and did the underlying work and stop visiting her house.
But like, literally, if limerence goes on for too long,
if it's too extreme, if those needs are so deeply
unmet and somebody represents them, I mean literally, we're wired
to get our needs met as people. It's how we've
gone after food and survived and build shelters. You know,

(38:19):
we're wired for this. So if that happens in that
emotional form, people can stop at nothing.

Speaker 2 (38:24):
So interesting because you know, when we think about we
spoke about apes last year, Baby Reindeer. I don't know
if you're familiar with it.

Speaker 4 (38:30):
I never watched it, but I heard, Oh.

Speaker 1 (38:33):
It's really interesting.

Speaker 2 (38:35):
But you literally just hit the nail on the head
in the terms of like what their experience was. There
this woman who came into the bar, and the bartender
gave her a lot of attention because he felt like
she was so lonely, and that's what sparked this this obsession.
But he was like, I was just trying to you know,
gave her a free drink and I was trying to
make her feel better. It wasn't flirting with her, but
it was this like level of her feeling seen that

(38:57):
made her really attached to the idea that they were
was this fantasy of a relationship going on.

Speaker 1 (39:02):
It was fascinating.

Speaker 3 (39:03):
You've just made me like. This happens so many times
to Laura and I over the years. You know, we're
six years and eight hundred episodes deep, and sometimes we'll
speak to somebody like psychologists, through a therapist, and we
have these moments of oh, oh, I did that talking
about you know, talking about like.

Speaker 1 (39:18):
Please don't say you stalk to someone, no, but.

Speaker 3 (39:20):
Talking well, I want to talk about stalking, but in
a way that I didn't really maybe think it was
a thing. But I remember, do you remember two years ago,
before I got into my relationship, there was this guy
and we were very loosely seeing each other.

Speaker 1 (39:33):
It reminded me of what you just said.

Speaker 3 (39:34):
A couple of dates didn't want anything anymore, didn't go well,
called it and then like excessive bunches of like two
hundred roses were coming to my house and then he
jumped to my fence at night, like was trying to
get into my hat, like banging on my door at
three am.

Speaker 4 (39:50):
And I remember, now that.

Speaker 3 (39:52):
You've said it, I remember telling the girls and everything
and everyone's like, that's crazy.

Speaker 1 (39:56):
Yeah, he was like, I'm in love with you, and
you were like, you don't know me. And remember I
literally said I didn't know me.

Speaker 3 (40:00):
But then I'm thinking of the way that I handled that,
and it was to almost make an excuse like, oh,
he's just not dealing well with you know, me not
wanting to be with him, and he's just he just
really likes me, instead of being like, hey, this is cooked,
you can't come to my house. Like these these ideas
of women constantly making excuses to not offend somebody else,

(40:21):
like offend a man or I don't know, but I'm
just like doing the work on myself as we speak,
hearing you say that's talking episode.

Speaker 4 (40:28):
That's such a powerful story because it's exactly the truth
and what happens is usually the people who end up
being the objects of limerens for a really long time
are people who are afraid to hurt somebody's feelings and
they end up because remember the person who like is
in limerens, they will find like the teeny tiniest things
and turn it into like they like me, right, they'll

(40:50):
turn it into because they'll they're they're just wired so
deeply to get this need, get this need met. And
so often if we're like too gentle or too fragile,
because we're like, oh, this person's just so sweet, are
sending me all these roses which you can totally see
why you derive there, Usually what ends up happening is
that person says, oh, they didn't reject me out right,
they're just afraid of how strong their feelings will be.

(41:10):
They're just you know, and they'll justify all these things
to keep getting closer. And it can be really hard
to shake somebody like that in that particular case.

Speaker 2 (41:17):
So what would be your recommendation If you are on
the opposite end of this, and you can recognize that
you are the object of someone else's limerens, how do
you kindly but also with intention tell someone that you
are not interested in them to break this sort of cycle.

Speaker 4 (41:31):
I always say there's sort of a two strike rule
and then complete no contact. So you start by saying
really clearly, like I am not interested. Right, and this
is usually probably the first time where you're cutting something off,
but maybe the person's a little over the top, so
you're really direct, really clear, I'm not interested. I don't
feel like we're compatible. I don't think we're a match.
This isn't what I'm looking for, like very clear. If

(41:52):
the person then keeps going and violates boundaries and you
start to see some of these red flags that like, hey,
you've given them a clear distinct message that you're not
and to proceed, but yet they're still coming back. Well,
now we kind of have a boundary violation because you
told them you're boundaries, you told them you weren't interested,
and now they're still here, you know, clamming away at
the situation. That's definitely a pretty big red flag. So
at that point we give a really clear rejection, like

(42:15):
very very clear. If from that point the person still
keeps coming, then you have to go pure and no
contact because similar to a narcissist and how a narcissist
and not saying that anybody in limerents or extreme limits
is a narcissist, but just as an analogy here, you know,
how the narcissists they get narcissistic supply from. If you
are validating to them that pumps their tires, they get

(42:36):
supply from that. They keep coming back for it. But
also if you give them a negative reaction, they're like, oh,
I have power over you. I can make you feel something,
I can get under your skin, and that also feeds
their need for a narcissistic supply. Limberns is similar in
that way. If you keep engaging for too long after
really clear, distinct rejections, the person's like, oh, well, they
keep reaching out to me, they keep talking about me,

(42:58):
they keep talking to me, they keep and so if
it goes on for too long, they also derive the
sense of connection from even the outfront rejections itself. So
it's always too really clear, so there's no you know, misunderstandings.
And then if we still see somebody doing that complete
no contact gray rocking and really going from there, so fascinating.

Speaker 3 (43:16):
I think so many people right now listening would be
having these are half moments for both maybe situations that
they've been in or situations that they've been on the receiving.

Speaker 1 (43:24):
End of it.

Speaker 2 (43:25):
Yeah, I have a question in terms of like, I mean,
I feel like part of this kind of comes down
to your EQ, but also is there an age relation
to this? Because when I think about my own experiences,
I feel like maybe I had more limerent relationships when
I was younger and felt more experienced in dating, And
then I mean, I'm married now.

Speaker 1 (43:43):
So I definitely haven't had one in a long time.

Speaker 2 (43:44):
But I guess like for me, I would say that potentially,
And I don't know whether this is correct, but maybe
there's an age element for some people in terms of
the intensity and frequency of limerens.

Speaker 4 (43:55):
You're absolutely correct. And the reason is because as we're
individuating as teenagers, right as like we turn twelve their team,
we start to sort of develop our own sense of
self and identity. So much of the development of that
is the ability to understand ourselves our needs and be
able to meet them as a means of self regulating.
And so if we start meeting specific needs and then
we start learning what traits we have and the things

(44:17):
we find admirable, we take some of those traits on
in ourselves or we seek to become more of those things,
then we have less of a context for limbrence. However,
if somebody is just really insecurely attached, they really don't
meet their own needs at all, or they have a
history of tumultuous relationships or trauma. I mean, you're just
despite that person's age, if they don't do that inner
work and healing, they're still going to not individuate properly

(44:39):
into having a strong and stable sense of self. And
really the less stable that sense of self is, the
more likely that person is to run into limerence as
a whole. So definitely age for most people because we
start to develop into ourselves and grow into ourselves, and
that allows us to be less likely to be limberate.
But if we have people who don't grow and develop properly,

(44:59):
then you could say age could be taken out of
that equation.

Speaker 3 (45:02):
Let's take a little gear switch for a second to
something a little bit more positive.

Speaker 1 (45:06):
In the dating world.

Speaker 3 (45:07):
You do speak a lot about conscious dating, and I
know that there's a lot of pure exhaustion with people
that are dating right now, a lot of people giving
up because the dating world has changed so dramatically over
the last sort of five ten years. What do you
mean by conscious.

Speaker 4 (45:22):
Dating, great question. Sub Conscious dating is like dating with
your conscious mind is actually what it's used to represent.
So when we start dating, we often start dating from
this perspective of our subconscious mind. And your subconscious mind
is your habituate itself, your conditions self from all of
your upbringing and patterns and themes. And your subconscious mind
is responsible for roughly ninety five percent of all of

(45:43):
your beliefs, your thoughts, your emotions, and your actions or behaviors.
Your conscious mind is three to five percent, roughly. And
so what often happens is we date from our patterns, okay,
from what's familiar. Now, what's really interesting compeled this is
that your subconscious mind is literally wired to seek familiarity
because it equates it to safety and thus survival, and

(46:04):
ultimately we're just survival wired. So let's use an example
of somebody who grew up in a home where maybe
both of their parents weren't narcissists, but maybe they had
narcissistic traits. Maybe it was kind of always about the parents,
you know, the parents put the kids down a lot,
they were volatile and kind of all over the place.
This individual probably has a lot of conditioning to go, Okay, well,

(46:26):
I don't really know how to empathize it with myself
because I wasn't empathized with that wasn't model to me.
I am pretty critical of myself because I was always
criticized growing up. I constantly had to violate my boundaries
to please my parents, and maybe I constantly manipulated myself
to become who I thought people wanted me to be. Well, now,

(46:47):
your subconscious comfort zone. What's actually most familiar is the
way that you treat yourself as an adult. And if
you're carrying those conditioned subconscious patterns from childhood, who you're
most attracted to in your adult life a narcissist, because
that is literally that person comes along, and what do

(47:07):
they do. They put you down, They violate your boundaries,
they don't empathize with you. They manipulate, And so our
conscious mind, that like little three to five percent of
our logical rational selves, might be like, wait, these are
red flags. Wait, this person's not speaking healthily to me.
This isn't appropriate, But your subconscious mind is going to
go well, familiar, feel safe. We have these butterflies. Let's
keep going back in the same direction. So conscious dating

(47:30):
means first and foremost, our ability to recognize our stuff
and recognize, Hey, if I'm going to date, I need
to know my standards in a relationship. I need to
know my non negotiables, and I need to know what
patterns I have from my own upbringing that are maybe
going to put me in harms way later on, and
let me actually do the work on those underlying patterns.

(47:50):
And then when we start dating, it's about actually using
the dating stage of relationships as something that is meant
for vetting, not something and it's meant for, Oh this,
I'm attracted to this person, let me pursue it because
I think they're super attractive and we have fun. No, no, no,
I know what I'm looking for. I know what my
standards are. I know what things I'm not able to

(48:11):
put up with or unwilling to aka am I not
negotiables or deal breakers. And I'm conscious of some of
my own themes from my past and how that might
put me in a place where I'd be attracted to
the wrong person. And I'm going to make sure I'm
vetting for that. And then what I often tell people
is you don't take that information and like go on
a job interview with people and sit down on day
one and be like Okay, here's all the things that

(48:34):
I need to know. But ideally we go on a
first date, make it short and sweet, see if there's
a connection or you know, there's a spark. And then
after that first date, I often say, okay, ask one
or two questions per date. It's getting to the bottom
of this betting process. So for example, I know for me,
I was a fearful avoidant attachment style. Did all this work?

(48:54):
You know, one of the biggest things I value about
my relationship with my husband is like, we work through conflict.
If there's an is you, we're going to hash it out.
And you know, if in some theoretical world I went
back to dating, that would be one of the first
things I would look for, Like is this person going
to navigate conflicts by talking, for having like a forward conversation,
really being able to just speak openly and solve for things.

(49:16):
And so maybe on like the second or third date,
I might just bring up you know, at one point
during the day, you know, how do you tend to
handle conflict? Are you somebody who addresses it head on
and tries to hash it out, or are you somebody
who kind of like hopes it goes away, sweeps it
under the rock, and based on their response, that would
be me being like, Okay, is this somebody I want
to continue to see or is this somebody I don't.
So that's really what conscious dating is is getting really

(49:38):
clear on your patterns, your no negotiable as your standards,
and consistently spending that first three or four months of
the dating stage of relationship truly vetting to see if
this person is actually what you're looking for.

Speaker 2 (49:50):
I think about my past dating and I recognize in
myself like that for a lot of people, if you
prioritize like the feelings pot over the the.

Speaker 1 (49:59):
Like logic, that seems very difficult.

Speaker 2 (50:02):
You know, like if you're someone who's like, but I
have these strong feelings and I know technically is probably
not going to be great for me. Sometimes it's it.
And I think for a lot of people it's hard
to turn that off. It's hard to go, Okay, I'm
not going to pursue this on the odd chance that
actually works out, you know, like that it's the miracle exception.
But yeah, I think that, like, it's hard to put
those parameters in place for a lot of people totally.

Speaker 4 (50:24):
And that's where it's so meaningful to do subconscious work.
So really it goes back to that theme we were talking
about with Limerens, which is if you're finding yourself just
having all these feelings and yet you know better, you
know this person is like maybe you know, demoralizing you
at times, or maybe violating your boundaries or maybe pressuring
you in all these ways. If you see some pretty
significant red flags, or if this person has non negotiables,

(50:47):
maybe you're like, I'm not willing to date somebody who's
using drugs, and this person's using drugs all the time,
and you're like, hold on a second year, I mean,
this is my not negotiable, but you find yourself pursuing it.
It actually goes back to that sort of exercise that
we did around like what needs is this person meeting
that they have such a stronghold on you when literally
you know that this is a non negotiable for you,

(51:07):
And then what we get people to do is learn
to actually show up and meet their needs that way,
find other healthy sources of people to meet those needs,
like friendships or healthy family relationships, and what you'll see
as a result is then somebody is able to not
obsess over somebody who maybe isn't right for them because
they're doing that inner work to get those needs matter
new ways and then allows them to make more consciously

(51:27):
based decisions.

Speaker 3 (51:28):
Yeah, it's definitely one thing to be able to write
down your non negotiables and your boundaries, and it's another
thing to stick to them. Same as it's easy to
give advice, But sometimes you can't take your own advice.

Speaker 4 (51:38):
You know.

Speaker 3 (51:38):
Sometimes it's a slippery slope. And when you go back
to you non negotibles list and you think a year
deep what you've sacrificed, there's often quite a lot. Because
you hold onto the one positive thing and you're like, well,
it's okay. It's like a balancing act. It's okay that
they don't meet this and they do drugs and parties
sometimes because they show up when I ask them to.
You know.

Speaker 2 (51:57):
Also, sometimes it's a slow creep and like you know,
if you've started dating someone and it's like one non
negotiable and then you're like, oh, I'll forgive this because
I'll maybe this was like a one time, you don't
want to be too severe with it, and so then
you find yourself making these allowances and it's not until
you look back that you're like, actually, I've made a
lot of allowances. Like that slow creep of allowances has
gotten me to a place where I'm like my boundaries

(52:19):
and the things I said when non negotiables have been
totally compromised.

Speaker 3 (52:22):
Yeah, and that's when you limerens for someone outside of
the marriage comes in.

Speaker 4 (52:27):
So can I share a story with you? So there's
this book. It was one of my favorite books I
ever read, and it's called The Mastery of Love. It
was by the same author that wrote the Four Agreements.
And I read this book like fifteen years ago, so
I might butcher the story a little bit. But in
this book, there's this analogy and they say, Okay, imagine
that you have a magical kitchen and you can snap
your fingers, and the moment you snap your fingers, you

(52:47):
can have whatever food you want in your magical kitchen.
And let's say somebody comes along one day and you're
well fed and you have everything you need from your
magical kitchen, and somebody knocks on your door and they're like, hey,
I have a pizza, and you can have a piece
of the pizza. But you have to do all these
things that I tell you to do. There's all these
strings attached. You're going to look at that person and

(53:07):
be like, no, I have a magical kitchen. I can
make a pizza in a heartbeat, Like I don't need
your pizza with all these strings attached. But then let's
say your magical kitchen breaks down and it's like done,
and you're starving, you haven't eaten for three days, and
that person comes back and they knock at your door
and they're like, hey, I have a pizza. It comes
with these strings attached. Because you are starving, you're going

(53:29):
to be willing to put up with all of these
things that you wouldn't normally because of your internal emotional state.
And this is an analogy for really self love. If
we know how to meet our own needs and we
know what we need and who we are, then we're
not going to put up with somebody's chaos just because
they represent one or two needs that we are starving for.
And so that's why a huge aspect of like healing

(53:51):
from whether it's limerens or being able to actually consciously date,
also requires doing that inner work first, which is like,
what do I really need? What makes me feel good?
How can I start giving these things to myself so
I have my own magical kitchen. I'm not starving, and
then I'm going to see somebody come into my life
and they're going to have all these red flags, but
there's one need and I'm willing to filter out all
of those red flags because I'm starving. So just a

(54:13):
huge encouragement for anybody who listens just to do that
in our work, because if we do see ourselves having
those themes or patterns, it's actually feedback for us that hey,
maybe there's a place where not knowing ourselves or loving
ourselves or showing up for our own needs, and that's
a huge step towards healing.

Speaker 2 (54:27):
Tyas, thank you so much for coming and being a
part of the pod. Honestly, I feel like I've learned
so much from speaking to you, and you know, we
have these conversations every day, but there's always a few
conversations that really kind of like crack the mold in
terms of like a new way of describing it. And
I genuinely feel that, like both Britt and I can
see we're sitting here being like, ah.

Speaker 3 (54:47):
There'll be a lot of realizations I think from listeners
that listen to this. I know that we had them
ourselves in this discussion, so I know that this is
going to drive home in a way that we haven't
probably done before, which I think is really cool. I
think it's cool we can get to this stay age
of these conversations and still be learning so much.

Speaker 1 (55:03):
And thank you so much. You've been an absolute dream.

Speaker 4 (55:06):
Thank you guys so much. It was so fun to
be here with you, and you are our exceptional house.
So thank you, Grouch, thank you.

Speaker 3 (55:11):
We're going to link all of your details in our
show notes for anyone that wants to go and discover
more