Limerence vs Love: Why We Confuse Obsession With Connection

Have you ever met someone and felt completely consumed by them?

You check your phone constantly.

You replay conversations in your head.

You analyse every text, every emoji, every glance.

Your mood depends on whether they respond.

When they're interested, you feel euphoric.

When they're distant, you feel devastated.

You convince yourself it must be love because surely nobody would think about someone this much if it wasn't.

But what if it isn't love at all?

What if what you're experiencing is limerence?

And what if understanding the difference could completely change your relationships forever?

What Is Limerence?

Limerence is an intense psychological state of obsession, longing, fantasy, and emotional dependency centred around another person.

It often feels like love.

In fact, for many people, it feels more intense than love.

But the key difference is that limerence is not built on truly knowing another person.

It's built on the possibility of them.

The fantasy of them.

The potential of what could be.

In limerence, you don't necessarily fall in love with the person.

You fall in love with the emotional experience they create within you.

And that experience can become incredibly addictive.

Why Limerence Feels So Powerful

One of the reasons limerence feels so overwhelming is because it activates the same reward pathways in the brain involved in addiction.

Every text message.

Every phone call.

Every compliment.

Every breadcrumb of attention.

Creates a dopamine hit.

Your brain begins associating that person with pleasure, excitement, hope, and anticipation.

The problem?

Dopamine isn't actually the chemical of love.

Dopamine is the chemical of pursuit.

It's what drives us to seek.

To chase.

To hunt.

To anticipate.

And often, the less available someone is, the stronger that dopamine cycle becomes.

This is why people can become obsessed with someone they've only been dating for a few weeks.

Or why they struggle to let go of someone who was never fully available to begin with.

The uncertainty itself becomes addictive.

Love Feels Different

Real love is often much quieter.

Less dramatic.

Less chaotic.

Less consuming.

Which is exactly why many people mistake calm love for boredom.

Love is built through consistency.

Trust.

Safety.

Shared experiences.

Mutual vulnerability.

It's created through seeing someone's strengths and flaws and choosing them anyway.

Limerence asks:

"How do I get them to choose me?"

Love asks:

"Do we genuinely align?"

Limerence is focused on being wanted.

Love is focused on connection.

Why We Fall Into Limerence

This is where things become really interesting.

Because limerence rarely starts with the other person.

It often starts with us.

Or more specifically, the parts of ourselves that haven't yet healed.

Attachment Wounds

One of the strongest drivers of limerence is insecure attachment.

Particularly anxious attachment.

If you grew up feeling inconsistent love, unpredictable caregiving, emotional neglect, or abandonment, your nervous system may have learned that love is something that must be earned.

That love is uncertain.

That connection feels unsafe.

As adults, we often unconsciously seek relationships that recreate those familiar emotional experiences.

Not because they're healthy.

Because they're familiar.

And familiarity feels like chemistry.

Poor Self-Worth

Many people in limerence unknowingly place another person on a pedestal.

They become convinced:

"If this person chooses me, then I'll finally feel worthy."

"If they love me, then I'll know I'm enough."

"If they stay, I'll feel secure."

The problem is that we've handed our self-worth over to somebody else.

Instead of seeing them as a partner, they've become a mirror reflecting back our value.

And that's a heavy burden for any relationship to carry.

External Validation

Limerence often thrives when we don't yet know how to validate ourselves.

When we're disconnected from our own worth, achievements, identity, and purpose, attention from another person can feel intoxicating.

Especially if we're craving reassurance.

Especially if we're lonely.

Especially if we're still trying to prove our value.

Their attention becomes emotional oxygen.

And their withdrawal feels like suffocation.

The Fantasy Versus The Reality

One of the biggest signs of limerence is the gap between who someone actually is and who you've imagined them to be.

You may find yourself:

• Ignoring red flags

• Making excuses for poor behaviour

• Fantasising about a future that doesn't exist

• Feeling attached to their potential rather than their reality

• Believing they are your perfect person despite barely knowing them

This isn't because you're irrational.

It's because limerence fills in the blanks.

When information is missing, fantasy takes over.

And fantasy is often far more attractive than reality.

A Personal Reflection

One of the things I often discuss with clients is the difference between emotional activation and emotional alignment.

Many people believe intense feelings mean they're with the right person.

But intensity is not always intimacy.

Sometimes intensity is simply an activated nervous system.

Sometimes the butterflies are actually anxiety.

Sometimes the obsession is actually uncertainty.

Sometimes chemistry is a trauma bond.

And sometimes what feels like love is simply an old wound searching for resolution.

The most aligned relationships I've seen aren't built on chaos.

They're built on safety.

Communication.

Mutual effort.

Trust.

And a willingness to be seen exactly as you are.

So How Do You Know If It's Love Or Limerence?

Ask yourself:

• Do I actually know this person, or am I attached to who I hope they are?

• Am I attracted to their consistency or their unpredictability?

• Do I feel calm and secure, or anxious and preoccupied?

• Does this connection expand my life, or consume it?

• Am I choosing them, or am I trying to convince them to choose me?

Your answers may tell you more than you realise.

Final Thoughts

Limerence is not a character flaw, it's not a weakness,and it's certainly not something to feel ashamed of.

More often than not, limerence is simply information.

Information about attachment wounds, information about self-worth, information about unmet emotional needs, information about the parts of ourselves still seeking healing.

The beautiful thing is that once you begin doing that inner work, the need to chase often fades.

You stop looking for someone to complete you.

And instead begin looking for someone who complements the person you've already become.

Because love isn't found in obsession.

Love is found in presence.

In consistency.

In truth.

And most importantly, in the relationship you have with yourself.

Could You Be Experiencing Limerence?

If this blog resonated with you, I encourage you to explore it a little deeper.

I've included a limerence self-assessment below that can help you identify whether what you're experiencing is love, attachment, or limerence.

✨ Take the ACM Relationship Reality Assessment™ Test Here:

https://form.jotform.com/262573694725065

And if you find yourself recognising patterns of attachment wounds, people-pleasing, emotional dependency, or repeating relationship cycles, these are exactly the kinds of deeper patterns we explore together through one-on-one coaching and inside Authentically You.

Because awareness is powerful.

But awareness matched with action is what creates transformation.

Until next month,

Phoebe x

A Centred Mind

Testing the Edges to Find Out Where You Stop and Someone Else Begins

Welcome to September

This year feels like it has absolutely flown by. Spring is in the air, and with it comes a renewed sense of vitality, energy, and momentum. At least, that's how it feels for me.

A lot has been happening behind the scenes, not only within my personal life, but also within A Centred Mind. Between the upcoming launch of Authentically You, the development of new coaching packages, and some exciting projects designed to support people at a much deeper and more transformative level, it feels like everything is slowly coming together.

But before we race toward the end of the year, I want to invite you into another layer of self-discovery.

Because this month, we're talking about something that took me years to understand:

How do you know where you end and someone else begins?

And perhaps even more importantly:

How do you learn to trust yourself enough to find out?

Learning To Survive

My childhood was unstable, to say the least.

There were moments where I felt safe and protected.

And there were many moments where anxiety, uncertainty, and fear became part of the backdrop of everyday life.

I never quite knew what version of a parent I was going to get.

I didn't know how intoxicated they might be. I didn't know whether they would have the emotional capacity to meet my needs. I didn't know whether anger, anxiety, depression, blame, or emotional volatility would be waiting on the other side of a conversation.

Like many children raised in unpredictable environments, I became incredibly skilled at adapting.

I learned to read a room.

I learned to read tone.

I learned to read facial expressions.

I learned to anticipate emotional weather before the storm arrived.

My sister and I became experts at navigating shifting moods, changing rules, and conflicting expectations between two very different households.

What I didn't learn was how to express my own needs.

Because in many ways, there was no room for them.

I quickly learned that speaking up often led to being dismissed, invalidated, blamed, or shut down.

So I stopped.

Or at least, I stopped expressing myself in healthy ways.

When Emotions Have Nowhere To Go

The emotions didn't disappear.

They simply found another outlet.

For me, they surfaced through risk-taking behaviour, poor choices, unhealthy relationships, anger, rebellion, and eventually using alcohol and substances as a way to

numb what I didn't know how to process.

I wasn't trying to be reckless.

I was trying to regulate.

I simply didn't have the tools.

I remember sitting in a psychologist's office as a teenager, desperately trying to

understand what was happening inside me.

The anxiety.

The overwhelm.

The emotional chaos.

The feeling that I was somehow different.

Yet many of those early signs were dismissed as normal teenage emotions.

And so I continued carrying emotions that felt too big to hold and nowhere safe to place them.

The Moment Everything Changed

Years later, after enough painful mirrors had shown up in my life, I reached a point where

I became exhausted by my own patterns.

I was tired of seeing the same themes repeat.

The same wounds.

The same relationship dynamics.

The same emotional reactions.

The same stories.

Eventually I had to face a difficult truth:

My emotional state no longer belonged to my parents.

It no longer belonged to my childhood.

It no longer belonged to the people who had hurt me.

It belonged to me.

And while that was confronting, it was also incredibly liberating.

Because if it belonged to me, then I had the power to change it.

Vulnerability Was The Next Lesson

What came next wasn't healing.

Not immediately.

What came next was vulnerability.

And vulnerability was far more uncomfortable than blame.

Because blame allows us to keep pointing outward.

Vulnerability asks us to look inward.

I had spent years becoming fiercely independent.

Self-sufficient.

Capable.

Strong.

I believed that needing people was a weakness.

I believed that showing emotion made me vulnerable in a way that wasn't safe.

I believed that if I could do everything myself, nobody could let me down.

The problem was that self-sufficiency had become armour.

And armour protects you from pain.

But it also protects you from connection.

The Deep Soul Retrieval

Some people call it being single. But for me it was soul retrieval.

The six years between relationships became a sacred season of remembering who I was

beneath the wounds, conditioning, and survival.

A season of learning who I was underneath the coping mechanisms.

Underneath the survival strategies.

Underneath the conditioning.

For the first time, I learned how to sit with my emotions instead of running from them.

I learned to ask:

What am I actually feeling?

What is this emotion trying to tell me?

Where have I felt this before?

And more often than not, I discovered that what I thought was about the present

moment was actually connected to something much older.

Something unresolved.

Something that had been waiting patiently to be acknowledged.

Forgiveness Changed Everything

One of the greatest gifts of this journey was understanding my parents differently.

Not excusing their behaviour.

Not dismissing the impact it had.

But understanding that they simply didn't have the tools themselves.

And somewhere in that understanding, forgiveness emerged.

The resentment I had carried for years started to soften.

The burden of constantly pointing the finger disappeared.

And my energy could finally return to where it belonged:

Myself.

I once came across a quote that said:

"You may not be responsible for your trauma, but you are responsible for your healing."

That sentence changed everything.

Testing The Edges

As I continued to heal, something else began to emerge.

Certainty.

Not certainty in the world.

Not certainty in other people.

Certainty in myself.

I learned that vulnerability isn't simply about expressing emotion.

It's about trusting yourself enough to remain present when emotion arises.

It's about knowing who you are.

What you value.

What you need.

What you stand for.

And then communicating that honestly.

Which brings me to this month's theme:

Testing the edges to find out where you stop and someone else begins.

Because this is where healing evolves.

At some point, growth stops being about understanding yourself in isolation.

It becomes about allowing another person close enough to witness who you truly are.

Close enough to challenge your fears.

Close enough to test your trust.

Close enough to show you where your boundaries end and connection begins.

Not through dependency.

Not through losing yourself.

But through learning how to remain fully yourself while letting someone else stand beside you.

Where Healing Leads

For many of us, healing begins by learning how to stand alone.

But eventually, healing asks something different of us.

It asks us to let ourselves be seen.

To trust.

To receive support.

To communicate.

To soften.

To allow someone else to meet us where our own capacity currently ends.

Not because we're weak.

But because we're human.

And perhaps that is one of the most beautiful parts of healing.

Realising that strength isn't found in never needing anyone.

It's found in knowing yourself deeply enough that you can safely let someone in.

And trusting that who you are remains intact when you do.

Until next month,

Phoebe x

A Centred Mind

August | Self-Awareness Isn't Enough

Have you ever wondered why some people spend years in therapy, reading books, listening to podcasts, saving Instagram posts, and becoming incredibly self-aware… yet still find themselves repeating the same patterns?

It's something I hear surprisingly often.

Many new clients walk into my office and, after our first or second session, say something along the lines of:

"I've spent years in therapy, and we've uncovered more in these two sessions than I ever have before."

Now, I don't say that to discredit therapy or to suggest one approach is better than another. Therapy has an incredibly important place in healing, and I refer people to psychologists regularly.

But I do think there is one piece that often gets overlooked.

It's not awareness.

It's what happens after awareness.

Because one of the first places I tend to go with clients is beneath the presenting problem.

Beneath the anxiety.

Beneath the relationship.

Beneath the burnout.

I'm interested in understanding the unconscious stories, the protective ego, the beliefs, the projections, and the shadow patterns that have quietly been driving behaviour for years.

Because once you understand why you're behaving the way you are, you finally have something you can begin to work with.

Awareness Isn't Transformation

Social media has done an incredible job of introducing people to concepts like attachment styles, trauma responses, nervous system regulation, and shadow work.

And I genuinely think that's a wonderful thing.

Awareness starts conversations.

It helps people feel less alone.

Sometimes one sentence is enough to completely change how someone understands themselves.

But awareness on its own doesn't create change.

Self-awareness without action is merely an idea.

You can know you're a people pleaser.

You can know you have abandonment wounds.

You can know you're anxious.

You can know you're avoiding conflict.

But if nothing changes in how you respond…

Nothing changes.

This Is Where Shadow Work Begins

Shadow work has become one of those buzzwords we hear everywhere.

But very few people actually explain what it means.

To me, shadow work isn't about finding what's "wrong" with you.

It's about understanding the parts of yourself you've had to create to survive.

The protector.

The perfectionist.

The people pleaser.

The controller.

The avoider.

The victim.

Every one of these parts served a purpose at some point in your life.

The problem is that many of them continue running your life long after they're needed.

The Ego Isn't The Enemy

One thing I often explain to clients is that your ego isn't trying to ruin your life.

It's trying to protect you.

The difficulty is that it protects you using yesterday's experiences.

It creates stories.

It avoids accountability.

It projects.

It deflects.

It keeps you comfortable.

Because comfort feels safer than change.

And unless we become aware of those protective strategies, they'll quietly continue making decisions for us.

Meeting Your Shadow

Much of my work has been influenced by Jungian psychology and later by the work of Caroline Myss and her teachings on archetypes.

She explains that we all carry archetypal patterns throughout our lives, each with both a light and shadow expression.

The Victim.

The Child.

The Prostitute.

The Saboteur.

None of these are labels.

They're invitations.

Invitations to become curious about ourselves rather than critical.

Because the goal isn't to eliminate the shadow.

It's to understand it.

To work with it.

To intergrade it.

To recognise when it's driving your behaviour and gently bring yourself back into alignment.

Authenticity Requires Accountability

One of the biggest differences in the way I work is that I ask a lot of reflective questions.

Questions that connect dots.

Questions that encourage people to step outside themselves and observe their own patterns rather than becoming consumed by them.

Because the moment you can observe your behaviour instead of automatically reacting from it…

Choice returns.

And with choice comes freedom.

The Work Isn't Becoming Someone Else

It's becoming more of yourself.

Not the version created by fear.

Not the version created by trauma.

Not the version created to survive.

The authentic version underneath all of it.

As we move through August, with all the beautiful Leo energy inviting us into confidence, courage and authentic self-expression, I want to explore what it really means to work with the shadow rather than run from it.

Because healing isn't becoming a different person.

It's finally understanding, and embracing, the person you've been all along.

And remember…

Self-awareness may start the journey.

But self-awareness paired with courageous action is what sets you free.