Is It Limerence Or Is It Love?

Have you heard of limerence?

It’s a real buzz word at the moment – and for good reason. Limerence happens when you fall hard and fast for a person you do not really know, but feel a powerful connection to.

This unfamiliarity allows you to take all your hopes and dreams of a perfect partner, and project those qualities onto this person. And if you turn out to be projecting onto a narcissist, they are all too willing to act like your fantasy partner to hook you in even further.

The limerence ‘spell’ can powerfully attach you to someone, and cause you to overlook and explain away the red flags and rotten behaviour.

If you’ve ever found yourself holding out for somebody to become the person you want them to be, rather than accepting them exactly as they are, then jump into today’s Thriver TV episode to find out how to guard against limerence, and create healthy relationships rather than fantasies.

Video Transcript

Welcome, dear Thriver, to Thriver TV – where you not only learn about narcissistic abuse and everything that goes with that, but you also find out how to survive and then thrive, when you heal for real.

Today I want to talk about a really hot topic… limerence.

Is it limerence, or is it love?

What Is Limerence?

So what is limerence? Limerence is love for the sake of love. Now limerence can be really delicious, exciting and amazing at first, as if you were to go to a chocolate shop and eat a massive stack of chocolate. It feels really good at the time, but it can have dire consequences. Limerence is exactly the same.

Limerence is like cognitive dissonance. Cognitive dissonance is the excuses that we make for somebody who is abusive, so that we keep forgiving them and giving them another chance. Limerence is a whole other level because limerence is almost like a spell that you cast on yourself to turn this person into the perfect fictitious character that you wish they could be.

Limerence feeds into narcissistic abuse if we have an aspect of ourselves that dearly wants a savior. We hope for the most amazing person to appear in our life – the dream girl or the knight in shining armor who finally is everything we’ve ever wished for.

If we’re into law of attraction, we may think, “I’ve got my list of my dream partner, and I’m visualizing this. I’m manifesting this and I’m doing affirmations about this, and I’ve got vision boards about this”. We’re creating a projected image of that dream partner we want to be in love with. If we believe in law of attraction and haven’t gone quantum yet, we might really believe that this stuff works in that way – which it doesn’t. That’s a reality thud for a lot of people, but it is the truth, and you need to understand this.

How Limerence Makes Us A Match For Narcissists

So we think we’ve done enough inner work and we’ve got the vision of the person that we want to appear in our life. Now, narcissists are acutely tuned into working people out and finding out what is their fantasy –  their ideal notion of that beautiful, perfect partner.  Narcissists are also plasticine. They’re actors. They’re chameleons. Once they work somebody out – which is a finely-honed skill that they’ve had from a very early age – they can pretend to be that exact person to get their target to hook onto them very, very quickly.

This means that if we have an idealized vision of a fantasy partner, then a narcissist is completely capable of showing up as that fantasy partner for us – because there’s no real self there. A narcissist can pretend to be the most amazing thing you’ve ever dreamed of and looked for, to hook you in to gain narcissistic supply – like the Trojan Horse getting through the gates of Troy.

Our limerence and the narcissist’s false self are the perfect match. Limerence is our projection onto other people of the fantasy person that we think we need to have as our savior, and the narcissist is a mirage of that person – who is not who they really are,

It’s a match, but it’s not made in heaven. It’s actually made in hell because it’s based on fantasy. It’s not based on reality. This is where law of attraction falls down so severely because law of attraction is based in the imagining and the visualizations of potential, but it’s not dealing in the real world. Whereas quantum reality is absolutely about a couple of things that law of attraction isn’t, which is, “I need to deal in the real world in authentic, solid center ways. I need to absolutely be in my body”.

Rather than assuming, “You’re this,” “You’re that,” “You’re my fantasy,” or “I’m going to see everything that’s good about you and ignore everything that’s rotten about you,” I’m actually going to check in with myself, my soul, my intuition, and my gut and say, “Is this right for me? Is this my values or my truth? If it’s not, I’m going to speak up and lay boundaries. I’m going to actually stand in my integrity, my worth, and my value. If you can up-level to meet me at what’s true for me, then you’re a match for me. If you can’t, well, then I’ll leave you alone.”

That’s real quantum health and the quantum truth about manifesting real, authentic, healthy, vibrational relationships.

Whereas limerence is about, “Even if you’re rotten, I’m going to stick to my fantasy version of you, and I’m going to project that onto you. I’m going to manifest you as the version that I wish you could be. I’m just going to be deluded and ‘in love with love’ and the potential of you, which I’m projecting onto you. I’m imagining that you are that person in the face of all the evidence and regardless of the writing on the wall”.

Limerence Versus Real Love

The problem with limerence is the huge discrepancy between the projected fantasy – the dream, the spell – and what’s real in the real world. There’s a huge problem, because limerence is codependency. “You are meant to be what I expect you to be, and I’m trying to control you into being my fantasy. When you’re not that, I’m going to blame you for not being that rather than accepting who you are and acting accordingly”.

This is where unconditional love, new age thinking and law of attraction is very dangerous because it allows you to think, “My image of you is what you need to be. If you are not that, I’m not going to take responsibility. I’m going to say you are a really bad person, you’re wrong and you’re the problem.”

In the world, there are really solid, genuine, authentic people that we can have healthy relationships with, and there are people who are wounded, traumatized, narcissistic, or false selves that we can’t. It is what it is and it’s nobody’s fault. It is what it is because nobody owes us anything. Nobody owes us our fantasy projection of them. If we try to force them to be that, well, then we’re being controlling. That’s not love. That’s control.

Real love is, “You’re not a match for my values, my truth and my authenticity. You’re not meeting me at a level of vibrational reality that I want to be at and therefore I’m going to let you go. I love you and myself enough to allow you to have your life – at your vibrational reality and following your values and truths – while I live my own.”

That’s quantum. That’s not limerence.

Healing From Limerence

I did limerence in the past and I know a lot of us did. The reason I did limerence in the past was because I was unhealed on the inside. I didn’t have the inner ability, the innerstanding to be able to know that I’m quantumly creating my life from the inside out.

In that wounded, empty, needy part of myself, I was doing law of attraction, vision boards and visualizing  my perfect partner. I needed them to come into my life to save me from my own emptiness, traumas, inability to lay boundaries and speak up, and fear of being criticized, rejected, abandoned, or punished for being myself. I wasn’t yet developed enough to be in my body as myself, living my life authentically from the inside out, and I was really unconsciously searching for a parental figure to right the wrongs of the past and do it differently this time.

I wanted a rock, but of course, with limerence, you get a hammer. You don’t get the person who’s going to step in, take over and grant you this perfect vision of your own life from the outside in. Instead you get somebody that is going to show you how flimsy and unreal the fantasy is – and how important it is to come back home to yourself, to heal up, and become real and authentic to yourself.

If we haven’t gone quantum yet, then understandably we’ve been trying to get out of the trauma and pain of toxic relationships by doing what we thought was right which was, “I’m going to get into a positive vibration. I’m going to imagine a beautiful person, and I’m going to…”

But we have to realize we’re living in a real world. We’re living in a real quantum reality of so within, so without; who we’re being is what we are going to receive; and how we show up, and who we choose, is what we get. So we have to be very, very clear about our values, our truths, what’s right for us and what we’re choosing, to be able to have a healthy relationship with somebody at a vibrational level of wholeness, consciousness and health.

People say that opposites attract. They don’t. It’s vibrational – the same vibration attracts. In limerence, we’re living in a fantasy, where we are projecting a mirage onto someone.  If we’re living in a fantasy, we’re going to get a fantasy person, which is a false self, which is a narcissist.

If we’re living in the real world, in the grounded, truthful aspects of integrity –  if we speak up,  show up, lay boundaries, ask for what we need, are really sure of our values and our truth, and are doing a relationship at an authentic level – then we’re going to get authentic, loving, truthful, kind relationships that work and that don’t involve limerence.

In Conclusion

I hope this has made sense to you. It’s such a powerful topic in regard to narcissistic abuse, law of attraction, where people go wrong and how important the quantum path is, in knowing your power is in the now.

Where is your alignment? Where is your innerstanding? Where are you backing and valuing yourself? And are you walking that path of integrity, in the knowing that this is where your power lies? Not in some fantasy future or projection. There’s no power in that whatsoever, and that’s what limerence is.

If you know that you’ve been traveling the path of limerence (and I don’t blame you, I used to do it too) then I hope that this can wake you up and shake you up. I hope it makes you realize that the definition of insanity is continuing to do the same thing over and over even though it doesn’t get you the result you want. Even worse, ending up blaming other people for not being the fantasy that you’ve projected onto them – when they were never that person in the first place.

You have to be your own generative source to be able to create a relationship with a healthy person in your life, period. That’s the truth.

If you’re ready to go there, take a look at my Narcissistic Abuse Recovery Program HERE. It turns you around, from living life from the outside in – the limerence fantasies – to becoming a quantum deep powerhouse within, who can change your life forever in healthy, real, authentic ways.

Until next time, keep smiling, keep healing, and keep thriving because there’s nothing else to do!

And don’t forget to let me know your thoughts in the comments below.