Are You A Love Addict? with Coach Shena from Black Girls Heal

Hey, girl. Welcome to the GetYourGuy coaching podcast. My name is Anwar White, but you can just call me your own personal dating and relationship coach. Each week you'll hear actionable advice, tips, and strategies that you can implement in your own love life. I'm talking about healing your heart, dating effectively, and understanding men so that you can, you guessed it, get your guy. Are you ready to level up your love life? All right, let's go.

Hello, everyone, and welcome to the getyourguy coaching podcast. I have a very special guest with me, and I was on her podcast not too long ago, but I am so glad that she has graced us with her presence. I want to introduce Sheena Coach. Sheena, you are a relationship and trauma and love addiction expert and a licensed counselor. Girl, thank you so much for being here. Can you talk a little bit about what you do, Let the girls know?

Yeah, of course. So, again, thank you for having me. I'm really happy to be here. So what I do is my main platform is called Black Girls Heal, and I help women heal from the symptoms of love addiction, love avoidance, and love deprivation, and the trauma that causes it to make way for healthy love in their life, starting with the relationship with themselves, because your relationship with yourself is the one that carries you everywhere. So through bgh, I have a podcast where I talk about these topics every week. We have coaching programs, my recovery school program where I help women work through these things online and my therapy practice. And what's funny about or what's interesting, I would say about the difference between those two types of working with folks with love addiction is I find that when people know what to do, they're able to make real change. Therapy is amazing. I love being a therapist, but it's a slower process, but especially when it comes and we're going to get into it. When it comes to things like love addiction, love avoidance is so trauma based so that when you're triggered with someone, like, you don't really have time between sessions, wait to react. And so I really love helping people on the podcast and in other programs learn skills and tools so that they don't return to unhealthy relationships or continue to repeat their trauma.

I love that you mentioned that because I think therapy is amazing. But sometimes, especially if you're like a smart individual, it can just kind of be an intellectual exercise. And it's easy to avoid the trauma by just kind of intellectualizing it versus really getting deep in there, but it does require so much exposure. So thanks for sharing that, girl. The Girls are going to have to know about your story, because when you were telling me your story, girl, I was flabbergasted. I was gagged, girl. But I think it's just like so important because. Because I think that a lot of women have gone through something that you've gone through or have experienced something similar. So I would love for you to just share your kind of your story and how you kind of got into your work as well as really kind of being the foremost expert on love addiction.

Yeah. Thank you for that. So. So the way that I got to this place is like I said, I'm a therapist by trade. And so there was one point in my career that I was working at a residential treatment center. And so people who have like dual diagnosis, which means bipolar, borderline, but they may have drug addictions as well. And so per my job, I did group coaching or group therapy at that time and individual therapy. And when people were in 12 step programs, we had to help them with their steps. So of course you have na, aa, but they also have something called love addictions. Sex and Love Addicts Anonymous. Now, remember thinking this is bs, this love addiction doesn't exist. You know, it is, but okay, I'll do it because it's part of my job.

Why did, why did you think that originally? Because I'm pretty sure thinking the same exact thing.

Right, right. You know, I never heard about love addiction before, and even there was even some controversy about whether or not sex addiction is a real thing. You know, now we talk about compulsive sexual behavior and things like. But there's all this controversy and also the idea, you know, I'm a hopeless romantic. And I just think, yes. So the idea that being addicted to love even is like a real diagnosis or real thing that could actually impact someone versus you just need to learn about relationships and learn how to do something different. It just was a big jump. And I was never taught about love addiction and counseling and in clinical school, you know, it just didn't seem real. It seemed, um, kind of coddly, just to be honest, at this time. So. But I supported people through it. And while I was working at that job, my mom passed away. Now, up until this point, I was always someone who on the outside had everything together. I was very successful, well loved, well liked, had lots of friends, but my romantic relationships just couldn't ever click. And because I was so successful in all these other areas, I was like, well, and people talk about with relationships, people give good advice all the time. So I thought this Is just part of dating, part of growing up. It'll get better the more you learn. But it didn't get better. And if anything, I would have more and more relationships where I would abandon myself and sacrifice what I wanted because I was trying to give somebody a chance or give them benefit of the doubt or be fair, Nobody's perfect, that kind of thing. And when my mom passed away.

The trauma that was underneath me, looking for relationships and people outside of myself to validate me isolated, and it got worse. And so not only did I have grief, but now I was dating more people that were not. That were not good for me. And it was affecting me more and just more other sexual addiction type things. And so finally my therapist was like, I think you need help with this. Have you ever considered sex addicts or sex and love addicts Anonymous? And I was like, no, because he said sex addiction first. And I was like, no, I'm not an abuser, I'm not a perpetrator. I'm not going to go to this place. I mean, you know, people may. You know, the idea that you have people with like trench coats on and they're like, look seedy and everything, it's like, I'm not gonna go to this meeting.

Yeah.

And then a few weeks later, there was another relationship that just was horrible. It was a narcissist. There was someone who was unhealthy, like very clearly unhealthy that I would stay connected to. And he said, well, what about sex and love acts Anonymous? And the love part made me be like, okay, I'll try it. So I go to this space and I don't know what to expect. And I sit into this room and everybody around me looks completely normal. There are lawyers in the room, stay at home, moms, there's teachers, there's students, but just everyday woman. And I hear my story in every single one of them. I hear women who love too hard that when people talk about being a hopeless romantic, sometimes people will champion. When I love someone, I'm there. I'm loyal to a fault kind of thing. And like, it's like seen as a growth area. But also like, I like this about me. And it's okay to be loyal and faithful and compassionate, but when you do it at the sake of yourself, that's where the problem happens, right? And so I hear the story and I hear the trauma and I hear everything else. I'm like, oh, this is. This is what I've been dealing with. And so I get on my Googles and I Look up love addiction.

Yes, girl.

And I look into, like, a pamphlet they have. And I was like, oh, that's what this is?

Yeah.

Because when I was going through this. You know, when you struggle with love addiction, you're the person who keeps going back to relationships, even though you know they're bad for you, and even though there's real consequences. You're the girl who continues to talk about the same partner and the same relationship over and over. And at first your friends are supportive, but then they're like, why do we keep doing this? And you feel crazy. Especially if you have all these amazing things going on in your life and you just wonder, why can't I be grateful? Why can't I move past this? Why can't I be healthier? And you wonder that there's seriously something wrong with you. And even that you're the only one. Especially if you have healthy friends who, yeah, people have a bad relationship here or there, but people who are securely attached are healthy. It's like few and far between when you struggle with love addiction or love avoidance is either one or the other. Either one stream or the other. Either you push people away and you can't let the good people in. Or with love addiction, you're really attached and available only for the unhealthy people. And then also when the breakups happen, they just take you to this crazy depth. Like there's an actual withdrawal that happens. So the panic attacks, the inability to sleep, the anxiety, the depression. That's also embarrassing because your friends may go through breakups. Breakups suck for everyone. But for you, distance from this person you're trauma bonded with because it's connected to deeper childhood trauma is devastating. And it's really hard to have other people who don't have that type of trauma pattern understand that. And the same ways that you learn how to cope around relationships understand that. So to be in that space and be in that room just healed so much. And learning how to connect and talk about my feelings with other people who got it healed so much. That program was great. I'll just say one more thing. That program was great, but it connected back here because, like my therapist said, he didn't really know how to help me. He knew that love addiction support groups and sex and love addiction support groups were a thing, but there wasn't any training on that. And so I saw that even when I would talk about with other clinicians, that same response I said that I had. I would have other women who would come to my practice because I shifted to focus only on love addiction. And I have all these women who would come and work with me and talk about being shamed by their previous therapist who are like, we already talked about this before. Why do you keep doing this? Who didn't quite understand that connection to why this is happening. So I decided to focus on that in my practice, and it was great. And then I pivoted to talk about that on the podcast. And so that's what we hear today.

And I'm so glad that you're here. Girl, this is so interesting. Girl, I want to get into it. I want to get into all of it. So what is love addiction?

Yeah, love addiction is the persistent obsession of a person, a relationship, or the fantasy of who you want that person or relationship to be. And mistaking that intensity for love, mistaken that obsession for love. So, because I can't let them go because, you know, I miss them so much, and we're a part of. They miss me because I'm thinking about them all the time. That must mean that this is supposed to be when really you've had people before in your past who've been unavailable, who've abandoned you or whatever, and you have found someone who's repeating that same trauma pattern. And so that's why it feels familiar. That's why it feels like something that you can deal with. And what may be clear red flags to other people, you don't either you don't notice it, or you minimize it, and you don't think that it's that strong. And so this can show up as codependency. It can show up, like I said, people who call themselves hopeless romantics, but they lose themselves in the process. Serial monogamous. So not being able to have any point in time where you're actually single because of the fear what comes up, if I'm not with someone, if I'm not chosen, if I'm not seen, if someone doesn't love me back, what does that mean for me? Because you don't really have that love for yourself.

Talk to me a little bit about how this kind of love addiction might affect, like, black women specifically, and the unique experience of a black girl or black woman growing up.

Yeah, I think so. If love addiction is based in trauma, we can look at just typical trauma that all human beings, for the most part, can experience. Family trauma, maybe bullying, stuff like that. When we add in the experience of being black and black American here in the States, we have the impact of intergenerational trauma, of chattel slavery, oppression, of discrimination. And all the ways that that has formed different norms and relationship expectations for us as people. So because of history and a lot of things that have happened, unfortunately, there is a legacy of abandonment, of withdrawal, of people being there and not being there anymore, of people who were doing everything they could just to survive. So they didn't have the space to actually build emotional.

I don't want to say. I'll say intelligence, because they had to keep the lights on or they had to make sure that their family was safe, you know, and stuff like that. So to have space to actually affirm someone and listen to the feelings or to even see a child as a human being that was worthy of being attended to, that didn't happen because we have all these other things, right? And then even when we think about the impact for those folks who have a lot of Christianity in the background, which I think is very common for a lot of black people to be culturally Christian, whether or not it's part of truly your faith or whether or not it's something that was given down, given to you, depending on what you were taught and how you were taught, you need to be happy all the time. Or, you know, struggle is normal, but God's got you. You know, God blesses those who are.

Hurt the most or those who are feel abandoned. So the way that this shows up in our relationships is that trauma, abandonment, neglect is normalized. We have a lot of black women throughout history who have had to pick up the pieces and be the ones who were strong, be the ones who have been in charge, be the ones who had to kind of be a workhorse or be a mule in a way again to keep everybody going. So what space does that have for you to be loved and to be adorned and to be taken care of and for you to be soft? So we have women who had to grow up in this way, not being able to attend to their daughters and not being able to.

Not necessarily having relationships with folks who love them back, love them the way that they deserve to be loved. So now we have daughters watching that happen and receiving that. So then they go and they treat their daughters the same way or they try to do better, but there's no real models to show that this is possible. You know, I even see now in our popular culture that the stories for black relationships that get the most press are the ones of trauma and tragedy.

Yes.

The ones on these reality shows where it's normalized, the cheating and the fighting. And, you know, is it 50, 50 or da da da da, like there's not. We don't promote or what. There's not a lot of promotion of healthy, secure relationships. So what I see in a lot of women is that there has to be an unlearning of this, and there has to be a firm planting in everything that I want, I deserve to have. I don't need to meet Joe Schmo, who can only give me 30% of what I want emotionally. But, you know, on paper, he's got six figures or he's this tall or whatever else. You know, I'll meet a lot of women who have the same type of pattern where they will be with someone who may be physically present, but emotionally they're not present or they're not able to be faithful, or they don't really know how to attend to them or love them as a human being, that they don't like them as a person. And so when I think about generationally, if you haven't had that experience, you don't know what you're missing. And you have to. You have to learn that you deserve that.

I love that you went into this, and I want to kind of harp on the. The parental relationships because it's so important. You. You named a couple of things. One, that sometimes it can feel, growing up, that our parents love us, but they don't like us. And so that can. That can be normalized, right? We will, like, lean into these sorts of pattern, these bonding patterns that we create that become foundational. And it can be. It can feel very natural for us, even though intellectually we know better, emotionally, it just feels like home, however unhealthy that that feels like. And then, secondly, one of the things that I have kind of experienced in the work that I've done is. Is a lot of us have very critical and judgmental and even narcissistic mothers and emotionally absent or physically absent fathers, which no shade is a double whammy in a lot of different ways as it relates, I think, to love addiction, because there's always this chasing, right? There's always the ideal of the potential of what it can be or what it should be, because it was never what it was supposed to be. So I'm so glad that you're kind of speaking words to, I think, the experience of so many women of color, not just black women, I think women of color in general as well, because that experience is something that is.

Familiar for a variety of different women. So thank you for that so much.

Last year, when we were chatting, you were talking about different kind of archetypes as it relates to love addicts. Right. Would you mind kind of just sharing a little bit about like what kind of archetypes there are? Because honey, we might see ourselves in some of these.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure. I'm gonna say real quick. So that's one way that it can manifest when it comes to love addiction. The other side of that, when you have a mother that's highly critical, narcissistic or absent or you know, withdrawn father, is the love avoidance piece. So both of those are coping mechanisms. So either I'm going to really try to appease people and get them to love me and neglect myself, or I'm going to say forget relationships, forget love altog and I'm not going to be open to it. Right. Because I've learned that I can't depend on folks. And there's not a switch that magically turns on when you learn to be love avoided to where you're like, you know what, this healthy person in front of me, I'm going to trust them, I'm going to be vulnerable, I'm going to open up. So that's why you really have to look at all the ways that this manifests.

So hold on, hold on. So that, that's the love avoidance. Do you see in the work that you do, people that are especially black women, are they more love addicted or more love avoidant?

It's a mixture. I, I would say most people have both sides. It depends on who's in front of them. A lot of women who are really, and this is an art, one of my archetypes for love avoidance, who are very purpose driven, meaning that they are about their bag, they're about their career, like really ambitious.

The way that they will kind of create this, this buffer is they're doing things that the reason why they're here to be on earth. But it kind of creates all this distance to where people can't really get attached to them. So they're very love avoidant in that, you know, only have certain amount of time and energy for certain people and they're very restricted and over controlled. But when they get into a romantic partnership with someone who may be unavailable all of a sudden now they're more open to giving them a benefit of doubt. They may attach very quickly. It's kind of like you're either on one extreme or the other. So I've seen both. The question I get, here's what I'll say. The question I get most from women is can I be both? I really relate to this love addiction part because they can think of previous relationships, but then when they hear about that difficulty trusting and letting people in and being vulnerable, they really relate to that, too. And so really, both of these are intimacy disorders because at its core is I'm afraid of letting people see the real me. So even a love addict is truly afraid of being seen in a room of 100 people. She's going to pick the one person who's never going to turn and actually care about what she wants to see her, to truly see her. He's. He or she is never going to be like, you know, we talk about me all the time. What about you? Or, you know, I think you've been feeling neglected lately, or how can I attend to what you want? Do you feel seen in this relationship that's never going to happen? Or with a love addict, hopes that one day this magic fairy tale that she has in her head, that she's going to either prove it enough or convert this person or heal them or change them or grow them to where that what she thinks is the last missing piece is going to click into place, not realizing that she picked someone who wasn't available from the start. And there's no amount of love and goodness that's going to make someone be better. But when you grow up in that type of trauma where it was your responsibility to make mama happy, it was your responsibility to keep daddy not angry and to make sure he's not driving. You learn that that is your place in relationships.

And I would say that that's probably even more extreme for our, like, Caribbean households and our African households. I feel like that is like, no shade times ten. Just culturally, right?

Yeah.

Yeah.

What I see with my clients who are from immigrant families is all this family stuff we've already been talking about, but there's even more allegiance to the family because of the cultural need to respect your elders and to stay very, you know, attached. And, like, you see your family all the time. And so, you know, no one really is allowed to pull away, and the whole family will come against you even more so if you try to set boundaries and everything. And then you. You want to be respectful. You want to pay homage to. To the folks who have come before you, but they don't let you without the abuse being a part of it.

Right. A lot of times, in their way. Yeah.

In their life.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, girl, give me the archetypes. Girl, give me the archetype. So the girls. The girls might be able to figure out where they stand when it comes to the love addiction and the love avoidance girl.

Okay, yeah, yeah, I'll give you both. So for the love addict archetypes, we have our hopeless romantics. So these are my ladies who are.

This is you, girl. This is you. This is you. This was you. I don't know if it still is you.

My kids. We'll talk about where I am after I give.

Well, here's what I'll say. Healing is a process and a journey. And what happens is your taste changes. So now the things that will like trigger me and I'll be like, oh, like this is kind of nice. Drama, trauma. I like this. It doesn't excite me anymore. Now when I see it, I'm like disgusted. Yeah, I'm disgusted right now. That doesn't mean that there's not an initial like pull. But I know what it's about and I know what it's connected to. Right. And I want things that are better for me now. So that is different.

But hopeless. Hopeless romantic. In love with the idea of love. They.

Will neglect the things that they see that are red flags in hopes of the fairy tale. And they think that it's all worth it. So even like the trauma and the problems that we go through in their mind, it's kind of like this is worth it. Like this is going to be part of our story that we get to tell other people that we made it kind of thing, right?

Yes.

That's always for me. And take my codependence. My codependence. You are not okay if the other person is not okay. And you will neglect yourself in order to take care of them. You see love as being a sacrifice, but it's worth it. Sometimes codependents don't realize that they are over giving until they are burnt out. But because they feel like they are obligated to take care of people and usually they're attracted to people that they do that like lean into that victimhood. They're not real victims. Codependents don't understand that the people that they are taking care of are the most resilient folks ever. If you leave, they're gonna find someone else to take care.

Find a way. Yeah, they're gonna find a way.

But right now you're the source and they know how to milk it. They know how to guilt you, they know how to shame you and pull at you. But codependence to what I was saying earlier, they kind of feel like part of their self worth and part of their value is based on how good and Stable other people are versus attending to themselves. And then the serial monogamous, the ones who have relationships back to back. Now, the thing about serial monogamous in this culture is there's a lot of people who are serial monogamous who have been single on paper for a long period of time. Because serial monogamy is about using external validation as your affirmation, as your source. And so there's a lot of people that you might be connected to that you don't necessarily like, but you use them when you need an up in confidence, when you need that dopamine fix, you know, you leave somebody on red for a long period of time. But then when you're bored, you can't see my air quotes. But when you're bored, you may respond to their text. The way that you know that this is about trauma is again, relationships are being used as a tool and a source of safety. So the boredom can come in when you just got in a fight with someone and now you're feeling insecure or something's going on with your money and you're needing some security and safety or you know, there's some stress at work, you know, and so you're using relationships and people as that source. And also you constantly have someone available and you call them friends. But what would happen if you actually did not talk to any of these people? And what would happen if not only that, now that you go into isolation, but you're still connected to friends and other people. Right? Because that's what people do sometimes too. They do this self love detox where they're like, you know what? I'm overwhelmed. I'm doing a lot of things. This is all really hard. And so they go into this bubble where it's just them, which has a lot of benefits. But you don't learn how to be yourself and show up in any of these other relationships. So you emerge from this bubble and all the same triggers and traumas are still there because you never learn how to be fully yourself. Right? So those are three archetypes for love addiction, for love avoidance. My archetypes are the purpose driven. So like I said, the woman who will have a whole lot of different competing interests to where her. There's not a lot of space for other folks. And the thing about someone who's purpose driven and all these have really positive qualities. None of these are bad.

It's just, I know this purpose driven sounds really good girl, but we all know that this girl is.

Eyes on the prize, honey. She's focused she's numbing.

Because they're all at the extreme. So with Purpose Driven is that you may be waiting for this time, in this moment, that finally I'm okay to invest in relationships now. I'm okay to hang out with my friends now. I'm okay to start a family, whatever. But that time never comes. There's always going to be another project. There's always going to be another degree. There's always going to be another business, because that's who you are. So it's about you aggressively making space right now for those things that you're working for, if that's what you want, and then looking at what comes up for you. When me or someone else says that, is there some anger around that or some fear around that or some restriction? I don't want to do that. Because what are you afraid of? That you're going to lose something. I'm going to lose my independence. Someone's going to try to control me. Someone's going to hurt me. How is someone going to hurt you? What has happened before? And it's okay to be mindful of those things. I think it's important to, but I don't think it's. I think sometimes the meaning that people can take is that all people are bad versus what I'm saying before in a room of 100 people, why is it that I tend to get closer to certain people, but these healthy people and these available people are the ones that I don't really have time for. I say that they're boring or I say that didn't quite click. Why is this more engaging to me than this? So it's about shifting your. Your taste and your preference. And also, you got to make space for people. It's not. Here's what I'll say. A lot of times, my avoidant folks. I have literally had so many clients say that they are mad and annoyed at potential partners because they want to spend time with them. They're like, I'm busy. Like, I got stuff to do. Why are they calling me? I'm like, it's okay for someone to like you, right? For someone to enjoy you.

This is a good thing, you know? And so that's. That's something that.

That I think a lot of black girls are taught early on, right? That they need to focus on the books. And, like, boys are actually a distraction, right? And so, like, a lot of that is based on the. Just, like, also how. How many black girls are raised with the thought and consideration that maybe this little black girl will Be my retirement.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And also, I think mothers, too, who have gone through the trauma that I'm talking about, who are like, I don't want my daughter to be at risk of being hurt in this way or depending on anyone who's just going to end up abandoning her. So I think there are salacious intentions and not so salacious, but either way, the impact is when you go through your formative years and you don't quite learn how to build relationships again, that doesn't magically turn on as an adult. And so you really have to learn, what does intimacy look like for me? What do I want it to look like for me? Or even reverse engineer, ideally. What type of love and partnership do I want? What would that look like? Okay, if that's what I want, I need to start to learn how to create space for that now and build the skills around it now to see if that's even actually what I really want. And then also see what comes up when I try to do those things.

Yeah.

So that's purpose driven and we can talk more about that. But the second archetype for love avoidance is my Miss Populars. So these are my ladies who have tons of friends. People love them, they're charming. You know, they may be on tons of committees and things like that, but their distancing technique is they have so many relationships that no one gets an opportunity to go deep with them.

Right.

And everyone respects it because she's so busy. So she met Kiki, have a really great conversation, but then there's months in between. And so the example that I give is, like, say you go to brunch with the girl with another woman, and you really love it. You know, you might even talk about some intimate things and, like, you really enjoy her. And you say, we should hang out again. And the other woman agrees. That's a Sunday morning. On Monday, you look at your phone and she's calling you and you're like, why is she calling me? She just got a whole lot of me. I'll call her back later. Because you have a limit for how much people have access to you before you just need to disappear. You need a break. You need a ghost. You need that space in between that. And again, you know, if you're someone who wants. And I'm assuming you're listening, if you're listening to this, if you're someone who wants to have an intimate partnership, you're going to be talking to this person a lot. Every day.

Every day.

Every day.

Yeah.

So you're going to have to learn how to not feel crowded out by connection and by intimacy.

Yeah, I love that girl. So, you know, we are results oriented and solutions oriented here on this podcast. I'm sure you are as well. What are some of the things that some of the listeners can do to start their journey into healing some of the love addiction, and you mentioned a little bit about it earlier, as well as some of the love avoidance? I'm sure there are different things for both the addiction and the avoidance. Let's start maybe with the addict love addiction. What are some of the, you know, two or three things that people can get started with to help them move away from that.

Right. So for love addicts, I suggest they do a no contact process, which I'm actually writing a book about, and she'll hopefully be out very soon.

Yes, the no contact guide for Love Addicts. It'll be on Amazon. But what I would suggest they do when it comes to that is no contact. So when people talk about no contact, they talk about just cutting people off. Right. Who have hurt your feelings and just, you know, you block them or whatever. I see no contact as a full healing process that detox almost that we talked about before, where you remove access from all the people who you have been trauma bonded to that you've been using for a source, and you're just left with yourself. But during that time, as the traumas and the triggers are coming up, you're using tools, resources, your therapist, your friends to replace the idolizing that you did with previous relationships with real and healthy connections. So, for example, one time sometimes I'll hear folks who will say their hesitation with doing no contact with someone who might be really toxic for them is that this person was like a really good friend for them. Or, you know, they're. They're available to answer the phone, and so they don't want to completely cut it off.

Yeah.

And so then you need to replace that person, that. That meaning that this person had for you with people who are actually good for you and that you can actually trust instead of this person being your only source. So doing no contact for 90 days is what I tell people. The reason why I say 90 days is because if you do no contact process at first, especially if you're struggling with love addiction, usually people don't want to do no contact until they're mad and then they're like, you know, I don't need this. You know, I'm gonna cut them off. I'm not gonna talk to them. That lasts about two weeks. And that's if you are not looking at their social media and everything else, which is still contact. You're still getting emotional fix and fantasy and ruminations.

You hear that, ladies? Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, LinkedIn, Pinterest, all of them.

All of it. You can see them. And then when they can see your stories too, now it gives you, like, you get to feed this fantasy of that they're. They miss me and they're thinking about me. It's still. You're still very much connected to someone that you're not talking to, which makes. Why y'. All. You. They spin the block so easily because you never broke up with them in the first place. So. But. But those first two weeks are very easy when you're mad. And then that's when the withdrawal starts to come. And then you start to second guess yourself, and then you start to miss what they gave you. Whatever they gave you, whatever type of security they gave you. And so you need to get through that period and get through the pain, get through the crying, get through the. I don't think that I can, like, make it. And this is so painful. Get through the point. If you're doing it the way that I teach, where you would pick up somebody else, you would get on the dating apps and find somebody else to replace. Right. But you haven't really fixed what. What caused all this. So you find the same person in a different suit, you know, maybe different race, different height, you know, but the same trauma, and actually learn how to build that you're okay, that you're okay by yourself. Not only okay, but that you can thrive and that you. You can find love and connection and security and everything that you have now. So that would be my first step. And I'll say that's a very big step. So that's what I'll say. Girl.

Huge. 90 days girl. Like 90 day fiance.

Yeah. Yeah, Truly. And you're busy building a relationship with yourself, you know?

Yeah.

And it's worth it because once you. Once you know that you're okay, all the other stuff, like, that's. My clients say, like, their eyes are open, so they can't even go back to the stuff if they want to. And even. Even if. Or when they do, they're like, girl, what am I doing here? Like, like they're not gonna spend another.

Several months in this space to find yourself again and. And really, like, sit in your own true identity without all of these exterior influences and biases that might change the way that reality really is.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm a receiver of love. And for my love avoidance, the first step for them. Wait, did you ask me about level?

Yes, girl. Yes, girl.

Okay. For my love avoidance, I'm gonna be just real simple and say, I think you need to admit that you want more intimacy and connection. Then you're probably allowing yourself to admit, practice some honesty with yourself and with that honesty to understand that that's okay. It's okay for you with everything that you have going on, all the blessings, all the accolades for you to say, and I still want love and connection too. That's not a sign of weakness. It's not a sign that you're doing something wrong. It's not even a sign that there's something wrong with you if that's not something that you have right now. It's just part of human connection. You know, you're human and I think that's going to lead you down this path of again, intimacy with yourself so that you can be intimate with others as well.

Yeah. Okay. So they're gonna, once they acknowledge this, do you have any suggestions in terms of like that first person that they can try a little bit of intimacy with that, like, how do they make that determination of taking that first step with that person to be a little bit more deeper? Is there a way to kind of think about this?

Yeah, I think when it comes to love addiction, love avoidance, the problem is not the love part, is the meaning that is attached to Romant love. So the idea is that only romantic love can fix me, heal me, fill me. But once you learn that love and connection happens in all these different sources, right. It's. It's easier for you to receive and to give and to not have so much high stakes on, especially an unavailable relationship. So the first folks that I would encourage love avoidance to try with, it's not a romantic partnership, but it's probably your friends that you have around you, if you are even, let's say you even have a really good friend group. Do you usually initiate what's going on in your life with your friends or do you listen to what's going on with them? Are you the counselor? Are you the mom of the group? And then when you share things with them, are you sharing things that have already been resolved? Do you start off the conversation, taking up space with what's going on in your day, even if there's not a crisis? Right. Do you ever call anyone just to say, hey and again, talk about what's going on with you truly, and just start building Those types of interactions with people frequently, because you may do that, but how often and again do you spread it between multiple people? You know?

Yeah, I love that because it really does start with those non romantic relationships and then once you can master that non romantically, you can start actually implementing that romantically and feel confident and safe around, you know, your ability to be more open, more intimate, more vulnerable in these sorts of interactions. I love that. Very good, girl. Is there anything else that my listeners need to know? I know that we've given them a lot of information and it's been amazing. Is there anything that you're like, before I go, girl, these girls need to know this.

Sometimes people ask me, can I work on this while I'm in a relationship with someone? And the answer is, yeah, if you're with someone who is a healthy and available partner. Because all this is, is just a journey back to yourself, right? If you start this process and you find that the person who you are connected to is not available for you, that's also a good thing. I think especially with love addiction, there can be this kind of lack mindset and fear and that leads to hesitation to start because you kind of already know. You kind of know when something is up, right. And not wanting to fully look at it, because if I do, that means that I'm going to have to move away from this person. This person is my person and I don't want to let them go. And if you have this lack mindset or trauma around losing people, that feels very real and feels very true. And I'm here to tell you 100% that you have not met every person in this world who's going to love you. You have not. And the more that you allow someone who does not treat you with the love that you deserve be in your presence, you're actually losing time from the folks who will love you in the way that you deserve. So either one or two things are going to happen when you start this process. You are going to become more of yourself so that the person that you're with actually gets to love you more and actually gets to see you more, or you're going to find the people who actually were, who have never been for you. Cleanse your timeline, cleanse your life of them to make space for the people who do. So I would encourage people to start, get started.

I love that so much. Awesome, awesome, awesome. Thank you so much for being here, girl. Now for the girls, the listeners that want to know more about what you, you do and that really want to work with you because this is amazing work. How can they get in contact with you?

Yeah, so they can go to black girls heal.org and learn about all my programs and all the things going on. My podcast is called Black Girls Heal. I just. Next week, no, the week after next, on Valentine's Day, it's going to be my five year podcast anniversary for bgh.

So there's lots of episodes for people to tap into. But to work with me, you can go to the recovery school.com which is for the recovery school, which is how I help women work through these issues in under six months. So we'd love to have you all there.

I love that girl. Thank you so much for being here. This was amazing.

Thanks for having me.

Of course, of course, of course. All right, ladies, let me know. Email me at amoretyourguycoaching.com let me know if any of this resonated with you. If you find yourself more love addicted or love avoidant so that we can understand and continue to dive into this a little bit more. Now, with that said, I will see you on the flip side. Bye bye.

Hey girl. Thank you so much for listening to the GetYourGuy coaching podcast. If you like this episode and want to talk with me personally, please book a free consultation at www.getyourguycoaching.com. apply or subscribe and leave me a review. Wherever you listen to your podcasts, talk soon.