When Love Feels Like a Drug: The Real Reason You Can’t Walk Away

I'm Jess. I'm a relationship coach and I'm here to support you in healing your relationship with yourself, which then has a ripple effect on every other relationship in your life. And all of life is a relationship. So we have a relationship to our own selves, which we often forget, and we think that relationship has to mean a romantic relationship. A lot of people say to me, "Oh, you're a relationship coach? Well, I can't work with you because I'm not in a relationship." That doesn't make any sense. Like, you're always in relationship. You might not be in a romantic relationship, but you're always in relationship, and you are always in relationship with yourself. So using whatever's showing up in your life as information, as data, for whatever you might need support around, right? So one of the things I specialize in is supporting people in breaking patterns and healing cycles that they keep experiencing over and over again, right? Right? So we end up in a loop when we, when we keep experiencing the same thing over and over and we don't do any work within ourselves to shift that loop, right? So it's just a karmic loop of suffering. So the way out is actually to do the work around what keeps showing up. What is life mirroring back to you that's showing you that you need to heal? Because when we start doing the work there, then when the lesson comes back around or the similar dynamic comes back around, we show up differently. We actually heal in a spiral. So it's interesting because a lot of people will say to me, "Oh my gosh, I'm going backwards. I can't believe it. I made all this progress and now this came around, the same situation, or this dynamic with my partner happened again and I reverted way back to how I used to show up." And I always say to them, that is part of the process. You know, healing is not linear. We are going to go a few steps forward, a few steps back. But if the general trend is leaning upward, then that means that we're growing, which is amazing. We're here to learn, we're here to grow. Nobody escapes adversity here on this planet. But something that I wanted to talk to you about today is love addiction. You may or may not be familiar with what that is, but it is something that is very prevalent in our society. And the reason is because we have been trained and programmed since we were very, very tiny in a very distorted model of relating. Okay, so think back to the movies that we used to watch as kids, the Disney movies where, you know, the prince comes in on his white horse and saves the princess, right? Or, you know, the princess is this damsel in distress and she's not really okay and she has to change and distort herself and shift something about herself so that the prince finally sets her free, right? Like, there's a recurring theme in these movies that is not helpful, and that is what we received in the years where we are very impressionable, like little sponges. We received this information coming into our brains and we start to decide about what love is and what relationships are based on this information. And not only that, but we also— what we experience in our homes as children through relating to our parents or how they relate to each other or how they relate to us, we are going to have a template for what love is, right? And so love addiction comes in where we actually didn't receive some of what we really needed as children. And oftentimes it's mirroring. So it's an adult sitting with us, attuning to us, and mirroring ourselves back to ourselves so that we make sense to ourselves, right? Most of us did not have that as children, and so it ends up creating a fragment, a wound in the psyche that then seeks outside of itself to be filled. Right? So with love addiction, what we're doing is we are seeking outside of ourselves through love, through sex, to try to fill that void, that heal that wound that really can only be healed from within ourselves. But we're taking the programming, we're taking the messaging that we received, and we're also taking our experience from childhood, and then we're bringing it to our adult relationships. Okay? So what that can look like is being attracted to people that are not good for you, right? Like having this draw to people who are really not healthy for you, being drawn to people that are unavailable in some way, shape, or form, people who really cannot show up for you. And that is a really, really painful pattern, something that I personally have had to work on rewiring for many years because My template was being used to people that are unavailable and having to work hard to receive love and developing all these subconscious beliefs, right? Like, I have to be perfect to deserve love. I have to work hard. I have to earn it. It's not just something that's freely given. So then what happens is when we grow up in that kind of an environment, we bring that template with us and then we experience it in the world, right? And a lot of times with love addiction and patterns like that, we have this deep ache within us that's— it's often called the God-sized hole or the hungry ghost. And the reason for that is that only God can fill it. It, it's never going to be filled by another human being, but what we will do is try to fill it with another human being. So oftentimes with love addiction, from the time we were really, really little, we start to develop an obsession, a romantic obsession, even when we're little children, right? Maybe school age or even younger, we develop a crush on, on someone else and we start to focus our energy outside of ourselves and it's really a form of externally sourcing to try to feel better, to try to soothe. If we can hyperfocus on this other person, then we don't have to focus on ourselves and our inner pain. Right? And so it translates over the years and then comes with us into adulthood, and it can create a lot of pain and a lot of suffering, which is why I want to talk about it, because I don't see very much out there speaking about love addiction. And there are programs of recovery that can help you. So if you're hearing this video and you're thinking, oh my gosh, that really sounds like me, then drop me a message or shoot me a message and let me know and I can recommend 12-step programs for you. And also if you want to do a deeper dive and heal some of it, I can help you because I know from personal experience how deeply painful these things can be and how dangerous it is if you don't do the healing around it. But what happens is we have this really deep ache, this God-sized hole, this childhood wounding that is then seeking healing through another, right? But here's the kicker. First of all, no one else can ever heal us. That's the first thing. But beyond that, the people that we are drawn to, that we're trying to heal from or extract— honestly, extract from in order to heal— are going to be people that actually recreate the same wounding because we're going to be subconsciously drawn towards what is familiar. Isn't that wild? And honestly, it might sound like, oh my gosh, well, what are we ever going to do? That sounds like the worst situation ever. But it's actually the fact that higher power, God, life loves you so much that life will keep showing you wherever you're not yet free. And what better way to do that than through a romantic attraction or romantic relationship, right? Like something that we probably really, really want and that either we're just chasing it and it's not available, or maybe it's partly available where the person maybe leans in and leans out, or there's a hot and cold push-pull dynamic. And what that will do is actually reinforce the subconscious belief that, yeah, love is hard, love is painful, I'm never going to get my needs met, I have to do everything alone. Like, these are some of the common subconscious patterns that we have when we experience love addiction. So what happens is we are seeking externally, but we're seeking— it's like we're seeking but through someone who's never gonna be able to show up in a healthy way, right? So we are wounded in relationship and we heal in relationship. That's the good news. But we're wounded in relationship and we can continue to re-traumatize and re-wound ourselves if we are drawn towards a similar dynamic that created the initial wounding, okay? So So your energy will be drawn in towards that similar energy because it's familiar. It's what we know. It feels like home in a sense. Kind of weird, right? But it's really true. And if you think about how many people talk about, you know, being drawn to people that are unavailable, then you see how common this is. But the thing with love addiction is that it touches such a deep place within you that it can be really dangerous because it can send you into places of really deep pain emotionally, spiritually, physically even. Like, you can have physical symptoms of withdrawal when a relationship ends, or even, you know, when you have a connection with someone and then it ends, or if someone's hot and cold. Every time they're cold, you could have symptoms of withdrawal where it's literally physical and it feels very similar to to coming off of actual drugs, believe it or not, because our bodies are creating a cocktail and that cocktail temporarily soothes the wounding, right? So it seems like the answer. Oh, finally! Oh my God, finally I have found the one. I found the person that's gonna come in and heal all of my pain. Thank you, God. Like, Finally, they're here, right? And then we put them up on a pedestal, we feel like they're gonna rescue us, and inevitably anyone up on a pedestal falls down because that's just how it goes. And then we are left with our own selves at the end of it when it inevitably ends, because any relationship based on this energetic dynamic cannot actually survive and will actually be very, very dysfunctional. So if you're recognizing yourself in this and Please do not have any judgment or shame. Know that that part of you that is running the show is a very young part that has probably a lot of grief and a lot of pain that you are running from. And so bringing in a lot of love and compassion, but also knowing that these patterns are not your fault. They are not your fault. They were beyond your control from what you experienced as a little child, which creates our template for relating. It's not your fault, but it is your responsibility to now take the steps to free yourself. And it is absolutely possible to free yourself. It is absolutely possible to have a new experience. And the thing that I find really interesting about love addiction is it's, it's an invisible addiction in a sense, in a lot of ways, because what it does is it's— you're basically focusing all of your time, energy, and attention on sex and love, like on a romantic partner, on a desired person, right? And that person becomes the whole pie in your life. So there's no room for much else. There isn't room for much else. Once you start doing the healing, then you're able to expand from this tunnel vision of focusing on this one person, this one thing, this one relationship, and actually expanding it out so that yes, you may have a relationship that is part of the pie. Great. But it's no longer the whole pie because when it's the whole pie, it's very dangerous because if it goes somewhere or something happens, you will be hurled into all of the pain that you've been running from all of these years by anesthetizing through a romantic interest, a romantic partner. Does that make sense? So as I said, this is something that I have experienced personally, and I don't see a lot of coaches talking about it. And so I feel like it's really important to bring it to the light because, you know what, we all have something, we all have some challenge or challenges that we are working through. And this is so common, it's more common than not. So know that if this is you and you're hearing yourself in, in this description or the story, that there is, there's a way to heal it, like I said. So if you're needing some support, I would so love to connect with you. Um, I offer a 15-minute consult call. I also have a group program if you want to jump in and, and check the vibe and check the energy, where you can come in and you could just listen, or you can receive group coaching. And then I do one-on-one coaching, and I also work with couples. So there's a variety of different ways to receive support. If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to reach out. And I'm just sending you so much love if you are in the middle of one of these cycles, I am sending you so much love and I want you to know that there is hope and that there is another way. And I am living proof of that and I could tell you stories and I will if you want to hear them. My own life and how I experienced this and how I now experience so much freedom and liberation around it. So if I can do it, you can do it too. I'm here to support you. Sending you so much love.