Martin Pavion, a clinical hypnotherapist, explains limerence: obsessive attraction that feels like love but stems from attachment wounds and unmet needs. He walks through how to recognize it, why it happens, and practical steps like naming it, exploring what you actually need, and creating distance to break the pattern.
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You know that feeling when you can't stop thinking about someone? Not in a healthy, I really like them way, but in an intrusive, obsessive way where they're the first thing you think about when you wake up and the last thing before you sleep. Where you analyse every text message, every interaction, replaying conversations in your head for hidden meaning. Maybe it's a colleague, Maybe it's someone you met online. Maybe it's an old friend who's suddenly taking up way too much space in your mind, and you feel tremendous shame about it because, well, you're a grown adult. You should have more control than this. Here's the thing. What you're experiencing probably isn't love. It's something called limerence. Once you understand it, Everything changes. I'm Martin Pavion, and this is the Martin Pavion Podcast. Before we dive in, quick reminder, I'm a clinical hypnotherapist, NLP master practitioner, and coach, not a medical professional. This episode is educational, not therapeutic advice. If you're struggling, please seek appropriate professional support. Let's dive in. What limerence actually is. So let's start with the basics. Limerence, it's a term coined by a psychologist, Dorothy Tennov, in 1979. She studied hundreds of people experiencing what she called involuntary romantic attraction, and that word involuntary is key. Limerence is characterized by intrusive, obsessive thinking about another person. It's that feeling of euphoria when you think they might reciprocate, that crushing anxiety when you think they don't. It's checking your phone constantly. It's rearranging your schedule, hoping to accidentally run into them. It's reading way too much into every single interaction. Does that sound familiar? Here's what makes limerence different from love. It's not really about the other person. It's about the fantasy you've built around them, and it thrives on uncertainty. The moment you know for certain they're interested, or crucially that they're not interested, limerence tends to fade. It needs that maybe they are, maybe they aren't tension to survive. How's it different from love? Real love, healthy love, Grows over time as you actually get to know somebody. You see their flaws and you choose them anyway. You build trust, shared experiences, genuine intimacy. Limerence doesn't need any of that. In fact, it often prefers the fantasy to reality. You can be limerent for someone you barely know, someone who's completely unavailable. Someone you haven't even spoken to in years. Because limerence isn't about them. It's about what they represent to you. It's about what you're projecting onto them. And here's the uncomfortable truth: limerence usually points to something unmet or unresolved in you. Why it happens? And what it's really about. I learned this the hard way a few years ago. I became limerent with a friend, someone I'd had a complicated, quite toxic relationship with. And once I understood what was happening, I realized that limerence wasn't about her at all. It was about attachment wounds I hadn't dealt with, most likely from my divorce. Unmet needs I was trying to fill through fantasy rather than reality. The obsessive thinking— that was my unconscious mind trying to solve an old problem by replaying the same patterns. And I see this constantly with clients. The person you're obsessing over, they're often a stand-in for something much deeper. Maybe they represent freedom or validation Or the life you feel you're not living. Maybe they remind you of an early attachment figure and your unconscious is just trying to heal that original wound by, by fixing this relationship. But here's the thing, you can't heal an old wound with a new person. You can only heal it by doing the actual work. The shame trap. Let me address the elephant in the room. If you're experiencing limerence, you probably feel ashamed, especially if you're in a committed relationship, especially if you pride yourself on being rational, in control, above this sort of thing. But limerence isn't a moral failing. It's not evidence that you're a bad person or that your current relationship is doomed. It's, it's information. Your unconscious mind It's trying to tell you something. Maybe it's highlighting an unmet need in your current relationship. Maybe it's pointing to parts of yourself you've suppressed. Maybe it's showing you patterns you learned in childhood about how to seek love and validation. The worst thing you can do is just try to suppress it and hope it goes away, because unexamined limerence has a way of making terrible decisions feel absolutely right in the moment. And I'm talking from experience here. So what do you do about it? First, name it. You're not in love, you're experiencing limerence, and that alone removes some of the power. Second, get curious. What does this person represent to you? What needs are you trying to meet through this fantasy? What's the attachment wound underneath? This is where hypnotherapy can be incredibly powerful, by the way, because limerence lives in the unconscious. It's not something you can just logic your way out of. You need to go deeper and understand what your unconscious is actually trying to achieve. Third, address the real issue. If limerence is highlighting unmet needs in your current relationship, If it's pointing to suppressed parts of yourself, start integrating them. If it's an old attachment wound, do the work to heal it. And fourth, create distance if you need to. Sometimes the most self-aware thing you can do is remove yourself from the situation while you do the deeper work. The gift hidden in limerence. Here's what I want you to hear. Limerence, as uncomfortable as it is, can actually be a gift because it's forcing you to look at something you've been avoiding. It's shining a light on patterns you might not see otherwise. It's giving you the opportunity to do real transformative work. The question is, are you going to use it as a catalyst for growth, or are you going to let it derail your life? That's the crossroads, and that's where real transformation happens. In closing, so if you're experiencing limerence right now, take a breath. You're not broken. You're not a bad person. You're a human being whose unconscious mind is trying to communicate something important. And the question is, Are you willing to listen? If this episode resonated with you, I'd love to hear from you. What's your experience with limerence? What patterns are you seeing? Send me a message at martin@martinpavion.com. And if you're ready to explore what's really underneath, if you want to understand what your subconscious is trying to tell you and do the work to integrate it, visit martinpavion.com for a free 20-minute clarity call. Because real transformation doesn't happen by suppressing what's uncomfortable. It happens by understanding it. Subscribe wherever you're listening for new episodes about twice a week. I'm Martin Pavion. Thank you for being here.
