Relief from limerence by zooming out

you're experiencing limerence and it's becoming overwhelming it might be all that you can think about and it might feel like the most isolating and painful feeling that you've ever experienced I know how difficult this is and I've seen many clients as a counselor and this experiences is common among those who have limits or are going through limerence so here we're going to be talking about what it means to zoom out and give yourself a bit more perspective when it comes to limerence giving you at least some momentary relief or at least an exercise you can turn to when you feel so overwhelmed that there's almost nothing else you think you can do other than sit there and think about the limerent object by the way I'm Marios I'm a doctoral student in counseling psychology in London and I help people with limits primarily but I also look at anxiety and other romantic kind of issues that people have on this channel we're talking about anything psychology related anything I think might be helpful or interesting to people so hopefully you will like And subscribe and stick around so that yeah we can continue making stuff so you'll know when it's too much limerence can take over your life so much that it's the first thing you think of when you wake up and the last thing you think of when you go to sleep and this can become deliriously painful in that you feel completely lost in this experience you feel like you'll never get out of it and that there is no future without some sort of fulfillment of this fantasy and I'm here to let you know that that's not the case or it doesn't have to be you do have to work with limerence it will resolve itself eventually most likely but it helps to actively work on it so the technique I'm going to suggest for you is I just call zooming out it's not really a technical procedure or anything but I have found it helpful with clients so the technique is when you are feeling so overwhelmed and so stuck in that momentary experience of I cannot stop fantasizing reaching out like seeking more information about the limerent object my whole day my whole life is dictated by this I'd like you to try and retrace your steps as to who you were before limerence meaning what is it that kind of LED you up into this point now you can go as far back as your mind will will take you and it might want to give you some Clues as to how you did end up here and I think this introspection it doesn't necessarily help to like over analyze your life just because you just get really involved in the story rather than be present but at the moment you're struggling a lot with being present anyway because you're all you're thinking about is this person so the thing to do is to start to remember the story of you before you entered this situation and you'll start to see like you know what I've been through some stuff and you know at this time in my life it was lonely school was tough these people were tough my family has had issues you know there are these things that make us who we are and we explore them in therapy all the time but here I'm looking at it not so much as an analytical exercise I don't want you to necessarily diagnose yourself as to why you suddenly have limerence because that's a difficult thing to do limerence is not a codified or you know well-recognized condition or state so we don't know exactly what causes it so I don't think it's helpful for YouTube but rather than say this is definitely why it's good to just explore and say hey I think I've developed some sensitivities around this topic and I feel like I was lacking and you know what this person helped me feel like I wasn't lacking anymore this person helped me feel like I was worthy for the first time in a long time that is that is one of the most intoxicating things that people can do is to make us feel important especially when we lack the conviction and the belief that we matter so I think the natural moving out of limerence is to develop a strong sense of self to believe that you are worthy and truly believe that you may feel like overall you know that you agree with that statement but I think inherently there is a feeling of lacking in your life if you are limit there's something it's pointing to something it's not a real thing that it's pointing to the limerent object is like a it's just a an image that you're looking at but actually what is missing is something within you or or within your life and you're just kind of externalizing it as this person that's at least the experience that I've had seeing clients and it's kind of useful to to retrace back and say you know what I've never dealt with my crippling self-esteem or my anxiety around the opposite sex those are things that you may have forgotten were big parts of your life they may not actively come up for you as problems but looking back might make you think oh you know that was there and it evolved maybe it's still there maybe I overcame it and what that does is is reconnect to you with the fact that you are a whole person with a whole life and your life is not all about this person even though it feels like that right now you have a whole story a whole life that you've lived up until this point and for this narrow band hopefully narrow that you've been experiencing limerence it does feel like everything else has disappeared but what this exercise invites you to do is to reconnect with a story where you are the protagonist this is another theme I see a lot with limerence is you cease to be the protagonist in your own life when you are limerent the limit object becomes a protagonist they become the star of the show Even though everyone's life is their own life is the most important thing to them in this case that has stopped and I think it is because of that lacking that we feel or that we're not maybe not conscious of yet but there's something in US telling us hey I'm scared of this big change in life I don't know if I have enough in my life I'm not sure if I've done enough with my life these are all anxieties we all feel as we get older as we go through life so why has this symptom of limerence turned up and looking back making it about you rather than about them and I've noticed this can diffuse the moment a bit it can create a bit more space where you can work on yourself and a bit more of a holistic way rather than being so hyper focused laser focused on them and your current experience of getting drunk essentially on their well on the idea of them on your fantasies of them so I hope this helped leave me a comment if there's anything else you'd like me to cover or if you found this helpful and I'll see you in the next one thanks look after yourself

Channel: Marios Georgiou

Views: 37,295

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Id: Fiu40nWXKGM

Length: 7min 0sec (420 seconds)

Published: Sun Aug 27 2023