Latest / State Of Mind Mental Health Podcast / #121 - Limerence: The Psychology of Obsessive Romantic Longing with Amanda McCracken

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#121 - Limerence: The Psychology of Obsessive Romantic Longing with Amanda McCracken · State Of Mind Mental Health Podcast

• 0:00
  for those people who don't know what limerence is, it's in a nutshell, it's a state of mind where you are obsessively, not always obsessively, I think it's a spectrum,
• 0:08
  ruminating, thinking about somebody that you see without their flaws.
• 0:12
  So that's why they're called the limerent object,
• 0:14
  You see them idealized, not actually who they really are.
• 0:18
  And it's really fueled by hope and uncertainty.
• 0:22
  And so I feel like in today's world where ghosting is almost acceptable, I mean, it's still not cool, but people do it.
• 0:29
  And online dating apps make you feel like you can just keep swiping until you find the perfect person.
• 0:35
  I think all of that and it keeps you on the hook, right?
• 0:39
  They even talk about intermittent reinforcement where it's there's in there's inconsistency in communication.
• 0:46
  That's when you're more on the hook, like you're kind of waiting for it.
• 0:49
  You're anticipating it.
• 0:51
  Hello everybody, welcome to the State of Mind podcast.
• 0:55
  tools, stories, and truth on being human.
• 0:59
  My name is Mike Strow and this is a podcast for living with courage, clarity and compassion.
• 1:06
  On today's episode, I am speaking with Amanda McCracken.
• 1:10
  hello Amanda, thank you so much for being here and sharing your wisdom with us and to talk about your book.
• 1:16
  Can you please introduce yourself, tell us a little bit about kind of what brings you to this point in your life and what you're up to today.
• 1:24
  Yeah, thanks for having me, Mike.
• 1:26
  I am a journalist.
• 1:28
  and also just a really curious person.
• 1:30
  So that's why I ended up writing my book, When Longing Becomes Your Lover.
• 1:35
  Here it is here.
• 1:38
  And I was basically trying to untangle myself from my own patterns to find authentic love.
• 1:46
  And I found myself just going down a lot of rabbit holes as I was trying to
• 1:53
  I'm married with a five year old graduated from kindergarten this week, and originally from Cincinnati.
• 2:07
  And I've always been kind of jack of all trades, writer, massage therapist, coach, teacher.
• 2:14
  So, and now I'm an author and I'm excited to talk about what I've learned in the process.
• 2:20
  Yeah, the title, When Longing Becomes Your Lover is so good.
• 2:24
  It's so descriptive.
• 2:25
  Can you help, I guess, explain what that means and kind of the thesis or the origins of that idea and the book?
• 2:34
  Sure, yeah, thank you.
• 2:36
  I love my title too.
• 2:37
  And it's all because
• 2:39
  of my therapist, who one day during a session said to me, Amanda Longing is your lover.
• 2:47
  And this light bulb went off like, it went, A, that's so poetic, right?
• 2:52
  I love my therapist.
• 2:53
  But
• 2:53
  then B, it's like, is like, oh crap.
• 2:57
  Like that's true.
• 2:59
  I have.
• 3:00
  I do have someone or something and it's not really getting me to the relationship that I really desire.
• 3:07
  And so that was one of the kind of like catalysts to do the research that I did paired with the therapy that I was already doing.
• 3:17
  And there were previous catalysts along the way that had gotten me
• 3:23
  trying to figure out if there was something wrong with me or if it was just bad timing.
• 3:28
  It was just a bad dating pool.
• 3:30
  Maybe I needed to leave Boulder.
• 3:33
  Like what was going on?
• 3:35
  So that's where the title of the book comes from.
• 3:39
  And, yeah, can you give us some history to that?
• 3:43
  So, like how your relationship with this idea of longing and being in love with that, can you, in your Ted talk that I watched, you gave some of the psychology babble around it
• 3:59
  all.
• 3:59
  Maybe babbles not the right word, but like the,
• 4:01
  the insights to what is going on there.
• 4:04
  And you also use the word addiction, which is pretty interesting.
• 4:07
  And I think, yeah, well, it's apt, I think, or if that's the right word.
• 4:11
  ~
• 4:13
  And it's so interesting.
• 4:14
  And I think people can learn a lot from it.
• 4:16
  So can you kind of describe that?
• 4:19
  Sure.
• 4:19
  So before I even knew the word limerence, I understood this sense that I was, quote, addicted to longing for someone that seemed very unavailable.
• 4:30
  And just maybe just slightly within reach.
• 4:33
  I mean, I wasn't interested in movie characters or movie stars.
• 4:37
  Some people are.
• 4:38
  I feel like that's borderline parasocial relationship.
• 4:40
  But I was always interested in somebody that maybe kind of gave me the time of day or maybe we'd hooked up.
• 4:47
  And yet then there was this distance, typically avoidance.
• 4:51
  I feel like if we want to throw jargon around, I feel like I was like a disorganized attachment style, depending on who the person I was approaching.
• 4:58
  I was kind of anxious around the people, the avoidance.
• 5:02
  And then I would be more of an avoidant if somebody was like, Amanda, I really like you.
• 5:07
  I like this, this, and this about you.
• 5:09
  I'm available.
• 5:11
  Let's do these amazing things together.
• 5:13
  And I'm like, adios, I'm out.
• 5:16
  Or I would just start pulling away.
• 5:17
  so in some of the research that I brought up in the TED Talk, I think I talked about
• 5:23
  Like how the one research study I found interesting actually here at CU was Zoe Donaldson who did this research with voles which are if I if I can correctly say this like one of
• 5:36
  the few they they
• 5:40
  unlike I'm not gonna say this right, but they they're pair bonding, right?
• 5:45
  They don't just they're not like little whores.
• 5:47
  They they actually find a ~ another bowl and they continue to meet with that bowl.
• 5:55
  laboratory.
• 5:56
  And also talk to Jud Brewer, who's a psychiatrist and also a neuroscientist.
• 6:01
  And he did a lot of research around anxiety.
• 6:04
  And he talked about this longing or limerence as being part of trigger behavior reward system, where maybe the trigger is boredom or
• 6:15
  maybe it's anxiety about your future and then the behavior would be maybe searching for you know that one person who you feel like is the one that got away that you screwed up or
• 6:26
  whatever in the process and you're searching their socials or you're looking at old pictures or
• 6:32
  maybe you even have their t-shirt you kept and you're smelling it, you know, for a hit.
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  And then the
• 6:37
  reward is the dopamine you get, not from actually seeing them or getting their attention necessarily, but just the ruminating, the anticipation of what could be.
• 6:47
  And so that's why the longing was so quote unquote addictive because the ruminating, the thinking about, the anticipating,
• 6:56
  was where you'd get that dopamine hit.
• 6:58
  And for somebody like me with ADHD, and I was late diagnosed, probably about 36, I think, that made my life make sense, like why I'd had crush after crush after crush, because it
• 7:12
  was really entertaining to my brain.
• 7:15
  to be washed in those floods of dopamine because from what I understand with people with ADHD, one of the theories is that there's a quicker uptake of the dopamine in the brain.
• 7:26
  So it leaves the person desiring it more quickly.
• 7:29
  So they're quicker to seek it out and do those things, whatever it might be.
• 7:33
  Some people are more prone to risk taking.
• 7:36
  Other people like me, it's more about the ruminating.
• 7:40
  And even the writing aspect of it, right?
• 7:43
  Like writing about these guys for me was therapeutic, but also, you know, it gave me a little bit of a rush to write a poem and think, maybe I will, maybe I won't ever share
• 7:54
  this with them.
• 7:56
  Yeah, that's it's so I love the kind of inter weaving the the ADHD tendencies into it.
• 8:04
  How can you talk about how the, the longing, the writing, you were saying, sort of keeps you on the hamster wheel, which is sort of that addictive continual pursuit of this thing
• 8:17
  that is never going to fill the void,
• 8:20
  how did that sort of, maybe you just described it, but how, how does that sort of play out?
• 8:24
  over time.
• 8:25
  ~ well, I think that kind of goes back to the trigger behavior reward system, right?
• 8:30
  And then if you, get that reward and then you're satisfied for a little while and then maybe you're, bored again, or maybe you're whatever it is for you.
• 8:40
  For me, it was probably really boredom.
• 8:42
  think like that was like, I've hated being bored since I was a kid.
• 8:46
  I mean, I guess every kid does, right?
• 8:48
  But I feel like there are some kids that especially like, I even see it in my daughter.
• 8:54
  Like before she goes to bed at night immediately, what are we doing tomorrow?
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  What are we doing this weekend?
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  What's the plan?
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  We gotta have, you know, what are we doing after school?
• 9:01
  Like there's gotta be something planned that's fun, something to look forward to.
• 9:06
  And I don't know, maybe I'm projecting, but I feel like there is something maybe unique about that.
• 9:12
  So.
• 9:13
  That's how you kind of get, think, in the hamster wheel and not really being able to sink into the present moment and appreciate what you have in the moment.
• 9:22
  And I've always been one who's typically, think, as a lot of people are, looking towards a future, planning the next trip, planning the next project, which can be healthy, right, to
• 9:31
  keep your mind working towards something, but then also languishing over the past and being like,
• 9:38
  my gosh, how could I have done that differently?
• 9:40
  What decision, how could I have done that, made that choice differently?
• 9:44
  And which was such a waste of emotional time and energy.
• 9:48
  But it was really hard for me to not do that to myself.
• 9:56
  Well, it does tend to give us the illusion of control, Or of an accomplishment when we're sort of ruminating.
• 10:02
  Yeah, yeah.
• 10:03
  control was a huge thing.
• 10:05
  And something even with the book out that I have to let go of.
• 10:08
  Like, it's out there.
• 10:10
  Like, whatever it does
• 10:11
  in people's lives is out of my control now.
• 10:14
  Right.
• 10:14
  How was this for you as a teen?
• 10:17
  I guess as teens we become sexually driven, et cetera, sort of mate seeking, all that kind of stuff.
• 10:24
  Can you talk to us a little bit about what it was like for you when you were younger and how it blended into adulthood?
• 10:31
  Sure, yeah.
• 10:32
  One of the things that I bring up, I mean, one of the themes of my book is me struggling with late in life virginity.
• 10:39
  And that was in my mid 30s where I was like, okay.
• 10:42
  I've waited, you know, I was still being sexually active.
• 10:45
  you know, however you wanted to find virginity for me, it was sexual intercourse, but I was waiting for a committed and loving relationship.
• 10:52
  And yet I was sabotaging myself by continually being interested in people who were, frankly, really not that interested in me or not treating me very well.
• 11:01
  And that had really started even earlier in high school.
• 11:06
  Even that's one guy, this guy in elementary school I talk about in the book too, he was the perfect example from early on how I was drawn to these people.
• 11:14
  And I think looking back now, especially once I went through a purity culture in the 90s and I made this pledge, I'm gonna wait.
• 11:22
  till marriage and then it changed while I'm just going to wait till I'm in a committed loving relationship.
• 11:27
  Longing for that relationship and longing for these people who barely gave me the time of day sometimes was a safe way to avoid getting into a serious relationship where I could
• 11:38
  really get burnt, where I might say yes to having sex and then feeling left.
• 11:45
  And I had been in one really serious relationship in my mid-20s, I talk about in the book.
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  I refer to him as the soldier.
• 11:52
  And he was a nice guy.
• 11:54
  I finally got to a point where I was really being treated well.
• 11:59
  yet, part of, I think, the attraction was because he was so far away.
• 12:04
  mean, he was deployed or he was in another state.
• 12:08
  So there was always a little bit of mystery, right?
• 12:10
  We didn't live in the same city where we saw
• 12:13
  you know, how we did laundry and how we organized the dishwasher and so on and so forth.
• 12:18
  I the one time he
• 12:19
  reorganized the magnetic poetry on my refrigerator when he was visiting, I almost lost my shit because I was like, that was my poetry and you just alphabetized it all.
• 12:29
  But anyways, I had gotten to the point with him.
• 12:33
  I think I was around 25 or so where I said, okay, yes, I'm ready.
• 12:39
  And he was getting ready to leave, right?
• 12:41
  So potentially this was even a form of control because I was like, he's leaving.
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  I want to feel like I'm connected to him before he leaves.
• 12:49
  I'm ready.
• 12:50
  like thought through this over and over on many, many runs that I would, where I usually do a lot of thinking.
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  And he said no.
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  And so I feel like that...
• 12:59
  That set me on a path down, especially a path where I was like, okay, well, I'm just going to date people who I'm never going to get that close to again.
• 13:09
  Do you, it a form of, actually the first question I wanted to ask you is my ADHD wants to ask you five questions at the same time.
• 13:18
  Um,
• 13:18
  is, were you aware that you were
• 13:24
  protecting yourself in these pursuits or relationships.
• 13:27
  Was that that sense of, don't want to get too close so that I can feel safe or in control, cetera, et cetera, whatever exactly was going on.
• 13:35
  Were you aware that that's what you were doing?
• 13:38
  I think by the time I was in my mid-30s I was aware of it, but it was such
• 13:43
  a pattern.
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  It was really hard to break.
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  And I mean, even in the book, I mentioned how starting in high school, I'd had my father had noticed this pattern of me dissing the really nice guys.
• 13:56
  And he yelled, my dad never gave advice to any guys.
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  He was pretty quiet, not super social and really smart.
• 14:03
  But he, I was leaving the house on a date for as somebody's date to a wedding with my friend, Bob.
• 14:10
  And Bob really liked me.
• 14:11
  He was a really nice guy.
• 14:13
  And my dad yelled from the living
• 14:15
  room.
• 14:16
  Treat her like shit.
• 14:19
  yeah, and I talk about he actually had me read that passage at a book reading recently.
• 14:25
  And I was like, Dad, why did you have me read that?
• 14:27
  He's first he's like, I don't know.
• 14:28
  I don't know.
• 14:29
  And then then he said, You know, I just wanted people understand how frustrating it was as a parent to see you continually do this.
• 14:36
  And so he's like, and he's my dad's a nice guy.
• 14:38
  He's probably trying to give the guy a hint.
• 14:40
  yeah.
• 14:41
  Or perhaps communicate to you his underlying desires for you to, yeah, yeah.
• 14:49
  And what was it, did you have conversations with girlfriends about this or friends in general as you were, as I assume your friends and other people were engaging in sexual
• 15:01
  relationships and all these other kinds of things?
• 15:02
  How did you, I, I think that's such a hard thing for people to know how to talk about these things or how to not, or how to work with their shame and guilt and feelings of
• 15:13
  inadequacy.
• 15:14
  in social environments where they feel sort of left out or separate from.
• 15:19
  And I don't even know if that was your experience, but can you talk to that
• 15:23
  a bit?
• 15:24
  Yeah, I certainly had, especially out here in Boulder, I feel like there are a lot of people who are, you know, I had a lot of therapist kinds of friends or people that were
• 15:33
  really interested in studying relationship psychology and so forth.
• 15:36
  And several friends who were also late in life virgins who went to church with me.
• 15:41
  And so we, yeah, we would talk about, I mean, I was much more open.
• 15:47
  A lot of them, especially that were, hadn't had sex, that hadn't even dated a whole lot, they were less likely to talk about these things, even with me.
• 15:56
  And does that answer your question?
• 15:58
  ~
• 15:59
  Well, yeah.
• 15:59
  How did you, did you feel different from other people?
• 16:03
  Did you have a hard time going to parties and that stuff?
• 16:07
  conversations about hookups and so forth.
• 16:09
  But like when it came to
• 16:11
  talking about sex, that's where I felt, yeah, like kind of left out.
• 16:14
  Like I don't have any stories to contribute to this.
• 16:18
  Or I also felt more, if anything left out, I felt more guilty that this is, is, I think this is an important feeling to.
• 16:31
  to share that I felt guilty that I was leaving these guys hanging because I don't think I should have, but I felt guilty because, you know, at this point in their late thirties, a
• 16:42
  lot of these guys were used to having sex on the maybe third, at least the fifth date or something, you know, so, some somewhat of it, I felt guilty.
• 16:51
  And then some of them would be like, you're just trying to control me to get me to,
• 16:57
  you know, being a more committed relationship and I'm like, well, that's just my, that's my threshold.
• 17:03
  Like, I'm not gonna have sex on the fifth date.
• 17:06
  So yeah, so there were emotions around that as well.
• 17:10
  I had some guy when I wrote an essay about this in the New York Times titled Does My Virginity Have a Shelf Life?
• 17:15
  There was a guy that,
• 17:16
  I got a lot of comments, especially emails from men in their 50s who felt like they needed to give me advice.
• 17:23
  And one of them was like, you need to stop living your life like you're an accountant.
• 17:27
  You have to be willing to give more than you receive sometimes.
• 17:30
  Eventually it'll all pan out.
• 17:32
  And I was like, dude, no, this is, I kept that one.
• 17:36
  I used that one in my book because I was like, this is such horrible, horrible feedback, I thought.
• 17:43
  Mm-hmm.
• 17:44
  So can you tell us how you're working through this?
• 17:48
  you're sort of through your twenties, you had this thing, a relationship with the soldier, the military guy that, so I assume that ended when he left and said he didn't want to have
• 18:00
  sex.
• 18:01
  it didn't totally end.
• 18:02
  We met back up again when he came back, he was deployed for like six months and we stayed in touch during those six months and then met back up and it just started fizzling
• 18:11
  basically.
• 18:12
  And then I left when he was back for a trip.
• 18:15
  So, mean, distance just kind of killed that relationship.
• 18:19
  Okay, and so then how, in the book, I think you're talking about three particular relationships that were really difficult.
• 18:27
  how did that, I'm so curious, because I think it's hard to articulate, how we kind of go through the pain, wake up to things perhaps we weren't aware of before, and then start
• 18:42
  shifting.
• 18:43
  our behavior from there so that these things stop repeating themselves.
• 18:48
  So when does that make sense?
• 18:49
  And can you kind of talk through how that happened for you?
• 18:53
  let's see, that sounds like there's a lot packed in there.
• 18:55
  So I'm not sure if I, cause that's like three quarters of the book, I think.
• 18:58
  I can
• 18:59
  talk about the anchorman because I think that's an interesting piece that you're bringing up and that how that shapes us going forward and how we have to look back and realize.
• 19:08
  maybe it was timing.
• 19:09
  It's not necessarily our fault.
• 19:11
  The things didn't work out.
• 19:12
  I always think I love that scene from.
• 19:15
  goodwill hunting when he's like, it's not your fault.
• 19:17
  It's not your fault over and over,
• 19:18
  right?
• 19:19
  And that always gets me.
• 19:20
  But I thought maybe I could just
• 19:21
  read from the beginning of that chapter because I feel like that section
• 19:26
  talks brings up some really interesting science that I don't
• 19:30
  always remember.
• 19:32
  okay, so many of this is in the chapter five, Anchorman.
• 19:35
  And originally I had chapped, I titled this chapter deserters because I felt deserted by these guys.
• 19:40
  And then I realized it wasn't really about them leaving me.
• 19:43
  It was more about when they entered my life and how that shaped me and why they made me feel so stuck.
• 19:51
  Or why I felt so stuck, but not that it was their fault.
• 19:54
  yeah.
• 19:55
  So many of us attach anchor memories that shape our self image and future romantic pursuits to key romantic interests we had in our early lives.
• 20:03
  Psychologists call these self-defining memories.
• 20:07
  Often the individuals linked to these memories arrive in our life at major transition times, graduation, death, relocation.
• 20:15
  The following three anchorman, as I like to call them, resulted in three particularly painful back-to-back rejections that left me feeling stuck.
• 20:23
  And then later I talk about how this part I think is key.
• 20:27
  My unique experiences with these three men left me with what psychologists call self-defining memories.
• 20:32
  Connecticut College psychologist Jefferson Singer dedicated his life to studying these important integrated memories.
• 20:38
  He found they are defined by five elements.
• 20:41
  They are vivid, emotionally charged, repeatedly recalled, linked to other memories, and focused on lasting goals or unresolved conflicts.
• 20:50
  So I think when people maybe hear that, they think, yeah, I can think about X or Y in my life and Y, you know, I still dream about them because there's some unresolved conflict or
• 21:01
  they came into my life.
• 21:03
  For me, one of them came into my life just as my grandfather was dying.
• 21:08
  So there was something about, you know,
• 21:11
  hanging on to him, not losing him, feeling like I'd won him, that was related to not losing my grandfather.
• 21:17
  Another one, I started the relationship senior year in college.
• 21:21
  And that's such a huge transition, right?
• 21:23
  I feel like that was even harder than high school graduation because you're like let loose, right?
• 21:29
  And then you're supposed to pursue your dreams and become something.
• 21:32
  And that he broke up a few months afterwards, very far, far away too with a letter.
• 21:38
  So it was, it was in the nineties.
• 21:40
  No, at that point, I think it was 2000.
• 21:43
  Uh, 2000, 2001.
• 21:45
  So it wasn't like we were Zooming.
• 21:47
  Maybe we could Skype, but we didn't.
• 21:50
  So it felt very unresolved.
• 21:52
  And the third one was the soldier.
• 21:55
  um, and I think the, the anchor for that was him saying no related to sex.
• 22:00
  And that was tied to that goal of mine of wanting to have sex in a committed and loving relationship.
• 22:06
  And here I thought I'd found it and then it was gone.
• 22:10
  Yeah, it's so amazing that you're sharing all this.
• 22:17
  Yeah, yeah.
• 22:20
  There was a couple that flashed there, but I was trying to listen.
• 22:22
  So I was just letting them go, letting those thoughts go.
• 22:25
  Can maybe now continue asking about sort of the journey and then some other questions after.
• 22:31
  So you talk also about in the book going.
• 22:36
  sort of chasing somebody you got on a plane.
• 22:39
  think you went to Detroit or something to
• 22:42
  get answers.
• 22:42
  Can you share a little bit about that and sort of how that, I don't know, was that the, I'll use addiction jargon.
• 22:49
  Was that rock bottom, so to speak?
• 22:50
  Was that when you were ready to kind of stop digging?
• 22:54
  Yeah, I would say that that's true for that one.
• 22:57
  And I was, again, this is a key time in my life.
• 23:00
  So I was 39, about ready to turn 40 when I met him.
• 23:07
  And I'd met him on an airplane ride to California sitting next to me.
• 23:11
  And I was like,
• 23:13
  it, everything just seemed to click.
• 23:14
  It was very romantic.
• 23:15
  Like here, I met this hot guy, ER doctor, former smoke jumper on a plane and he knew of one of my essays or at least he said he did.
• 23:25
  So I thought, my gosh, like this is it.
• 23:27
  It's fate.
• 23:27
  And we, hooked up when we were there in California, just that one night.
• 23:33
  And then we reunited probably like three weeks later in Detroit and,
• 23:38
  and I bought my own ticket.
• 23:40
  I did most of the initiating.
• 23:41
  He was still open to, you know, me coming and taking me out and so forth.
• 23:47
  But there were some, there were several red flags, including being like an hour late to pick me up and other things like.
• 23:53
  pee on the toilet seat that was still there when I got there and little
• 23:58
  things that added up.
• 23:59
  then, but I was like, I kind of like brushed them all aside as just being like a busy ER doctor.
• 24:04
  Not that it was a reflection on me and maybe it's true, but, then I felt like he was pulling away after that and he knew my history and yeah, I was a couple of years older
• 24:16
  than him and I...
• 24:18
  decided, okay, it was a the weekend before I turned 40, I am gonna buy these tickets to this concert that ~ I felt moved to.
• 24:27
  I don't know how moved you are by music, but I feel like it's kind of like a treasure hunt sometimes.
• 24:32
  Like I hear a song, I'm like, that means something.
• 24:34
  And I'd heard the song, Emmylou by First Aid Kit and thought, okay, I've got to buy these tickets because Emmylou was the last concert he told me he had seen.
• 24:44
  And
• 24:44
  I was so afraid to even text him about this or call him, which is a sign, think, a red flag, obviously.
• 24:51
  I emailed him because I
• 24:53
  was so afraid.
• 24:54
  It almost feels more distance, right?
• 24:56
  If you email somebody as opposed to text them or even call them.
• 24:59
  So, and he said, maybe I can come, I'll try to get off, I have this shift and this shift.
• 25:04
  So it was never no, right?
• 25:06
  He could have just said, no, Amanda, this, no, I can't come, or I'm not going to, I'm not interested in pursuing anything.
• 25:12
  And maybe he was just a nice guy.
• 25:14
  I don't really know.
• 25:15
  And he just didn't have the balls to say no, I don't know.
• 25:18
  So he, I went, I bought the ticket for 24 hours and he never came.
• 25:24
  And I remember, and I flew home.
• 25:27
  I was just a basket case.
• 25:28
  And I remember going to see my therapist the next week and telling her and she's like, I'm not surprised you did that.
• 25:34
  You needed to hurt badly enough, she said, to want to make a change.
• 25:38
  So I made a few more mistakes in the next six months.
• 25:42
  But I was definitely in a much, much more raw place.
• 25:46
  and I did meet my now husband about
• 25:50
  six months exactly on the flip side of that trip.
• 25:54
  What was the pain, so to speak, or how did you sift through that?
• 26:00
  I find it so hard to articulate what happens when the light bulb kind of goes off, right?
• 26:06
  Or when we're in recovery jargon, they say sick and tired or being sick and tired.
• 26:12
  Mm-hmm.
• 26:12
  Can you talk a little bit maybe more in depth about that and then what?
• 26:16
  what, how that helped you meet your current husband.
• 26:20
  Yeah, think one thing that happened also was I went on a trip for my 40th birthday with about five or six of my girlfriends that following weekend and I was still so caught up in
• 26:29
  this guy and so sad and several of them approached me and were like, I'm, worried about you, you know, and I thought that was so important.
• 26:37
  think friendships play a key role in how they treat and how they respond to you not being like, what, stop talking, stop thinking about that guy.
• 26:46
  He's never going to respond to you as opposed to being like, Hey, I see this as
• 26:49
  a pattern and you are worthy of more than this, you know, and that was really, that was a key piece.
• 26:56
  I didn't actually bring that up in the book.
• 26:57
  I wish I had.
• 26:58
  But the friendship piece was important.
• 26:59
  Also after that incident, any other intimate or intimate like relationship, not relationships, but encounters I had with guys on dates, even if it was just like kissing
• 27:12
  on the couch or something, I would start
• 27:15
  shaking and crying my body would start shaking and crying and so and i've told my therapist about this and she's like that's kind of like your body is acting as if it's
• 27:24
  been raped and i hadn't been but it was like i had put myself in so many situations and dissociated and just you know to kind of like make it through like a race as an endurance
• 27:35
  runner that ~ it was
• 27:38
  It was that was its way of trying to wake me up because I had always tried to cerebrally make it through things right or turn off what I was feeling in my body and that was a real
• 27:50
  wake up call because that continued that had happened a couple years before.
• 27:55
  in one encounter probably four years before, but then it didn't happen again until this after this incident with the ER doctor.
• 28:03
  And it wasn't like he'd done anything.
• 28:06
  It was more that I, my body was so wrecked from continually putting it in intimate situations where I felt really discarded and it was, I was tired of feeling discarded.
• 28:19
  And I even warned when my husband, I met him in the summer of July 20th,
• 28:24
  18.
• 28:25
  So I was like 40 and a half at that point.
• 28:27
  And I warned him before we, you know, made out or anything.
• 28:30
  I said this might happen.
• 28:31
  And, and it did.
• 28:33
  And he held space for it.
• 28:35
  And of course was like, my gosh, you know, he was very, like worried that he was he had done something wrong.
• 28:42
  And I was like, No, no, no.
• 28:43
  Although I told another guy and his response was, that's so sexy.
• 28:47
  And I'm like, No, it's not.
• 28:49
  Like, weird.
• 28:52
  Yeah, this is not the guy, guess it was.
• 28:55
  Yeah.
• 28:57
  well that's so, so when you're, when you're now husband gave you that response, I assume it was quite comforting or I don't know what language you would use, but a signal that,
• 29:08
  wow, maybe this person is
• 29:10
  I don't know if it's right for
• 29:11
  me.
• 29:11
  Yeah.
• 29:12
  Yeah.
• 29:13
  He was transparent.
• 29:14
  He was, yeah, think transparent was, ~ and for me in the past, I'd been so drawn to people who felt really elusive and mysterious, like a puzzle to figure out, you know, again,
• 29:25
  cerebrally, it was more interesting.
• 29:27
  And somebody who was transparent and obviously interested in me finally actually felt good and safe.
• 29:35
  And one thing I talk about in the book is that I felt like I had to learn how to receive love.
• 29:40
  I felt like I was good at giving it, but to actually take it in, felt really uncomfortable.
• 29:51
  Hmm.
• 29:52
  Yeah.
• 29:53
  What a wonderful, idea or thing that we people need to learn to practice that receiving love, receiving compassion, receiving goodness.
• 30:04
  can you maybe talk a bit more about that?
• 30:05
  How did you, and maybe also I love self-compassion work and
• 30:11
  so much of it is physiological.
• 30:14
  think you use the word somatic.
• 30:17
  how did you learn how to allow your body to feel and how did that help you develop this relationship with your husband?
• 30:28
  Yeah.
• 30:29
  I mean, yeah, the somatic work I did with the therapist was really, really powerful.
• 30:34
  And even my husband came with me to several sessions and we would sit across from each other and look at each other or sit next, even just started sitting next to each other and
• 30:45
  talking about how, you know, how, how I was feeling in my body.
• 30:49
  And that stuff was exhausting.
• 30:52
  Like I felt like.
• 30:54
  I would rather run intervals on the track than,
• 30:57
  you know, as hard as I possibly could then sit next to somebody and talk about what it felt like in my body.
• 31:03
  Um, especially somebody who was not resisting me.
• 31:07
  Um, and one thing I, uh, that she did give me, I loved homework, you know, as an academic and straight A student growing up, I was like, give me homework, give me work to do, you
• 31:19
  know, cause I feel like I can achieve and, um,
• 31:23
  And one thing she would say, she had said to me is like, you will never, at one point I had told her, I'll, don't worry, I'll figure it out, you know?
• 31:30
  And she was like, no, you will never figure it out.
• 31:32
  You have to feel your way through it.
• 31:33
  And she talked about the self-love and self-compassion.
• 31:37
  And that was, I'm still learning that.
• 31:39
  I'm still, I know it's important for me to demonstrate it for my daughter.
• 31:42
  And
• 31:45
  it's so easy to, that was the thing with the college.
• 31:51
  boyfriend that I talked about.
• 31:54
  I bring it up in the book how he at a reunion said to me, 15 year reunion came up to me and said, I'm sorry for treating you badly.
• 32:04
  And
• 32:05
  I was like, ~ you know, no, you're fine.
• 32:07
  You know, it's OK, you know, as you would in the moment.
• 32:10
  And then I was a wreck for weeks after that because it had been so easy to blame myself that it hadn't worked out.
• 32:16
  But for him to for him to say, I'm sorry, was like, I felt like I lost control over the situation.
• 32:23
  So I think, yeah, part of self-compassion is realizing you're not in control and letting that go.
• 32:28
  My therapist had me writing in my journal, I'm Ready for and Worthy of a Deeply Intimate and Loving Relationship.
• 32:34
  That was really
• 32:35
  key.
• 32:36
  That, you know, writing homework was easier for me than doing the feeling work in the sessions.
• 32:42
  I wish I could describe the somatic work more to people.
• 32:45
  because I, but I'm not a therapist.
• 32:47
  So I just know that it was really, really important, especially for somebody who'd not gotten really good at not listening to her body as an athlete.
• 32:54
  But just real, I re trying to reset my brain and body nervous, you know, the nervous system to realize, no, safety is good.
• 33:04
  Transparency is good.
• 33:06
  And that this the feeling that the anxiety that I felt is not love.
• 33:11
  So, yeah, so
• 33:13
  Mm-hmm.
• 33:14
  that that's something I really had to work on.
• 33:16
  And now that I feel like I'm on the flip side, I talk about how I feel like I'll always be someone who's longing for something, but
• 33:28
  now I feel like I can pour it into like the energy I poured into the book or into planning something else, you know, as opposed to these people who I couldn't control their emotions
• 33:38
  and I nothing was coming of it, you know, so maybe it generated some writing, but otherwise it was kind of a waste of time.
• 33:49
  But there's the self compassion of being like, it's okay, Amanda, it wasn't totally.
• 33:54
  Indeed.
• 33:54
  Yes.
• 33:55
  That's a, that's a good spot for it.
• 33:56
  The
• 33:58
  I maybe want to dig into this idea of like.
• 34:03
  sometimes the language is elusive, but being worthy or deserving of that goodness.
• 34:10
  yeah, maybe if you have any other sort of insights on that, would you say that part of your history around this, at least the internal narrative was you're not worthy or you're
• 34:23
  not good enough or you're not this, or was it sort of, yeah.
• 34:28
  yeah, I I think I'm a pretty, I grew up a pretty confident person, if you looked at my past and, but there was something about me, yeah, that didn't feel worthy of that love
• 34:41
  that I was pursuing or more so I feel like nothing felt like it was worth anything, meaning no relationship felt like it was good enough unless I had won it.
• 34:54
  Mm.
• 34:55
  So it was less about like, poor me, I just don't feel worthy of it.
• 34:59
  But no, like, if it's going to mean something, if it's valuable, I have to prove myself and win it.
• 35:06
  Because that's how I feel like I had grown up pursuing academics and athletics.
• 35:13
  So why not apply it also to relationships?
• 35:15
  And I feel like maybe also from a religious standpoint growing up,
• 35:20
  in the church, you know, being a Christian and growing up in the church is not bad necessarily, but I think sometimes the messages we got that, you know, you have to, there
• 35:29
  was mixed messages of earning God's love or no, you are inherently worthy of.
• 35:34
  They're,
• 35:35
  depending on even the music we listened to growing up in the nineties, like Christian rock music could be,
• 35:41
  could really encourage a young person to long for the love of God.
• 35:46
  Like there's this distance, right?
• 35:48
  So there God's on a pedestal and you're down here.
• 35:50
  So I think there was some of that that I was transferring to relationships also.
• 35:56
  And not that, you know, the man I was going to marry was God-like, but for some reason I was chasing after people that I put on a pedestal like they were God-like.
• 36:08
  I do talk a little bit in my book about my mom having a stroke at birth and three, I think two grand mal seizures.
• 36:17
  And so I went home with my grandmother alone.
• 36:20
  And so I was apart from my mom for three weeks.
• 36:23
  And there is research that shows even one week
• 36:26
  makes a difference.
• 36:26
  So perhaps that was, I can't, I don't think it really dawned on my mom as much until.
• 36:33
  she saw me with my daughter and how much I was taking care of her and all of that attention and wondering, hmm, I wonder how much, you know, how much grandma Nancy was
• 36:43
  getting up with me in the middle of the night and so on and so forth.
• 36:46
  So holding me and how that, you know, I think there's so many layers to it.
• 36:50
  There's not one thing.
• 36:51
  And that's what I tried to pull out in the book.
• 36:53
  So maybe other people can like.
• 36:56
  hook on to something, be like, yeah, I have that or something similar, you know, experience.
• 37:00
  Yeah.
• 37:02
  And maybe for the, to tie the story together with your husband, how did, how did you know or how did it kind of happen that he became the one so to speak?
• 37:14
  And, and now, you know, now you have a kid and now you're doing all this or you wrote the book.
• 37:19
  Like how did that click?
• 37:21
  I mean, you described some of it, but was there a moment where you were like, yeah, like
• 37:25
  This is it.
• 37:27
  No
• 37:28
  There was one moment where I did feel like, dang, this guy, I don't know if I can get much better than this guy.
• 37:38
  Where we had ~ sat down for...
• 37:41
  And we were, we had both decided, I think this was maybe March, we'd started dating and so we met, re-met in July, because we knew of each other before, but we'd never dated.
• 37:50
  And then September, we started dating.
• 37:53
  And then by March, we'd sat down to kind of have like a, are we at discussion.
• 37:58
  And I, and he said something about like, you are worthy of love.
• 38:03
  Like, and I thought,
• 38:05
  And he knew this was one of my lines, you know, that I've been writing about.
• 38:09
  And I'm like, you're just using this, you know, but he was really sincere.
• 38:12
  He like took my hand and it felt really cringy, like, ooh, I gotta get out of here.
• 38:18
  um, but he was really sincere and he was so patient.
• 38:23
  He was like, you know, um, I'll wait.
• 38:27
  I will wait for you whenever you're sex wise, you know, like you're worth waiting for.
• 38:33
  and nobody had said that before.
• 38:36
  And he, I mean, I think there were pieces of him, like he had this long hair when we met, which was, you know, added a little bit of maybe rebel or mysteriousness, you know, about
• 38:47
  him.
• 38:48
  And there were certain things I had when I was a little girl, I had
• 38:52
  an imaginary husband named Dave the watchmaker and his name was Dave.
• 38:56
  So, and I had dated another Dave before and thought, maybe this is it, right?
• 39:00
  So there were little
• 39:00
  things, it's not like I gave up on all of the parts of my brain that still like to make associations and still like to believe in destiny in some ways.
• 39:10
  know, there's still parts of me that...
• 39:12
  that was still there.
• 39:13
  hadn't just crushed it in order to find a relationship and given up on that romance that I was seeking.
• 39:20
  But he was, I think I had finally done the work and he was in a good place too.
• 39:25
  So I feel like, you know, there's
• 39:29
  there's the right person at the right time with the right you.
• 39:33
  Yeah, lovely.
• 39:34
  Another self-compassion word or language is allowing.
• 39:38
  sort of sounds like you got to the place where you could allow yourself and all of this to happen.
• 39:44
  Yes, allow, yes, and receive.
• 39:47
  I got to a place where I could receive.
• 39:49
  The other thing I didn't bring up is that throughout the book, I talk about my relationship with my maternal grandmother, Velda, and she was right on the, she turned
• 40:01
  100, like the same year I turned 40.
• 40:08
  If I got that right, think.
• 40:09
  But anyways, was like she was like she can't live forever.
• 40:12
  And there was something about her timeline closing down that made me feel like I got to stop this.
• 40:18
  These silly patterns like they're not silly, but I had to.
• 40:22
  was like, OK,
• 40:23
  no more messing around.
• 40:24
  I had fun.
• 40:25
  I did have a lot of fun dating and found people really interesting.
• 40:30
  And I'm still friends with a lot of these guys, too.
• 40:32
  But it was like, enough is enough.
• 40:33
  Grandma can't live forever.
• 40:35
  And we did actually get married at her hospital bedside three days before she died.
• 40:40
  So yeah, so she was really, really
• 40:43
  special to me.
• 40:44
  Yeah.
• 40:44
  Amazing.
• 40:45
  I guess as the, as our time winds down here, can you talk a little bit about how all of the limerence idea and modern dating and the swiping and all that kind of stuff, and
• 40:57
  perhaps even some of the conversations you have, cause you also have a podcast, right?
• 41:02
  Called the longing lab.
• 41:04
  Can you talk about this sort of in the context of 2026, it is, right?
• 41:11
  And the dating scene and how people can get stuck in these loops of.
• 41:17
  just pursuing this thing that's never gonna happen.
• 41:20
  Yeah, think the, for those people who don't know what limerence is, it's in a nutshell, it's like a state of mind where you are obsessively, not always obsessively, I think it's
• 41:31
  a spectrum, ruminating, thinking about somebody that you see without their flaws.
• 41:35
  So that's why they're called the limerent object, because it's really not the.
• 41:40
  You see them idealized, not actually who they really are.
• 41:44
  And it's really fueled by hope and uncertainty.
• 41:47
  And so I feel like in today's world where ghosting is almost acceptable, I mean, it's still not cool, but people do it.
• 41:56
  And online dating apps make you feel like you can just keep swiping until you find the perfect person.
• 42:03
  you know, I think all of that and it keeps you on the hook, right?
• 42:07
  They even talk about intermittent reinforcement where it's there's in there's inconsistency in communication.
• 42:14
  That's when you're more on the hook, like you're kind of waiting for it.
• 42:17
  You're anticipating it.
• 42:18
  And but you don't know exactly when it's going to hit because maybe they text you in two days and then they text you back in like two hours.
• 42:25
  And then, you know, so there's inconsistency.
• 42:29
  And so I think
• 42:32
  I think there's a lot more, in people are saying in Gen Z, that there's been a big call for like bring back yearning and that there's like almost like luxuriating in longing and
• 42:48
  yearning and that's fine.
• 42:51
  I've been there, I've experienced it and, but it's, think when you get stuck in the patterns for years,
• 42:59
  and it keeps you from actually seeing the healthy relationships right in your own backyard, then that is where, that's when you've gotta take a look at your yearning and
• 43:09
  longing and see where it is on the spectrum.
• 43:12
  But yeah, does that answer your question?
• 43:14
  think about kind of like today's society technology with texting and dating apps and social media.
• 43:20
  the social media right feeds it because all you see is the idealized version of that person.
• 43:24
  So you and you put that's what you put out often of yourself too.
• 43:28
  So
• 43:30
  And yeah, maybe last thing would be how do you, or have you seen more effective, successful ways of dating as like a solution to the swiping dilemma?
• 43:46
  Hmm.
• 43:48
  Well, I've read where and I'm not sure how, how true this really, I think there's people's more research is showing like surveys are showing people want have more intention or more
• 44:01
  intentional with their dating.
• 44:03
  that they, are wanting to like have fewer hookups and want to have more serious relationships.
• 44:09
  and that they also.
• 44:11
  it seems like there are more people that are wanting to do, you know, IRL in real life, meet in real life, as opposed to in and give up the dating apps.
• 44:19
  but I still feel like they're.
• 44:24
  there's still like a consumerism society around dating.
• 44:27
  And I completely fell into that too.
• 44:30
  Like I'm gonna find the best, you know, the absolute best option out there and who's gonna make me look really good.
• 44:36
  And that was something about the, my longest limerent object, the artist that I met when my grandfather was dying.
• 44:43
  He was gorgeous.
• 44:44
  And there was something about him that even made me feel like I'd won my mom's approval because if I could get him to like,
• 44:51
  me.
• 44:52
  What would that say about me?
• 44:53
  What would say that say about her as a mother and who her daughter was with?
• 44:58
  you know, getting letting go of the perfectionism was also something that was really important with my therapy goes back to self compassion, right, too, because if I could be
• 45:10
  happy being with somebody else who was imperfect, and we're all imperfect, right?
• 45:15
  I could I could be much gentler on myself too.
• 45:18
  So yeah, so that's what I think about all that.
• 45:21
  Wonderful.
• 45:22
  Thank you so much.
• 45:23
  guess we're yeah, we're the timing has ticked away.
• 45:26
  Amanda, thank you.
• 45:29
  Yeah, thank you so much for
• 45:31
  sharing all that with us.
• 45:32
  And again, the book is when longing becomes your lover, breaking infatuation, rejection and perfectionism to find authentic love.
• 45:42
  Again, thank you so much for for all of that.
• 45:45
  Yeah, thanks, Mike.
• 45:47
  for listening to this episode of the State of Mind podcast.
• 45:50
  Before you go, pick one idea or topic from this episode and sit with it and practice it this week.
• 45:58
  Remember, live with courage, clarity, and compassion.
• 46:02
  practice inner strength and develop within.
• 46:05
  If you enjoyed this episode, please like it, share it, follow us,
• 46:11
  give us a warm and positive review if you feel so inclined.
• 46:16
  and share it with someone who you think might find it helpful.
• 46:19
  I wish you all the very best.
• 46:21
  Take it easy.
• 46:22
  Peace out.