This has taken me a long time to appreciate the journey through limerence.
In a nutshell, here is what i think happens.
1. Grow up in FOO with anxious/ambivalent attachment style from narcissistic wounding. This causes us to split off from parts of ourselves.
2. Undergo a life crisis that triggers our early life attachment style
3. Encounter an object that mirrors our own attachment style/ narcissistic wounds
4. Become captivated, fall in love/limerence
5. Anxious/ambivalent relationship style of LO creates the uncertainty that is the fuel of sustained limerence
6. Opt for undertaking the soul work necessary to recover (complete healing is never possible) – this will help give clarity required for the next step.
7. Recognise within LO the parts we have split off from our own psyche (held in our shadow) and we have chosen not to own
8. Move from an intellectual knowing into an embodied feeling of these parts we have split off. In other words, take back our projections and re-integrate these spilt off parts. This is the part thats the hardest and takes the longest IMHO. Thats why some opt for a spiritual bypass. No short cuts im afraid (shadow work is great for this).
9. Also realise we have fallen in love with part of ourselves, the part we split off from The love wasn’t for our LO as that was also a projection.
10. Repeat cycle when next under stress and when another object of fancy passes by. This time around we have more consciousness and can remain more boundaried so as not to get sucked back into the drama.
Now how can i bottle that and sell it as a cure for limerence? 😉