Reflecting on Limerence as a Doorway to the Shadow
Expanding on Heidi Preibes Analysis of Limerence
About a year ago I was blessed to come across Heidi Priebe’s YouTube Channel. Heidi is a personality psychology writer. She is the author of five books, including "The Comprehensive ENFP Survival Guide" and "How You'll Do Everything Based On Your Personality Type."
As I go through my healing journey and employ a number of techniques, a new vocabulary word has shone extreme light on an aspect of my psyche that has long thrown me for a loop: limerence. Heidi introduces this word in her series on limerence in her YouTube which is highly recommend you check out. I’m attempting to reframe what I learned here and teach it to others so I get a deep understanding of it myself.
Using Limerence as a Doorway to the Shadow Self
If you’ve ever experienced an intense, almost obsessive attraction to someone, you might be familiar with limerence. Dorothy Tennov coined this term to describe a heady, nearly addictive state of infatuation—similar to a crush but with an added layer of fantasy and desperation.
There’s good news though. While it’s painful, limerence can reveal more about our inner landscape than the object of our romantic obsession. In fact, limerence can act as a powerful window into our own shadow selves, showing us the parts of us we might be avoiding, the vulnerabilities we don’t want to acknowledge, and the unmet needs we’re desperate to fulfill.
What is Limerance?
Heidi describes limerance as a heady, obsessive attraction towards someone. Limerence is mental, like watching a redemption fantasy movie. You feel anxious, heady, desperate for validation. You’re putting someone on a pedestal and prioritizing a fantasy about a person rather than their actual real mortal form. A good trick to understand if you are putting someone in your life as the object of your limerence is to consider how you feel when you’re with them vs. when you’re not with them. You can tell when you finally get to hang out with this person you’ve been fantasizing and obsessing about and when you’re actually with them you’re resentful of them for not living up to that fantasy version we created in our head. It’s almost like we prefer to not be with them and we’d rather hang out with our fantasy version of them in our head.
Limerence, at first, can feel thrilling. You find yourself replaying imagined scenarios with this person, convincing yourself that if they could just see you in the right light, they would see how you feel about them and you could be together.
Limerence vs. Crush: The Obsessive Edge
Crushes are usually playful, light, and enjoyable. They don’t come with the all-consuming urgency that limerence does. Limerence has an obsessive quality—a desperate need for validation and constant thoughts about the other person. It can feel like you’re stuck in a loop, where each mental movie you play about them adds another layer to your fantasy. You’re not just hoping they’ll notice you; you’re mentally scripting their lines and creating entire story arcs where they redeem, complete, or fulfill you.
It’s not just about attraction—it’s about creating a fantasy where this person has the power to make you whole. Limerence often has less to do with the person themselves and more to do with what they represent to us.
How Limerence Feels in the Body
If you’re experiencing limerence, your body might be in constant fight-or-flight mode. You’re anxious, not present, and your thoughts race with scenarios involving this person. It’s like you can’t relax or keep your head on straight. There’s this push-pull where, even though you crave their presence, being with them in real life doesn’t measure up to the fantasy version you’ve created. In fact, being with them might even make you feel irritated because the reality disrupts the idealized image you’ve crafted.
It’s an overwhelming state of being. Limerence is less about love or genuine attraction and more about something unresolved within us that’s crying for attention.
Limerence vs. Genuine Attraction: What’s the Difference?
It’s easy to wonder if limerence is just a normal part of attraction or romance, especially in long-term relationships where we often think about our partners when they’re not around. But while attraction has a grounding, mutual quality, limerence elevates the other person to an idealized status. They’re not just attractive; they’re on a pedestal, radiating a glow that feels almost otherworldly. They become, in our minds, wiser, more capable, someone who might “take care of us” in ways we feel we can’t take care of ourselves.
How Limerence feels in the Body?
Constant fight or flight, not relaxed or present in your body. You may feel so attracted that you can’t keep your head on straight or look them in the eye. You might even get annoyed to spend time with them in real life viewing it as “necessary evil to add fodder to the fantasy”.
A lot of the time limerence feels random and not your fault. I just have a crush on them! I relate to this for sure until I’ve thought back to all the people I’ve felt intense limerence towards. There is usually a function. Your brain needs something and its trying to fulfill it through the limerant object.
Do you picture them at eye-level or high-level? Visualizing someone as physically above us makes us feel protected. Knowing there’s someone wiser, more capable, in my corner makes me feel like I can relax. We don’t have to worry about protecting the other person. As a compulsive caretaker, it may feel good to believe that someone is better/superior and could actually take care of you!.
The biggest way to gauge limerence vs. crush is that the relationship in our head is nothing like how it is in reality.
What does Limerence signal?
In her video, Heidi mentions analyzing the way she views the objects of limerence in her mind. She describes them as existing up and to the right of her in her mind. She’s looking up to them as if they know better and can protect her. I relate to this and can often see the limerent objects in my mind as encompassed by an angelic glow or higher up on a literal pedestal.
Limerence often indicates a need we’re trying to fulfill through fantasy rather than reality. When we view someone as being above us, we feel safe—like we don’t have to carry the burden of responsibility. It’s a temporary relief from our everyday anxieties, from the feeling of always having to look out for ourselves or others. At its core, limerence is a mirror reflecting our unaddressed fears and unmet needs.
“I liked the feeling of inferiority because it allowed me to relax.” said Heidi. This served the purpose of realizing she was feeling overly reponsible in her life. It feels very phsyically/mentally safe for her to have a fake idea in my head of somebody knowing better.
The Purpose of Limerence: A Reflection of Inner Needs
Limerence offers a temporary fantasy that feels safe and comforting. Heidi mentions that allowing herself to feel inferior to someone (the object of her limerence) it allowed her to relax because, deep down, she felt overly responsible in her own life. Imagining someone “above” relieved her of that responsibility, if only for a moment. I relate here, it feels like I can finally let go of needing to be in control because I’ve imagined a world where that someone else has it all figured out. In reality, literally no one has everything figured out, and no one can take away our responsibility to live authentically even if they wanted to.
Heidi mentions that when someone’s on a pedestal, it saves us from the pressure of building a genuine relationship. Often-times, being seen fully by someone else is more terrifying than being alone. It’s easier to hide behind an idealized version of ourselves, the one we think they’d accept, rather than risk being truly seen—and potentially rejected. This is where limerence meets our shadow self: the part of us that fears rejection, imperfection, and vulnerability.
Recognizing and Integrating the Shadow Self
Heidi asks the questions: what is our limerent object protecting us from? What unresolved aspect of ourselves is begging for attention? Often, limerence helps us avoid facing our insecurities. By focusing on someone’s perceived “perfection,” we avoid our own imperfections and the discomfort of growth. It’s safer to imagine them as the answer to our problems rather than confronting those issues ourselves.
Heidi highlights something incredibly important to dismantling the role of limerence in our lives. “When we place someone on a pedestal, we’re erasing their humanity, reducing them to a role in our mental narrative.” It’s a way of using them to meet an emotional need that we feel we cannot fulfill within ourselves. But what is that need, and how can we fulfill it? The question we can ask ourselves here is: “What is my subconscious mind asking me to integrate right now?” This might reveal that we’re seeking validation, reassurance, connection, creativity, or an escape from responsibility.
Moving Beyond Limerence: Building Real Connections
Limerence hasn’t anything to do with the other person at all—it’s 100% us. When we idealize someone, we hold them to impossible standards, often leading to resentment when they don’t live up to the fantasy. No one, no matter how wonderful, can fulfill the image we’ve created in our minds. By releasing the fantasy, we can start to see the person for who they truly are, with their own strengths, flaws, and complexities. This is much more kind to the other person, you allow them to show up as they are.
In recognizing and understanding limerence, we have the opportunity to embrace and integrate our shadow selves. We can begin to fulfill our own unmet needs, let go of the compulsion to place people on pedestals, and open ourselves up to relationships that are real and grounded in mutual respect.
When someone’s on a pedestal it relieves you from the pressure of developing a real relationship with someone. It saves you from being seen. Because if you believe if someone saw the real you — they’d reject you.
What do we want our limerent object to be thinking about us? This is what our psyche is begging us to integrate.
Limerence can be an uncomfortable journey, but it’s also a profound one. By paying attention to what our psyche is begging us to acknowledge, we can begin to show up authentically, both in relationships and in our relationship with ourselves.