In the last post, I argued that training yourself to become more disciplined was a route to success in resisting the temptation of limerence.
In the spirit of scientific debate, here’s a video from the neuroscientist Robert Sapolsky, who offers an alternative view:
His argument is that the reason why some people are more vulnerable to temptation does not lie in the “executive” parts of the brain (the prefrontal cortex), but instead lies deeper in the impulsive drives of the unconscious brain. So, where does self-discipline come from? How can we resolve this apparent disagreement?
I think it is undoubtedly true that people vary dramatically in their inherent temperaments when it comes to temptation. Much of this is hard-wired into the brain during development. It’s also fairly obvious just from everyday observation of the world around us that some people really struggle with temptation, while some people seem more naturally restrained. The argument Sapolsky is making is that this is not because the resilient people have extraordinary self-control, or their prefrontal cortex is a supercharged disciplinary machine, it’s because they feel less desire in the first place.
Why, then, do I argue that discipline workouts are valuable? Is this a futile gesture in the face of the irresistible force of temptation, if you are not born with a “state of grace”?
Let’s get analytical…
Brain hierarchies
I’ve written before about the same principle that Sapolsky describes, where our fundamental drives originate in the ancient parts of our brain that control automatic behaviour and motivation, and essentially send a signal “up” to the executive parts of the brain (the prefrontal cortex) for review. That is the point of intervention, when we can make sense of our urges and emotional drives and decide whether or not to act on them.
Sapolsky’s argument is that people who find it easy to resist temptation have a weak “upwards” signal. They just don’t feel much of an urge to cheat. They don’t feel tempted. The executive is never troubled with the need to exert cognitive energy on fighting the impulse to act in a deceitful way, because the impulse never arrives.
In contrast, those people who have a strong urge to give in to temptation have to work very hard to process the urge, and battle it. That is the interpretation of the data showing that the people who cheat on a test have more activity in their prefrontal cortex than the people who don’t give in to the temptation.
I don’t have any issue with the results, but there are some significant confounding factors in the interpretation.
Not all temptations are equal
The first thing to note is that “temptation” is a bit of a broad term for understanding the nuances of self-discipline. Sure, some people seem to struggle with self-control in a very broad sense – with appetite, honesty, substance abuse and basic irresponsible behaviour – but they are the minority. Most of us have particular vulnerabilities, and that gives us a clue to the origin of our own desires and drives.
An interesting discussion in the last thread came from folks lamenting that in most other aspects of their lives their self-discipline was good. Limerence was shocking because it railroaded this otherwise “restrained” temperament under a barrage of temptation that they had never experienced before. I’d put myself in this category.
I’m no paragon, but generally have minimal trouble with meeting my responsibilities and have a naturally conscientious temperament. Limerence tested me in a way that I had never been tested before. For the first time I understood what addiction could feel like; to feel helpless, but in a way that was also arousing. A primal hunger that took delight in my failures.
This suggests that the unconscious drives that we individually experience are personal. It’s not usually a general “addictive personality” issue, or overactive brainstem sending constant demands for gratification. We don’t sort neatly into temptation-resistant and temptation-vulnerable groups. We all have our own battles to fight.
Habits are reinforced by behaviour
The second problem – and this is the big one – is the critical issue of why some people feel less temptation than others.
What Sapolsky is saying when he argues that someone who jumps into a river or burning building does so “without thinking”, is that they are running a mental program that does not require executive thought. That kind of instinctive action comes from habit. It’s why athletes train again and again until their reflexes and movements are effortless – until the laborious, conscious control that would slow them down is no longer needed. When soldiers drill for endless hours, it is so that they react instinctively on the battlefield in a way that improves their chance of survival.
Just as the brainstem sends messages up to the prefrontal cortex, the prefrontal cortex can send messages down to the brainstem. Willing yourself to repeat a behaviour over and over again trains you into a new habit. It’s obvious with learning how to catch a ball or play the piano, but the same mechanism is at work when it comes to impulse control.
If you are prone to a particular vice (such as, I don’t know… limerent reverie), every time you give in and indulge it, you slightly reinforce the behaviour. Every time you allow yourself to indulge, you make it more likely that the next time you are tempted, you will do the same. We can even almost experience it as a voice from within:
Go on. Why not? You always give in eventually…
Then, when circumstances mean you really have to try and resist, it is harder than ever. Maybe the reason that people who struggle with temptation have so much activity in their prefrontal cortices is precisely because it has become an epic mental battle to resist the urge. They are trying to counteract their learned habit of vice-indulgence, and that takes a lot of cognitive effort.
Likewise, the people whose prefrontal cortices don’t light up may have trained themselves repeatedly to not respond to temptation, rather than having been born luckily into a state of grace. The impulse was there, but through repeated cycles of overruling it, the strength has diminished. That means the executive needs do nothing more than a gentle check in. There is no big cognitive wrestle, because the battle was already won months or years before when the habit of restraint was laid down.
Work with what you have got
I’m not saying this explains everything. I think the correct answer is almost certainly that vulnerability to temptation is a complex amalgam of inherent temperament and learned behaviour.
We are born with certain pre-dispositions – that much seems clear. Even very young children have discernible personalities – a tendency to be sensitive, placid, aggressive, fearful, caring, playful, shy. Equally clear is that these personalities are not fixed – we are shaped by our environments, by the people who care for us (or don’t), by the experiences we have, by the lessons we learn as our brains develop. Both nature and nurture contribute to making us who we are.
Our lives are not fated as an inexorable, inescapable consequence of our personality traits. While the foundations of our temperaments are laid down during these formative stages of our childhood, they are not fixed forever. We can transcend our limitations. We can retrain ourselves.
I’ll end with another analogy that I think is helpful. People vary in their natural levels of fearfulness. Some are highly sensitive to threats, others are more naturally cool and composed. Some people even have emotional responses so muted that they hardly feel fear at all.
Despite this, all of us can be courageous. In fact, most of us instinctively admire those people who feel the fear and do it anyway more than those full of bravado and heroic idiocy.
Resisting temptation is the same. It may come harder for some of us, but we can learn to steel ourselves, train ourselves with small challenges, and build up our habit of moral courage, like an athlete training for victory. Reinforce the habit of self-discipline, and temptation loses its power.
Grace can be earned as well as gifted.
Fascinating article! I especially love your science blogs.
This matches up with my experience entirely. I was a smoker many years ago. I tried to quit many times, and after long periods (some over 2 years) of wrestling with this temptation over and over, I eventually always crumbled and went back to smoking. Until I became pregnant and HAD to stop. I was NOT going to be “that mum” pushing a pram with one hand and holding a cigarette in the other! I never again wrestled with this temptation, the choice was automatic after that. Overnight, I became 100% confident that I would never imbibe any form of nicotine ever ever again.
It just goes to show much better solid beliefs and an effective motivator are at helping us resist temptations compared to relying on willpower alone.
I well remember hearing this voice:
“Go on. Why not? You always give in eventually… ” when I decided (repeatedly) that I was cutting things off with LO but couldn’t resist his attempts to wriggle back into my life.
I am currently not in limerence (but am aware that could change if I lower my guard for a millisecond) as I have a history of limerence since youth.
I wonder if now as I am in a gloriously limerence-free state if I should use this time to mentally rehearse resisting an imaginary glimmerer, to strengthen the neural pathways of resistance so it will be second nature when the next limerent temptation presents itself?
I think the best plan is to practice small gains in other aspects of life that call for self-discipline, with the goal of getting general benefit.
It’s an interesting idea to mentally test yourself against an imaginary LO, but it feels a little close to reverie for me. I guess it depends on how well you can control your mental LO, compared to a real one 😉
True! Can you imagine if I became limerent for my imaginary ‘test LO’? I would be so annoyed with myself and my backfiring strategy… 🙂
Song of the Day: “Imaginary Lover” – Atlanta Rhythm Section (1978)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YJi4ru6em_U
Go for it! What could possibly go wrong? ” 🙂
I’ve always liked this song. I’m surprised I don’t have it in my collection.
Oh, well, Bezos gets $1.29 richer.
Well LE!
Those lyrics… that was kind of perfect! “Imagination’s unreal !!!”.
Ha! The imaginary limerent object….another level of disordered thinking methinks.
@Jaideux,
“… another level of disorded thinking…”
Stick with me, Kid…
“… it’s because they feel less desire in the first place.”
I wonder if the quality of feeling less desire is demonstrated in all areas of their lives. I have family who just … don’t seem to want anything. They have decent jobs they’ve been doing for years, a nice enough house, family, etc. But year after year, they don’t become intellectually curious about anything, have an interest in trying new things, etc. There’s just a level of placid contentment. And maybe that’s not necessarily a bad thing.
That’s an interesting thought. It is like our need for stimulation or pleasure is higher than average.
In some ways I envy your family. It makes me think of the classic fridge magnet saying “success is getting what you want, happiness is wanting what you’ve got”. But you do wonder if they are just travelling through life on autopilot, not really taking anything in?
I read an article once on how human time perception works. The rate our brain registers new events determines our perception of time. So the more repetitive and samey your life is, the faster time passes for you. The more new things you do, the more change and variation you have in your life, the slower time flows for you. So being curious and trying new things literally makes you live longer… in your perception at least.
Allie,
“…happiness is wanting what you’ve got”
That reminds me of the Sinead O’Connor’s album title, “I Do Not Want What I Haven’t Got.” The album came out in 1990, and the title made no sense to me then … and it still doesn’t! I’m a searcher by nature; maybe I’ll never be totally contented.
That’s an interesting theory about your life slowing down if you do more new things. I don’t think my family would get it. I think in their eyes they are doing new things, but that involves going to a new vacation spot or tying a new meal plan. I guess what I mean is that they don’t seem to hunger for anything; they’re not looking for anything; they don’t need anything. Everything fine; everything is wonderful, an attitude that makes it impossible to talk about anything other than the most surface topics.
Pondering this. Maybe different people define or experience happiness in different ways. I wonder if your family consider “happiness” to be the absence of suffering, but we are looking at it as us experiencing pleasure (in the broadest sense) with sufficient frequency and quantity?
Allie,
“Maybe different people define or experience happiness in different ways.”
I think it’s matter of expectations. Some people want a partner with whom they share similar value and goals, who they get along with, who will be a good companion, etc. But some people may be looking for some big, sexy, intense, shake-them-to-the-very core love affair. Some people are looking for a job that they like well enough and that pays the bills so they can support their families. Other people may be looking for something that fulfills and challenges them, along with like-minded co-workers. Sometimes having more easily reachable goals makes you happier.
I read somewhere that it’s good to be happy, but that doesn’t necessarily mean we need to be satisfied. Sure, be grateful for what you have and enjoy life to the fullest. Realize that this may be as good as it gets, and what you have is likely a whole lot more than what many other people have. I also shared a meme on Facebook the other day that basically said, “Never forget that a previous version of yourself is incredibly proud of what you’ve achieved.” But we can almost always strive to do better. There is nothing wrong with being happy and content while also recognizing that there is room for improvement in one’s life. That isn’t about keeping up with the Joneses, but rather about the fact that we can and should learn and grow and strive to do better, while not being hard on ourselves and recognizing how far we’ve come.
Various,
“Realize that this may be as good as it gets,”
I don’t agree at all. To quote Howard Jones, “things can only get better.” 🙂 And if you want them to get better, as corny as it sounds, it’s really up to you (universal you).
Never got on with that idea. Seems like defeatism, somehow. I get the sentiment that it’s good to be grateful for what you’ve got, but a huge part of life’s purpose for me is in the striving for progress.
Maybe I’m being too literal.
Agree! Depends on what you are striving for though and if it that striving actually brings anyone happiness (during or as a result).
I suspect this saying has been taken out of context and maybe relates more to material goods? i.e. we create inner suffering by craving for things we don’t have such as a better car, better house, more money, (& better spouse / LO!), etc. When we get them, we experience some short-term satisfaction but then revert back to suffering again as we then want an even better house/car/money, or ex-spouse / new LO. You remove the craving, you remove the suffering.
Re word “Depends on what you are striving for though and if it that striving actually brings anyone improvements in happiness or wellbeing (during or as a result).”
I agree with you on this on DrL as long as your expectations have a basis in reality.
One day, some co-workers and I were having lunch at a Chinese restaurant. I read my fortune cookie, I whipped out $20, and said that I had to go. They asked why. I told them that Cindy Crawford was naked in my office.
The fortune cookie said, “Your wildest fantasy is about to come true.”
Guess what?! No Cindy Crawford! Damn, fortune cookie!
Looking at it another way, as Clint Eastwood said in “Magnum Force,”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S4lvLBe6fsE
LE,
“They asked why. I told them that Cindy Crawford was naked in my office.”
Every Christmas, I wish for Johnny Depp to show up with a red bow on his head … and nothing else. Still waiting …. 🙂
Marcia,
“Every Christmas, I wish for Johnny Depp to show up with a red bow on his head … and nothing else. Still waiting …. ”
See? You get it!
LE,
And you can see the level of disappointment … instead of Johnny Depp, I get a tacky sweater I will never wear. 🙁
Marcia,
Find the right guy, show up under his Xmas tree in the sweater and a pair of stilettos, and you might make his Xmas. It might make both your Xmases.
Hopefully, it’s a cardigan.
But is his family there? Kind of kills the vibe if Brother Bob and Uncle Ted are right there. I had the same “bow on the head” fantasy about my LO, but I can guarantee you his family was not present. 🙂
Marcia,
My family opened presents on Xmas Eve. LO #2 and my wife are Xmas morning people. The fams didn’t show up until late Xmas morning or early afternoon. I tried for Xmas Eve but I lost that fight. But, I still got a lot of nice presents on Xmas Eve.
Sometimes, you gotta get a little creative. Wherever you are late on Xmas Eve, unless it’s someplace like Guam, it’s probably Xmas morning somewhere.
Actually, he can just stop by to visit me and then go on to the family himself. Unless it’s a dinner that we can keep to about 2 or 3 hours. I’ve done my time with those all day holiday celebrations. 🙂
I suspect this is just like all other areas of life – people vary in their temperaments. The personality psychologists would probably say this is about low openness to new experiences. The HSP aficionados would probably say they are less sensitive to arousal. Conservatives might say they are just sensible people who don’t like fuss.
Or… maybe they are just sleeping dragons who aren’t roused until something spectacular (like an LO) wanders into their lair?
DrL,
Did you ever read Sapolsky’s book, “Behave – THE BIOLOGY OF HUMANS AT OUR BEST AND WORST?” I eventually made it all the way through it but, honestly, most of it went over my head and I don’t remember much about it except for the pre-frontal cortex part.
As an electrical engineer, I see the pre-frontal cortex part as akin to an EEPROM “(Electrically Erasable Programmable Read Only Memory) A rewritable storage chip that holds its content without power. EEPROMs are byte addressable but must be erased before being rewritten.” – https://www.pcmag.com/encyclopedia/term/eepron
I also see neurotransmitters as akin to “doping” semi-conductors. It’s all about electrons.
These analogies are likely totally bogus.
On another topic. In several blogs we discuss whether there is a “switch” someone can use to turn off limerence. I didn’t think so but maybe…
Ok, so I like craft beer and I love donuts. If someone asked, “What would it take for you to kill someone?” I might respond, “A box of chocolate covered Krispy Kremes and a large coffee.” I have logged 1300+ different beers on Untapd. [All it takes is a sip to count.] For years, my wife and my doctors have been on me to dial them back. The doctors said that someday, it was going to catch up with me.
Someday came.
This time instead of saying my numbers were close to out of spec, some of them were way out of spec and I’d better get my sh-t together. So, I did. I thought I’d need to muscle through (frontal cortex) and miss beer and sweets. I don’t. Where I couldn’t pass up a free donut (or two), I can now lay down and go to sleep next to them. Why?
On the other hand, why was it so hard to get LO #2 and LO #4 out of my head. I needed to consciously muscle through them. Why?
This stuff is fascinating.
LE,
“Where I couldn’t pass up a free donut (or two), I can now lay down and go to sleep next to them.”
I find them when I’m in the middle of an LE or if things are going well with an LO, I eat the sugar and drink the Diet Cokes in moderation. But if things are not going well with an LO or the limerence is on the downslide, like it is now, I have to work at containing the food, as in measuring it and counting calories or else I go off the deep end. It’s almost as if one replaces the other.
I totally relate.
It feels like I am wired to seek hits of pleasure at regular intervals – of any kind really… family cuddles, shared laughter, feeling loved, LO, sugary or fatty food, new clothes, great conversation, daydreaming, coffee, alcohol, success/mastery, exercise endorphins, sunshine, a hot bath – any will suffice, although some satisfy far more than others – usually the baaad ones!
Allie,
“It feels like I am wired to seek hits of pleasure at regular intervals”
Yes, all the things you mentioned. Also hearing a really great piece of music whose lyrics and sound really move me. Or reading a great piece of writing.
I haven’t read it, but I’ve just ordered it. Should be good, because he comes at neuroscience from the other end, as it were. He’s based in behaviour and endocrinology, whereas I start with the chemicals 🙂
The whole “pre-frontal cortex” thing makes a lot of sense. It can tie together a lot of related concepts, like Attachment Theory and limerence. Put Tennov, Bowlby, Sapolsky, and Schreiber together, you can make sense of a lot of things.
This is neat, plausible, and undoubtably wrong but stay with me…
Let’s say the frontal cortex is the CPU and the pre-frontal cortex is the BIOS. BIOS instructions are stored in an EEPROM. The CPU gets its instructions from loaded programs.
Let’s assume Bowlby is correct and Attachment Theory is valid. Attachment Theory says our attachments, secure and insecure, occur in infancy and early childhood. Schreiber contends that attachments can begin in utero. That attachment doesn’t appear to form in the frontal cortex, but it is programming the pre-frontal cortex BIOS. Early childhood trauma continues to encode the pre-frontal cortex until and, for sometime after, the child begins to develop sufficiently to try to make sense of the world around them, good or bad. The child begins to reason. Schreiber talks a lot about this.
Repressed rage and resentment have to reside somewhere. This is where it gets interesting. Schreiber says, “Unfortunately, no amount of ‘insight’ on this topic can mend core issues, for what’s needed is solid re-parenting to replace the faulty original template we grew up accepting as ‘normal’ throughout childhood…Standard modalities of treatment (i.e. psychotherapy, analysis, cognitive-behavioral work, etc.) may not dismantle core trauma, for resolution requires healing the Heart that’s been damaged in infancy and throughout childhood~ not the head.” https://sharischreiber.com/do-you-love-to-be-needed/
Why don’t the standard modalities of treatment work? They focus on the wrong part of the brain. Combine Schreiber and Sapolsky, effective treatment would come from working on the reprogramming the pre-frontal cortex. Sapolsky provides an insight into the hard science behind what Schreiber talks about. That’s where Schreiber’s statement of “healing the Heart” makes sense. You don’t heal the heart by addressing the frontal cortex, you heal the heart by addressing a different area of the brain.
What I got from Sapolsky’s book tells me that’s the pre-frontal cortex. Address the reason behind that repressed rage and resentment and you may be able to reprogram that area that’s sending those pre-action messages to the frontal cortex and making life miserable. DrL can explain the chemicals involved.
But, again, I’m not a neuroscientist or psychologist so my overly simplistic theories are likely entirely wrong. It works for me. I like it when I’m able to reconcile many aspects of a complex issue. I can’t find a hard conflict between any of them.
Ok, everybody feel free to start blowing it apart. You won’t hurt my feelings.
The way I look at it is that our behaviour is hierarchical. At the most fundamental level we have reflexes that are basically built into the brain structurally (e.g. panic in response to something moving quickly in your peripheral vision). Next up you have slightly more complex urges like seeking comfort when hurt, or food when hungry, which are shaped by feedback processes (e.g. when I eat that juicy fruit, I experience pleasure). That is a critical part of brain function that links motivation and learning to reward and punishment. The same system operates at a higher level of abstraction too and can teach more complex lessons (e.g. when I cry too much I get punished).
What’s critical for this is that the reward/aversion learning systems operate during brain development in childhood. So your experiences (and your environment) determine how your neural systems operate – your instincts are laid down in your brain as it wires itself.
Finally, your prefrontal cortex is an executive layer on top of everything else that helps us to make sense of our instincts and habits. It is where our reasoning resides, but is a cognitive miser, and will happily let habits run on autopilot unless there is a real need for intervention. That takes an act of will.
So, simply recognising “the subconscious lessons I learned during childhood are not healthy for me,” is not sufficient to undo the fact that those lessons were literally hard-wired in during development. It takes real concerted effort to retrain the brain into new habits – and it’s more a process of overlaying new lessons that have primacy over the old ones, than forgetting them entirely.
It’s arduous work.
DrL,
You explained some of that when I asked you why my toddler son was terrified by a mechanical crocodile at the Rainforest Cafe even though he’d never seen a live crocodile.
As for the arduous work, I totally agree. When I went back to undo those hard-wired lessons, I thought I only had to go back 25 years and deal with LO #2.
What my last LE with LO #4 taught me was that to truly undo them, I had to go back over 50 years and the tentacles spread out a lot further than I imagined. I found the glimmer chip, figured out what activated it, and overwrote it. I don’t know if I’ll ever entirely forgive my mother, but, I was able to quit trying to rationalize her behavior and excuse it. That got rid of a lot of the resentment that drove a lot of things at an unconscious level. Once the resentment was gone, I was a lot easier to reprogram.
I think it worked. I’m way more at peace with my past. But, in one respect, I was lucky. Except for LO #2 and LO #4, all the people I needed to confront were long dead and I was no longer in contact with either of them. I did it all vicariously with the EAP counselor role-playing their parts. Since they were no longer part of my life, I could confront them with no repercussions. Maybe not as satisfying but still effective. The EAP counselor was good.
Most people aren’t that fortunate. Addressing those kind of issues can blow families apart.
“What my last LE with LO #4 taught me was that to truly undo them, I had to go back over 50 years and the tentacles spread out a lot further than I imagined. I found the glimmer chip, figured out what activated it, and overwrote it.”
@Limerent Emeritus.
What you write here sounds amazing. Like limerence, or whatever causes limerence in specific individuals, is a tree with very deep roots. And it must be surprising even to the individuals themselves how deep those roots go. It must be amazing to look back at a certain age, as you seem to do here, and realise the extent limerence has shaped your life. Or at least coloured your inner life…
I enjoy reading your commentary. 🙂
Thank you, Sammy,
It’s only my experience. Everyone’s story is different.
What I find amazing is how well it all fits together. The things I’ve read, the people I talked to, the therapists I worked with; it just all comes together. There’s nothing I can’t explain.
I sort of miss the whole Twin Flame aspect of things, the “what ifs?,” the familiar feeling I got when I was in a full blown limerent funk, the responsibility-dodging notion of a cold, indifferent universe blocking my happiness as opposed to my blocking my own happiness, but overall, getting rid of those is way better.
I still have a “what if?” list. I have two of them, actually. One is people I wonder what might have happened if I’d encountered them under different circumstances, (e.g., I was available or I wasn’t getting transferred in 3 months.)
The other is what might have happened if either I or someone else had made a different decision when given a choice. The latter is far more interesting but since I’ve dealt with things, I don’t spend as much time ruminating about them. Even I can beat a dead horse so long.
It served a purpose at the time. It helped me understand what things in my life were causes and what things were effects. Cause and effect is an important concept. A lot of us get those wrong in more than one area of our lives. Once I understood that I had reversed cause and effect with LO #2, I began looking back on other things and realized that I’d done it in other situations in my life. That was huge.
I explained to LO #4 about reversing cause and effect and how it can lead you to make some really bad assumptions. The worst is you tend to respond to effects, not causes, which is why nothing changes for long. For example, it’s like treating the symptoms of cancer without ever going after the tumor. You may keep it in check for awhile but you never get rid of it and eventually, it can overwhelm you.
She came back with, “Wow! I’d never considered that before but it makes so much sense.” She later said that I opened her eyes to what was happening in her relationship with her now ex. I wonder if that might have been what she was referring to.
Probably more than you wanted to know.
Thanks, again.
@DrL,
“Finally, your prefrontal cortex is an executive layer on top of everything else that helps us to make sense of our instincts and habits. It is where our reasoning resides, but is a cognitive miser, and will happily let habits run on autopilot unless there is a real need for intervention. That takes an act of will.”
So, how does the prefrontal cortex decide when it needs to intervene? The US Supreme Court accepts some cases, it declines others.
For, at least weeks, maybe months, I’ve had no desire to check out LO #4. The thought hadn’t occurred to me.
Today, I have the house to myself. I’m all caught up at work. It’s blissfully quiet except for the dog going off at the mail carrier, a few peels of thunder and the air conditioner.
Out of nowhere comes the thought, you should check out LO #4’s YouTube channel and FB page.
Immediately, the thought comes back, “You really don’t want to do that” and I didn’t. The prefrontal cortex overrode whatever sent up that thought. Why?
I’ve also been thinking about how conscience fits into all this. Where in the brain does the conscience reside? If you look in the index of Sapolsky’s book, conscience isn’t mentioned but compassion and empathy are. If I remember correctly, Robert Hare and Martha Stout maybe, talk about psychopaths and sociopaths having abnormal amygdalas. Both those groups are considered to have little to no conscience.
LE,
“Out of nowhere comes the thought, you should check out LO #4’s YouTube channel and FB page.”
Thanks for the suggestion. Because I didn’t stop myself. A very, very bad idea. And he’s not even on FB! So no pics. He has no “online presence.” Just seeing his name attached to whitepage entries has set me off. What a colossal waste of time that was. And he just blithely goes about his life, not a care in the world.
Fascinating blog post! It might be worthwhile delineate between self-discipline involving habits of action and that of habits of mind.
I find it increasingly easier to have self-discipline about changing the way I act. Health habits, food, exercise, learning… even actual behavior with LO and so on. But I feel like a dismal failure in habits of mind. Not just the delicious world of LEs, but even thoughts of work & so on. My mind keeps sliding to topics/thoughts I’d rather it did not.
Read in another blog post by Dr L that catching yourself and watching the thought go by helps. Maybe everyone is different but it doesn’t seem to help my mind-habits. Wish I had the self-control on mind habits that I have on actual action habits!
Yeah the mind habits are what gets me in my LE too. Trying to control those just becomes exhausting.
You cannot stop thoughts arising but I try to reframe them a little and tell myself they are just thoughts NOT facts.
Having a regular mindfulness meditation practice is how you build the mental muscle to be aware of thoughts and be able to let go of them… that is exactly what meditation is – bringing your attention back to the object of your mediation over and over again, every time your mind drifts off into thinking – something all minds do.
@Allie1
“Yeah the mind habits are what gets me in my LE too. Trying to control those just becomes exhausting.”
Exhausting is the word!
Yes, I agree that is a useful distinction, Blue Ivy. And one of the reasons why intrusive thoughts are so exhausting.
Dr L,
This is totally unrelated to this post. I’ve read your book and I’ve been a little sceptical about whether we truly live in a mixed population of limerents and non limerents. do you think limerence is really a
distinct psychological state
that only select people exsprience
anymore than happiness is. I
don’t think there are emotions
that can only be felt by a
particular group of people and
no other, emotions are universal
to a species – and are designed
specifically for a species the
instincts
Hi James. Your comment got a bit cut off, but I answer some of your questions in this post:
https://livingwithlimerence.com/the-definition-of-limerence/
Dr. L,
I think you’re seeing the trees for
the forest. appealing to the
reward system of the brain as
an explanation for ” person
addiction” sounds fancy. i dont
feel its an explanation.. it is but
a miniscule, microscopic fixation
on one part of the evolutionary
process of sexual selection, no?
That is after all why the reward
circuitry evolved in the first
place, to induce pleasure to that
which is evolutionary adaptive.
surely? Food. Sex..another person
who becomes a facsimile for
these targets maybe.. money
is but a proxy for food, shelter,
and sometimes sex also. You
could call it “money addiction”
but again i think your missing the forest for the trees.. i don’t
know.. maybe im confused or
being too simple, i don’t see the
need to interject b.f skinners
school of thought, behavioralism,
mixed with neural science as
an explanation for limerence,
because evolution has already
designed our neural systems
to seek and repeat what is
adaptive anyway. Surely
what a person labels “person
addiction” is simply the universal
feeling of romantic longing for
a lost love designed to arise
from the evolved structures of
the system mixed with genetic
personality differences on the big
5. E.g. Neurotism. Some people
take it worse than others.
It would make sense to feel
pain when blocked from your
evolutionary success. E.g. your
limerent object.. maybe highly
neurotic people feel it twice as
hard. But that would be a genetic
differencee of personality trait
Neurotism?
I think some people feel it more strongly than others, so like with a lot of things there’s a spectrum. However, a person’s circumstances can change how deeply they might fall on it. With a lot of other stresses and anxieties at the moment my current LE is more extreme than the previous one.
I think it can depend on circumstances. I found my previous LE easier to deal with because I was generally more emotionally stable. It was tough, but manageable. This time I have a lot of other anxieties and stresses going on and it’s sending me a bit crazy. Not that I’m in a position to give into temptation because he’s a happily married man! I only met him 3 times and have been no contact for a few months, but keep thinking about trying to see him again. I know it won’t be a good thing to do. I’m trying to resist the temptation of talking to him, as I can see it turning into a stalking situation! Good to use positive phrasing about not giving into temptation. See it as a strength. Wish this website had existed last time! I think it would’ve been a lot easier.
I agree Sara. I think there are a whole host of factors that will influence how distressing an LE is, both mind and circumstance related. Plus, the earlier in an LE that someone finds this site the better their outcome too!
I have said this before, my SO is a non-limerent. And it is not because he has no passion, or does not fall in love – he does, but always in the context of a relationship. I believe he is a non-limerent because he quickly accepts when there is little hope in an uncertain situation and moves on, instead of getting stuck and being unable to let go like I tend to.
No contact for a few months is fantastic self-discipline, well done for resisting.
Wishing you well.
Thanks for your comments Allie! I have a friend who doesn’t see the point of getting hung up on someone who’s not interested. I told her it must be nice to be like that! My last boyfriend was a nice guy, but there wasn’t that spark there. He met the right woman and I was fine with that as I could tell they were well suited! I’ve never been in a relationship with a LO! Interested to know if that’s how the limerents’ marriages start out?!
Song of the Day: “Art of Dying” – George Harrison (1970)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tmo8L7NlURQ
One of my favorite Harrison songs.
Replacing “art of dying” with “limerence” is a stretch.
I really like this part:
“But you’re still with me
But if you want it
Then you must find it
But when you have it
There’ll be no need for it”
Thanks for your comments Allie! I have a friend who doesn’t see the point of getting hung up on someone who’s not interested. I told her it must be nice to be like that! My last boyfriend was a nice guy, but there wasn’t that spark there. He met the right woman and I was fine with that as I could tell they were well suited! I’ve never been in a relationship with a LO! Interested to know if that’s how the limerents’ marriages start out?!