While it may seem difficult to comprehend, beginning to learn a new language from scratch is immensely beneficial to limerents who are either a). battling a severe limerent episode or b). keen on avoiding future limerences.
Why, you may wonder, could engaging in something like a foreign language possibly help limerence, a condition underpinned overwhelmingly by unmet needs and untreated psychological wounding? Do people who speak multiple languages still experience limerence? Hint: yes, they do!
It’s not an instant cure, nor is it nearly as effective as radically altering what you allow to occupy your subconscious mind (or the supplement NAC), but it’s a valuable enough of a tool for me to feel driven to share it with you today. My mission is to neatly package as many tricks as possible to ensure that you stay on a limerence-free path permanently.
We are going to delve into the role that a new language plays in limerence recovery from different points of view: the neuroscientific point of view and the psychological/spiritual point of view. I urge all of you to always attack things critically and never stop questioning. Suspect anyone who tries to explain a state as nuanced and complicated as limerence from solely a neurochemical, a psychological or a spiritual point of view. The truth is always best illuminated when a multi-faceted approach is employed.
Limerents Seek Adventure
A language is a door to another world, plain and simple. Acquiring any new skill or hobby is bound to open up new opportunities for you and push you towards a sea of new people, but nothing is capable of adding a desirably dose of crazy to your life quite like a language.
Anyone who experiences limerence possesses a certain neurobiological makeup, based on their genetics. Here you can read about the relationship between OCD and limerence, and here I cover what it means to be prone to states of obsessive infatuation in a more general sense. I won’t go into the neural correlates of limerence in this article, but it can be concluded that limerents are obsessive, curious, perceptive people with very high emotional intelligence and the ability to garner a nice, big dose of dopamine when engaging in anything exciting and novel.
Such a disposition is very well-matched to travel and meeting new people. While learning to speak a new language to a decent conversational level can be something ‘normal’, rather than awe-inspiring, if you make it be, limerents aren’t normal people. Limerents go through life unconsciously scanning for jewels: anything that resonates with them personally, spiritually or emotionally and thrills them is captured and clung onto.
Therefore, if you are a limerent (whether currently afflicted or not), there is an enormous chance that a new language will help to meet one of the very unmet needs that is attracting LOs into your life and letting you fall for them. Whether or not you recognise this part of your psyche, you crave adventure, butterflies in your stomach, recognition for who you are and soul-connection. Take it from me, someone who has taken two foreign languages to fluency level; nothing, and I mean nothing, satisfies these immense psychologically-rooted desires so efficiently like daring to speak another language as an adult.
New Language, New You
Very few things give you the same rush of sheer adrenaline and ecstasy as sitting around with people while they peer at you inquisitively and ask you how on earth you speak their mother tongue so well. Why? Limerence is all about attracting problematic LOs who complement your emotional wounding in a way that reflects a version of yourself that you like back at yourself. For example, someone who feels weak will be drawn to narcissists who make them feel safe and empowered, without realizing that they can access these feelings without the toxic unrequited love.
Becoming adept at a new language unsheathes a newborn, blinking, refreshed version of yourself, the difference being that a). you get to enjoy this new you without limerent lows and b). no one can take away your access to it. Isn’t that interesting, how a foreign language can serve to quench the overwhelming desire for “a fresh start” by allowing you to transform into a version of yourself that will inevitably be different in communication, thinking patterns and (most probably) in interests?
Learning A Foreign Language Is Neuroprotective and Balancing
So, we have considered how focusing on learning a new language helps to satisfy your overwhelming desire for freedom, colour and authenticity by channelling you towards a new world. Those benefits are clearly visible when we look through the psychological and spiritual lenses at the role this form of continuous learning has in keeping us committed to avoiding the pull of limerence. What can we see when we consider the neurological side of things?
Just like exercise and fasting, learning a second, third or fourth language as an adult is a powerful trigger of neuroplasticity, promoting functional reorganisation of the pathways in the cortex. If you’re interested in reading more about this, refer to this rigorous study.
One immensely beneficial outcome of this formation of new pathways is an increased resistance to cognitive decline, but there are also benefits that limerence-prone people will notice in the short run.
Namely, regularly devoting some spare time to methodically working through grammar and vocabulary will render you able to think more clearly and analytically. This is conducive, of course, to you finding it easier to climb out of the heady, sharp, painful lows of limerence and consider the situation in an objective and logical way.