This Is Woman's Work with Nicole Kalil - 011 / Love Addiction With Katie Grimes

Episode Date: March 25, 2020

Love addiction? Is that even a real thing? Yep. In this episode, Nicole welcomes guest Katie Grimes, Love Addiction Coach, and host of the “Anything For Love” podcast, to share with us her own journey with love addiction, as well as her experience in helping others overcome their dependency. Love addiction can show up in many different ways, some subtle - some not so subtle. But the feelings underneath it all have no variation. Katie identifies key behaviors and signs to a possible self diagnosis, an important first step to healing, and shares some valuable resources. We are wired for connection, we are wired for love. How can we redirect the love we crave from others back into ourselves, so that we can build healthy relationships? (Hint hint...it doesn’t start with the other person) We. Are. Good. Enough. This is Woman’s Work To learn more about what we are up to outside of this podcast, visit us at NicoleKalil.com

Do you have a love addiction? Do you even know that that's an actual real thing? When I was first introduced to Katie Grimes, a love addiction coach and host of the Anything for Love podcast, I was instantly fascinated by her work and bombarded her with like a bazillion questions to learn more. My name is Nicole Khalil, and I am pretty sure I'm a recovering love addict from my 20s and early 30s, and I don't say that flippantly. Today on the This Is Woman's Work podcast, Katie and I are going to dive into the love that we crave and might even be addicted to

from others and how we can redirect that love back into ourselves so that we can build healthy relationships, first with us and then with others. Thank you, Katie, so much for joining us. Let me start by asking you to explain, what is a love addiction? How do we know if we have a love addiction? What do you do as a love addiction coach? I know that's a big question, so feel free to fill a lot of time with that. Perfect. So what is love addiction? So love addiction is different for everybody, which is super confusing, right? When we think about addiction, we think about the fact that with alcoholism or drug addiction, there's an actual substance, right? We can see that they're using and therefore they're being altered by that state

of using it. When it comes to addiction, I think it often gets a negative connotation because the word addiction actually means someone who is compulsively doing something so that they will feel good, but they actually feel bad. They actually feel bad. And as a result of feeling bad, they're impacting other people. So we think about it, right? With alcoholism, you're picking up a physical drink in the hopes that you're going to escape from your reality, or you just are craving it. And in or maybe dealing with something from the past, and you don't want to deal with it. And so you pick up the drink, and you feel terrible, literally and physically. And you may in fact, actually impact other people with your

selfishness, your dishonesty, your manipulation. You say you're going to show up, but you don't actually. These are really common characteristics of addiction just in general. When we layer love on top of it is really unique because while my friends now know that I'm a love addict openly, that they before couldn't really tell what was up with me. But for me, how it showed up was I would, when I would see a hot guy, I would get warm, a warm sensation. Some drug addicts have actually said that's the sensation that they get when the drug is taking over their body. So with love addiction, it can show up with seeking attention outside of ourselves onto

other people. It can show up at work, like raising your hand to answer a question at work and really wanting your boss to think that you did a good job. And really, maybe it's the way you're dressing when you're going to that meeting or dressing when you're going to a date. It can also show up in a way where you are constantly trying to manipulate so that someone will give you the kind of love and attention that you're looking for. And it may also look like getting into a relationship with someone who's emotionally and physically unavailable, whether they are already married or in a relationship with someone else, or they're in a relationship with you and they're just not emotionally giving you what you need. So that I think is a great example of, in my personal experience, what love addiction is.

And again, what's so unique about love addiction that in and sex addiction as well is that it's unique to everybody. So the characteristics that you might have might actually be different than what I have, but the feelings underneath it are exactly the same. And that feeling amongst all addictions is the feeling of not feeling good enough. And so we try to feel better so that we can feel good. And it might mean we're feeling lonely. So we text that guy that we're interested in, even though we know it's late or we know that maybe they actually might not want to snuggle or go to dinner or whatever the case

may be. Share with me to your other question. Cause as, as I was thinking about the first one, that's what came up, but yeah. So, um, what is love addiction? How do we know if we have it and what do you do as a love addiction coach? Yeah. So, so I think, how do you know you have it? I think if any of the questions that I just answered made you kind of sit up and go, oh shit. Oh shit. Yeah. That is great. There's also a website. So Sex and Love Addicts Anonymous is a 12-step recovery program that I have been actively involved with for years. And what I love about that program, it's anonymous, but there's a

40 questions for self-diagnosis, which normally when we think of self-diagnosis, we're like thinking WebMD, right? We're like, oh gosh, we're going to go down the wormhole. What's nice is these questions are just 40 questions that ask you questions similar to, do you find that you watch porn a lot or that you masturbate during work hours? Things that are pretty significant that we don't really think about. But in fact, when you add them all up, you're like, oh, wow, I there's some common characteristics are that loneliness and that wanting to be loved. And then as a love addiction coach, what I do is I specifically work with women and I work with women because I'm not attracted to women. So it doesn't it doesn't fuel my fire in my as I'm recovering from sex, love and fantasy addiction. But I work with them to get them to a place where they are first identifying what

behaviors are not serving them well anymore. And this disease is one that I do not say this lightly. It will kill you if you don't get it arrested, right? If you don't put this substance down and that is that of love, right? So we identify what are the issues that are behaviors that they're doing that are just not serving them well anymore. And then we start to build what we call bottom lines, right? We start to say, okay, going forward, these are the habits that I'm going to change. But here's the thing, just like any habit, you can't do it alone. So I create a safe and trusted environment that is of the utmost confidence and discretion, because let's face it, I lived with this disease for years and only was in recovery for four

and never told anybody that I was going through this because I was so embarrassed and felt so much shame. And this comes up a lot with my clients. So we really work through and I say to them, I will love, I will teach you how to love yourself until you're able to love you. So it's really putting the practices in place of what are the things that you can do to take really good care of yourself as opposed to texting your former sex partner or wearing that scandalous dress to go to that work event or getting bombed at a work event, whatever it may be, and really trying to put some barriers around either end. I like to call it a

buffer. I like to say, if you're going to go to a work event and you feel like you're going to be triggered there because you're going to, there's a guy or a girl that you're attracted to, why not call me before and call me after, and we'll have a conversation about it so that you can really get in touch with your feelings. And so I know feelings are scary, right? And so the biggest thing that I work with with my clients is just becoming aware of those feelings. You don't have to do anything with them, but you just have to be aware that I'm not just good, busy, or okay. Those aren't feelings. Right.

Yeah, those are go-to responses that we don't even think about, right? Go-to responses. When I say, how are you? Most people say, I'm good, busy, or okay. And I say to them, well, how are you really? Because really underneath it is a feeling of feeling joy or on the other side of that anger, sadness, and resentment. And so how do we live in a space where we have both? Because every day, multiple times a day,

we're going to be in flux of the good feelings and the feelings that make us not feel so great. Yeah. So what you said that resonated with me is basically beneath all addictions is this feeling of not being good enough. Right. And I think we as women can, and I don't, I don't know if this is totally true, but I think we as women can relate to that feeling maybe a little bit more, or maybe we feel it a little bit deeper. So as part of love addiction, the seeking validation or, or kind of trying to fill that void, um, by seeking it and others, am I saying that you're saying that is spot on? Okay. That is that just to reiterate what you said, it is seeking validation, the validation of ourselves, right. Of wanting to feel good. We're seeking it with other people or other things like vacations, promotions at work, the material things that we're purchasing

so that we will feel good about ourselves, that we won't feel lonely. We won't feel like we just are not good enough. Right. So we were talking about this a little earlier. And I think sometimes when you're addicted to something, or maybe at all times when you're addicted to something, it messes with your integrity a little bit. And what I mean by that is you start doing things that, you know, years back or months back, you are like, I would never do this. Right. And one of the things that we had talked about was, you know, sleeping with somebody at work, like a boss or an employee or sleeping with somebody who's already committed or already married and and wondering, like, OK, yes, is there a part of us that as women think, if we can get this person who is, you know, cheating on their family or his doing something so low integrity, like sleeping with one of their employees or something like that, it's almost like if we can get them to choose us,

if we can get them to love us, then it proves something to us. And, and, and so I guess my question is, is that part of it is where we are so looking for that validation that we let go of our beliefs and our integrity and, and, and in search of it? Yes, we do. Okay. We do. And I think a big part of it is, is that there's this unattainable goal, right? When somebody is the boss or somebody is married and it's almost like the, the thrill of the chase, the thrill of the, okay, if this person changes, if I get them to behave the way that I want them to, that it means that I'm good enough, that somebody loves me enough to change, which is so like, I look back on that younger version of myself and I, and I say, it's so sad because if there's anybody who's listening and they're feeling this feeling

or have done this behavior, right? There's no shame or guilt in it, which definitely comes up. But I say that on the other end of it, which is there's no shame or guilt that I behaved that way. Instead, there's a deep sadness. There's a deep sadness for that young girl who, or whatever age you are, who did the best she could under the circumstances. Because I know for myself, I did those things because I didn't love myself and I desperately wanted somebody to love me. I desperately wanted somebody to love me. I desperately wanted somebody to love me at any cost. And what was interesting about the men that I was dating who were married or who were in other relationships with people is that they would tell me that everything was not okay on that end. They would tell me that there was something special about me, that they

would tell me that they loved me or they showed me this sense of intimacy. And what was confusing about it was that there was this sense of quote unquote intimacy where I felt that they're sharing very candidly with me, what they probably do not share with their spouse or the person that they're with. And therefore I'm special. And if I'm special and I'm different, then therefore I must be loved. And I didn't tell, you know, I told maybe a handful of people that I had been, you know, engaging in this way, but I only told those people that wouldn't judge me and wouldn't criticize me. Because I also knew that they would enable me to behave that way. And it wasn't until I started spending time with my own coach who said, who didn't shame or guilt me, but instead said, instead, she said to me, you are continuing to

do these things that you think are going to bring you joy, right? You think that he's going to leave her or whatever, but you continue to feel bad. And every time it happens, every time you sleep with them or every time they text or every time you're flirting, you actually feel worse every single time. Do you see that? And I was like, yeah, I see that. And she's like, only you are going to get to a place where you're going to see through the people that you're surrounding with that they have a beautiful life and that's what you want, right? Okay. That's great. But you're comparing yourself to them. Yeah. So it's not actually helping you. In fact, you're shitting on yourself even more because you're like, how come I don't, how come I can't do that? Like, why is love so hard? Right.

And she's like, but you'll eventually get to the point where the pain will be so bad that you'll want to change. And that happened for me. You know, it was a series of unfortunate events where I was doing one thing after another that made me feel bad. And at the end of that run, it was so low. And I was sitting in my car all by myself. And I had just had sex with a guy that was not available in his car. Right. And I, and he had this prestigious job and I could see him on TV. And like, there was this life that I was fantasizing. That's where the fantasy addiction comes in. Fantasizing about what life would be like. And as he drove away home to her,

this deep sadness resonated with me that I said, I deserve to, and then this was the first time I believed it. I had heard it, but this was the first time I said, I deserve to, and then this was the first time I believed it. I had heard it, but this was the first time I said, I deserve to be sitting next to someone in the car and they're holding my hand, telling me that they love me. I don't deserve to have somebody whose taillights I'm literally chasing. Right. Well, so a couple of things that you said resonated with me. Number one, I think back, you know, on my life at different parts and it may have played out in a totally different way. But like this thing of I think back on my young self and the mistakes that I made. And I always say the same thing. I don't have shame. She was young and I forgive her. And that's easier to do with some distance, right? I don't know that I feel like that about things that maybe I did that I'm not so proud of in the last week or something like that. But, you know, I try to come from a place of forgiveness with myself in the same way I would

with other people that I love. Now, my second thought is now more of a question. What is the difference and what is the same between a sex addiction and a love addiction? Yeah. So a couple of things that come to mind with, we talked about the fact that with love addiction, I was referring to the women that I coach, right? Women, this, this, these diseases are impacted regardless of your sexual orientation, your ethnicity, or your gender. It has no bias. It affects all of us. What I find is very common in my research is that men identify as having a sex addiction. It's this compulsive need to want to have sex, be it porn, prostitution, or with somebody else, their spouse cheating, you name it. Women mostly identify as love addicts who act out sexually. One night stands, cheating,

porn, masturbation, not so much the prostitution. I don't hear that a lot. And so the difference between the two is the way you act out. So sex is sex, right? We know what that looks like. Sex addiction is a little bit easier. So like when we heard that Tiger Woods had that sex addiction all those years ago, which he still does, but like, you know, had that and he, it was, he was cheating. He was with his wife. He was actively pursuing them via text, sex messaging. Those are concrete, tangible examples. Love is more of a flirting. It's a feeling. It's the way you dress. It's the conscious decision that you make to wink to someone. It's those types of little behaviors that you think are actually quite normal because we've been taught as a

society to be overly sexual and to be flirtatious to get what we want. But that I would say is probably the two biggest differentiators that I see. Okay. So Katie, what are some of the behaviors and signs of a love addict? You mentioned a few already already flirting, obviously acting out via having sex. What are some of the other signs? I've heard you mention like stalking and seeing the love of your life everywhere. Those are the ones I think that resonated with me. Can you talk a little bit about that? Yes. So I have an episode on my podcast called like, you know, new puppy, you single, like cute puppy, you single, because there are many a times where I would see somebody on the street and I'd be like,

Oh my God, their dog is so cute. And I'd go over and talk to them. And then before you know it, you start chatting it up. And, but it's the feeling that you get when you walk away. It's the fantasizing of like, Oh, I wonder if this is how I'm supposed to meet this person, or is that going to be my dog someday? But I thought too, I'd pull up some of the questions from the SLAA 40 questions for self-diagnosis because this is really, really powerful. So some of the questions include, have you ever tried to control how much sex you have

or how often you would see somebody? Do you find yourself unable to stop seeing a specific person even though that seeing that person is destructive to you? Do you make promises to yourself or rules for yourself concerning your sexual or romantic behavior that you find you can't follow? That was a big one. I still like pretend I would be like, I'm not going to shave my legs. And then you don't shave your legs. And then you're like, still hooking up with someone. And as a result of that, you're like trying to put these boundaries in place. Um, a couple other ones. Have're like trying to put these boundaries in place. A couple other ones. Have you ever felt that you had to have sex? Do you believe that someone can fix you? Do you feel that you are only, or only you value what it is that you have in your

relationship and your ability to perform sexually is tied to that? And then do you find yourself in a relationship that you can't leave? So those are just some of the questions. Again, there's like 40 of them, but I think that all of those are really significant when it comes to pausing and asking yourself the question, are you impacted by love addiction? Yeah. I mean, I can very vividly remember, uh, you know, my first sort of heartbreak relationship and, and, you know, wanting that relationship back and not being able to let it go. And then I think what happened for me was, uh, the showing up at places where I thought he might be and, you know, being like

accidentally running into them. And of course I looked, you know, as good as I could, because then they were obviously going to see what they'd been missing. I'm laughing because I'm having flashbacks of the time. I like literally tried to break into a bar for this exact reason. I was 20 and like knew my license back, my fake license backwards and forwards to try to get into this bar. And they let me in, but they kept the idea because they were like, you're lying to us. And I'm like, you have try to get into this bar. And they let me in, but they kept the idea because they were like, you're lying to us. And I'm like,

you have to let me in this bar. Yeah. So yeah, you have no idea. This is the moment where he's going to realize what do you, yeah. I can also, I think a lot of women can relate to this is like the,

not just stalking him on social media, but like the people, it looked like he might be dating. Yes. Oh, that comes up a lot with my clients. Yeah. And so I'm sure some of these behaviors in and of themselves don't automatically mean you have a love addiction. Sometimes it's just, but the combination of those things is probably a good sign. Like you said, the ones that you read, I can remember the feelings that I had in my 20s and the things that I was doing. And I could have answered yes to a lot of those.

Maybe not all of them, but a lot of them. Which is why in our conversation, I was like, I really do think that I struggled with this and didn't know it. So what are the things to do if you're thinking you might have a love addiction? Obviously, working with somebody like you, a love addiction coach, but what might be some of the other recommendations you would make? And I just want to go back to your point, too, that when you can check off a couple of yeses to those questions, I think when you pick them out individually, you might say to yourself, oh, I don't have

a problem. But when you start to add them all up, it's more important, regardless of how many boxes you can check yes to, it's more important how do you feel. Yeah. Because the things that I used to do then, many of which were in that 40 questions, I don't do anymore. And when I do find myself trying to do them, like sometimes still slipping into fantasy about what life could be like with a former sex partner, I find that I redirect my thoughts. I call my coach. And then you would ask, like, what else do you do?

So I go to SLAA, which is a 12 step recovery program that is for free. I have no affiliation with them other than me being a fellow. Um, and meaning they don't pay me, they don't compensate me. There's anonymity. No one knows my last name there. And so, um, if you are interested, if you're the website is S L A A F W S.org. Um, and you can just literally type in sex and love addiction. There is recovery treatment programs that are becoming more and more available on a national and international scale. Um, so there are many people I know whom have gone to recovery for 30 days, similar to that of a detox program that you would for alcohol and, and drug addiction, because it is that powerful. It is that type of thing

where we've always been taught to love other people and to go above and beyond to be loved, but at what, but at the cost of what, and for many of us, it has resulted in wanting to commit suicide or in fact, knowing some people who have as a result of us, it has resulted in wanting to commit suicide or in fact, knowing some people who have as a result of this, because again, underneath it is this feeling that we're not loved and we're not feeling good enough. So I would say that if any of those questions, even just one of them poked out as a yes to you, but you just find that you're saying to yourself, gosh, is wondering if, if love is really this hard or you're wondering like, am I going to lose it all? If anybody were to find out that I'm behaving this way? Those are really good signs

that you are suffering from this disease and that you're not alone too. It made sense to me when you said that men tend to identify with a sex addiction, whereas women tend to identify with a love addiction. Your perspective, I don't know that you have an expertise on this, but your perspective, what part does it play that society tells women, you know, that we should want to find true love? There's this fantasy love, like you, the sleeping beauty and the prince kisses you alive. And, um, you know, all the sort of messages that we get from a very young age as girls and women, does that play a part? Does that fuel this in any way? And for those of us raising girls, is there anything we should be

mindful of? Yeah. I'm going to add a little note to that for girls and boys. Yeah. Because I think there's a lot to be said for both. I think, you know, I liked what you said. You're like, maybe you're not an expert on it, but I feel like in my experience with being a woman who grew up in the eighties and the nineties and the two thousands, like I haven't always been raised to aspire to marriage. And there's a line in Beyonce's song where she breaks and this woman comes on, I forget the woman's name. She's a powerful leader. And it's a recording of her saying, you know, here we have been teaching women to aspire to marriage. And yet we haven't asked men to do the same. And I, I, all that line

always sends a shiver up my spine because it's really powerful. I think what I've found in my experience of dating men is that men aspire to have a career and to be driven by money and success and the material things. And then once they've reached that level of success, then they aspire to marriage, where women aspire the opposite. They aspire to have marriage and that safety and that sense of security because that will enable them to go and have an incredible career. Many of whom we are not just in the career that we started when we first got out of college or high school, but instead we are maybe doing another round of something else. we both men and women are raising these children is to aspire children to feel their feelings, to really allow them when they're crying or when they're feeling joy to express that and to take a moment to encourage them to actually verbalize what it is that they're saying,

excuse me, what it is they're feeling. And by doing that, I think what it does is it allows us to be on a mutual level, on a respectful level. And so I was listening to Oprah and Chanel Miller, who if you don't know her, I love her book name, Know My Name. And for those of the listeners that don't know, she was the woman who was raped by Brock Turner. It was at Stanford University. And so Oprah asked her, is it a conversation that we need to be having with, I think her questioning was, do we need to be having conversations with men and women about alcoholism? And Chanel's response was, no, we need to be having conversations around consent. I think the same can be said for, you know, sex, love, and fantasy addiction.

Oftentimes people who are hurting will hurt other people and they'll hurt them by, you know, trying to, you know, say that they're available when they're not actually available. They'll sleep with many people or they will cause harm with rape or sexual assault and really feeling this sense of power and control. And that goes for both men and women. I've heard this multiple times. And so I think it's really having a conversation with our youth and at any age to be able to say, we have all been through traumatic experiences. No one has been scarred without a car accident, a death in the family, a dysfunctional parent, you know, a loss of some sort.

But it's how do we deal with those feelings? We don't just send people right back to work. We allow people to take as much time as they need to grieve the feelings that they're grieving, even when they do go back to work. And I think that was a big, powerful part of my story where in the corporate world, I had asked in a period of three months, I had lost two family members and was violently raped and was expected to just get back to work and was told that like, okay, get back to work. We're glad to have you here. And what people don't understand, whether it's postpartum or PTSD is that those symptoms are very similar and that we need to be mindful that when we are triggered, there are feelings that

arise, but we want to show up and do the best that we can at work. Because that ultimately drives a lot of things, how much money we make, how much financial freedom we have, how happy we are in our relationship with ourself and others. And so it impacts everything. So how do we really rise up is by teaching these children at a very young age, let's not sweep feelings under the rug. Let's sit down and talk about them. I think, you know, that's a really important distinction. We've talked about sex and I think, you know, some of our listeners probably have had moments of, oh my God. And it's not something we talk about in our society very comfortably, but this isn't so much a commentary about sex. This is a comment

or even love. It's a commentary on our relationship with it and the feelings that we generate. So being in love with somebody, and I believe we're wired for connection, we're wired for love. And being in love with somebody in a healthy way is one of the best things. If you want to have sex with multiple partners and you feel great about it and you feel totally healthy, then that's okay too. It's where you're coming from and why you're doing it and how you feel during and after. That's really well said. Okay.

That's really well said. Yeah. I think that's a great summary of what I've experienced myself and what I've seen other clients experience is it doesn't matter if you want to be in a polygamous relationship, it matters how you feel. And so what I find is I've gotten a look up actually quite a few questions about polygamy. And I usually say from my own experience that what I find that it is, is that there is a fear of intimacy. So underneath actually any addiction as well is a fear of intimacy. It's a fear. If you really get to know me for who I am, you'll leave. You won't want to be with me. I'll lose everything, including my job and my house and everything else. And so it's

really making that distinction that it's okay to do things that feel good as long as you're not harming yourself or anyone else. And I think that that's the confusion when we're in a corporate setting and we were out drinking with our coworkers and we look like we're having fun. We do, right? We see that one laughing and his eyes are all glazed over. And yeah, you know, I distinctively remember somebody that I used to work with and, and he was a blast to hang out with, but it's how I felt after I left. Yeah. I felt tired. I felt lethargic. I felt like I was putting on a show. I felt like I was really uncomfortable in my five inch heels. And really what was I aspiring to do? I was aspiring to close the deals. I was aspiring to maybe find a boyfriend and a lover and a husband. And I was aspiring to close the deals. I was aspiring to maybe find a boyfriend and a lover and a husband.

And I was constantly on the move. Like, what can I get more, more, more, more, more? And that leaves you feeling really depleted when you're not giving. And then so I would go to the other end and I would give too much of myself. And that would just exhaust me too. So you asked a question very early on in your opening about sort of the relationship to self. And really for me, finding that balance has been crucial in making sure that I feel good enough and that my sex, love, and fantasy addictions

or any of my addictions don't pop up. Yeah. Katie, this has been amazing. I, like I said, I could have, I bombarded you with a bunch of questions earlier. I could have gone on with a bazillion more. But if you're listening and you want to learn more about love addiction or learn more about Katie and her work, she does private coaching. So you can connect with her on katiegrimes.com. You can also follow her on social media, so kg.katigrimes on Instagram. And listen to the Anything for Love podcast, where she talks all about love addiction and gets really real and honest about it, which I think the world can definitely use a lot more of. And here's my take. We as humans are wired for connection. We all desire to love and to be loved.

And we have the opportunity to reconnect with what healthy love feels and looks like in our lives, how we define it for ourselves. And we have an opportunity to be honest with ourselves about how we're relating to love and what it is that we're ultimately seeking. Filling up our own hearts, taking care of ourselves, choosing ourselves. These are all important parts of love so that we can love ourselves and love each other and other people as fully as possible.

And this, my friends, is people work, but most certainly woman's work.