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Many women struggle in relationships without ever being taught one essential truth: you are allowed to have emotional needs.

In this episode of Healing for Love, Gemma explores the concept of core emotional needs through a schema therapy lens and explains why unmet needs sit at the heart of so many repeating relationship patterns.

You’ll learn how unmet emotional needs shape schemas like abandonment, emotional deprivation, subjugation, self-sacrifice and approval-seeking and why these patterns often lead women into relationships that feel unsafe, one-sided, controlling or emotionally barren.

This episode is especially relevant if you have ever:

• Felt guilty for wanting “too much” in relationships
• Struggled to name your needs or voice your preferences
• Found yourself prioritising others while neglecting yourself
• Stayed in relationships that felt familiar but deeply unsatisfying

Find out all about the six core emotional needs

Key Takeaway

A healthy relationship is not about chemistry or intensity.
It is about how consistently your core emotional needs are met.

Work With Gemma

• Join the Love Wisely priority list for the April intake
• Stay tuned for details of a free training coming up
• Apply for limited 1:1 coaching places currently available

Support the show

🎁 Download Free Guide: Dating With Insight

🩷 Love Wisely Priority list for Early March 2026

💛 Access Elevate You Worth: Self-Worth Healing Bundle

Connect with Me

🌐 Website: drgemmagladstone.com
📷 Instagram: @drgemmagladstone

📩hello@drgemmagladstone.com

🚩 The Red Flag Project - your ultimate guide to red flags! Get Instant Access

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Send Gemma a message

In today’s episode, I answer a short but powerful question that came in anonymously:

If you’ve ever stared at a dating app wondering why nothing is happening and quietly concluded “it must be me”, this episode is for you.

I'll look at three key areas:

• The reality of modern dating apps – why they create a distorted, “smorgasbord” environment where incredible, emotionally available people are often overlooked.
• Other people’s issues – how emotional immaturity, avoidance and misaligned intentions show up on the apps (and why you can’t control that).
• Your schemas and your “type” – how schema chemistry and rigid “type” criteria might be leading you towards emotionally unavailable partners and away from people who could actually be good for you.

I’ll invite you to:

• Re-examine how you’re presenting yourself on the apps (without becoming a slave to what you think men want).
• Widen the pool by giving a chance to the “6 or 7 out of 10” guys (ie, the level of chemistry you feel! I'm not rating people!) who feel kind, calm and safe – rather than only chasing the intense 10/10 chemistry.
• Remember that your worth, lovability and desirability are not measured in matches.

If you’re feeling discouraged or asking “what’s wrong with me?”, I want you to know: you are not the problem. Dating apps are hard and your current results say nothing about your deeper value or your capacity for a healthy, loving relationship.

In this episode, you’ll learn:

• Why so many wonderful women and emotionally available men get passed over on dating apps
• How our throwaway, dopamine-driven culture affects the way people swipe
• Why leading with highly sexualised photos can accidentally screen out good men
• How schema chemistry pulls you towards what’s “familiar” rather than what’s healthy
• How to gently expand beyond your usual “type”
• Practical ways to pace yourself and protect your emotional wellbeing while dating

Resources mentioned:

• Free guide: Dating with Insight – download via the link in the show notes.
• Love Wisely – my 12-week online group program for women who want to break their pattern of choosing emotionally unavailable, narcissistic or avoidant partners. Doors open again in March – join the priority waitlist via the link in the show notes.
• Episode 130 – on cultivating a new dating mindset (recommended companion episode).

Support the show

🎁 Download Free Guide: Dating With Insight

🩷 Love Wisely Priority list for Early March 2026

💛 Access Elevate You Worth: Self-Worth Healing Bundle

Connect with Me

🌐 Website: drgemmagladstone.com
📷 Instagram: @drgemmagladstone

📩hello@drgemmagladstone.com

🚩 The Red Flag Project - your ultimate guide to red flags! Get Instant Access

🌻 Support the Podcast
Love the show? Help us keep going with a monthly contribution: Support here

Send Gemma a message

We hear the term “emotionally unavailable” all the time, yet many women are not sure what the opposite actually looks like in real life. In this episode, Gemma breaks down emotional availability in clear, practical terms, so you can recognise it early, feel safer in your body and stop settling for relationships that leave you guessing.

Gemma also explores how schemas like Emotional Deprivation and Abandonment shape what feels “normal” in love, why emotionally safe partners can feel boring or suspicious at first, and how you can slowly retrain your nervous system to relax into healthy connection.

In this episode, you will learn:

• What the Emotional Deprivation schema is
  • How it forms in childhood
  • Why it makes it hard to identify and express your needs
• Why you can consciously want an emotionally available partner yet keep feeling pulled toward distance, inconsistency, or intensity
• How schemas and your unconscious “love template” drive partner choice and keep you in familiar but unfulfilling patterns
• Ten signs of an emotionally available partner, including someone who:
  1. Takes an active interest in you, asks thoughtful questions, remembers details, and wants to know your inner world
  2. Has actions that match their words, shows up consistently, and follows through
  3. Is emotionally responsive, listens when you are vulnerable, validates your feelings, and attempts repair after conflict
  4. Is predictable rather than chaotic, so your nervous system can settle instead of living on high alert
  5. Is willing to talk about the relationship and co create something with you instead of avoiding emotional conversations
  6. Has emotional self awareness, can name their feelings, take responsibility, and does not shame you for having emotions
  7. Shows care through steady, thoughtful actions that leave you feeling valued and appreciated
  8. Allows closeness without pulling away or going hot and cold after intimacy
  9. Makes room for your needs and respects your boundaries, instead of calling you “too needy” when you ask for contact or reassurance
  10. Is kind in a felt way - gentle with your vulnerabilities, respectful in conflict, and emotionally generous
• Why emotional availability can feel “boring” or even suspicious if you grew up with chaos, distance, or inconsistency
• A real life example from a Love Wisely client who noticed her physical tension drop when she finally dated someone emotionally available
• How to start looking at your own relationship history through the lens of schemas and emotional availability so you can choose differently next time

Gemma finishes with an invitation to reflect gently on your pas

Support the show

🎁 Download Free Guide: Dating With Insight

🩷 Love Wisely Priority list for Early March 2026

💛 Access Elevate You Worth: Self-Worth Healing Bundle

Connect with Me

🌐 Website: drgemmagladstone.com
📷 Instagram: @drgemmagladstone

📩hello@drgemmagladstone.com

🚩 The Red Flag Project - your ultimate guide to red flags! Get Instant Access

🌻 Support the Podcast
Love the show? Help us keep going with a monthly contribution: Support here

Send Gemma a message

Dating can stir up every schema you have. If you have a history of emotionally unavailable partners, narcissistic relationships or spending years in situationships that never really went anywhere, getting back out there can feel both hopeful and terrifying.

In this episode I walk you through ten grounded mindset shifts that help you stay in Healthy Adult mode while you date so you can notice red flags, take in green flags and stop abandoning yourself in the process.

I talk about:

• Why dating is data
• How to shift the goal from “finding the one” to “showing up grounded and observant”
• How to stay open to experience and still be discerning
• What it means to embrace ambiguity without losing yourself, especially if you have an abandonment schema
• Why you need to replace “stay positive” with “stay real” so you do not slide into the “super easygoing, no needs” people pleasing role
• The power of focusing on internal milestones, not external outcomes
• How to normalise the emotional rollercoaster of dating when schemas and old attachment wounds get activated
• What it looks like to cultivate self trust over outcome obsession
• How to reframe rejection as clarity, especially when ghosting or avoidant behaviour shows you who someone really is
• Why breaking the pattern of fantasy thinking is essential if you tend to fall for potential rather than reality
• The protective power of letting people reveal themselves over time

This episode is for you if:

• You have a history of choosing emotionally unavailable or narcissistic partners
• You find it very hard to tolerate uncertainty in early dating
• You often override your needs because you do not want to be “too much” or “difficult”
• You get attached quickly and then feel anxious, preoccupied and on edge
• You want a practical, compassionate framework for dating differently

1:1 coaching
If you would like to explore working with me privately you can email me at hello@drgemmagladstone.com for details on my coaching packages.

Support the show

🎁 Download Free Guide: Dating With Insight

🩷 Love Wisely Priority list for Early March 2026

💛 Access Elevate You Worth: Self-Worth Healing Bundle

Connect with Me

🌐 Website: drgemmagladstone.com
📷 Instagram: @drgemmagladstone

📩hello@drgemmagladstone.com

🚩 The Red Flag Project - your ultimate guide to red flags! Get Instant Access

🌻 Support the Podcast
Love the show? Help us keep going with a monthly contribution: Support here

Send Gemma a message

In this episode, Gemma unpacks The Sorry Reflex - the automatic urge to apologise, even when we’ve done nothing wrong. Rooted in the subjugation schema, this coping behaviour often begins in childhood, where expressing needs or disagreeing felt unsafe. When our nervous system equates disapproval with danger, “sorry” becomes a way to stay safe and connected.

Gemma explains how this pattern shows up in dating, relationships, and everyday interactions - especially for women conditioned to be accommodating. You’ll learn to identify your triggers (tone changes, sighs, silence), notice the body’s reaction, and experiment with opposite action to retrain your nervous system.

You’ll also hear a real-life success story from one of Gemma’s Love Wisely group members, plus guidance on combining schema therapy and EMDR to heal the deeper beliefs beneath chronic apologising.

If you’re tired of shrinking yourself, over-explaining or feeling guilty for taking up space, this episode will help you shift from “sorry” to self-trust.

Takeaways

• Over-apologising is a safety response, not good manners.
• Driven by subjugation, approval-seeking, and self-sacrifice schemas.
• Triggers: subtle signs of disapproval—tone, delay, sigh, silence.
• Body cues: chest tightness, racing heart, hyper-empathy.
• Short-term relief, long-term self-erasure.
• Opposite action = growth and rewiring.
• You can disappoint someone and still be safe and loved.

Support the show

🎁 Download Free Guide: Dating With Insight

🩷 Love Wisely Priority list for Early March 2026

💛 Access Elevate You Worth: Self-Worth Healing Bundle

Connect with Me

🌐 Website: drgemmagladstone.com
📷 Instagram: @drgemmagladstone

📩hello@drgemmagladstone.com

🚩 The Red Flag Project - your ultimate guide to red flags! Get Instant Access

🌻 Support the Podcast
Love the show? Help us keep going with a monthly contribution: Support here

Send Gemma a message

If you are asking can this improve, this episode gives you a simple lens. Gemma unpacks two essential capacities that predict whether change is possible in a relationship. You will hear why the brain repeats what is familiar, how schemas drive loops and how to assess real readiness for growth in yourself and in someone you are dating.

In this episode

• Why patterns repeat even when you want something different
• The role of schemas in attraction, conflict and coping
• Two essentials that predict change
• Why avoidance blocks growth
• Dating as data, plus a new way to date with self awareness

Are you ready to join Love Wisely? Doors open again in Feb 26.

Support the show

🎁 Download Free Guide: Dating With Insight

🩷 Love Wisely Priority list for Early March 2026

💛 Access Elevate You Worth: Self-Worth Healing Bundle

Connect with Me

🌐 Website: drgemmagladstone.com
📷 Instagram: @drgemmagladstone

📩hello@drgemmagladstone.com

🚩 The Red Flag Project - your ultimate guide to red flags! Get Instant Access

🌻 Support the Podcast
Love the show? Help us keep going with a monthly contribution: Support here

Send Gemma a message

What limerence really is, why it hooks into our deepest unmet needs and how to gently unhook using a schema-therapy lens.

In Part 2, Gemma explores limerence as a preoccupying, often intoxicating state that’s fueled by unmet needs - with abandonment and emotional deprivation schemas usually at the core. She explains why the brain’s reward systems (hello, dopamine) and a quieted prefrontal cortex can hijack rationality, making red flags easy to miss. You’ll learn practical, compassionate ways to reduce rumination, interrupt mental loops and begin reparenting the vulnerable parts that long for consistent care. Gemma also speaks to when limerence turns into a relationship (and why those tend to be high “schema chemistry”) and offers realistic hope for moving toward grounded, secure love.

Key takeaways

• Limerence = unmet needs + brain rewards. It’s human, common, and often temporary; shame isn’t helpful.
• Schemas under the hood: Abandonment (primary) and emotional deprivation are frequent drivers; attachment style can be a clue, but schemas give the nuance.
• “Schema chemistry” alert: Relationships born from intense limerence often trigger old wounds on both sides.
• Stop feeding the loop: Reduce cues (no social stalking, no photo scrolling). Notice → name → turn your mind.
• Circuit breakers that help: Mindfulness, imagery/rumination interruption, exercise, novelty/learning, supportive people, flow-state activities.
• Reparenting matters: Daily, gentle practices to meet needs consistently will dilute schemas over time.
• When to get help: If limerence becomes distressing, incapacitating or escalates into harmful behaviours, seek professional support.

Practical steps you can try

1. Name it: “This is the limerence loop.”
2. Reduce reinforcement: Unfollow/mute; remove reminders.
3. Shift attention: Choose a grounding task (walk, call a friend, learn something new).
4. Reparenting micro-rituals: Daily check-ins with your vulnerable part; write a brief caring letter to yourself.
5. Track triggers: Note what sparks rumination and plan alternatives.
6. Therapeutic support: Look for schema-informed, experiential work.

Mentioned in this episode

• Coaching spaces now open with Gemma (limited).
• Love Wisely group coaching: next intake planned for late Feb '26 (waitlist in links).
• Reviews really help. Please rate on your podcast app.
• Contact: hello@drgemmagladstone.com

Support the show

🎁 Download Free Guide: Dating With Insight

🩷 Love Wisely Priority list for Early March 2026

💛 Access Elevate You Worth: Self-Worth Healing Bundle

Connect with Me

🌐 Website: drgemmagladstone.com
📷 Instagram: @drgemmagladstone

📩hello@drgemmagladstone.com

🚩 The Red Flag Project - your ultimate guide to red flags! Get Instant Access

🌻 Support the Podcast
Love the show? Help us keep going with a monthly contribution: Support here

Send Gemma a message

🎁 Download Free Guide: Dating With Insight

🩷 Love Wisely Priority list for Feb '26

💛 Access Elevate You Worth: Self-Worth Healing Bundle

If you’ve ever been mentally and emotionally stuck on someone - checking for “signs,” fantasising a future and riding waves of hope and anxiety, then you may have experienced limerence. In Part 1, Gemma explains what limerence is (and isn’t), why uncertainty and fantasy make it so sticky and why the real issue isn’t the person (the “limerent object”) but your unmet emotional needs. You’ll also hear where the concept came from and why it’s often confused with attachment or “true love.”

In this episode, you’ll learn

• A plain-English definition of limerence and how it differs from attraction or love
• The two core fuels: uncertainty and intermittent reward (via fantasies and mixed signals)
• How imagery, rumination, and dopamine loops keep the crush alive
• Why limerence can last months or years and why it often doesn’t lead to healthy, secure relationships
• The link with schemas and unmet needs (preview for Part 2)
• Gentle first steps to reduce the hijack (without shaming yourself)

Key takeaways

• Limerence is an internal state - more about your needs than about them.
• Fantasy offers temporary relief but reinforces the loop.
• Clarity ends limerence (rejection, genuine mutuality, or transferring the preoccupation) - but self-understanding is what prevents the next loop.

Try this (starter steps)

• Notice and name: “This is limerence, not reality.”
• Pause the imagery: limit cues, put boundaries around fantasising/daydreaming.
• Reality-check: list what you actually know vs what you’re imagining.
• Re-invest in life: micro-wins, movement, sleep, friend time, creative focus.
• Journal prompt: “What core need am I trying to meet through this fantasy (safety, worth, belonging, soothing)? How else can I meet it today?”

Teaser for Part 2
How schemas (abandonment, emotional deprivation, defectiveness, approval-seeking) wire us for limerence and a step-by-step plan to unwind it, rebuild self-trust, and stop repeating the pattern.

Resources mentioned

• The early research on limerence (originating in the late 20th century)
• Attachment theory (context), schema therapy (deeper lens)

Support the show

🎁 Download Free Guide: Dating With Insight

🩷 Love Wisely Priority list for Early March 2026

💛 Access Elevate You Worth: Self-Worth Healing Bundle

Connect with Me

🌐 Website: drgemmagladstone.com
📷 Instagram: @drgemmagladstone

📩hello@drgemmagladstone.com

🚩 The Red Flag Project - your ultimate guide to red flags! Get Instant Access

🌻 Support the Podcast
Love the show? Help us keep going with a monthly contribution: Support here