Love Bombing Explained: The Warning Signs, Red Flags & How to Protect Yourself

Links talked about: Invite to Lean into your intuition workshop

Love bombing is not romance.

It’s overwhelming, intense, calculated behaviour designed to create emotional dependency.

In this episode, dating and nervous system coach Sam Morris breaks down:

• What love bombing actually is
• The early warning signs most people miss
• Why excessive gifts and fast commitment aren’t green flags
• How dopamine and adrenaline cloud your judgement
• Why anxiety can feel like chemistry
• The connection between love bombing and trauma bonding
• How to stop repeating toxic relationship cycles

With the phrase “love bombing” everywhere in the media right now, this episode goes beyond headlines and into real-life relationship psychology.

What Is Love Bombing?

Love bombing is intense, excessive attention early on in dating that feels flattering — but is designed to fast-track intimacy and create dependency.

It often includes:

• Expensive gifts very early (e.g. luxury jewellery after one date)
• Over-the-top declarations of love within days
• Rushing commitment (“let’s move in”, “I’ve never felt this before”)
• Constant contact and boundary violations
• Isolation from friends and family
• Emotional highs and lows (“you’re amazing” → “I hate you”)

The problem?

Your brain is flooded with dopamine.

And when you're chemically high, you don’t make logical decisions.

Why Love Bombing Feels So Good (And So Hard to Spot)

When someone overwhelms you with affection, your nervous system interprets intensity as connection.

But intensity is not intimacy.

If you’ve experienced:

• Emotional abuse
• Narcissistic relationships
• Cheating
• Trauma bonding
• Repeated toxic patterns

…your nervous system may mistake red flags for green flags.

Without healing, the chaos feels familiar.

And familiar feels safe.

The Nervous System Reset Most People Skip

One of the biggest mistakes after a love bombing experience is jumping straight into another relationship without healing.

If you don’t reset your nervous system:

• You’ll be attracted to the same intensity
• Healthy love will feel “boring”
• Anxiety will feel like chemistry
• You’ll repeat the cycle with a different person

Healthy relationships grow slowly.

They don’t need to move at lightning speed.

How to Protect Yourself From Love Bombing

Sam shares practical tools including:

✔ Taking intentional time alone (3–6 months minimum)
 ✔ Learning your body’s signals for safety vs anxiety
 ✔ Testing boundaries (pause contact and observe reactions)
 ✔ Slowing commitment down deliberately
 ✔ Healing trauma before dating again
 ✔ Developing healthy relationship skills
 ✔ Regulating your nervous system

Because healed people attract healed relationships.

Ready to Break the Pattern?

If you’re tired of repeating the same relationship cycle, take the Love Loop Quiz.

It will show you:

• Your relationship pattern
• Why you’re attracted to certain dynamics
• What needs to change to attract aligned, healthy love

Find out how to change those patterns with the love loop quiz

Transcript

Sam Morris (00:00.302)
you

Sam Morris (00:16.266)
Love bombing is...

overwhelming calculated behaviour designed to make someone dependent on the other person. So today I wanted to do a whole episode because the phrase love bombing has been flying around all over the place. I don't know if you've been keeping up with the news and Katie Price and her new really quick marriage

UN-

It's everywhere online, it's she's being love bombed and obviously she's she's come out and and so I know that I did a whole episode on love bombing before but that was from a point of view of preventing someone from love bombing.

Sam Morris (01:17.978)
This episode I want to be more about the signs of lovebombing and...

how to prevent that from happening to you.

If you don't know me already, I am Sam Morris. I am a qualified healthy relationship practitioner and I have been helping people heal their nervous system so they can attract healthy love for the past 10 years. You may have noticed if you are listening to the podcast that I have had a name change. So the podcast, when I first started the podcast and I've spoken about this before, was primarily aimed at men, hence the word

ever happened to the gentlemen. And then over the years I had women asking me well what about me too?

And so I changed the podcast but the name remained and I went off, I went to a conference with my coach and there was a guest speaker who was talking all about how you should change, how you should have the podcast very, very simple like so that people can really, really understand what it's about and...

Sam Morris (02:46.562)
they asked a question about whether the podcast name was actually aligned with what I was doing and I realised that it wasn't.

we have a name change to make it completely clear what this podcast is all about and it is about helping people who are single to heal their nervous system so that they can attract healthy love into their life. So let's get on to the episode. You have all probably heard of Katie Price and how she split up from one relationship and then straight away

into another one, engaged after the first date and then married the next day. And so many people are calling this love bombing. So I just wanted to kind of address what love bombing actually looks like to people who have absolutely no idea whether they have been love bombed or not.

And it is this intensity that sometimes people do not figure out. They don't realise that it's happening to them because it's so intense, it's so overwhelming. And it's really, really hard to just be like, no, this isn't right. So the first warning sign I would always say is excessive gifts.

like really early on. So you just met this person and they are sending you flowers, they are buying you, I have one client that after the first date this man bought her a Tiffany bracelet, right, after a first date. And I don't care how much money you've got.

Sam Morris (04:45.824)
or how little money you've got. Buying a Tiffany bracelet after a first date is not okay. It's too much. And it automatically starts to make someone indebted to that person because of the amount of it. But excessive gifts is huge. So imagine that you joined my email list today.

you took my love loop quiz to find out what patterns you've been in in your relationship and then tomorrow I send you a box of chocolates. Firstly you'd probably be wondering how I got your address right and then also you would be like hmm this is a bit strange but okay thanks Sam and then the next day I send you

bunch of flowers.

and then the following day I send you some chocolates to your work.

Sam Morris (05:53.167)
And then I send you message saying I want to take you out and I've booked the shard. You'll probably be going, Sam like I literally just joined your email list, like go away. But when it's a relationship, when it's someone that you're attracted to.

You get an attraction and it builds dopamine in your body and puts you on a natural high. The question you have to ask yourself, if you have ever been intoxicated through alcohol or through drugs, and there's no judgement here, do you make good decisions when you have been intoxicated?

because being intoxicated by dopamine, by adrenaline, which is what happens when someone is love bombing you.

is the same. Your logical side of your brain doesn't work in the same way that it normally would.

another sign of

Sam Morris (07:05.578)
Another warning sign of love bombing is intense declarations of love. So like with this whole scenario of meeting one day, getting married the next, this isn't uncommon. And I see this with a lot of the people that I work with. It's quite normal for that to happen. One of my clients met someone and literally they came around the house one day and never left.

That actually happened to me as well. Years and years ago I met someone and they came round to my house and then pretty much didn't leave again.

Sam Morris (07:54.509)
And it's that intenseness that's not healthy, it's not normal, it's not normal to spend half an hour with someone and then say to you, I think this is love.

Sam Morris (08:12.0)
And if someone else said that to you, if you, a friend, family member said to you, I met this person and after half an hour they told me they loved me, you would be like, what? Go away. Like, what is this person on about? So, but when it's ourselves, again, with the dopamine, with the, I don't wanna be alone. And it takes over.

and the emotional side of the brain kicks in and we don't make good decisions. Another warning sign is constant contact. it's really hard to differentiate with this one because when you first get into a relationship you do talk to each other a lot and technology makes this super easy.

Sam Morris (09:08.108)
and it's really hard to tell if this is love bombing or is this just a normal we're getting to know each other thing

My advice for this one would be to take a pause. If you are constantly messaging back and forth and you're like, is this a problem? Pause the messaging for four hours. Tell them you're gonna do it and then see if they keep messaging you.

super easy because if you said I'm busy at work for the next four hours or seven hours five hours, however much it is and I'm busy and they continue to text you, they continue to message you, they continue to try and call you, they're overstepping your boundaries there and straight away like you shouldn't be engaging with anyone that is overstepping those boundaries.

Sam Morris (10:13.996)
The next warning sign is rushing commitment and this is similar to the declarations of

Sam Morris (10:25.994)
Let's move in together. We just met, let's move in together.

I have a client

Sam Morris (10:38.286)
I have someone who expressed an interest in working with me and I have a general rule when I work with people that I am brutally honest. I don't go around the houses, that is not what people hire me for. And this person, we got on a one to one call and she explained about her previous relationship and she said that she met him and then a week later he moved in.

and I said to her well that's your problem and when we like I asked her bit of questions and we talked about previous relationships and this is pretty much the same pattern that she had had in every relationship she got into the relationship and they'd moved in super quickly and then it all went wrong and I said to her

that's what you need to change. The next relationship that you get into, you need to take a pause, you need to have a rule that they can't move in for at least six months. And she decided not to work with me based on that.

Sam Morris (11:50.713)
Three months later, she messaged me and said, Sam, I've done it again. And this guy's worse than the last one.

you cannot make a decision about someone, a logical decision about someone when it's rushed. If you think about any sort of other situation in your life when there has been an emergency, so

state of emergency maybe someone's fell over maybe you've had a car accident whatever it is think about a state of emergency and then think about how good your decision-making skills were in that situation and that is what it is when you rush connection you are in a state of emergency and therefore don't make good decisions

Sam Morris (12:53.29)
Another real big warning sign is isolation so don't hang out with your friends, hang out with me. I want to come along. And I've spoken about this before and people were laughing on YouTube at me and my stupidity of this. Of one of my exes showing up every single time I went out and how...

I chose to stay with that person but that's the reality of manipulation and of emotionally abusive relationships and when it first starts it seems quite cute like they want to be out with me and then it becomes obsessive and then it becomes isolation.

Sam Morris (13:45.729)
And another really big warning sign is the emotional changes and how fast they are. So one minute they love you and you're amazing and you're the best thing that ever happened to them, to the next minute they're so angry and they are calling you all the names under the sun. And that is absolute manipulation.

And like I said, I don't try and sweeten this up and anyone that's listening to this that is thinking, I do that, you're recognising it. Now that you know, you can go get some help. Go get help to stop you from doing that. If you continue to keep going in these cycles, you're gonna end up alone anyway.

And if you are someone that has been through that, where you have been with someone where it's, we're so in love, we're so in love, we're so in love, I hate you.

then I'm really sorry for you and I'm sending you big virtual hugs because I have been there and it's awful and you don't know whether you're coming or you're going and you're constantly on eggshells and you're constantly not trying to make anyone angry but most of the time you don't even know what you did to make them angry and it's confusing.

and that's a warning sign and so early on if that happens that is your get out, run for the hills, this person is not emotionally ready to be in a relationship with you.

Sam Morris (15:27.34)
The thing with all of this and the reason that I do these episodes and that I'm doing this one in particular is because it's so so important to keep yourself safe. And if you don't know these things, like I spent years working with domestic violence perpetrators, I know these things inside out.

Sam Morris (15:52.057)
but I didn't know them before I started learning those things. And I was in a cycle of abuse that I didn't realise. So...

Sam Morris (16:10.764)
the thing with this and the whole thing with people jumping from one relationship to another and why it's so important to keep yourself safe and stop yourself from getting into these cycles.

Sam Morris (16:35.83)
is because you're not even getting a nervous system reset. If you have been through a love bombing situation and then you've gone straight into another relationship, it's quite likely that that's going to happen because you're so used to those intense feelings that you're not going to notice because your nervous system hasn't been reset.

And the problem is that a lot of the time unprocessed trauma from the past relationship has carried over into the new one. So even if you manage to find someone that is what I would call a healthy person, that is emotionally available, that isn't avoidant, that isn't abusive, you still haven't processed what happened before.

which means you're highly unlikely to stay in that relationship.

Because healthy, normal people don't want to fix trauma. And that is the truth. And I've spoke about this so many times before that if I had not done the work that I did on myself, I wouldn't be with my husband. He was never interested in trying to fix someone.

He was interested in the healed version of me. And together, we are powerful. But if I hadn't have done that work, and he did his own healing work, I don't know if he hadn't have done that like I didn't know him before that, if he hadn't have done that, then maybe I wouldn't have, he wouldn't have been the right person for me either. I don't know.

Sam Morris (18:32.43)
The problem is that if you don't heal your nervous system after you've been through a traumatic relationship, often red flags can feel like green flags.

because your nervous system is still like in a crisis mode and it's like, this is great. So things like the intense, we just met, really like this person, now they're proposing.

It seems like a Green flag because I want to get married. I want to be in a healthy relationship. I want to be in that relationship.

Sam Morris (19:16.108)
But you haven't healed from the last relationship.

Sam Morris (19:21.974)
and you mistake this intensity for connection.

and you think that this dopamine hit that you're getting means love.

Sam Morris (19:37.974)
and often will then repeat the same patterns just with a different person because you haven't learnt any different.

And so if you are someone that has been through love bombing, manipulation, cheating, or you've been alone for a while and you face a lot of rejection.

Sam Morris (20:03.778)
The solution is very simple. Heal the nervous system. Change what you're attracted to. Learn healthy relationship skills. Manifest love. Simple. Once you have all of them, healthy love will be magnetic to you.

and show you some steps.

if you're newly single.

Sam Morris (20:38.286)
Take some intentional time alone. Three to six months is a minimum before you even start looking at dating. Learn how to be who you actually are without somebody else. Because once you do, once you realise how absolutely fucking amazing you are, then you'll attract someone who thinks that you're absolutely fucking amazing too.

Sam Morris (21:15.86)
start to learn your body's for safety and fear and anxiety. Anxiety and chemistry show up in a very similar way in your body and it is that feeling underneath your chest like butterflies in your stomach. It's exactly the same feeling. So if you haven't healed your nervous system, if you don't have a regulated nervous system,

it's quite likely that those feelings of butterflies when you meet someone new might actually be anxiety. You just don't figure it out. And so you need to start to learn what your body's telling you first and lean into your intuition. I have a workshop.

called Lean Into Your Intuition, which I will pop in the link below if you want to join that because that is a great first step into learning what your body is trying to tell you so that you don't need to try and figure it all out. Your body will just tell you anyway.

Sam Morris (22:33.024)
Real connection doesn't need to move at lightning speed. Real connection grows slowly. Think of a tree. You plant a tree.

Sam Morris (22:51.16)
Think of healthy love as if you were planting a flower.

and you plant the flower, it's got no buds, it's got nothing, and you water it over time, and you give it some sunlight, and you give it some fresh air, and gradually it starts to grow, and it starts to bloom.

Sam Morris (23:16.93)
That is you. You are the flower. You need to water yourself. You need to give yourself some sunlight, fresh air, and you need to give yourself some time.

Sam Morris (23:33.11)
and then you will attract healthy love just like that flower will attract the bees.

Sam Morris (23:42.548)
If you found this episode useful, would really really appreciate you to share. Share it with anyone. Share it with someone that you think, my god I think that they are being love bombed. Or share it with someone that you think is a love bomber. Let them know. Let them know that there's help out there.

Sam Morris (24:17.036)
And if you are tired of going through the same relationship cycles and you want to figure out what your patterns are and how to change them so that you can actually finally attract healthy love, then take my Love Loop Quiz. It will give you the step by step of what you need to do. It's trained by me based on my 10 years experience in helping people find healthy love.

I will see you next time.