Dopamine Reset: Let's party like it's 1999!

I have been exploring ever more how to come home to myself. Honestly, I have been trying to do that since I split off, probably at age four when my sister was born. I wanted to take care of her because my parents were in turmoil, and then severely severed at age 12, when my father died by suicide.

Many of us have early life experiences in which we shut down or cleaved off vital parts of ourselves. I found from therapy work, the injury could have been one sentence, you should be more like your brother, or the "guidance" is more subtle, you notice who gets attention and strive to be more like that, depending on your gender: smarter, stronger, smaller, quieter. Then there is abuse we recognize as such, emotional, physical or sexual, and abuse we don't often recognize, neglect. Most of us find ourselves somewhere in this description, or love someone who is.

For me, seeking energy, wanting energy began in my youth, steamy same sex exploration in middle school, alcohol and clove cigarettes as a teen, anorexia and alcohol as a young adult and finally, when I "grew up," getting my fixes from shopping and food for forever. Seeking is good, while I achieved some genuine tendrils of connection, more often, I was/am always craving, rarely achieving satiety.

Here, I'll discuss for me how this cycle of craving and never getting is currently manifesting. Then I'll share what levers I am pulling to reset my seeking/dopamine system. I hope you find something useful to apply to your own life!

The Casualties: Sleep, Shopping and Sex
Sleep:
In my twenties and thirties, once in bed, I felt as though a lead blanket was laid upon me, like I was being dragged, blissfully asunder. Although I'd had bouts of insomnia and decades of interrupted slumber due to parenting, in peri-menopause shifted something and I no longer was summoned by sleep. I felt as though I'd forgotten how. 

Thrift shopping til I be dropping or Rags not Riches:
I love beauty and variety, I come from generations of women who sewed, who loved fabric. I identify as neuro-spicy and my spiciness manifests in being obsessed, thrilled, specially interested in color and pattern, cloth and clothes. My name means honeybee, and I liken myself to a bee who needs to visit flowerbeds daily or starve. My flower beds are racks of clothes at the thrift store. Gabor Mate, a famous trauma therapist, described how being separated for six months as an infant being correlated to his obsession with buying classical records. This isn't to say we shouldn't have hobbies or collections or interests, rather, we might notice if the chase is the most interesting part. And then, ask yourself, do you enjoy what you gather? I've had clients who spend hours "cruising" for the perfect porn, saving them in files they will never open. I've had (I am) clients who have closets of clothes they save for future versions of themselves they are waiting to become. 

Sex:
Where oh where has my orgasm gone, or where oh where can she be (sung to the tune of "where has my little dog gone" :) For a decade, this inability to rest, to drop, to land feels correlated to a dulling of sensation when I have an orgasm. Our nervous system needs to both spike and resolve to come. I have shared in retreats and newsletters some of my journey of orgasm recovery which includes loads of interventions. Still muted. Devastation still.

The Cure: Dopamine reset
We need both excitation and restoration. Two primary neurotransmitters responsible for these processed are dopamine and Serotonin and dopamine are critical neurotransmitters that work as a team to regulate your mood, motivation, and decision-making. While they act in concert to stabilize your emotions, they have fundamentally different primary roles in the brain. Dopamine is the brain's reward and motivation center which drives you to take action, seek pleasure, and learn from immediate rewards. Serotonin is the brain's emotional stabilizer, responsible for long-term feelings of well-being, calmness, impulse control, and contentment.

Many of us needing more serotonin, our "rest and digest" or "breed and feed" gear. Modernity with artificial light, rapid transportation, easy procurement of food and having a phone in our hands is the culprit. We are not walking, planting, hunting, gathering and sleeping among the stars. Technology for me, has been a constant yammer, I get hooked, maniacally checking for texts and clearing my inbox.

If rest and resetting are calling to you, do some research, consider your habits with loving help. Some places to start:

1. Audit your phone use.
I made small adjustments to limit temptations like keeping the phone in the other room during meals, letting my word game subscription run out and keeping a book on my Kindle App on my phone, so I am reading something longer form when I want something to do on my phone but don't want to scroll. This doesn't mean I don't geek out on Instagram, but not at night anymore and no matter the time of day, I give myself time parameters. 

2. Go analog, slow wave.
   Many of the activities we engaged with in 1999 were what I call “slow wave,” things like cooking, doing the crossword puzzle in the paper, reading, knitting, tinkering. There has been a resurgence of mending and cross stitch or knitting, brewing beer, gardening, canning, foraging, reading your kids bedtime books instead of handing them a tablet, listening to records. These activities ground us and we have the slow accumulation of benefits, new skills learned, foodstuffs and crafts to enjoy, new human connections made.
   
   2. Have verbal and body cues.
   Find a word to repeat as a mantra to remind yourself to absorb the goodies in your life. Try Bask, Savor, Rest, Melt, Luxuriate, BE. When you are hugging or touching someone, petting a pet, really be conscious of the receiving and giving.
   
   3. Practice a few relaxing poses.
   Legs on the wall does it for me. I lay on my bed, head on a pillow, legs up and read in the evening. Happy baby yoga pose on the floor is also excellent.
   
   4. Check your inputs.
   I stopped drinking caffeine and sugar (mostly). Giving up Diet Pepsi and Earl Grey tea seemed impossible, but I did it. I may return someday, I seem to have cycles, but at this time I have substituted a protein drink in the morning and other kinds of bubbly for a treat in the afternoon such as a kombucha or probiotic soda. Hard stops and withdrawals for about a week, yet each time I do this reset, I feel suppleness where inflammation reined. Magnesium and Ashwaganda might be helping as well, too early to tell. I wake up and walk for 10 minutes a day to get morning light and movement, adding a three minute exercise “snack” to get my heart rate up (thank you Dr. Rhonda, Patrick!)
   
   5. Stretch out the rewards, savor the spoils.
   I now have a more embodied rhythm regarding thrift shopping. I shop one day, try on the clothes the next, wait a day or two, then shop. This has lengthened enjoying my conquests. I am also dressing for the fun parts of me - pink for romance (Kisses), animal print for my inner Diva (Bites) and a clothing article or accessory that signals book nerd (Pets). Reducing the manic edge to my purchasing, a dream has risen - to have a small pop up kind of shop where I sell my thrifted treasures and books. Slow wave, giving women a chance to gather in another way than online shopping.
   
   6. Be mindful of all moments.
   For me, not having the finale fireworks orgasm forced me to find another path of pleasure. This was a deepening, tasting kisses, feeling hip against hip, celebrating the return of desire, oil slowly saturating a wick, the lamp turning to a rosy glow. I fancied myself a rose and my fantasies changed from being deflowered by priests to Sasquatch, which seemed like evolution. There are times emerging after now two months of resetting my neural pathways, I find, feel and savor, bask in pleasure again, akin to how I felt in my fabulous forties when my husband Adam and I were new to one another. 

Dopamine is a wonderful molecule. We just want to enjoy the others as well. Honor your particular nervous system, explore, experiment!