Hello Everybody,
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Time to shed some light on the "dopamine detox" that seems to constantly be going around the internet.
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Most people are getting sucked into these dopamine detox programs and ideas without knowing what's is actually going on or why it might not be necessary at all.
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​>>SHORT CUT: I rocked a youtube video on this if you prefer that formate (CLICK ME)<< ​
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The truth is that we don't need a dopamine detox, we need to re-learn association.
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​🙋‍♂️ "Cool, cool... so I know what that means, but in case my friends don't... why not tell them..."
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​The meatloaf that is between your ears is a meaning making machine, it wants to tie ideas and connections together in an effort to understand life more. Turns out that the more pattern recognition you have, create and understand the longer you live. We used this model and ran with it for about 100,000 years all those generations sharpening up our frontal cortex to do something really fantastic.
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Learn to be anxious about things that haven't happened yet.
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Super exciting stuff right...
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Probably not, since we and all our cool evolutionary goodness just use that to confirm the judgment, shame, stress, unworthiness, and lack of love we experience every day..... AND AND AND .... our brain is doing that to keep us safe.
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​MAINTAINING A STATUS QUO IS SAFETY EVEN IF IT IS TOXIC. Our brain prefers certainty over healthy. ​
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What is one to do?
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Make the unpredictable and uncertain certain.
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Let me tell you a story from my childhood.
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Young Christopher was terrified of thunderstorms and, specifically, wind. I had a bad experience that rooted fear it and I can't quite pin point when it occurred but it did.
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Now, if you haven't heard this before, hear it meow (🐱). My mom is a fantastic person, amazing Grandma to my tiny human, she's also a social worker of many years and a trauma therapist of many moons.
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One night there was a really bad wind storm, I was scared and ran into my moms bedroom, she scooped me up and took me into our front yard on a warm summer night and, holding me did something called "exposure therapy".
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Which at it's core is "feel the fear and do it anyway".
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We lay in the grass and I was safely exposed to the thing I was terrified of.
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IT WORKED! The fear dissolved and continued to dissolve for years. Today I'm a kiteboarding novice and love a good windy day.
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That's because neuroplasticity is available to us at any time, in any state.
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In fact lots of research is showing us that when we are scared, afraid, and not regulated might be the best time to program ourselves to our benefit!
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We know that often trauma and overstimulation programs us for avoidance. What if we could us stress for our benefit... .could be cool.
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Well that's why the dopamine detox isn't functional.
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It's teaching with the right intentions but wrong systems.
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I didn't need to learn to have a better fear of the wind; I needed to associate it and understand it differently.
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Dopamine is the same way, any habit is the same way, it needs to be understood in a different way.
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There are 2 ways (minimum) to understand anything.
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When it comes to the dopamine detox, we don't need to detox it. We need to understand what short burst of easy rewards has taught us.
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Mostly, we use it for avoidance, distraction, and dissociation from our own reality.
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That teaches us to... associate our own discomfort with... disconnection. We never address what's real becaues there is always an escaoe inside the black mirror of our phones....
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The cure is learning slow habits, understanding how we associate our own discomfort with disconnection, and learning to reassociate our reward pathways properly so we can actually reward ourselves to our own benefit.
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We struggle with discipline and focus because we have low to no impact on inner reward mechanism due to our quick fix addiction.
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I dive more into this on the YouTube video: (Watch here)​
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The truth is we are poor at self-care because this association with quick habit change has lowered our attention span to such a low degree that we cannot focus long enough to understand, integrate, and experience life anymore.
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Fundamentally, we are altering our brain by choosing those pathways.
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So the next time you consider hitting up the addiction of scrolling consider why you're doing it.
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⭐️ I've never done this before.
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​In our group coaching program this month, we are focused on overstimulation and belief systems. It's a long-form workshop that can strongly support you breaking patterns that no longer serve you. If you've ever considered joining our programs but haven't made the jump I want to make a deal with you.
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I'll outline what's included below and because you're in our mailing list here's the deal, join us today and I'll include 2x 1v1 coaching calls with me. Typically my coaching calls are $1,200 and I'm going to give you 2x of them to support your journey. This is only available until Thursday at 10am EST and I imagine spots go fast because I only have so many seats on my calendar.
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Here are the details:
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VALUE:

📍 4x Workshops with Dr. Chris Thursdays at 11 am EST.

📍4x Bookclubs Friday at 11am EST.

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BONUS: 2x coaching calls with Dr. Chris
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Cost: $400/mo
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Spots will go fast!
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CLICK HERE TO JOIN TODAY AND RESERVE YOUR SEAT.
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See you soon!
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CL