How do I want to be loved?

I woke up with this question this morning - realizing I wasn’t sure about the answer. But let me back up a few weeks.

So I’m currently at Caya Shobo in the Amazon Jungle doing a 12 day Ayahuascha retreat. Before that I was on a dieta to prepare as you need to clear your body from toxins, I did this while traveling through Peru.

One of my intentions during the trip has been to get rid of my dopamine addiction, which has had so many layers to shed. To be clear I did a test last year that proved that I had very very high dopamine levels - so this is not only something in my head.

And it showed as early on the trip when I really couldn‘t close down my ipad as I had stuff left to do. This is definitely part of my issue, that I feel that I have to do stuff and that I don’t feel good unless I get to check them off. This is of course one of the “doings” of my high dopamin levels. But after 3-4 days on the trip i finally managed to close down my iPad.

At the time of doing this I also chose to log off from all social media and only keep the messenger apps. This was of course from the same reason, but also because I wanted to feel more present during my trip.

The first few days after this was easy. I was in Cusco at the time hiking and meeting a lot of fun people and work back in Sweden hadn’t really started up yet. So this was like a “normal” vacation. Not that difficult.

But one morning I was chatting with a friend back home and she asked me if I was excited about my trip and I realized I wasn’t. I was just feeling tired and down. I have felt down for a long time. And it was during these days I realized that I wasn’t only down. I was actually very very tired.

So I booked 4 nights at the Urus Islands, which are super small islands, super small meaning they at like a garden with a house on. Only on the sides of that garden it’s water not the next door neighbor. During those 4 nights I slept, ate and read. I think I read about 1500 pages of the Seven sister series. And after I felt that I was ready to leave. During this time I also began the plant dieta.

At this time work started picking up in Sweden which meant I was facing my first struggles with my dopamine addiction. So at many times I had stresses about stuff I had missed doing before I left etc. I tried no to act on them, thinking if anyone needed something from me, they would ask. And eventually this has happened less and less.

The biggest challenge turned out to be something else = Food. I’ve heard about comfort food etc But I’ve never really understood that I was actually doing it. Also, because it hasn’t been for so long, as it used to be coffee (I stopped drinking coffee about a year ago) :P

So this is how I understand it for me at this time. I tend to have a lot of energy, so I do a lot of stuff. Doing stuff = Dopamine. It’s a nice feeling to have a lot of dopamine so I like to keep it that way. So I do some more stuff. And when I get tired and don’t have the energy to do stuff I eat something and then I have more energy and I can do some more stuff. Which means I get more dopamine.

It’s also had the same pattern for other reasons. For example to avoid stuff. Such as avoid being bored, or avoid feeling lonely or sad. Food is great for that too.

In other words, I’ve been a dopamine addict, who used food as my pick me up.

Now the question is why dopamine?

Here we go in to the love part. I think I’ve used dopamine and achievement to fill the void of the lack of love. And doing get me wrong here, I’ve gotten a lot of love. But I’ve not been open to receiving it which means that it’s never reached me.

I’ve realized that I’m quite difficult to love. Not because I don’t deserve it. But because a lot of love is about caring. And how to care for someone who is so self sufficient as I?

So I realized that the first thing I need to figure out is how do I want to be loved? And how are other people loving me? Because I’m very clear on how I love.

So I started writing that list. And I encourage you to do the same.