Dopamine Detox Wave 2 (Update !)

Warm Greetings, Readers!

I wanted to finally come back and share an update on this long, yet not forgotten, detox journey in this blog post.

The last time I wrote to you in Dopamine Detox Part 1 (you can read wave 1 here,) I posted it at the start of 2022. Now, it’s the beginning of 2025. What I’m about to share are my personal experiences and the benefits of going on a dopamine detox and cultivating healthy habits and rituals aligned with everything I wanted. You would think I’m making this up, but I’m not. I didn’t emphasize enough how messy and overwhelming my life was before I found the motivation and drive to implement these changes.

Let me explain.

More importantly, I was holding way too much space for others, entertaining too much nonsense and excuses, which kept my life in a constant mess. I had just come out of a financial crisis where money wasn’t flowing for a few months, and things were intensifying—bills and expenses were rising like spring tides. I was fed up. At that time, I supported and helped my husband launch a new online business with the intent to bring in more stable, lasting income for us.

The dopamine detox cleared and freed up a lot of unfocused energy and mental space. With deliberate focus, this allowed me to create time and energy to cultivate healthy habits that led to huge, impactful shifts with lasting benefits in my life and my family’s life. Going through this detox confirmed that I’m not only capable, but well able to experience and cultivate a flow state. It was incredible!

I was also able to get toned, reach my ideal body weight, and establish a healthy routine by waking up early before sunrise and having a routine through sunset.

I made space for prayer and affirmations, and I alternated between guided or improvised yoga, dance, self-led exercises, or app-guided workout routines. I did this five sunrises out of seven. One full sun cycle, I would intentionally rest, relax, and fast.

My husband witnessed my shift, and the magical things that started happening in our life motivated him to follow suit. He also became disciplined and focused. We aligned our schedules to prioritize our well-being—eating mindfully and cleanly, homeschooling our daughter, and making time for rest and restoration.

During this time, we cultivated healthy rituals for early rising, midday, sunset, and evening routines. We also managed to create a new online self-paced math course, all while money was temporarily halted and not flowing in. Despite this, we continued working together through the stress, and we eventually set up a new online, family-owned business for our corporate clients. We built the structure over the course of 1-2 months, and soon after, we attracted several clients, which allowed us to cover hefty upfront costs to lease and move our family into a single-family home in Mexico toward the beginning of spring that year.

While on my dopamine detox and doing active dry fasting, I found and perfected a spacious house that we lived in for two years, until the spring of 2024. It had everything I listed and wanted in a house—and more. Over the months, and 1.5 years of looking and doing walkthroughs in different styles and potential rentals, I gradually became clear and specific on everything we wanted in our first rental house here. The rental process and laws are different here, so we moved with caution—and took our time to adapt and learn how things worked.

Though we had no money flowing in at the time, we were confident and trusted the process. We were prepared and expected that it wouldn’t be long before we received clients and income. Despite some lingering fear and doubt, we focused on using our energy to look ahead, stay present, and do our best.

We began the negotiating process with the owners and our lawyers to come to a fair, reasonable price for us. Meanwhile, we continued working on our businesses. Then, the universe showed up—multiple projects and clients arrived, and the flow of currency came right in time for us to move into our new place. Leading up to this, we prayed, visualized daily, stuck to our morning and evening routines, and did everything we could to move forward with balance and stay focused. It was truly magical.

This was our first time living in a modern, unique, single-family, Mexican-style house. It happened to be outside the main neighborhoods and cities. We were surrounded by beautiful landscaping and nature, and we loved it. Settling on the lease agreement and moving in was such an exciting moment.

We managed to allocate our energy toward our businesses, homeschooling, and, for me, focusing on my self-care and state of being as I did everything else. I set healthy boundaries to not overshare myself with my family or make up for any lack of attentiveness or mindfulness I noticed happening in our home. Every time I tried to overextend, I found myself spiraling with them. So, I freed my mind from worries I couldn’t control and did my best to stay focused on my internal state, wellness, and positivity. I’m sure some of you can relate.

This lasted for a few months, but eventually, I started to lose focus. I gradually drifted out of alignment with these healthy practices as I got caught up in more social media and scrolling. The overstimulation of the internet slowly crept back in. While we had many unintentional flow states during this period, we now aim to cultivate deliberate and intentional flow whenever possible. Reflecting on this magical time—along with other moments like it—I see that in a short period, we made huge strides and progress.

2022-2024

Looking back, I see that anchoring and integrating these habits to make them sustainable and consistent was what we could’ve done differently. What I’ve learned is to have faith, get clear, get organized, clear space, and focus on discipline. By taking aligned steps, the universe will take it further as long as we’re co-creating. Next thing you know, you’ll find yourself in divine flow again.

Now, I’ve learned to let go of what no longer serves me. I’m learning to integrate and be consistent with my disciplines, continuing to have faith, staying focused, and cultivating light in the dark spaces. While remaining disciplined, it’s also important to make space to integrate social media, use it for good, and enjoy having fun.

Recently, I’ve been learning to integrate social media into my life without over-consuming it. One way I’m practicing this is by removing social media from my main phone. I no longer have Facebook, Instagram, or Messenger on my primary device. Instead, I keep the apps on a secondary device and log in on my laptop, reducing the convenience and mindless usage. I’ve been doing this for two months now, and it’s allowed me to focus more and embrace the space to hear my organic thoughts, align with myself, and sometimes process what is. I’m no longer splitting my attention or feeding into the addiction of overstimulation from social media, which is often full of weaponized information I can’t properly process for balance.

What I’ve learned is that what’s meant for me is for me—and I’ve found peace with this. Now, I’m focused on nurturing and growing my own garden of life.