Dopamine

an uninvited muse

My body of work follows explorations that unfold in the atmosphere around me. Sometimes these are about sensory experiences, my synesthesia and the way my nervous system processes stimulation. Other times they are explorations of my psyche, and what my heart is experiencing. I’m a painter, but at one point I wondered if I would dive into conceptual art. But I really do love painting a lot, so I find that writing offers that additional layer I want to express from, and my hope is that people who are drawn to my art will not only follow the brush strokes, but also the splashes of words I leave along the way. Reading this essay, for example.

If you’ve followed me more closely, you may remember the show I did in 2018 where I told the story of Sky Woman. That collection, “Contact”, felt like the starting point from my birth into adulthood. I was obviously born into my body way back, but when I painted that collection I think I was being initiated into my body on a spiritual level. Because before that time, I was kind of floating through life, feeling a bit disconnected from a sense of self.

I’ve always had a very deep love for the Earth and nature, but for most of my life; I didn’t have a sense of ancestral belonging, community, or cultural traditions. I’m mixed race and my parents are the example of a beautiful love story; the one where 2 young people from opposite walks of life fall in love and run away to be together. That literally happened with my parents - my father; a Canadian/Indigenous/European man, my mother; a beautiful Pakistani woman who was supposed to be married off as per tradition in her lineage. Neighbors who lived across the street from each other, they would secretly meet up and build a romantic relationship together, one whose composition had rarely existed up until then. It was totally against everything in my mothers ancestral story, a very rare pairing of two people. Fate, perhaps.

This was not a relationship my grandparents would ever approve of, so it was all kept hidden. And then one day, Rashida and Roger planned their inevitable departure together. Living as neighbors in secrecy was no longer enough, so naturally, they executed a plan to live together - toppling the dreams of my grandparents and replacing it with a new version. A romantic adventure about two young lovers breaking free from expectation, my mom packed up her things and ran away from her home. My lovestruck parents hitchhiked across the country to start a new life together, two free spirits following their hearts.

And so it unfolded, I was conceived as a love child.

Sounds amazing and exciting, right? Well for them, I think it was. A knight in shining armor and a beautiful young maiden from a foreign land. But for me, their 1st generation mixed race little girl, it created years of unconscious, psychological displacement. I only began to understand the impact their rebellion had on my psyche many moons later, when I started a deep dive into my life.

(I’m still actually in that deep dive - more on that maybe in my next collection)

“Contact” was about ancestry. It was about “who am I, really? How do I take up space, and why? Who are my people if they are split into two rivers, neither of which I have swam in?” You can learn more about that exploration here, but the truth is that this is a rich experience for me, and I’m in no rush whatsoever. I give my ancestors my full attention and when they guide me to share more through my art, I will.

My “Wallop” collection was not quite as dramatic as Contact was, although it had the underpinnings. At the time I thought I was having fun, surfing in Mexico; dating a really exciting guy, seemingly blissed out as much as a sensitive person can bliss out (never completely). But actually, I was bypassing a lot of stress that was lingering under the surface of my sun-kissed, tanned skin.

One evening about 10 years ago, my beautiful Pakistani mother was in the kitchen at her home, and then collapsed onto the floor. The main aorta to her heart had just torn apart and blood was now rushing toward her brain. Within minutes, she had a stroke. This is an event that very few people survive, in fact, had my brother not been home that evening and heard her fall, she probably would have passed.

My mom’s given name is Rashida, which in Arabic, Afghan & Swahili means “rightly guided". And she is. She has the most incredible resilience of any woman I’ve ever met. Rashida survived that night, but the stroke changed her life forever and has had a huge impact on our family. In this picture you can see the scar on her chest - that’s from the surgery where they placed a graph on the tear over her aorta.

For some reason I still can’t quite explain, a few years post mom's stroke, I started vaping nicotine. And it’s strange for anyone who knows me, because I don’t drink or use recreational drugs, I eat organic food and I’m pretty health conscious. And I had really never smoked much before that, even cigarettes. I don’t know how I even got nicotine into my possession - I think maybe via friends in a nice organic hand-rolled cig? Whatever it was, that nicotine and I became quite close. And I’ll be honest, it helped me with a lot of stress. Stress that continued beyond my mom’s health crisis and into a personal one, where years later (post wallop era); I was facing a heartbreak that really dug deep into me.

And now I’m at “Dopamine”, my newest collection. If you know anything about this neurochemical, you might see where this essay is going.

Small works on paper; these paintings look like sophisticated petri-dish specimens (actual words from a friend). You’ll see that I gave the paintings very specific names. Well, those names did not come about over a 24-hour period of me wrapping up a body of work and in a frenzy about to release them; forced into naming them (yes, I have done this in the past). No. This theme is very deliberate, very thought out, and very conscious.

Consuming Nicotine releases dopamine in the brain, and lots of it. And dopamine feels really, really good. Dopamine is a neurochemical that involves the brain’s reward system and is made in the hypothalamus. It increases feelings of happiness and euphoria. It’s also amplified when we are in a romantic relationship. In fact, the dopamine hits of falling in love shut off the prefrontal cortex, the part of the brain that controls rational behaviour. So it’s no wonder that I became addicted to vaping, and that I became deeply attached to a relationship that really wasn’t good for me, during a time when I was grieving the possible death of my mother. If not a physical death, the aortic dissection and the stroke totally changed her life, and mine. She went from being at the height of her career as a social worker, to losing her ability to speak or walk, like the vibrant person she once was. As time progressed, she was never the same person again, even with fantastic health care. There was a death of identity, and if you’ve ever watched someone you love lose their life force; you’ll know that it’s no small thing. I’m also her primary caregiver, so I am committed to being there for her as she navigates this. She’s only 62 at the time of this writing, and I didn’t think I’d ever find myself here at this time in my life.

Dopamine, while making us feel good, can also be dangerous. It’s the same chemical that activates when people do drugs or binge eat and has been studied extensively in relation to addiction. It’s what makes us scroll our phones or watch Netflix for longer than we really want to. And if things go wrong and the attachments that increase dopamine are interrupted, the disruption can result in irrational behaviour and even withdrawal symptoms.

Without getting too deep into how it unfolded, what’s occurred for me over the past few years is an on/off attempt at quitting vaping, and the abrupt ending of a relationship - a relationship which I had somehow convinced myself was a safe harbour in all of this grief; and had formed a deep physiological attachment to. I’m only human, and the brain has a great way of keeping us going - even if it’s unhealthy for other parts.

Relationships and nicotine both increase dopamine levels in the brain, and here I was severing my connection to both. And there’s a withdrawal that happens when one cuts them off. So there was a lot of brain chemistry being adjusted, including withdrawals. Meanwhile… wondering if my mom will die. This beautiful, trail-blazing woman who held me in her womb, could die at any time. There is a chemical reaction to that as well - you may notice it in yourself when you read that last sentence.

My overall mindset was that of a state of loss, and I was fighting to keep it all together.

This isn’t a story about me being a victim or evoking sadness from you (although I know it is sad). As an artist, I have my head in the clouds, but as a human, I try to have my feet on the ground. And I truly believe that life is a miracle, offering zero guarantees. Life is not designed to be fair. But I seem to have this relentless awareness of beauty, of wonder, of gratitude, and I always, always reach for the golden nugget of every experience I have. I am committed to alchemizing, transforming whatever comes into my atmosphere into a muse. Even if the circumstance is uninvited - as life sometimes goes.

I’ve been a meditator for over 20 years, and I’m a very spiritual person. I feel Creator in everything, every object, every sound, every color, each person I meet. Even things that are undesirable, I see it all as one thing experiencing itself in parts that appear to be separate.However, unlike at other times in my life, my spiritual awareness was not enough to pull me through the dopamine epoch. I needed processes that rewired my brain and nervous system, processes that broke down my addiction to love and to vaping. Dopamine withdrawal is no joke - ask anyone who has quit smoking. And think about what happens to your physiology when you go through a breakup or a significant loss… it can literally feel like your heart is breaking (unless you mask it with distractions, like many of us do). And that’s not actually what’s happening, what’s happening is related to the connection between the brain and the body. Either way though, it takes up bandwidth. It’s painful and can be very draining, especially for sensitive people such as myself. This is what brought me to neuroscience, and I was pretty desperate.

Neuroscience is the study of the nervous system, which includes the brain, spinal cord, and nerves. The brain controls every aspect of the body, from emotion and memory to movement, breathing, and controlling the heartbeat. And when we can hack the neurological programs that the brain is running, drastic changes can occur. I’ve spent the last 3 years or so doing a deep dive into neuroscience, and this understanding has made a huge impact on me. It’s made me more compassionate toward myself and others. It helps me understand that my behavior and my addictions are not personal, they come from programs related to survival that began in the formative years, when we are so innocent and have to trust everything we learn, even if it no longer serves us as adults. It helps me understand trauma, stress, and suffering, things that seem so personal but are literally a series of chemical processes firing off in the body (very painful nonetheless). I find it fascinating to know that there are a variety of ways to consciously dose myself with dopamine, endorphins, serotonin, and other feel-good chemicals, that I can choose the chemistry rather than having it imposed upon me through thoughts that don’t serve me. I love knowing that through neurogenesis, we can actually affect our genes and our so-called genetic destiny - something science once told us was impossible. This is incredible stuff! And there is so much fantastic information out there to access these tools for transformation. Will it help me better cope when my aging parents pass away? Will I navigate my next romantic relationship at a smoother pace? How much energy should I give to sadness, to fear, to infatuation, to scrolling through the internet; getting those fast dopamine hits? Can we heal from chronic illness, can we break free from addictions? Neuroscience is rich. For me, it’s like realizing that a large part of me is running like a computer and I can actually replace the software. Through practice, I can break down the walls I have inside of me, releasing my body from blockages and diving even deeper into my sensory experience of beauty. I am so grateful that this field of science is exploding, and that is why I created this new body of work.

I hope that you enjoy viewing the work as much as I did creating it. I hope that you find your way through whatever it is you are carrying in your heart. I hope that you get better at what you are already doing so well. And I hope that we all learn to have more compassion, patience and kindness for each other, because at the end of the day - most of the not-so-great stuff that what we experience with ourselves and others is not personal. It’s usually just coming from old programs. The programs run deep, and we can change them, even if it takes a long time, effort, and practice*.

~ Natalie

*sidenote about privilege here