what's up everybody this is Chris from the rewired soul where we talk about the
problem but focus on the solution if you are new here my channel is all about
mental health as well as addiction recovery but today we are going to be
talking about forgiveness and how to forgive your parents which is a topic
that hits very close to home with me and it's something that fellow youtuber
Shane Dawson has been going through lately so just to kind of recap Shane
Dawson has been doing a series lately where he's confronting people from his
past kind of meeting up with them talking about things that went wrong and
all that stuff and it's been kind of a healing experience for him Shane's
father left when he was young and he's had a couple interactions but not many
but if any of you follow Shane Dawson you know that he's done a lot of videos
in the past about his father and how it's affected him through his life so
finally he was ready to meet up with his father and talk about the things that
are pretty uncomfortable and I didn't want to make it worse and I knew that
you were venting I knew that you were struggling with life in general and I
figured that time would come when we could talk about it
the whole thing that I realized is that I looked at my childhood like you were
this like quiet angry guy who didn't like me or didn't understand me or any
of that as I grown up and talked to mom I realized that you were probably just
in a bad relationship so yeah that clip you just saw I will put a link to it in
the description below if you would like to watch the whole video but this is a
topic that I've been meaning to do for a while and Shane kind of inspired me to
move one of my other videos over and talk about this today so forgiving our
parents is one of the most difficult things to do a lot of us if you're
watching this channel and you're trying to get mental health help or emotional
health it might be from a lot of stuff that happened in your childhood and it
could have a lot to do with your parents so just a little bit about my story for
those of you who haven't been following my channel I am the son of an alcoholic
mother so growing up it was very very difficult if any of you are children of
alcoholics or drug addicts you know exactly what
talking about as of recording this this is right after Thanksgiving almost
coming up to Christmas and the holidays were the worst time of year for me I
couldn't understand why I just couldn't have a normal childhood
I couldn't understand why Christmas Eve involved me being with my drunk mother
and driving on our way home from my grandma's house with her passed out in
the front seat after causing a big scene in front of our whole family and losing
her mind but other than that this was a regular routine and at a very young age
probably around 13 or 14 years old I decided that I didn't want to visit my
mom anymore because when my parents divorced when I was about four years old
I went and I lived with my dad so at a very young age I separated myself from
my mom now Shane for Shane a lot of his issues manifested in sadness and
depression for me there was some depression but a lot of it was mainly
anger all right I've had a lot of anger issues throughout my life and it's one
of the reasons I made this channel because getting rid of my anger is part
of the way that I've healed myself mentally and I just had so much anger
towards my mother like why couldn't she just be a normal mom why couldn't she
and I also had a lot of resentments towards the rest of the world like I
love my friends but I resented them because they had this perfect family
that I wish I had and I I just started hating the world and I started resenting
just if there is a god why did you put me in this terrible situation now on my
father's side like I said my dad raised me and you know I'm the kind of kid who
grew up in bars my dad I'm his only child I have a half-sister but I'm my
dad's only child so you know growing up I grew up in bars I was a kid five six
years old over in the corner drawing on a place
Matt and stuff all my dad was at the bar drinking with his friends and you know
hitting on the ladies and all this stuff trying to find me a new stepmom or
whatever the hell he was doing and you know growing up like I loved him because
he was there for me when my mother wasn't but he was also out he worked a
lot and when he wasn't working he was out with his friends and stuff like that
and a lot of the times like I was pretty much you know raising myself and growing
up even though I loved my dad I also had some resentment towards this so I just
had a lot of anger with the way that I was parented I grew up watching a bunch
of TV shows and movies where it's just these picture-perfect families I'm just
sitting there like why can't I have that that's actually something I touched on
in a video I recently did leading up to the Thanksgiving holidays so for me for
me personally I am a drug addict and recovery and what I learned about my
addiction was a lot of it was based on my anger and my resentment as well as my
depression I turned to drugs and alcohol I juggle a but not really jokingly say
that drugs and alcohol were my anger management tool that's pretty much how I
kept it together and I wasn't running out beating the hell out of people
punching holes in the walls because I was a prescription pill addict and it
helped calm me down and not many people can make me mad when I'm pretty high um
alcohol was a little bit different of the story that I'll never forget
you know my mom got sober 12 years ago and when she was seven
years sober she helped me get sober but when my family had that intervention you
know I was in a blind rage and every piece of anger that I ever had towards
my mom came out I was calling her names that you should never call anybody let
alone your own mother and just telling her you know it's your fault that I'm
the way I am this way no just losing my mind on her and you
know and then I was taking it out on my dad and my family's crying and trying to
get me to get help now when I got sober and this is something that no whether
you're in recovery or not there's something I can't stress enough like
just because you start working on yourself doesn't mean that you instantly
forgive people like just because my mom helped save my life and my mom helped me
a lot when I first got sober like I still had a lot of anger towards her
when you have a mother who's been a drunk the first 20 years of your life
you don't just get rid of that anger I still had a lot of resentments towards
her and you know when I started working on my mental health I remember a lot of
people saying you know resentments are like drinking poison and hoping the
other person dies and it made sense but I just didn't know how to let go of this
anger and something I also talked about in my other video was these expectations
of what a mother should be of what a father should be and all these other
things and I could not accept her the way she was and I could have forgive her
for the past but like I say all the time we talked about the problem but we focus
on the solution the best lesson that I've learned in life and life in general
is this so pay attention forgiveness isn't an act so much for the other
person as it is an act for yourself when we do not forgive people we are holding
on to like this hot coal and it's just basically burning us and all we have to
do is let go and we let go by forgiving these people and that's when I started
to find some of my emotional freedom was just by simply forgiving my parents and
a lot of it came from writing and writing these things down and talking
about my resentments now if you're a parent if you're a parent watching this
you will probably have the same epiphany that I did as I started writing down my
resentments towards my parents I started to see that I
doing too much better than they were well when my son was still in my Exodus
stomach I had all these ideas of what I was gonna be the perfect father the
perfect parent and all these things and as I'm writing about my parents I'm
seeing that like oh my god I do these things I don't spend time with my son I
don't pay attention to him I'm not there for him emotionally I keep in mind he
was only 3 years old and like I was looking at that and I started to realize
that I'm parenting the way that I was parented and what that did was it helped
me forgive them any even more when I started to realize is that my parents
were simply just a product of their own parents not to give you you know too
much info on my parents but I just want to let you know about some of their
struggles my mother grew up in the 60s and 70s and for those of you who don't
know I'm half african-american my mom pretty much only dates black dudes uh my
dad's black my stepdad was black my sister's father's black so I am half
black well as a young Sicilian girl growing up in the 60s and 70s my mom
used to get her ass beat for dating African Americans and sticking up for
them during the civil rights movements and all these things and my mom's
parents weren't all too happy about that either
my mom ended up having to run away at 16 years old she dropped out of high school
later getting her GED and turning that into a PhD so if any of you need to meet
a strong powerful woman meet my mom um but I have to look at the way that she
was parented right my dad like I mentioned he is african-american and he
grew up during the 50s and 60s and he dealt with a lot and he had some very
hardcore strict parents you know what I mean and this is all about empathy you
know we're so focused on ourselves and how we're affecting by everything we
don't think about what the other person is either a going through or
he has been through and this has helped me not only with my parents but with
human beings in general just having this empathetic view of like there's
something underneath that surface that I don't know about maybe this is the
reason they're acting that way you know I want people forgive me
from my past because I had a rough childhood I ended up getting the disease
of addiction and screwing a lot of people over I want people to forgive me
but at face value a lot of people don't even realize that those are the things
I've been through so I had to start cutting my parents a break and just
realize like it's a cliche saying but they were just doing the best they could
and if you've lost the shane dawson video that's pretty much what he learns
in this video is that his dad you know he did what he thought was best and if
you're a parent out there like i am my little boy is about to turn nine in a
few weeks like it ain't easy we mess up a lot we make a lot of mistakes some are
bigger than others you know but I've learned from my parents mistakes and I
forgive my parents for their mistakes and now I have a beautiful amazing
relationship with them let's bring up some pictures real quick these were just
taken last week when I was in California visiting my family I got to spend time
with my mom I got to spend time with my dad my son was there and my mom's like
my best friend now my dad and I we've rekindled our relationship and all that
kind of stuff and you know like I said I'll repeat it one more time for all of
you in the back who weren't listening remember forgiveness isn't hack for
yourself the sooner you can let go and start forgiving your parents for the
things they've done you'll start healing more and more on the inside so if you
liked this video please give it a thumbs up and again hit that little subscribe
button right below this box because I'm always making videos to help you with
your mental and emotional health also click or tap to the left of me right
there I have a ton of videos on my channel that'll help you out so thanks
for watching go forgive somebody today and I'll see
you next time