if you're like me you've done some things in your past that you're not too
proud of so in this video we're gonna talk about how to forgive yourself and
move forward so stay tuned what's up everybody this is Chris from the rewired
soul where we talk about the problem but focus on the solution and I just want to
start this video out by giving you a few little tidbits about my past and what
I've done so I am definitely qualified to talk to you about how to forgive
yourself and move forward so those of you who follow my channel you know that
I am a drug addict and alcoholic in recovery if you've ever met a drug
addict or alcoholic they're not the best people a lot of my life even before my
addiction began I was living in a lot of selfishness self-centeredness self
seeking all these different things was hurting a lot of people now for me it
was kind of hard to see that because I was living in a world where everything
was everybody else's fault my behaviors were justified based on the way that I
was raised and based on the way that the world treated me as my addiction started
to kind of grow and grow and grow I started doing a lot of terrible things
that I ended up hating myself for you know I'll never forget a story that I
often pop back to is just remembering my you know then two-year-old son knocking
on the bathroom door wanting nothing about my attention but I was in there
crushing of snorting pills you know things like that still haunt me to this
day even though I have forgiven myself a lot sometimes these memories pop back
and they kind of just flash in my head like this bolt of lightning but other
than that I lied cheated stolen from my friends my family members I you know
we'll talk about toxic relationships that I was in but I have also recognized
a lot of the terrible things on identical Asian ships too although I
never cheated I did a lot of very very bad things and it was not fair to any of
my significant others who I dated so when you struggle with depression it
makes it even worse we have brain that is constantly talking
negatively about ourselves and you know one thing that I always talk about is
like no matter how much crap people talk about me like my brain is telling me so
much worse like so so much worse and you might be able to relate to that and if I
ever wanted to be mentally healthy I had to learn how to forgive myself and the
question was how how do you forgive yourself for these terrible terrible
terrible things that you've done and there's a few things to do and gradually
it'll help I'm not saying this is something that happens overnight it is a
process so the first thing now I'm part of a program we're part of it was making
amends to people I had to make a list of all the people that I have wronged and I
had to go around and write my wrongs now when making an amends when
apologizing to people one thing that we often get twisted is apologizing and
expecting forgiveness now I was taught to fully understand that everybody that
I apologized to is not necessarily going to forgive me and I had to learn to be
okay with that like if you're somebody like me who was
very vindictive and held on to a grudge forever like and make sense like I
screwed a lot of people over so when going back and apologizing for who I
used to be I had to realize that they might tell me to go screw myself and for
me personally my experience was and still is to this day that never happened
everybody that I heard of my past and I went back and apologized to they forgave
me and I'm talking about making financial amends taking making personal
amends and things like that I'm very grateful for this but this goes into the
next tip the next tip is if you're trying to forgive yourself you need to
start growing and being better as a person like I realized early on when
working on my mental health that I was never gone
to move forward if I kept doing the things that made me not like myself so I
had to start being honest I had to start being generous I had to start being of
service to my fellow humans I had to start doing good things I wasn't gonna
keep piling these things up that I later wouldn't be able to forgive myself for
the question I get a lot from a lot of my clients is you know what if I just
hook up and I don't get in like a serious relationship these are things
that I stopped doing because I had to realize that this isn't about me I am
hurting people along the way and causing a whole lot of wreckage so I had to
start being a better person day by day I always say this the one goal I have
every single morning is just to be a little bit better than I was yesterday
and by doing this it's easier to forgive myself because I'm no longer doing
terrible things the last tip that I have when it comes to forgiving yourself is
just do these random acts of kindness every single day on a neurobiological
level it gives you spurts of dopamine so it feels good to be generous and kind
and helpful to others every single day I am doing things for other people and
it's become a habit where I don't even think about it most the time the way I
see it is that there are so many people who I hurt in the past that I will never
see again I would never see them again I cannot apologize to that make any type
of amends so I paid his debt back to the universe every single day by just
putting kindness out there whether that's talking to a stranger who might
be struggling or down on their luck um you know I helped out homeless people
when I have the opportunity to I'm regularly just be of service to complete
strangers if I see somebody struggling in a parking lot - I don't know lift
groceries into their car I just immediately run over and do that these
are just a lot of just rare things that I do and one of the best
parts about it is my son sees that a lot too so my son in turn is very generous
and that's a way that I'm paying back the universe - I am training my son who
was eight about to be Matt in a few weeks but I'm training him to be a
better man than who I became because I would rather him just propel forward
being a good man rather than having to go back and trying to right his wrongs
so I regularly do these random acts of kindness and when I talk about them they
are not in a self-seeking way like I'm not the guy who goes on social media
it's like hey look at the guy I just gave a dollar - he's homeless I'll tell
you good person I don't do that when I share these stories with other people
it's not to self-promote it's to inspire you to start doing the same even if you
just stumbled across this video and you're not somebody trying to forgive
yourself like I hope to inspire you to know like
how easy it is just to be a little bit nicer to your fellow human being out
there because we're all struggling in some way shape or form but anyways I
hope some of these tips really helped you out like today I love myself you
know um a lot of my anxiety is gone purely based on the fact that I can go
to sleep at night know that I didn't screw anybody over today so do me a
favor no matter what even if you're not trying to forgive yourself go out there
and just be a little bit kinder to people today and then after you do it
today do it again tomorrow and after that do it again all right but anyways
if you like this video please give it a thumbs up and if you are new here I'm
always making videos about how to improve your mental health so go ahead
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click the tab to the left over there by the way look at that cool pant I got
back there click on one of the other videos to check out some of the other
content thanks for watching I'll see you next time