 In honor of Marvel's Infinity War coming out this week, I wanted to talk about this mental health practice that you can do, which we call a hero story. So make sure that you stay tuned. What is up everybody? This is Chris from the Rewired Soul, where we talk about the problem but focus on the solution. And if you're like me, you have a past that affects you in a big way. We are creatures that have brains that are constantly telling stories and retelling stories about our past. For some of us, it's trauma. For some of us, it is terrible things that we did in the past. But these are things that can mold and shape our current mental health. So what we're going to be talking about today is called your hero story. And it's a way to reframe your story that can greatly help you out with your mental health. So please make sure that you share this video because a lot of people struggle with these stories they tell themselves. And this really might help them. But before I get started, I do want to say that this video, this video right here is a collaboration with my buddy Kayla, who I've done collabs with in the past. She is from Pinko Bunny, the YouTube channel. And if you're somebody who loves making delicious treats, you need to go check out her channel and subscribe this week for this collaboration. I was like, girl, you need to do something about Infinity War. So as you can see right here, she made some beautiful Marvel Infinity War cupcakes. I helped her out with the characters. So if you're going to have like a Marvel like viewing party before you go out and see the movie, go check out her channel, make out some delicious treats and you know, share them around. All right. So for most of my life, you know, I've struggled with the story I tell myself. I'm the child of an alcoholic mom. My dad, he worked a ton. He was out doing his thing and things like that. I had a rough childhood, you know, which for those of you who know about my story, it developed into a drug and alcohol addiction. I heard a lot of people who care about me. I wasn't a great father to my son. I was pretty much non-existent mentally, even though I was physically there. And these are things that tore me up. And, you know, for a long time, you know, I was the victim. I was the victim of circumstance because of my childhood. Then I turned into a drug addict. And these are all the terrible things about me that I beat myself up about. And these are the stories that replay in my head and they really fuel my depression. Not only do they fuel my depression, but they fuel my anxiety as well. So there's various writing practices that I teach people and that we use in different treatment centers and therapists use this, psychologists use this. And we call it a hero story. But another way to talk about it is called reframing your story. All right. And what this does is it takes our story and sheds a new light on it. So the beautiful thing about the stories that we tell ourselves is not only are you the author of this story, but you. Yes, you watching this video, you are also the editor of your story. So a few things before I jump into this practice is to remember a few things. You are not your thoughts, right? Not only are you not your thoughts, but just because your brain is telling you these stories doesn't necessarily mean that they're true. Something that I do all the time for my mental well-being is separate myself from the thoughts that are constantly going through my head. Some of you who watch my other video about how to get out of your own head, I've become the observer of my thoughts rather than this person who has sucked into the movie of my thoughts. And when I'm able to separate myself from them and look at these things, just as stories that my mind is telling me, my crazy, wacky mind is telling me, now I can edit these stories. All right. So the practice I'm going to teach you today is actually not one of mine. It comes from my new favorite book, which is titled Unfuck Your Brain. All right. So this is a book I mentioned the other day on my channel is by Dr. Faith Harper. And she talks a lot about in this book, not only about, you know, ways to overcome anxiety and depression, and she uses a lot of great science to back it up. But a lot of this book is about trauma and our past and things like that. So what I'm going to do, I'm actually going to pull from her book because she actually has a lot of great tools that you can use right here in this book. And yeah, I'll link this book down in the description below because if you haven't got it yet, you need to go get it. All right. So I'm going to read a quick passage from this book and then it'll also have some instructions. All right. So it says reframing your story. Telling our story in a coherent way can often help us figure out the parts of the story that don't make sense or to see other perspectives. We may find that there was more going on than this on the tape we have been playing over and over in our heads. It doesn't make horrible experiences less horrible, but it can help us find meaning and work towards forgiveness. Remember all that brain stuff about how we have an emotional response and then we create a story to back up that response? That's mentioned earlier in the book. One of the best things you could do to challenge that is to think about how you are thinking. Here's the magic. Brains are changing all the time and we can shape that journey. Yes, trauma changes our genetic structure, but we can change it back. Life experiences reshape our DNA moment by moment. The Dr. Faith Guide to Epigenetics would be a whole other book, but what you need to know is that we are not destined to a prison of our past experiences. So what Dr. Faith Harper is talking about right now is something called epigenetics and neuroplasticity. Epigenetics is when you go through a traumatic experience, your genes actually change. I talked about this in some of my other depression videos, right? But anyways, she's also talking about neuroplasticity. I did a video about this a long time ago. I might redo it, but anyways, a lot of you out there, a lot of us as people, we feel hopeless and we feel stuck. We get in this mindset that we're going to be this way and nothing's ever going to change. Neuroplasticity is the science that tells us for a fact that we are never stuck in the same way. Our brains are plastic. They are constantly changing. They are changing based on our experience, right? You are a different person right now than you were before watching this video. The brain is constantly changing. So use that information to give yourself hope that by reframing your story, by telling your hero's story, your brain can actually change and get better, all right? Because when we do this practice that I'm about to go over, we start to look back at these past events and we see our triumphs and our successes and these great aspects of ourselves that we weren't recognizing before. That'll all make sense in a second, all right? So here is the practice. It's a writing practice. Go out, get a journal, get a pad of paper and get to writing, all right? Here it is. Step one, think about the story you tell yourself and others. Review the story that you shared from the exercise above. What aspects might be missing? What else needs to be included? So real quick, before this, there's another practice. Get the book, all right? But what I would recommend with this is pick a story, write it down, write down a story that you tell yourself and tell others and look at it and do this first step, okay? Step two, how is this a story of your survival? Okay, so for me, for example, like I said, son of an alcoholic mom, pretty much raised myself, had a lot of trials and tribulations throughout my life, biggest one being my drug addiction, right? And I look at it as I'm this piece of garbage, I had this terrible childhood, I'm a victim, but when I'm able to reframe that and look at it, like, how is this a story of my survival? Like, let's talk about the addiction aspect for a second. Addiction is killing tens of thousands of people each year, right? I'm a survivor. I survived and I overcame this thing, okay? That is empowering, all right? That is something that helps me keep going on a day-to-day basis. When I think I can't do something, I look back and I look at this thing that I accomplished that I survived that many other people do not, all right? So ask yourself, how is your story a story of survival? Step three, who are the good guys, the caretakers and the helpers? What did they do and how did they do it? All right, so this is your Avenger Squad, okay? This is your Captain America, your Iron Man, your Black Panther, you know, your Winter Soldier, your Falcon, all these people like, who is your squad? Who are these people that were there for you that helped you, that picked you up when you were down, okay? What about the things that you did that you aren't proud of? In what ways were they the best decision you were able to make for yourself at the time? What did you learn from them that you can use moving forward? So, going back to my addiction, I relapsed many times, many, many, many times, right? And this is something that I get from a lot of people, a lot of my clients. I'm also talking to one of my subscribers who self-harms and things like that. And this person was doing well for a while and they relapsed, you know, they cut again. And here's something that I have to remember is, all of my failures were learning experiences, okay? There's a quote that I often turn to with my clients and with other people with all of you. It was from Thomas Edison, right? And he talks about, he didn't fail 10,000 times, he just found 10,000 ways that it didn't work. So think about this for a second, this thing that you failed at, right? Maybe it was applying to school, maybe it was trying to get a job, maybe it was asking somebody out on a date. Whatever this thing is, what did you learn from it? What can you use moving forward? How can you take that experience and turn it into something that can benefit your future? But also, when we talk about stories of trauma, something that happens like a lot of us who went through childhood trauma, we beat ourselves up about it, right? We think that we should have done something different or maybe we deserved it. And a great way to kind of step away from that and look at it in a new light is, what if another child came to you and they were going through the same thing? Would you talk to that child and say, yes, this is your fault, yes, you could have done something differently? No, you would explain to them exactly what this step says, which is look at it and say like, this was the best thing that you knew how to do at the time, at the time when you were in the thick of it, while you were in this situation, you were doing the best you can do. And for some of us, we were merely trying to survive. You know what I mean? When we were in an abusive relationship, when we had parents who were drug addicts or alcoholics or they were verbally, emotionally or physically abusive, we were just trying to survive. We were making whatever we could out of this awful situation, right? And by writing this down and looking at it in a new light, you know, we're able to kind of give ourselves a break and forgive ourselves and step back and think about it logically. Like for a lot of us who struggle with this kind of childhood trauma, this is a tape that has been playing on repeat for years, for some of us decades, you know what I'm saying? But we've never taken the time to step back and look at it and say, wow, maybe that story I've been telling myself is wrong. You know what I'm saying? So yeah, I hope you guys enjoyed this video. I hope you guys really, really, really, I hope you take out a notebook, a pad of paper, whatever you got to do and try this practice, rewind this video, come back to this video, pause it, where I put up the instructions and use it. And then also, I'm going to do a full book review soon. I haven't had the time to finish it. I've been catching up on work. But anyways, go get this book. I will link to it in the description below. It has a lot of practices like that in here as well as a lot of scientific explanations for things. All right. And again, this is a collaboration with Kayla. So at the very end, I will link to her video that she did. So make sure that you check it out. But also, if you know anybody who struggles with a traumatic past or letting go of the past and they need to tell their hero story, make sure that you share this video with them. Okay. But anyways, thank you so much for watching. And if you are new here, I'm always making videos about mental health. So make sure you click that little round subscribe button. Okay. If you like this video, give it a thumbs up. And if you want to check out Kayla's video, boom, check it out. It's right there. It's right there. Go check it out. All right. So thanks again for watching. Tell your hero story today and I'll see you next time.