 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 going to 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'm 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 um 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 um 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 uh grow and grow and grow i started doing a lot of terrible things i ended up hating myself for you know um 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 and 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 stole from my friends my family members um i you know will talk about toxic relationships that i was in but i have also recognized a lot of the terrible things that i did in relationships 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 this 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 um where 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 right 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 apologize 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 um vindictive and held onto a grudge forever like it makes 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 in my past that i went back and apologize 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 going 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 going to 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 of the time um 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 will never see them again i cannot apologize to them make any type of amends so i pay this 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 help out homeless people when i have the opportunity to um i'm regularly just being of service to complete strangers if i see somebody struggling in a parking lot to um i don't know lift groceries into their car i just immediately run over and do that these are just a lot of just random 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 too i am training my son who is eight about to be nine 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 give a dollar to he's homeless aren't i a 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 knowing 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 and click that little round subscribe button right below here and if you haven't yet click or tap to the left over there by the way look at that cool panda i got back there click on one of the other videos and check out some of the other content thanks for watching i'll see you next time