 You know, it may surprise some of you but I am actually not a big fan of the gratitude challenge. Now the Thanksgiving is over, the real gratitude challenge begins. Stay tuned and let's talk about this. What's up everybody? This is Chris from the Rewired Soul where we talk about the problem but focus on the solution. Today we'll be talking about gratitude. Real quick, I apologize, my lighting and stuff is not like it should be because I'm still in California traveling visiting family and all that stuff but I am grateful that I'm even able to make videos while I'm on the road to help all of you out with your mental and emotional health as well as your addiction recovery. Anyways, like I was saying, I am not a huge fan of the gratitude challenge. I was like thinking about making this video during the month of November when everybody was like oh today I'm grateful for this and day 25 I'm day grateful for that and day 22 and all that other stuff but I'm not a fan of it at all. For some of you who are following me and you know I'm from Las Vegas and when the Las Vegas shooting happened I talked a little bit about this. I don't like how the holidays or tragic events are this time and we're supposed to get together and be grateful for the ones in our life and tell them how much we love them and all this other stuff. I don't believe in that at all. Now that Thanksgiving is over we need to be grateful 100 times more every single day when we go out there. It's funny too because last night the night before Thanksgiving my nephew he was talking about you know oh well no we have to save our thankfulness for tomorrow on Thanksgiving that's when we're supposed to do it and it's interesting to me how this is something that young kids are thinking about regularly like oh Thanksgiving is that day that you should be thankful. No no no no no no every single day 365 days a year we should be grateful for all the things that we we have. For me I'm very fortunate to have had such a terrible past growing up the son of an alcoholic becoming an addict myself barely surviving my addiction basically making it with a 10% chance of living every single day I have to be grateful that I even wake up and I'm able to breathe. For me gratitude is the opposite of entitlement entitlement is something that we all suffer from in some way shape or form we feel entitled that we should have a better job or we should be getting paid more for that job or we should have a better car or we should have a better partner we should have this and should have that and the reality is we shouldn't have anything. One of the best lessons I learned in life was this world and its people don't owe me anything. When I was able to get all those shoulds out of my brain and stop them from coming out of my mouth I started to have a lot more gratitude because it got rid of my entitlement. In the world of addiction something I teach people is that addiction is a disease of more no matter what we get we always want more and that's kind of what Russell Brand talks about too we always want more we want something that we feel is going to lead to our happiness or we feel is going to numb that discomfort or that pain we always want more but the problem is is that when we keep wanting more there's never enough so gratitude snaps us back to reality we start being grateful for every little thing that we have no matter when you're watching this video this is extremely relevant right after this video and I get it uploaded I'm actually going to make a video about holiday shopping anxiety so if you happen to be watching this today on Thanksgiving or any other day gratitude is going to help you snap out of that holiday anxiety because you're going to quit worrying so much and be grateful that you actually have the opportunity to go shopping during this time of year I will also make another video about how the first two Christmases that I got sober so my first two years sober I wasn't able to buy my son any presents at all so when I can snap back to that old frame of mind and look how far that I've come that I can get my son whatever the heck I feel like now I get very grateful for something that small but I hope you watch my other video on how gratitude affects depression and just a little sneak peek at what that is they have done studies where they have taken two groups of people had one of them write down gratitude list every day for two weeks and another one not and they found that people who were writing gratitude lists every single day had decreases in anxiety as well as depression by upwards of 80 percent so that doesn't sell you on this thing called gratitude every day of the year then I don't know what does remember be grateful for things and sometimes when you tell them to be grateful or just think of things to be grateful for it's hard for them it's very hard it's really the easiest thing right now for example I'll name some things I'm grateful for I'm grateful for the ability to wear this sweet shirt if you can't see this as mo honey mo problems it has a picture of a bear that looks like biggie Smalls it's pretty sick I'm thankful for the socks on my feet I'm not wearing shoes right now roof over my head in the other room I have my lovely mother in there I'm grateful that she's sober she just celebrated 12 years sober I'm grateful that I have her in my life in the other room I have my son my nephew I'm grateful that I'm able to be in California I was able to drive here driving is another thing that I'm very very grateful for a lot of people hate driving but anytime I'm in that car I'm grateful whether I'm stuck in traffic or whether I have to drive across town because I was on the bus for two years and I have to remember that every time I'm stuck in traffic or every time I'm trying to fight somebody for a parking spot in a packed parking lot I'm grateful that I even have a car today because that's not something I used to have so remember now the Thanksgiving's over the real gratitude challenge has happened you need to try to stay grateful 365 days a year because I guarantee it'll help with anxiety depression as well as your outlook on life so again I hope you all have had a good holiday so far I hope some of my holiday videos have helped you if you have not seen yet please please please check out my mentally healthy holidays playlist it is all the stuff you need to get through the holidays and if there's any subjects I have not touched on yet please leave them down in the comments below let me know what kind of issues you struggle with during the holidays so I can provide more videos to help you out you are the reason that I made this entire channel so please give me information that'll help you out all right but if you like this video please give it a thumbs up and if you are new here click the little round subscribe button right below this box I'm always making videos to help you with your mental and emotional health as well as addiction recovery and don't forget to click or tap on one of those thumbnails check out some of the other amazing videos on this channel thanks for watching I'll see you next time