 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 are new here, I'm always making videos to help you out with your emotional and mental well-being. So make sure that you hit the subscribe button, turn on the notification bell so you never miss a video. And today I'm starting something new that I hope you all get involved with. I am doing a subscriber question. So when it comes to mental health, one thing is that we all have our very unique situations. So I know a lot of you out there watching these videos, you have certain situations and you need advice or a different perspective, or just some tips on how to improve your mental health. So I ask all of you to get in touch with me. Leave comments down below with questions or hit me up on my Instagram or on my Twitter, or you can email me at therewiredsoul at gmail.com. All right, but I love answering questions. It's probably my favorite thing to do because it really gives me some one-on-one time and to really help somebody specifically out with something that they're dealing with. And the other thing I will tell you, always ask questions because I guarantee, I guarantee any question that you have, somebody else has as well. All right, but without further ado, let's get started. This first question comes from a subscriber named Anastasia. All right, and this is actually based on another video I made that I will link in the description above about being held an emotional hostage. So here is Anastasia's question. I have a lot of issues with depression and whatnot. I see a therapist once a week and also seeing a psychiatrist to find meds that will work for me. I'm not currently on anything from my depression. Lately, I've been a lot more depressed, moody, and aggressive. I've been taking things out on my boyfriend a lot. I always feel bad afterwards, but I don't know how to stop myself. Am I making him an emotional hostage? Excellent question. Excellent question, Anastasia. So thank you for asking me this because this is actually something I've wanted to touch on for a long time. There's so many reasons why I started this channel, but one of them is because I see a lot of articles out there from different mental health websites. And a lot of the topics are like, don't apologize for your mental illness, which I absolutely think is not true at all, like, especially for trying to foster good healthy relationships. There's a difference between apologizing for something that you can't control and then apologizing for the way you acted and what you're actually doing to work on yourself. So Anastasia, when it comes to this question, let me share a little bit of my experience with you. So when I first started working on my mental health about five and a half years ago, those of you who follow my channel, you know I'm a recovering drug addict, alcoholic. Like, I remember telling my mom, okay, I told her when I got clean, I said, these drugs, these drugs that I take, I was an opiate addict. I said they are my anger management tool. I'm like, when you take these away from me, you're about to meet a very angry Chris. And this is, this is exactly what happened like I didn't know how to deal with anger what I was doing for a long time was numbing my anger with drugs. But now that I had to quit because it was killing me and making my relationships even worse. Now I had to find new ways to deal with my anger. And I was constantly lashing out. My mom saved my life and I felt terrible I felt so awful for treating her like this, you know, and one thing that I learned how to do was to apologize. And then explain to him said, you know, like, for example, I'm really sorry for how I reacted to the situation. And I just want to let you know that I'm working really hard to get on the other side of this thing and improve myself as a person. So I think that can help a lot of you out there who are in the midst of work on your mental health but here's the kicker. Here's the kicker that I try to teach clients all the time. Okay, your actions speak louder than words. So yes, I do think we need to apologize when we lash out at people when we yell at them when we argue with them we fight with them when we break things when we just act like a crazy person I do think we need to apologize, and then explain that we're trying to get better now anesthesia. You mentioned that you're seeing a therapist you're seeing a psychiatrist, you're changing meds, you are doing the footwork your actions are going to speak louder than words. But for a lot of us we tell people I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. And apologies often don't mean squat unless we're doing something about it. For example, and I won't get into it too deep in this video. But like I've said with the Logan Paul situation I said, Listen, we can't just apologize, or we can't just forgive this guy. Immediately we got to see how he changes what he does. And seeing as how this dude is still screwing up chances are he wasn't that sorry, and chances are a lot of it was just a PR move. So, for us, we have to show people we have to show people with our actions that we're actually working on things to become a better person. So that I think is the most important. Okay, the next thing I'm going to teach you, um, especially because I have such anger issues and this is something my clients absolutely love. And I think that it might help some of you out there to who deal with anger issues. Before you respond to anything to anything out of anger. Ask yourself three questions. Does it need to be said, does it need to be said right now, and does it need to be said by me. Right. I have this brain where it tells me that I need to tell everybody every single thing that's on my mind when I disagree with them what my opinions are when I think they're wrong. I have to say it right. But when I ask myself those three questions, if I can take the time to pause 99.9% of the time I find out that the answer is no to all those questions. Like, it doesn't need to be said, it doesn't need to be said by me, or it doesn't need to be said right now. You know what I mean, because a lot of us, we are so quick to react and say things that we immediately regret. Okay, so if, if any of you aren't following me on Instagram like please do it's at the rewired so I post a lot of motivational slash mental health stuff on there, but I posted a picture the other day that is popping up right here. And it says, if we can't reflect before reflect during, and if we can't reflect during reflect after okay, and this is an old mindfulness saying but it's actually rewiring the neural pathways in your brain. So if you're somebody who reacts a lot, rather than taking a pause and responding. If you can start reflecting on these things afterward it's something that we call disenchantment. Okay, and it's rewiring your brain to let you know like okay when I react, I often do it poorly and it often makes my anesthesia in your situation, you're making your boyfriend feel bad. So when you reflect on that, you're going to start to see that you can stop yourself in the middle of it and as you continue to work on this you can stop yourself before. Okay, so ask yourself those three questions before reacting if you have anger issues doesn't need to be said doesn't need to be said right now. And doesn't need to be said by me. Alright. Next, something that I try to talk about medications are very tricky very very very very very tricky. A lot of people have different reactions to them. A lot of them are going to make our moods erratic sometimes they make you tired sometimes it makes you irritable angry upset anxious, you know and unfortunately this is 2018. A lot of an anesthesia you're probably realizing this a lot of stuff with medications especially for mental health. It's a trial and error thing. So hopefully your boyfriend has a little bit of empathy towards that and realize that you're going through this and you're But my suggestion to you anesthesia is don't 100% rely on the medications I'm actually about to read this new book and part of it that I heard in a podcast was that people who take antidepressants for example, like there's this scale called the Hamilton scale, and it only moves them on a scale of 50 it only moves them about 1.5 points in either direction when they get on this man so antidepressants aren't the fix all or the cure all. Okay, my biggest suggestion, my biggest suggestion and this ties into what I was saying a minute ago about taking questions start meditating anesthesia start meditating five minutes a day I've done a ton of videos about mindfulness about meditation I have videos on here about free apps that you can download, meditate five minutes a day if you really want to be a good student meditate for 10 minutes today. Why you ask a few reasons. The first one is, it has been scientifically proven to improve the part of your brain responsible for emotional regulation. So your emotions won't bounce all over the place. The second main reason is that it also improves the part of your brain that your natural pause button. So it's going to let you pause before reacting to certain situations and really play the tape through and ask yourself, is this an argument worth getting into. I did a video the other day about the relationship, my girlfriend and I have. And one of the reasons it's so successful is like, we really pick and choose our battles we know like this is not something to start an argument over. And a lot of the credit goes to her but I do a lot of work on it myself. My anxiety, more so turns into anger and frustration so I have to be very aware and conscious. When my anxiety is building up to know that I might react in a poor way sometimes that's to my girlfriend or to my son, or friends or colleagues or even clients I work without my treatment center. But anyways, Anastasia and everybody else out there watching this I really, really hope this helped you out. And again, again, if you would like me to answer one of your questions and give you some tips specifically for your issues, make sure you leave a comment down below, or I will put up my Instagram again you can DM me on there. Email me at the rewired soul at gmail.com. Alright, I love answering your guys's questions. Alright, but anyways, anyways, if you like this video, please give it a thumbs up it really helps the channel out and if you're new here I don't know what you're waiting for hit that little round subscribe button. Get more of these videos all the time I make videos all the time. Alright, to check out some other videos, click or tap on one of those thumbnails right there. Okay, but I'm glad you came and watch this video. I hope you have a great day. And I'll see you next time.