 What's up everybody this is Chris from the Rewired Soul where we talk about the problem but focus on the solution and I'm not going to leave you hanging just so you know my son is 1000% fine all right so I don't I'm not going to like make the suspense build up my son he's okay he's doing much better today but I do want to do videos like this where I share about some of my experiences and help you understand what I what I do on a day-to-day basis to manage my mental health so I'm going to share with you what happened last night involving my son going to the emergency room and I want you to keep in mind this this entire video I am somebody who struggles with a generalized anxiety disorder this means I have a disorder with my brain where anxiety can happen at any time often without triggers so when it actually is triggered it can be worse all right so late last night actually right after I recorded the video I made last night and if you haven't watched it you need to go check out check it out it's about the pygmalion effect and it's a very good video so go check it out anyways right after I finished recording that video last night I got a text message from my son's mom and she was in a panic and basically I was very sick last week I gave that sickness to my son my son was pretty sick over the weekend we just hung out and played video games but at the tail end of this sickness it just turned into a really bad cough so she texted me last night it's probably about like 9 30 or 10 o'clock and she's like yo you need to come pick up Dylan and take him to the emergency room and she was telling me like his cough was so bad that he was actually throwing up and if you look right here this is actually what happened to his eye he was coughing so bad that it actually popped a blood vessel in his eye not good so as as you saw in the thumbnail of this video there's two themes here that I want to talk about and that's empathy as well as gratitude all right so a lot of our mental health um for some of us if you're like me and actually it's it's a lot more than people like to admit is managing um anger frustration annoyance and things like that and so basically what what happened was you know my my son's mom she was freaking out she was losing her mind and um at some points in the conversation via text when I was on my way over there and even when I picked her up picked up um Dylan it seemed like she was being a little confrontational a little aggressive with me and a lot of us get very defensive um that's part of our amygdala what our amygdala is doing we get on the defensive like well you need to calm down and like I part of my mindfulness is seeing what's happening inside of my brain in my body and learning not to take things so personal and I had to express empathy see the reality of the situation is that my son's mom is a very good mother very good mother and she she waited and she was you know trying to help my son and be there for him and nurse him back to health on her own and it got to a point where she realized he needed to go to an emergency room so she's clearly a parent who loves my son and some of her um fear some of her own anxiety might have been coming out a little aggressively and that's where I'm able to calm myself down and express empathy and understand like well this isn't about me I've done nothing wrong right and I'm able to mindfulness helps me be aware of what my own brain's doing so me and her don't get into a fight or a conflict while my son is sitting there and needs to go to the hospital so what I'm saying is I really want you to start checking in with yourself when when people are doing things that might set you off or you get offended by if you're somebody who's sensitive like I am and you get really defensive try to express empathy ask yourself what is this person going through what are they going through where is this coming from like to be honest that's how I manage my job on a day-to-day basis working at a drug and alcohol rehab center I understand that the frustrations that clients take out on me aren't necessarily about me I joke with them all the time when I talk to them about empathy and doing this I'm like I'm a pretty great guy so I pretty much know that you're not angry with me I have to understand that people are going through their own issues right so in the instance of last night my son's mom was feeling a lot of anxiety and a lot of fear for my son you know she had him all day like well after school he went to school yesterday and he was coughing he wouldn't stop coughing you know it turned into throwing up it turned into popping the blood vessel she was scared some of that may have come off a little abrasive but I avoided an argument a fight whatever you want to call it by expressing that empathy and focusing on my son now again keep in mind I have a generalized anxiety disorder when I pick him up and we drive to the emergency room my son's coughing he has a trash can in front of him in my car just in case he throws up and my son such a just good hearted kid and he's just acting like nothing's going on he's telling me about his day tells me about a test he did good on for his book and school and stuff and for me and some of you might be able to relate to this my anxiety can come um it can manifest into anger right like there was there was a part of my brain because my anxiety was building up I want to be like kid just be quiet I need to get you to the emergency room right but again that's not fair to him how do I do this how do I manage that and calm my anxiety get us from point A to the emergency room safely from there to the emergency room without snapping at my son by practicing mindfulness by being able to calm down my mind and being in the present moment and understanding exactly not only what's happening externally but internally as well and getting to that emergency room the thing was packed it was packed right and luckily like if you have a kid with you we pretty much got bumped to the front of the line but the nurses like I'm somebody who always used to have issues with medical professionals whether it was nurses whether it was doctors always felt like they rushed me they didn't really care and all this other stuff but I felt anger and frustration building up when we were working with the nurses and working with the doctors because it felt like they were being short with me and things like that but again I had to express empathy right outside the door they have a packed emergency room so I can only imagine how long that's been going on I think there's like a sickness going around Las Vegas and that's what allows me to express empathy and have normal calm conversations with these people because again it's my son who we need to take care of together me snapping at a nurse me snapping at a doctor isn't going to do any of us any good right so anyways like just so you know in case you're wondering what happened my son got that cold he has very mild asthma it comes every now and then mainly when he gets sick but the cold turned into bronchitis so we ended up having to get you know they sent us all with some prescriptions and things like that and on the way home I was able to stop here in Vegas we're fortunate enough to have 24-hour pharmacies I was able to go there and like I was able to just keep my calm and keep my cool and that is huge like if you're a parent out there and you're watching this right now like you know that that's a big deal like my anxiety wanted to take me out last night just worrying about my son worrying about getting the prescriptions worrying about dealing with the doctors worrying about everything right and thank god for mindfulness it was really keeping me cool during this situation I brought him back home you know to his mom's house we sat we talked you know I explained to her the prescriptions and stuff and she kept thanking me over and over and over again so as I was driving home that's when the gratitude really sits in and I know not everybody who follows my channel I know not all of you are are addicts or alcoholics in recovery but I am and this is where a lot of gratitude comes in like I think it's important for us addicts and alcoholics to really be grateful and like really take a step back and acknowledge like like last night I was like man if this was five and a half years ago she couldn't have called me to do this I would have been drunk by now I would have been high by now I would have been I could have been blackout drunk and completely useless in this situation but you know thank goodness for my recovery that I work really really hard at not just my recovery but my mental health my general mental health not just staying sober but my ability to manage my mental and emotional states which doesn't lead back to the drinker drug but it also doesn't lead back to panic attacks and depression and that craziness that we get into so I've just been sitting in a lot of gratitude for my sobriety because I'm able to be there for my son see that's something a lot of addicts don't understand especially when they first get sober like we're there for our kids or we're there for our family we're there for our friends but we're not really there we might physically be there but in any kind of sense of responsibility or accountability we're just not we're constantly letting people down so I have to look at my recovery and what what it allows me to do on a daily basis and to be honest it's something that helps me keep pushing forward I got to acknowledge like I could not do this if I was still getting drunk or high so like I said I want to do some videos like this when I just have crazy stuff going on in my life and kind of break it down for you and explain what I'm doing in my own mind to make sure that I don't fly off the rails when other people are depending on me or when I just need to depend on myself so I'll try to do some more videos on like this I just kind of was thinking about I'm like you know what I'm gonna share this with everybody so I really hope this helps some of you out I hope you're starting to understand the method to all the other videos I make like all of these things that I'm here teaching you they kind of all come together specifically for situations like this so again my son's doing great and like I said I hope you enjoyed this video if you did please give it a thumbs up and also if you are new here my channel is all about helping you with your emotional and mental well-being so go ahead and click that little round subscribe button right below this box and if you got a second click or tap on one of those thumbnails check out some of the other videos on this channel thanks so much for watching I'll see you next time