 If you're like me, regardless of what other people might say about you, your mind is beating you up much worse. And that's exactly what we're going to be talking about in this video and how to overcome it. 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 new to my channel, my channel is all about mental health. And what I try to do is take different stories from my own life or topics going on in the world and try to see what lessons we can learn to improve our own mental and emotional well-being. So if you're into that stuff, make sure you subscribe and ring that notification bell. And follow me over on Instagram and Twitter over at the Rewired Soul. And speaking of, today is the first of a series I'll be doing every single Monday. And I made an Instagram post to try to get your help naming a series that I'm working on. And anybody who has the best suggestion, if I pick you, you will get a free copy of any of the mental health books that I've written, all right? But today, this Monday is the first of many morality Mondays, all right? So morality and mental health, like I might do an entire podcast episode on this to explain how this ties into mental health and why it's so important. But I think with this first video, you'll kind of understand what I mean and why morality is such a big deal when it comes to our mental health, all right? So I want to share a little bit of my experience with you. So those of you who don't know me, hi, I'm Chris. I'm a recovering addict and alcoholic. My clean date is June 23rd, 2012. And some of you out there who are in recovery from addiction or even in active addiction trying to get clean and sober, you might be able to relate to this. But one of the reasons that I kept drinking and using was because I hated myself and it's this sick and twisted cycle, right? Like I was screwing over my friends, family members. I was lying, cheating, stealing all of these things and feeling like an awful person inside. And because I felt like such an awful person, I drank and used to punish myself, but in order to drink and use, I had to lie, cheat and steal even more, right? It's this sick and twisted cycle where we keep going round and round and round and round, right? And when I got sober, it got even worse. Like I remember like after doing like a cold turkey, opioid detox, like all of the, the feelings and emotions came rushing in and I started hating myself even more. Like I started remembering all the awful things that I've done to the people in my life, right? And yeah, so when I, when I finally got sober and I started to attend various recovery meetings, they started talking about, you know, the importance of steps and everything like that. And it was something that I delayed for a very long time. Like it took me three months just to get a sponsor. And I don't think I started my first step because I had to do a lot of other work first, but I don't think I started my first step until another three months later. So I was almost six months sober before I was able to start my steps. And the reason I was doing that is because I heard that if you did this work, you got some peace, serenity and sanity and I don't know about you, whether you're in recovery or not, but those things sound magnificent. So one of the biggest questions and one of the scariest steps out there is the fourth step, right? Because we have to take this fearless moral inventory, right? We got to take a good, hard look at ourselves. And this is the first time that morality kind of came up. So I'm not going to go into all of the details about the fourth step, but basically you write down all the people you have resentments towards, but you also have to write down like your part in each scenario. What did you do that was wrong towards others? Even if it's people that you don't like, which is why it gets pretty hard because how often is it they screwed me over? I shouldn't feel bad about that, right? But any of us with a conscience, we do feel bad. Even if we screwed over somebody who we feel deserves it. So anyways, as I was going through my fourth step, I had a lot of questions and I heard these questions come up a lot. And when I was working at the treatment center, working with a lot of addicts and alcoholics who were on the path to getting sober and we're hopefully going to start working steps and everything like that. A lot of people ask like, you know, what, what do I need to put in my fourth step? Um, who do I need to make an amends to that's a ninth step and everything like that. And I had that same question when I first got sober, right? And I would ask my sponsor and I would ask other people with more clean time than me. Like, is this something that I need to make an amends for? Right? Because like, I don't know about you, but I hate apologizing. I hate apologizing to people, right? So I'm like, all right, do I really have to talk to this person and do this and that and that and that? And, you know, my sponsor and other people with clean time just kept telling me like, like, what do you think? Or, you know, or, you know, they were getting my agnostic self to pray about it and, you know, see, you know, what came up and everything like that. Like nobody could give me an answer, right? And this is where morality came into play because like I said, I drank and used because I hated myself for the terrible things that I did to other people. All right. And the program, it taught me to go to sleep with a clear conscience. Okay. Like, how am I supposed to stay sober if I keep beating myself up? So when I would ask about this and the answers I got, I started to realize that morality is subjective, right? It depends on who you are. And I can go through a billion different examples. For example, I was born in California. I've lived in Las Vegas for most of my life. My morality, my ideals and everything like that are much different than somebody who might have grown up in the deep South or a more conservative state, right? So our morals are different. So nobody can tell me which one of us is right or wrong and don't worry. Make sure that you stay tuned because we're going to dive into morality and politics on another Monday. Okay. But that's just an example. Another example is I'm a vegetarian. Okay. A lot of people, you might be meat eaters. Which one of us is morally correct? You see what I mean? And I'm not here to judge you and I hope that you're not judging me in that same light. But what I'm getting at is morality is subjective. So what I was taught was to thine own self be true and in order to stay sober, in order to improve my mental health, I had to be honest with myself is this thing that I did against my own personal morals, right? Against my morals. You see what I mean? Another example is I am in a monogamous relationship with my beautiful girlfriend Tristan. If you and your boo are into polyamory, do your thing. That is your morality. You see what I mean? And I can't tell you whether or not that is right or wrong. So anyways, as I continue to stay sober and something I still try to practice today, which is sometimes a battle with our own ego is making amends and doing the next right thing, right? Because here's the thing. We're not always going to agree with people, but we are going to hurt people. We are going to harm people. And, you know, in your situation, it, it'll be much different than it is in some, some of my situations. Like I am personally trying to find the balance between, you know, my relationship with the crowd and my relationship with individuals, right? But the way I try to live my life today and something they talk about in the 10th step of recovery programs is when we are wrong, we promptly admit it. All right. So each day we kind of look at it and say, is there anything that I need to make an amends for? Is there anything that I screwed up doing where I need to go to somebody and apologize? You know what I mean? And yeah, like, again, not everything that we do, we are going to think it's wrong, but we have to be honest with ourselves. So I wanted to touch on this and this isn't to toot my own horn or anything like that, but I got permission from Ashley Kyle to mention this, and I'm not going to show you what she said, but I will show you what I sent her. So I'm not going to go into the details of what happened with us. And one of the reasons, you know, that I asked her, I'm like, do you want me, you know, should I put this in a video or, you know, whatever is because it's weird just as a YouTuber, like, if it isn't done publicly, did it really happen? But I just want to give you an example, because something happened and I legitimately felt bad. All right. So her and I have talked, you know, just a little bit, but anyways, I sent her a message not that long ago, and it said, Hey Ashley, I know we spoke briefly a couple of months ago, but you just popped into my mind again. I'm really sorry and never intentionally meant to hurt you. When everything happened, I felt extremely hurt and I've learned to share my emotions. I thought I did a good job leaving you as anonymous as possible to protect your identity, but it wasn't good enough. And I'm truly sorry about that. Even if we don't agree on some things, I just want you to know it was not my intention to put your business out there. So I sent that to her because that was something that was was weighing heavily on my conscience. And I was like, I need to talk about this. And like I said, I just wanted to give you that as an example, but this is something that I really believe is important for our mental health because like I was talking about, we beat ourselves up constantly, constantly. And it's that little voice in our head. And something I try to think about is quit giving that voice in your head. Reasons to talk crap to you. You know what I mean? So we we do our best to go out there and try to make this world a little bit better of a place. And we're not going to get along with everybody. That's cool. We're going to have disagreements. That is part of life. That is one of the amazing parts of life is that we can have conversations. And just because somebody disagrees with you doesn't mean that they're an awful person. But but if we do something that is not sitting well with us, we need to do our best to correct that. All right. Because if not, this is something that can sit underneath the surface. And for addicts like myself, it can lead back to a relapse for other people. It might lead back to other toxic behaviors if we don't develop this kind of self-love and self-compassion, which is very hard to do if we don't start trying to live to the best of our ability. You know what I mean? So for some people, that might be things like, you know, not becoming addicted to substances, but abusing substances. It might be, you know, binge eating. It might be other toxic behaviors like gambling, promiscuity and things like that. You know what I'm saying? But anyways, if you have any questions about morality, let me know down in the comments below because I have been just binging books on moral psychology and moral philosophy and everything like that. I have like a million different topics. Here are some of the topics that you can look forward to. One, do you need to be religious to be moral? Two, this one is an untitled Avengers themed about morality. All right. And I have another one that I'm not going to tell you right now, but it's a big surprise. But anyways, if you have any questions about morality and all these other things with a very fascinating subject, and I think it's important because it also helps us develop more empathy when we have this type of conversation and we start to understand the views of people who we don't necessarily agree with. You know what I mean? So if there's any topics you want me to cover, let me know down in the comments below. OK, but anyways, that's all I got for this video. If you like this video, please give it a thumbs up. If you're new, make sure you subscribe and ring that notification bell and a huge, huge thank you to everybody who supports the channel over on Patreon, as well as anybody who supports the channel by buying my mental health books or merch and all that other good stuff. All right. Thanks again for watching. I'll see you next time.