How do you feel after spending some time on that social scroll? Do you feel great? Energized? Confident? Ready to conquer the world and live your dreams?
Or is it more like… “My life won’t ever be as cool as everyone else’s…”?
This blog is an important, loving message from the universe that you need to know:
Social media isn’t real.
It’s undeniable that social media has become a powerful force in our world. And while there are many different conversations going on about both the positive and negative effects of social media, what I’m most interested in is how it’s affecting you.
Often my clients complain about social media, more specifically about how they feel after they spend time using it– I’ve heard everything from how it negatively affects their confidence, to their mood, to their stress levels, to how they feel about their careers and relationships.
I’m here to tell you: social media isn’t real life.
If you find yourself comparing your real-life offline self to the idealized versions of other people in your feed, I am SO excited to introduce you to Jessica Abo!
Jess is an acclaimed award-winning journalist, a sought-after speaker the world over and the author of Unfiltered: How to Be as Happy as You Look on Social Media.
Her incredible book is such an important message for our time right now. Jess speaks right to the heart of so many of these issues with down-to-earth realness and practical strategies to get grounded in the present so you can take back your happiness in real life and get over the social media compare/despair trap!
Watch our conversation now.
We are wired to compare ourselves to others. As human beings, that’s how we learn, adapt and ultimately, thrive in social environments. In the past, social comparisons took place almost solely within the context of in-person interactions with others.
With social media, more and more social comparison is happening within the context of a virtual world. So why does this matter?
The difference is that with social media, people are more likely to present a curated highlight reel of their lives. It’s usually highly idealized, and yes…filtered.
As Jess says in the interview, “…what it seemed like to me was that everyone was stacking their happiness against what other people had…and what ends up happening is that people can end up robbing themselves of their own joy and comparing themselves to other people who may in reality not be happier.”
Her suggestion? To regularly practice reminding ourselves that most people we follow or friend are posting selectively positive information.
My suggestion? Try reframing your reactions and emotions to what you’re seeing on social media. As I always say, upset is access. Your level of upset is just the distance between where you are and what you want.
Maybe what you’re seeing on social media is what you really want, but don’t yet have. Can you reframe your feelings as a message? Can you sit in gratitude with that information and see how it can create a new possibility of what’s possible for you?
You are so much more in control of your life than you might think you are, and these experiences with social media can be an access point for you to start to make shifts in your outward behavior or do the internal work to support what you in intentionally creating what you really desire.
It’s also so important to understand the relationship between our psychology and technology and what is actually going on in our brains and our nervous systems with all of the “noise” of social media around us daily.
The frequent use of social media begins to have physical and chemical effects on our bodies and psyches. In our conversation, Jess cites an interview she did with Dr. Larry Rosen, professor emeritus and researcher from the psychology department at California State University who’s been studying “the psychology of technology” for more than 30 years.
In a recent study, Dr. Rosen asked participants why they logged into social media and they reported it was because they received a notification from the app. However, the data revealed that they only were receiving notifications half of the times they were logging in.
“The other half of the time, there wasn’t an update or an alert, which means they had a slow accumulation of chemicals such as cortisol or adrenaline that signaled anxiety,” Rosen says.
Yikes. Other mental health issues that can be related to tech addiction include stress, depression, OCD, insomnia…the list goes on.
So how can you shift your focus from what everyone else is posting on social media back to creating your most vibrant, joy-filled life (in real life)???
Be sure to download your FREE resource guide below with 5 life-changing tips and a powerful, easy exercise you can do in the morning to help you start attracting more of what you want. You can download it and keep it on your phone to use whenever you need it!
Get the Resource Guide Now!
Get our tips and strategies to help you create a healthier, happier relationship with social media by downloading this resource guide now so you have this powerful exercise at your fingertips when you need it most!
Thanks to the amazing Jessica Abo for hanging out with me and for sharing her story and her wisdom! You can get a copy of her book here (I highly, highly recommend it).
And listen: social media is not the enemy. Balance is everything 😉
Let’s keep the conversation going! I invite you to let me know how this resonated with you in the comments.
Remember: you can have what you want, you just have to believe you can!
XO,
