Her Unique Glow

There are so many pressures we put upon ourselves,

especially with the influences of social media, and that’s something that I wanted to touch on today. Before I start I just want to say that I’m not opposed to all social media and I do think that used properly, in the right frame of mind it is a great idea and tool for our lives today. However, with social media there is also the down side: the pressures that we put on ourselves by comparing our lives to others. This is what I wanted to talk about this week because it’s something that almost everyone has done at some point and it’s also a major barrier that may be holding you back in life.

Imagine that your life is like a story or a movie:

• There are the ups
• The downs
• The horror
• The loss
• The romance
• The loneliness

You may be looking into their highlight reel thinking how wonderful it would be to live their life, however they may be looking at yours wishing the same. This is because the danger of social media is only the positive is shown. The negative seems to not exist in this world most of the time.

This is the reason I quit certain platforms of social media years ago (I’m not saying that everyone should do that!)). I wasn’t in the best place in my life and honestly just felt quite rubbish most of the time, because of this I found myself comparing my life to all the ‘lives’ of those I knew around me through social media. I would look on Facebook and see one friend horse back riding in Africa, or another running an international company having sustained herself an incredibly successful career. This would just really make me feel awful! I would be so upset that my life wasn’t like theirs at all, that I didn’t have the amazing career or I wasn’t traveling around the world, and I would find myself sitting and wallowing in my own self pity.

---

The thing about comparing is that by doing so you’re creating a certain amount of pressure on yourself that that’s how you expect and believe your life should be.

---

This is because you see all that others have and all the wonderful experiences they’re going through and therefore believe you should be going through the same. These are all self made pressures that you create, however they are also the most powerful and dangerous.

What we should be believing, is that our lives are:

UNIQUE

and

INDIVIDUAL

and if we looked for the positives in our life we would actually be so content with what we have. Social media sometimes doesn’t allow for this to happen because all we see is other lives, other people’s stories and make the belief that we should be doing something similar.

I’m not saying that I hate social media, I do love it: I love seeing pictures and knowing what my loved ones are up to and keeping in touch with my friends, especially as we have all spread ourselves across the globe.

We need to take what we do see with a pinch of salt.

---

More importantly we need to reduce the amount of pressure we are putting on ourselves when we do look at other profiles and other individuals lives. It’s so easy to get caught up in pressure from body image, career, lifestyle, relationship, romance and even family dynamics. Just because something is going well for another in one aspect doesn’t always mean that their life is perfect. So why put the pressure on yourself to make your life perfect?!

Your life is what you make of it. If you sit there comparing, feeling negative about what you don’t have, you will never give yourself the time to actually appreciate what you DO have. Being positive about your life and content with what you already have will not only put you in the right frame of mind to succeed in what you want in life, but it will also attract more positivity that will help you grow as a person and ultimately lead a fulfilling life. Of course there will be parts you wish were different or parts you want to change and that’s fine! But don’t compare…let your life be unique, don’t wish for another’s because you don’t know what lies underneath. You don’t know they hardships they’re going through and the tough times they have faced so in a sense what you see and what you believe might actually even be fake. It might not be reality at all.

Reality is your life.

It’s what you’re living.

You are lucky to have that reality. No matter what downs you may be facing…remember your life is a novel, a story and a movie; there will be ups too. All you have to do is remove the pressure of how you believe your life SHOULD be because of what you see others achieving and start thinking of how your life COULD be once you stop comparing and start living with more positivity.

---