Is Social Media Helping or Hurting You?
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Is your social media feed making you feel better or worse about yourself and your life? And more importantly, is your social media feed empowering and inspiring you to become the person you want to be, or is it distracting you from becoming who you want to be?
Social media is powerful and we need to ensure we are using it in a healthy and productive way.
That’s why in this episode of Embrace Your Real, I dive into why we need to be careful with the images we are allowing to fill our feeds, and how to build a feed that helps you grow in the direction you want to go.
If you loved this episode, I know you will also love…
TRANSCRIPT:
Hey, Hey, beautiful human. Can I steal five minutes of your time? I have something super important to share with you, but I promise I'll be really quick. You're listening to my weekly bonus episode of Embrace Your Real with me, Julie Ledbetter. I'm about to give you a quick tip for building your confidence, honoring your body and unconditionally loving your authentic self. Stay tuned if you're ready to embrace your real. Let's get it. Let's go.
Hello, and welcome back to another bonus episode of Embrace Your Real. I'm so grateful that you are here. Today, I want you to take a deep breath. We are talking about social media. Yes, social media is most likely what brought you to this podcast, whether you saw it on my page, you saw it on somebody else's page, you are likely listening to this because of social media. So it can be a powerful tool. It can be super powerful for educating you, inspiring you, motivating you, empowering you. But it can also be a powerful force for taking away your confidence, making you feel like you don't have enough or aren't good enough or making you feel like your life is not as good as everybody else's. Or you're constantly looking at these highlight reels and comparing it to your behind the scenes, and you're like, "Why am I not further along?" Or "Why don't I have this?" Right?
Before I dive into this episode, though, I have to share the review of the day. McKylie says, "This podcast is the motivation you didn't even know you needed. Julie is so positive and shares her ways to honor your body in a way that feels natural. She's honest and raw about her struggles and is very relatable. Being on my own fitness journey, this podcast helps me remember the little things, like all calories count, and it's okay to want to change my body. She's like the little health angel on my shoulder now. This podcast has positively impacted my life, and I listen to it every week." Thank you so much, McKylie, for the review.
If you haven't already rated and reviewed the podcast, we have a lofty goal of reaching 1 million women by the end of this year. But I cannot do it alone. I need your help. So if you have Apple Podcasts, if you could leave a review that takes less than 60 seconds, all you got to do is scroll all the way down. When you're on the podcast page, you'll see the rate and review. If you aren't tuning in on Apple Podcasts or don't have it, I just ask that you share this out on your social media, using social media as the powerful tool for good, right? Sharing it out with your friends, your family, your co-workers. It really does mean the world to me. All right, let's dive into the episode.
Now, I saw this quote and I was like, Ooh, this is so true. "Social media is training us to compare everything that we have instead of appreciating everything that we are." This is the truth. It can be so toxic. And that's what I want to talk to you about today. But first, I want to set the stage. Does this kind of sound right? You wake up, you scroll. You go to the bathroom, you scroll. You make breakfast, sit down and eat breakfast, scroll. From the moment we wake up, we are bombarded with images as we scroll. And most often, these images trigger us to compare what we see AK highlight reels, R-E-E-L to our real, R-E-A-L, our behind the scenes.
So it's no wonder we're constantly trying to measure up in everything that we have, versus recognizing and celebrating everything that we are. We need to let go of focusing on how other people are living their life. And instead, focus on how we are living our life. Because at the end of the day, at the end of our life, it does not matter how it looks. It does not matter if it's perfectly curated. What matters, is that our life felt good. What matters, is how we feel when we're living our life. If you're living in a certain way because it looks good on Instagram, you need to start living in a way that's actually making you feel good and what you actually want to be doing.
Are you doing something on Instagram Stories because you want to look cool or are you doing it because it actually makes you happy? The purpose of life is to not have a perfectly curated Instagram grid and the most likes and most followers. Trust me when I tell you, this is a rabbit hole that will take you to nowhere but deep, deep into a dark hole that's not going to make you feel good. The purpose of life is to give freely, is to be yourself, is to find happiness. And I'm guessing if you're chasing this life that looks perfect on the outside, it is going to, or already is causing major distress on the inside.
Instagram should not be a place that makes you feel worse about yourself. Let me repeat that. Instagram should not be a place that makes you feel worse about yourself. And when you say, "Well, but I don't know. It's just like, this is what comes up when I'm on my feed." I want to tell you, girl, you're in control of your feed. Unfollow every single person if you need to first and then start from scratch. Instagram should be a place that helps you learn more about topics that you're interested in, allows you to express your creativity. It helps make it simple to keep in touch with friends and family. It opens you up to new ideas or perspectives. It gives you a giggle when you need one.
It should not be a place that makes you feel worse about yourself. So if you're in that place where, that is me, I'm raising my hand, Instagram is not making me feel good. Every time I open the app, I feel like I am comparing myself. I feel worse about myself by the time I'm done scrolling in this 25-minute rabbit hole that I'm in. First of all, I want to challenge you to just get off social media for a 24-hour break. If you haven't ever done that, it is so, so good for your soul. Seriously, if you need to delete the app from your phone, what you need to do to do it, 24-hour fast from Instagram if it is causing you distress, if it's causing you anxiousness, if it's causing you to compare, take a break. It's not worth it. Your life needs you to show up in your best self. And if Instagram is the thorn in your side right now, take a break from it.
If you're like, I feel like I'm okay. Me and Instagram are okay. We're kind of acquaintances, but maybe I need to restore this relationship a little bit, I want to challenge you with a few things. Number one, I want to challenge you to do an extreme detox from your Instagram account. Every single account that does not fuel you in a positive way, you need to unfollow.
Secondly, I want to challenge you to start filling your feed with accounts that inspire, empower and educate you. Inspire, empower and educate you. Ask yourself those three things for every single account that you follow. Ask yourself, does this inspire me? Yes. Perfect. Does it empower me? Yes. Okay. Does it educate you? Yes. Okay. Use that as your base starting point for follow/unfollow. All right? Start using social media as a tool for growth, instead of a distraction from your growth.
I don't want you to overthink this. I want you to literally ask yourself if the people that you follow trigger you to compare your life to theirs and if they make you feel worse about yourself, why are you following them? Don't think twice, just click unfollow. It's okay. It doesn't have to be permanent. But for right now, this is extremely important for your relationship with yourself and the happiness that you're experiencing on a day-to-day basis, that you don't have that distraction in your life. If you're like, that's great. But how do I mend my relationship with Instagram or social media?
First, you need to get clear on what you want to get out of it. So I want you to make a list of all the things that maybe you want to learn more about, or the messages that you want to feed your mind daily, things that truly inspire you. For example, if you want to learn more about macro counting, follow accounts like Jordan Saya, he's hilarious, but he's also super educational. If you want to start feeling good, if you want to start getting thought provoking quotes that make you actually think about what's really important in your life, follow feeds like Wisdom Feed. Trust God, Bro, I love that one. The Good Quo or Embrace Your Real.
If you're not following the podcast Instagram, shameless plug, sorry, I'm not sorry. I really believe that it's going to just fill and flood your feed with thoughts about your body, about food, all the things that will empower and encourage you. Maybe it's that you want to deepen your relationship with God. Follow accounts like Elevation Church. I'm a part of their Eve Fam. I love Elevation Worship. I love Steven Furtick. I am Michael Todd from Transformation Church. Follow accounts and pastors that are going to feed you truth.
Maybe you want to learn something about a hobby. There are so many niches on Instagram. I came across crocheting and I was like, this community goes hard. If you want to learn something like crocheting or woodworking, Josh and I are really into DIY right now, so I'm following all the DIY accounts that are giving me real behind the scenes. Because DIY accounts can get kind of dangerous sometimes when they look so curated and perfect, and they never share the failures or wow, this was an epic fail. Because I think it's important to just remember that we're all human.
So ask yourself, what do you want to get from your relationship with Instagram? Remember, that you are in control of this relationship. This relationship doesn't control you. You are in control of it. So every time you open up Instagram, I want you to see posts and stories that are leading you in a direction that you want to go, that are helping you live the life that you want to live. Not making you feel like you don't have enough or are not enough, right? Instagram, like I said before, is a powerful tool, but we need to start using it in a productive way that is going to bring us joy and happiness.
If you loved this episode, I know you will also love episode 31, How to Stop Comparing Yourself to Others. In this episode, I share eight thoughts about comparison, as well as, two new perspective changes that I know will encourage and empower you to live a life that is not driven by comparison. If you have somebody in your life that you feel like this episode could benefit from, I just ask that you share it out. Share it out to two to three people. It could be your sister, your mom, your co-worker, your niece, your nephew. I don't know, somebody in your life. Or post it up on your story. Tag me, Julie Ledbetter. And I want to know three accounts that you are loving following, that you're learning from, that maybe you feel encouraged or empowered by. Three accounts, tag me, and then tell me who are the three people that you are loving on social right now?
Thank you so much for tuning in. I love you guys so much, and I will talk to you guys in the next episode.
All right, sister, that's all I got for you today, but I have two things that I need you to do. First thing, if you're not already following me on the gram, be sure to do so, Julie A. Ledbetter. Yes, it's with an A in the middle for that daily, post-workout real talk, healthy tips and tricks and honest accountability to keep your mind and heart in check. The second thing. Be sure to subscribe to Apple Podcasts to never miss an episode.
Thank you so much for joining me. It means the absolute world. And I'm going to leave you with one last thought. The most beautiful women that I have met in my life are the ones who are completely confident and secure in being authentically themselves. Remember that beauty goes so much deeper than the surface. So go out there and embrace your real because you're worth it.