Social Media: Choosing Self-Compassion Over Unfair Comparison
It’s 2021 and Mental Health is finally getting the recognition and acknowledgement it’s always deserved. Physical health and mental health go hand in hand with overall well-being. With so much information at our fingertips, we can find remedies of all kinds to help our ailments and many are shared in our social media worlds. Post after post of folks sharing the secrets to their happy life as we enviously fawn over their successes and amazing results both physical and emotional. And yet….as inspiring as these posts are meant to be; we feel awful about ourselves, and begin our downward spiral of self judgement and criticism instead of the intended hope that we feel worthy enough to engage in similar ways in order to find our own happiness and success.
“How can it be that the inspirational and “share” worthy posts are not doing their job to light a fire under our asses to change things up in our lives?”
How can it be that the inspirational and “share” worthy posts are not doing their job to light a fire under our asses to change things up in our lives? Because it is a reminder of the pasts we have lived that is a far stretch from the inspiring success of others. Because our past experiences have told us we are unworthy of happiness and wellbeing. Because the pressure that society puts on us to be a certain way, look a certain way, behave and feel a certain way and to believe that we are also capable of happiness and wellbeing goes 100% against the messages we have received.
We’ve all done it....Opened Facebook first thing in the morning to find that the old classmate from high school is now the CEO of a major corporation, has their own family, vacation home, and luxury vehicle. They post about their successes day after day, which sparks your feelings of inadequacy and you’re unable to fathom how you could possibly measure up. Or the old coworker you haven’t seen in 10 years is now “living the life” that you imagined for yourself and you just can’t seem to understand how or why you don’t measure up. Perhaps you have a case of the “Unfair Comparisons.”
Unfair Comparison is one of the most common “Unhelpful Thinking Styles” that distorts our way of thinking (our cognitions) and can skew the perspective in which we see things. This results in our experience of feelings and bodily sensations that can become increasingly overwhelming and result in depression and/or anxiety symptoms.
Unfair comparison is when we irrationally and biasly compare ourselves to others without knowing factual information and/or detailed experiences of the other person’s life that either hurt or helped them. For example...Did that old classmate or old coworker grow up with the same difficulties as you? Were they dealt a different set of cards, making it an exquisite “hand to play?” “Did this person experience childhood and/or prolonged trauma?” Were the setbacks and hurdles the same or even similar? How do you know? Where’s the proof? The unknown logistics and facts of how they got there and the implicit self criticism you find yourself swimming in...that’s the pool of Unfair Comparison.
“The truth is that you are worthy of all the good things despite the life you were born into and that right now, as you are, you are enough.”
When you begin to reflect on your own life and experiences does it seem fair to compare yourself to others without knowing their full story and without giving yourself the compassion you deserve for enduring difficulties that you most likely didn’t ask for? Next time you scroll your Facebook or Instagram feeds and feel that stomach churning anxiety or you are green with envy, remind yourself that your story is uniquely beautiful and that your journey will not look like others’ and that is ok. You, as you are, deserve to treat yourself with compassion for what you’ve been through, where you are, and where you’re headed. The truth is that you are worthy of all the good things despite the life you were born into and that right now, as you are, you are enough and deserve health and wellbeing!
If you find it difficult to find your way out of this unhelpful thinking; and feel the heaviness of depression with the tension of anxiety, reach out for help. Therapy is a great way to learn self compassion and help challenge the thoughts that keep us stuck.
