During our session today, a question was asked about how has social media impacted our mental health and I want to elaborate a bit more on it here after having some more time to think about my response.
I responded that what we see on social media may not reflect reality and that we can look at things that we are grateful for in our lives. And to balance our social media diet and limit what we expose ourselves to.
Further to that, I’d recommend a few more things. First, take a deep breath and notice what reactions come up for you when see a particular social media post. My example this morning was seeing friends post pictures of them traveling or vacationing and my initial reaction was jealousy or envy. I knew I felt that way because I took a deep breath (or maybe about 100 deep breaths in reality). I would encourage you to go further than that and understand why you felt that way. For me, it is because I miss travelling and I want to travel to the beautiful places my friends are pos about. This comes from a place of desire and longing. Deep breath. Next, depending on your reasons for feeling what you’re feeling, take action. In this case, my heart is telling me that I want to travel so what do I need to make that happen realistically? I need to make a plan, decide my budget and what is feasible for me. Then do it. Even a short trip for the day to another part of town, or see a beautiful natural scenery, or go explore a new place. It will make the scrolling of social media much more useful than sulking at my Instagram page. In summary, take a deep breath, notice what your are feeling and thinking, dig a bit deeper to understand why you are feeling and thinking that way, and then decide what you can do to resolve, release, or accept that initial reaction without judgement or critism.