I have some confessions about pictures I pulled from my Facebook feed…

In this picture, what you see is my sweet Ru & I, snuggled up happy as can be. What you don’t see is that my best friend was in town visiting me taking care of me because I really hate it when Josh travels for work for a week and I have to hold down the fort with a 2 & 4 year old.

In this picture, what you see are the cutest little girls ever with their beaming proud Momma. What you can’t see is that this was the day after our social worker told us it will probably be a long wait to adopt a baby, longer than we hoped, and I was still processing and grieving that news.

In this picture, you obviously see my stud of a husband making me a really happy lady. But you don’t see the little fight we got in on our date that day, or the hard decisions we were trying to make about work and family.

I’m not a liar, but Facebook is.

I wasn’t trying to be something I wasn’t when I posted these pictures to Facebook. But because you and I put up our very best moments on social media to show our friends, family, and acquaintances, it paints a picture about our lives that just isn’t true.

I recently told a friend, “I want to hear all about your new job and move! I’ve seen pictures on Facebook and you just look so happy!” She replied, “Well its been really hard and my kids are miserable in our new situation.”

Assuming I knew anything true about her life, based on Facebook, was so silly of me. But I have a hunch that if you are anything like me, you do it too, and we need to quit.

Life is not 1 dimensional. There are always things happening simultaneously in our lives and none of the pictures we post on social media can adequately portray that.

I think we have to be careful about assumptions we make when we look at pictures and status updates.

Instead of seeing a picture and thinking, “Woah, she looks great. Why can’t I be as skinny as she is? And she has such cute clothes! I wish I made more money to take fun vacations like their family does. Her husband seems so great, I bet they are so happy. She is such a good Mom, too!” We should learn to appreciate our friend’s pictures and statuses at face value, “Oh thats cute, I hope they are having a great day.”

When I am with someone in person that just happens to be my Facebook friend, I have been trying to be intentional about asking them questions that embrace the real messiness of our lives. “It’s so good to see you! How is your family doing with the new move? I’m sure there are some really good parts and some really hard parts about it!” Or, “I saw that your sweet little one had a birthday party recently! That’s really fun! How are you adjusting to all the new things that come with having a 2 year old?”

So do we kick out social media all together? Heck no! I love Instagram and mindlessly surfing Facebook when I get a free 5 minutes, err, I mean, 20 minutes before I even know the time has passed. Oh my kids need lunch? Oops!

So, next time I post a picture on social media, feel free to assume that one of the three females in my house just had an epic melt down and my patient husband is dealing with all our drama, while there is laundry overflowing, dirty dishes, work piling up, and a few really messy situations unfolding. That my friends, is our reality! And I will assume that it might just be your’s too!

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I love this concept of not letting social media dictate your relationships and conversations. I don’t want to know more about my friends though social media than I do through TALKING to them! I want to be sincere and genuine, asking questions based about their life based on what I know about them not on what I have seen online.

Instead of allowing comparison to flood your time on social media, try to find motivation in it, as Rachel encourages us to do! I started doing a yoga challenge this month, not to “show off” through my photos each day (bc often there is nothing to show off as it is quite “challenging!”), but because it is a way to join with others to exercise and have fun (and I even got my husband to do it with me and now he is one the asking every day, “What’s our pose tonight??”!! 🙂 and believe me this is not normal!) And, now I have been motivated to do more nutrition and exercise challenges – so if I post about any of these, it’s not to shove it in your face but more of a way for you to keep me accountable 🙂 So, thanks!

This is our truth…we aren’t yoga pros…we can’t do all the poses exactly as we are supposed to…but we sure are having fun!

Join us on Instagram for the second half of the April Yoga Challenge! #DetoxYoBody

…and get ready for some of our own Growing Weisser challenges in the future 😀

Do you need to step back and get a revived perspective of Social Media? How do you best do this – take a break form it, try to leave positive comments on people’s pages or pictures, ask people to coffee to talk about a recent trip instead of just scrolling through their pictures…?? Please share your ideas – we all could use a good encouragement and great idea every once in a while!