I think you should air your dirty laundry on social media. I do. Now, don't get me wrong. I am not saying you should call your ex boyfriend names or post a whole bunch of drama about an old friend that you no longer get along with. Here's what I am saying. Pretending that you're perfect or that your life is perfect on social media is not helping anybody. In fact, it's probably hurting someone. Think about it. Haven't you ever scrolled through your news feed on a bad day and seen other people's posts and thought "Why is my life a disaster and this person completely has it all together?"
The most beautiful things I see on social media are REAL. There's so much beauty in the post where a woman shares how she recovered from an eating disorder, or the couple who is struggling with infertility and sharing their journey. There's beauty in the recovering addict who is sharing how many days he's been clean, and how he found hope or the couple that is saying "Marriage is not easy and it isn't a fairy tale. We have to work hard at it every day to make it work, but it is worth it." There's beauty in the single mom who admits that she's exhausted and the days are long and hard sometimes. There's beauty in these things because people need to see that they are not alone and they need to know that the things they struggle with are also hard for other people too.
Maybe you're more comfortable pretending that you have it all together, but I know that secretly you don't. I know that secretly everybody struggles with something. I recently posted something about being a stay at home mom and how I didn't love it at first and it's been an adjustment for me. I felt guilty actually typing it. I felt kind of like I was naked in front of a crowd. I felt like working moms that wish they could stay home might judge me or that other stay at home moms that love being home might look down on me. I shared it anyway. And guess what? If anybody judged me, they didn't say it. More importantly, other moms messaged me and thanked me because guess what? They struggle too and they thought they were alone.
So if you're someone who regularly posts on facebook, and you're reading this, I challenge you to talk about your next bad day. I don't mean complain or talk badly about someone who made your day bad. I simply mean post about it in a way that someone else can read it and know that they are not alone. So many people struggle because they compare themselves to the perfect picture you're painting on social media. Stop giving them something to compare themselves to that isn't even real and start giving people something to relate to. I bet that you will find that it helps you just as much as it helps someone else.
