Contentment Beyond The Feed - Naked Quickie - Episode 56

Ever caught yourself scrolling through your social media feeds, caught up in the glamorous lives others seem to be living? In this Naked Quickie, we confront a prevalent issue: the incessant comparison of our relationships to what we see on social media and the detrimental effects it has on both our personal well-being and the health of our relationships. 

We dig into why we are naturally drawn to compare ourselves to others, and how social media elevates this instinct to a whole new level. The conversation then takes a turn, through personal stories,  towards solutions as we discuss practical and manageable strategies to keep the comparison in check. 

Join us for this quick yet insightful journey, as we explore the pitfalls of social media and how to rise above the scroll. 

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Sometimes we only have time for a quickie, so here it is your naked quickie. Welcome in to Married and Naked podcast everyone. How you doing there, tammy?

Speaker 2: 0:12

I'm doing good. You're so funny. Like when you did the welcome just now, you put your arms out. I'm welcoming everyone. You're welcoming everybody.

Speaker 1: 0:19

Oh, my goodness. Well, this is the Married and Naked quickie version of the podcast, where we are going to pick Tammy's expert brain. I got one for you, you ready?

Speaker 2: 0:30

I'm ready, let's do it. You look nervous. I'm always nervous Sitting on the hot seat.

Speaker 1: 0:34

Yes, okay, so we recently spent a lot of time with some friends and it came up in conversation.

Speaker 2: 0:41

Is this going to be okay with our friends at your site? We're not saying any names.

Speaker 1: 0:46

And no, I'm not identifying anybody. But my question is this Is it right for us to compare ourselves to what we see on social media of other people in relationships? Hot seat go.

Speaker 2: 1:00

My answer to that would be it's very natural and normal for us to compare. I think it's innately built into us, maybe from our tribal kind of days where our job is to look at people around us and to see do we fit in? Because then it was life or death. If you didn't fit into your surroundings and into your group, you get exiled or kicked out of the tribe and then you have no more support or food or all that. So I think it can go all the way back to that. Now this is just a theory, but it makes sense that it's very innate in us to compare.

Speaker 2: 1:41

Prior to social media, we always still compared ourselves to our neighbor keeping up with the Joneses, trying to fit in with groups at school.

Speaker 2: 1:49

That's very normal thing that each and every one of us do.

Speaker 2: 1:53

But social media has kicked that up a thousand notches, where we're bombarded with images of other people and how they live and how they relate to each other and what their relationships look like and how they parent and all these things where we are suddenly hours and hours out of the day comparing ourselves to others, and I think that can be very detrimental as a person and very detrimental as a relationship.

Speaker 2: 2:23

So I think it becomes very important for us to then check ourselves on that. Somebody very famous and I'm drawing a blank on the person right now and whoever everybody who's listening is probably going to say I know who said that, but the quote comparison is the thief of joy, and I know I even I'm getting that quote wrong. However, the idea is coming through Right the minute we start comparing ourselves to other people, no matter what we have, no matter how good our relationship is, we're going to feel like it's not good enough. I think it comes down, then, to what are some of the strategies that we can check ourselves on this constant comparison life that we are all living, because I think it's just going to get worse and worse and worse as we just grow into more and more of an instant media.

Speaker 1: 3:22

Yeah, you're right. It's not like the social media is going away. Heck no, and it's not like people are putting their phones down more. It's part of our life and it's becoming more and more part of our life to the fact we're getting new ways to have our phones on our person, connected to our car, connected to our screen, perhaps wearing them as goggles and virtual. So it's not like it's going to stop. Images are going to be in front of us more.

Speaker 2: 3:48

Right, and we were just listening to a comedian last night who was joking about how we feel when we leave our phones at home.

Speaker 1: 3:56

Now, it's so true though.

Speaker 2: 3:58

Imagine having a few days without your phone, or imagine traveling without your phone, even though we did it just fine, you and I. When we were 18 years old, we started traveling. We didn't have any phones, we had no GPS or Google. We took a map with us.

Speaker 1: 4:17

Thomas Barrow's map.

Speaker 2: 4:18

We would go to AAA and we would get all these maps, and then, of course, we'd take the Thomas map and we found our way and we would call our parents whenever we got to a pay phone. So it's very possible. But literally right now, when you say, oh, imagine traveling without your phone, or imagine days like are we have a like a literal, visceral response to that. My body gets a little like anxious with the idea of doing that.

Speaker 2: 4:43

So no, it's not going away and I think we will just continually be bombarded. So it's going to come to a really clear recognition of what that comparison is doing to you, because sometimes we're just sitting in it, we don't even realize we're comparing ourselves until we get off social media after we've done our two three hour scroll or whatever it is, and we don't feel very good about our lives all of a sudden, and sometimes it's hard to realize that's because you just spent three hours comparing yourself to other people. So what are some of the ways that we can limit that comparison or keep check of that comparison? I think that's the question.

Speaker 1: 5:32

Okay, so you're asking me or you just saying I'm just saying it out loud- Shut the phone off.

Speaker 2: 5:37

That's one thing, no well, I think that that's true, like one of the most important things I think we can do, and possibly one of the hardest things, is to turn your phone off or have several hours a day that are not where you're not allowing yourself to scroll. You and I just took a cruise and a little literally going to make to this.

Speaker 2: 6:01

Yeah, a little Mexican cruise and a little cruise to Mexico as a four day cruise. And on cruises, if you haven't cruised before, unless you pay a lot of money, it's really difficult to get a signal.

Speaker 1: 6:12

What did I tell you? I said it twice. We were sitting at breakfast and I was just looking around and I say breakfast, we're out in the middle of the ship open, but there's having breakfast with everybody. Yeah, having breakfast everybody. And I'm looking around and what is that Like? Do you notice something that's going on here? I did not see one person with a cell phone in their hand and if they are, they're taking pictures.

Speaker 1: 6:35

Yeah, everybody was talking and communicating and sitting around a table with other people without a phone in their hand, because you're forced to yeah, which was actually really lovely.

Speaker 2: 6:48

We just left our phone in the cabin and we just hung out and talked all day and laughed and we played games and we were involved in all the activities on the ship. I mean, we wouldn't do that here, but what a lesson to us and how valuable that was to our lives to fully unplug for a period of time.

Speaker 1: 7:07

Sure.

Speaker 2: 7:08

So I think putting that into a daily routine, maybe a weekly routine, whatever it is that you can manage, or start with a little bit of time a day and working up to a significant time where you're giving yourself some a break from social media. And I think the other thing that can be really powerful, and one thing that you're always touting to me, is the power of gratitude and to make sure that gratitude's at the forefront of your life. And why don't you share one of the ways that you do that?

Speaker 1: 7:38

Well, I owe it to you. You forced me to take a trip away last year, and by yourself, by myself and it was so wonderful and I guess I didn't realize the true benefit of it until I fast forward two, three, four, five. True benefit of what Of this trip away?

Speaker 2: 7:57

Okay.

Speaker 1: 7:58

Because I gleaned such an important lesson from this, and it wasn't anything planned, it just organically happened. I literally sat down while I was in the beach in San Diego and literally wrote out in a gratitude journal. And I'd done this before, I'd done this many times, but I was literally writing what I was grateful for in that moment. The very next day I was there, I did the same thing. The day after that, I did the same thing. So here I am almost to. Actually it's been a year now, and every time I end up in the steam room for some reason, I'm in there for 10 to 12 minutes.

Speaker 2: 8:32

Every time I'm in the steam room not the steam room, the sauna, because the steam room you wouldn't be able to see anything.

Speaker 1: 8:36

Yeah, you're right.

Speaker 2: 8:36

I'm sorry, the sauna you take your phone in with you and you write it in your phone.

Speaker 1: 8:39

right, yeah, and tell my phone dies of overheating or I die of overheating, but I'll sit there and I'll write, and this is three days a week. At this point and or when I'm by myself, I just went to pick up our son at school. I had a few minutes to pick a map at school and I pulled out my gratitude journal. I'm like I'm so grateful that I get to pick up my son from school. So I'm writing, you know, not paragraphs, but just something that I'm literally thinking. I'm so grateful I got to spend this morning with my wife. I'm so honored that we're going to get to do a podcast here to help other people.

Speaker 1: 9:12

I'm like just writing down things of gratitude in my life, therefore bringing more of it to my life just by the law of attraction. I know it sounds woo, wee and woo. You know I'm off my rocker right there, but I truly I've lived by this. I just didn't know I was doing it. I'm always doing it in my head, but I wasn't doing it purposeful, writing it down. And now I am and I truly see that.

Speaker 2: 9:37

Right. So I think the first thing I should have said is become aware of that feeling of comparison, because when you do, this is a powerful tool to combat comparison. The minute you start to feel like you're comparing yourself to other, you're not feeling like your life is good enough, or you're feeling like everything everybody else has it better than you. That's the moment to pull out a list similar to you, or a piece of paper or something where you can write down a handful of things that you do feel grateful for. It's so important to keep that in check when you're imagining everybody else's lives are better than yours. So I think that's a really great strategy that you have.

Speaker 2: 10:18

And lastly, just remember that just because you're seeing it on a video, just because this is one of your favorite people that you follow and you know they must be 100% authentic what you see is not reality. It may be sometimes, but truly what we're watching is entertainment, and it's important for us to keep that in mind that we really don't know the true story. We don't know if that couple we're watching he brought flowers to or they look so in love, but they didn't have just a massive fight the night before. I mean, it's really important to remember that we're all human. Nobody's perfect. No life is perfect. We all have our own challenges, so keep that in mind when you're scrolling through.

Speaker 1: 11:01

Yeah, I always think of this when I see social media, because we are both content creators on social media you and I and I always think about this. I just saw it again while we were on the cruise ship. There were some teenagers that were taking a picture of themselves with something in the background and they took this picture. I stopped counting at 10 times before they were like oh, I got it. It was over and over and over and it was the most curated, spontaneous looking picture you've ever seen Curated, curated spontaneity.

Speaker 2: 11:37

I love that.

Speaker 1: 11:38

And I'm thinking you know what, and it's kind of true, when you and I create content, we don't always get it right the first time. Even doing this podcast, I've had to reset my what I'm saying because I have something in my throat right now. A couple times You've edited out those spots where I'm coughing or you know. So just know what you're watching or what you're seeing may even look perfect, but it might have taken them 50 times to get that perfect look. So I always want to think about that curated spontaneity, but even more than that.

Speaker 2: 12:09

I mean, how many pictures have we posted? Maybe of us as a couple, because they're really great pictures. But every time I look at those pictures I remember, oh yeah, on that trip, 15 minutes after that picture, we had a huge fight.

Speaker 1: 12:24

So I don't remember every having a fight, but I'm sorry I can pull up the pictures and remind you.

Speaker 2: 12:29

I promise you that, because those things stick, so keep that in mind. Sure, yeah, there you go.

Speaker 1: 12:36

All right. Well, thank you so much, sweetheart. You are wonderful. This is awesome. So I love the insight Be aware of what you're seeing Like, just be aware that you're comparing, unplug. And I love the last two that you said.

Speaker 2: 12:48

Gratitude. Write it down when you're noticing that you're feeling comparison. And lastly, just remember that the grass isn't always greener.

Speaker 1: 12:56

I love it.

Speaker 2: 12:58

Thank you, everybody. We'll talk to you next time on the Married and Naked podcast. Bye, everybody.