I needed to hear this lesson. Big time. Maybe you do, too.

I was listening to Julie Solomon’s podcast interview of Rachel Hollis the other day when Rachel said something so strikingly effective on the topic of social media FOMO and envy, I had to share it with you all. I consider it a bit of a survival technique in this crazy social media world we live in.

We live in a digital world where we gawk openly at people’s lives daily–with their permission, of course. Accounts are set up for us to peruse, to read, to be inspired by, and we eat it all up. But with The Scroll (through Instagram, Facebook, whatever), comes The Comparison. It’s kind of inevitable. And it’s also  a doozy.

I find myself falling prey–too often than I care to recount–to comparison culture. And it stinks.

It’s not that I want what other people have, but I do walk away sometimes from those feeds feeling like… well… feeling like I could be doing, and being, so much more. Like, Step up your game, lady!

And I’d venture to say that’s true for a lot of us. It’s tough to not feel like there is something you need to work on, when everyone in your feed seems to be nailing it–whatever “it” is–daily.

That’s why what Rachel said was so striking. It gives you a way to stop that negative thinking in its path,  while also putting some good back into the world. Here it is:

“Any time that I find myself consuming some kind of media and having a response that’s not how I would want myself to show up in the world … I immediately make myself stop and pray for more of the thing for you that I’m jealous of. … Because that prayer is me being the best version of myself, instead of this petty, ridiculous thing that I’ve become scrolling through Instagram.”

How awesome is that? Pray away the J… as in jealousy! Ha!

And if you think of it, why not? Why wouldn’t we lift each other up? Certainly if we were seeing anyone in real life that we were seeing on our feed, we would smile, congratulate them, and move on with our day.

So let that be our challenge. Let us aim to prayerfully or mindfully lift each other up every single time we feel envy or comparison.

There’s space for everyone on this stage. We all have our own unique gifts and talents, and in letting others shine, we too shine.

How do you deal with the negative side effects of social media? I’d love to hear more from you in Comments below!

(Image via.)

Sonni Abatta is a wife, a mom of three and a writer who runs this Orlando lifestyle and mom blog, and – despite the frequency with which she seems to do it – someone who does not actually enjoy writing about herself in the third person.

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