In an era of social media comparisons and increasing isolation from the world around us, The Art of Self-Kindness comes along to help you reconnect with the most important person in your life – yourself. Instead of looking outwards for self-affirmation, psychologist Dr. Rebecca Ray helps her clients to help face the world with more courage, grace and heart from within. With almost 500,000 followers across Instagram, Facebook and her website, Rebecca’s professional background gives her a voice of underpinning authority and compassion that see her words of compassion shared across the world by her loyal following and beyond.
Here Dr Rebecca Ray shares some precious advice…
You and I hold a screen in front of our faces every single day that lights up with tiny squares of filtered perfection. A pocket-protected collection of other people’s curated and stylised lives. 24/7 advertisements from our list of ‘friends’ confirming beliefs that we must be more, have more and do more, while weighing less, making it look effortless and being fearless. How can you possibly ignore the requisites we place on each other – the judgement, expectation, calls for perfection, demands for agreeable opinions and ways of being that are comfortable for everyone else to exist beside?
You probably can’t. But comparison is not a problem until we forget that the manicured feeds scrolling under our thumbs are not reality. If you give up your power to social media, the result can only be dissonance between the life you want to create for yourself and the life someone else posts as #goals. And there’s nothing more dangerous for self-worth than the habit of measuring yourself against an artificial scale of enoughness. Let’s get clear on something: no one else gets to define your worthiness. Not your parents, not your teachers, not society, not social media. No one. Easier said than done? I get it. Tiny changes can make a big difference to how you feel when it comes to social media.
Practise using it as a force for good in your life with my top 5 tips for self-kindness with social media:
- Regularly cleanse your feeds. Unfollow any accounts that prompt you to jump into a mindset of negative comparison.
- Consider how social media fits into your day. Are you the boss of it, or is it the boss of you? Do you mindlessly reach for your phone as soon as you wake, jump to check every notification as it occurs, find yourself losing track of time as you scroll, and switch from one device to another simply to check exactly the same apps? Give your eyes and your mind a break, lovely one. Choose a particular time you’ll check social media each day and limit your contact around that.
- Turn off your notifications. Those little numbers in red circles create sparks of craving in our brains making it much harder to approach your social media use mindfully. Turn them off and check in on your own terms.
- Have device-free time every single day. You can’t effectively connect with yourself or the people you love if there are screens between you constantly.
- Remind yourself that real life is the imperfect, filter-free beauty that you see around you and within you when you look up. That’s where you’ll find the things that matter most.
The Carousel would like to thank Dr Rebecca Ray for her story.
Rebecca Ray is an Author, Speaker, and Clinical Psychologist. Her message centres on the task of living bravely in the truth of our experiences as finders and seekers of meaning and connection. Rebecca has been a Clinical Psychologist for over 15 years and is the creator of Radical Courage: Transforming Fear into Freedom, a digital journey for humans ready for their brave, inspired life. She is the author of The Universe Listens to Brave and Be Happy: 35 Powerful Habits for Personal Growth and Well-Being. Her third book, The Art of Self-Kindness, is due for release in September, 2019. Rebecca can be found online daily, interacting with her community about finding courage and living expansive lives while going gently on ourselves.
The Art of Self-Kindness by Dr Rebecca Ray is published by Pan Australia, RRP $19.99 and is available now from all good bookstores.
