We all go about posting “our best selves” the clean kitchens, the put together decor during the holidays, the full makeup, perfect outfits, the manicured lawns. Each of those pictures are typically a “moment” in time. In some cases, you may just shove all the mess to the side get “centered” in the middle so the background looks perfect, and bam you’re done. Your life looks like perfection. I have absolutely been guilty of this I mean come on we all want to take that fitness shot, that “look at my new boots” shot that “I woke up like this” clean house background I have my life together shot. I think we are all guilty of taking the perfect candid photo and then realizing the twelve water bottles on the side table in the background before posting and quickly restaging the scene. While I don’t personally think there is anything wrong with putting your best self forward it does lead to a path of comparison that can leave us feeling defeated and inferior because we only see the “perfect” when scrolling through our feeds and we wonder why we can’t be as fit or together or as fashionable or as well perfect and why it seems like day after day we struggle and “everyone else” doesn’t.
Several years ago I unintentionally started doing “Life Unfiltered.” I would just post the real side of life for me. The disastrous room I was working on cleaning, the last night dishes I said I’d do in the morning, the cute picture of my dog that has a bunch of stuff in the background and shows my house and life aren’t all together. The thing is I wasn’t actually doing anything intentionally I just got tired of “filtering” my life for fear of judgment that it wasn’t perfect.
Ironically from that, I gained so much more. Two friends of mine commented on a post I made (pictured) and it was a pivotal moment for me.
“you keep it so real…I love it”
“the water bottles I have…..”
The thing is I NEVER realized that just by being real and not filtering my life that I was actually impacting others. Despite it being over two years ago since that post and those comments it stayed with me…I thought about it for two years literally with the idea running around in my head and dismissal after dismissal saying no one would care on a broad spectrum about this. And let’s be honest I’m sure people will just think it’s fake candid anyway.
But those comments persisted in my head until now and I kept coming back to the fact that it did make a difference and it did impact people and due to that I finally decided to go for it.
So welcome to “Life Unfiltered”
This little section will essentially be dedicated to showing life as it really is and the efforts and changes I am trying to do to make it better. This isn’t me saying don’t improve and try to get better or be better.
It’s me showing that during that process there are obstacles and failures and we should embrace those as a way of showing how far we’ve come and motivation to keep going. I’m not going to just show you “My Perfect Life” in a bunch of staged pics. I’m showing you behind the scenes of the struggles life is and I hope it will encourage you to see that maybe the people you’re comparing yourself to our equally struggling to keep it together and they’re just too scared to show the messy parts for fear of judgment or rejection….you know like literally all of us are.
“Life Unfiltered” is a way of showing it’s okay to not be okay. It’s about bringing awareness to mental health and wellness and also about showing that you are not the only one going through the tough stuff. I can only hope this will help someone out there not have to suffer the same emotional turmoil I’ve gone through in the past (and still do sometimes) when all you see is the “picture perfect.”
Happy reading and welcome to “Life Unfiltered!”
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