Post, Panic, Repeat

People are gonna think, "I'm so weird." My body was literally itching. Hi everyone and welcome to Beyond Comfort, the Social Anxiety Podcast. This podcast is all about exploring the bounds of our social anxiety about exploring the often irrational thoughts that hold us back in life and where your host, Michelle, and Elle, and today we're taking a deeper look at women's relationship with their social media identity. So last week we essentially explored the disconnection women have with their social media identity and with their idealized self, which essentially means the person you are on a day-to-day basis doesn't match up with the version of yourself or the persona you put out to your followers. But on this podcast, we don't just talk about our anxieties. No, no, we test them. Yep, unfortunately we do. Unfortunately so, so this week we decided to rally up some of our closest girlfriends and conduct a posting challenge. And I don't know if excited is the right word, but I'm definitely intrigued about this. Yeah, like it's giving me a gut feeling and I'm not sure what the gut feeling is about. Exactly. I mean, going back to last week's episode, we talked about the worry or fear of public perception when it comes to posting on social media. And if you haven't listened to that episode, I would pause this and go listen to that one first because it really sets you up for what we're gonna get into today. For sure. Like thinking about the fear of public perception, we realize that is why we curate our posts, whether it be getting the best lighting, finding the perfect angle, getting your photos in the most aesthetic order, whatever it might be, we always try to show the best versions of ourselves and our best moments. And there's nothing wrong with that, but like we said, it grows the potential for a disconnect between your actual self, your perceived self, and then your social media identity. So we figured in beyond comfort fashion, the best way to test just how much we curate our posts is to make ourselves uncomfortable and spend the entire day trying to show our most authentic self. For people who hate feeling uncomfortable, we're constantly putting ourselves in positions to be uncomfortable, but you know what? We gotta go beyond comfort. We're going beyond our comfort zone. Let me tell you. That's why we made the goal to post at least eight stories in one day, just showing our day to day life. For example, a coffee run, you doing school, taking your dog out for a walk, but then putting it caption as well. Yeah, we wanted the post to be things that maybe you would send into a group chat with your closest friends, but you would never dream of posting to 800, 2000 people, however many followers you have for them all to see. And the catch was you weren't allowed to plan any of these stories. You were meant to literally whip out your phone, take a photo and post it with no time to find the best angle, no time to adjust your surroundings, literally just take a photo and click post. That's scary in our day and age. It really is. Okay, so today we have our best friends here, Angelina, Anna and Tamara, who all went through this posting challenge with us. Okay, so everybody introduce yourselves, say hello. Hi. Hi. So yesterday I posted a bunch of stories on my Instagram. I really posted on a daily basis, so this was quite different. I kind of felt like it was that hashtag Instagram casual trend. The morning of I completely forgot I was supposed to do it and I was just going on a morning walk. And halfway through the walk I remembered that I was supposed to do it and I was like, oh my gosh, wait, this is scary. This is gonna be really difficult just because I'm so used to posting a certain version of myself online. So I think I broke the rules because I had to ask for confirmation if I should post something first because I didn't know if it was too controversial or not. So hi friends. I don't know if I'm supposed to say that, but I'm saying hi friends because we're just all friends here. I've completed the challenge. I think I did about seven posts. I didn't do eight. So I love to spam my private story. I just love posting things. I love spamming things, but obviously my private story is my 10 friends, whereas this day where I did this posting challenge, I treated my main Instagram story with over 1,000 people as my private story. Right now, each and every one of us are at a kind of odd stage in life. We're in our early 20s. Some of us are in school. I'm in school for my masters. Some of us are working in the restaurant industry. Some have salary paying jobs like a girl L over here. And we're really just at the peak of figuring out life after undergrad, living on our own for the first time, figuring out what we wanna do with our lives for the next, I don't know how many years. And it's kind of difficult. In your 20s, I feel like it's very hard to figure yourself out what you wanna do. There's just so much going on. There's so much confusion. And I think that naturally just brings anxiety to the forefront. Yeah. And even though we're all best friends in the same age, we are just doing such different things. It's interesting to hear everybody's individual experience. We're all doing such different things that I am surprised that we were all able to just put aside two hours of our life and get on a call. I know. I know. Thank you to our girlfriends. Because I find ever since coming back from doing our undergrad, it's been impossible to make plans together just because everybody has such different lifestyles and schedules. Mm-hmm. And I think that because we're all kind of confused in our 20s, it drives our desire to curate and our post for Instagram. Instagram allows us to gain more certainty in the stage of life, like to show people, no, I know what I'm doing, no, I'm doing good. Like this is what I'm up to, but it's not our true self. I feel like I'm most active when I'm doing fun things, like when I'm on vacation, if I'm at a concert. You know, it's just so people know I'm living my life. Definitely my like, trueest form is not on my main Instagram. I don't portray myself completely different on Instagram, but I definitely take a more softer approach to actually how I go through life. There's some things too that I feel like I want to post, like I want to show that more fun side of life, things that are funny, things that are joky, like whatever. But then I also have this thing with social media where I'm always like in the back of my mind, like digital footprint. This can possibly cost me my career in the future. So how do you like balance authenticity with like, still watching your footprint? Yeah. Yeah, and I really think that is fueled by our heightened awareness that there are people on the other side of the screen looking at your images interpreting them. But the worry or awareness of public perception isn't the only thing that fuels us to post the quote unquote best version of ourselves. No, it's definitely a big part of it, but it also has to do with the anxiety that comes from posting the societal norms for females to post and that desire for the positive engagement that we're talking about last episode. Yeah, it feels like a tour almost and I would have to show people what I'm doing. I feel like people already know what I'm doing. So that's what I feel like I also don't care to post. Who knows what people are saying, like behind the screen, right? Like I can just imagine like someone like being with their friends and being like, what the fuck is going on right now? Definitely agrees what Ansh says, because I feel like I was just stressful for somebody who's not that aesthetic and artistic, who is me. Yeah, and I think that if you're sitting at home thinking to yourself, okay, but I don't have anxiety. In this case, it really doesn't matter. You don't necessarily need to have an anxiety disorder to experience signs of anxiousness and more often than not anxiety comes from or is mistaken with being nervous, excited or even unsure of something. Yeah, and I always forget that it's really easy to build up certain things that I think my anxiety is feeding into when really I'm just having a normal reaction to a stressful or exciting experience. Yeah, I always try and ask myself when I have like a certain gut feeling, like when I feel something in my stomach, I always try and just ask myself, is it excitement or is it anxiety? Because there's so many things that hold me back, but it's like, what if it's just my body being excited for something, what if it's just a butterfly feeling? Like it doesn't have to be telling me, my body's telling me no, it could be like actually telling me yes and that it's excited. Yeah, and I also think too that knowing that there's that many people on the other side of the screen who may see your photos, it completely makes sense whether you have anxiety or not to be nervous about that. Oh, 100%. I feel like, for example, myself, I like work things up and I'm like, oh, I'm so anxious about this. Oh, my anxiety's so bad when it's like no girl, that is so valid. And so if we take a second to think about the process when choosing photos to put into a dump, are you trying to figure out which one your hair, smile and body positions look the best in? Are you reordering your post to curate the perfect balance between images of you, your friends, and the landscape from whenever weekend trip you just went on? What goes in your head when you're making like an Instagram post? I don't know if it just goes on through my head but there's like an algorithm to it. Oh my God, people are gonna think like I'm the most fucking like shallow, like level, like top server. 'Cause you are. I'm not. You don't know the real me. I'm kidding. Why do you think they would think that? For example, okay, what I go on vacation and I wanna post like a death because recently in the past two years, dumps have become very popular on Instagram. I feel like before nobody was posting a collage of a bunch of different photos. So those stress me out. And then once you post, do you find yourself constantly checking who's liked it, thinking of the images through the eyes of someone else? Maybe your crush, maybe your enemy? That's the thing. Yeah, I feel like every time I always post a story, like I sit there giggling at my phone, you know, looking at my own stories or like my own Instagram. Instagram posts. Yeah, it's not necessary. I'm looking at who liked it. But then like also sometimes for example This guys are talking to you. He just followed me on Instagram. Let me go through my whole Instagram account See how he's gonna like see it from like the first time. Yeah, I think that too like I have this like addiction when I post Something on my story to like go through every five seconds to like see like who pops up at the top and like who liked it Who's viewing it? I don't know how to explain it. It's quite like an addiction So whether you have anxiety or not the very nature of posting on Instagram calls to those parts of our brains that thrive on overthinking fear and worry exactly like a friend tamara She is the epitome of an extrovert outgoing, confident and funny and yet she doesn't want to show that side of her on her Instagram I just sometimes think my true self is to vulgar For the internet. I don't know if I think it's just something my mom like instilled in me is a woman should be very boy, so when we put together a woman should not be getting drunk a woman should not be swearing a woman should not be burping a woman should not be doing all these things So I kind of my head. I'm like, oh my god like people cannot know that I'm a woman that does these things at first Posting is exciting because you have all these new photos that you really like and you want to share with people But then eventually after analyzing them so intensely it does feel more like a chore it does and this challenge was a really good way to let go of The chore aspect of it all because we were literally just sharing what we were doing in that very moment But then again like it did kind of feel like a chore because we had to post eight stories And I was like oh my goodness how many can I post in a day? No for sure and at the same time even though we weren't supposed to be curating it What I ended up doing was I would take like pictures in my camera roll and I would take Only for this one thing. I was a cheater guys. I'm sorry. I didn't even realize I was doing it That's the worst part. Yeah, because literally I took two pictures and then I was like, wait hold on my dog has an obsession with bringing shoes around the house Mm-hmm. She was in the background with the shoe on my bed You just couldn't even see Marley holding the shoe either you just saw the shoe. Yeah, I just wasn't a good look No, it was not a good look and I was like people are gonna think I'm dirty Like they're gonna be like what the hell is going on? It was hard. Yeah, I didn't Land what I was going to post but I did Plan the day that I was gonna do this challenge because I knew I didn't have to go to work I had a really busy day with school I wanted to go for a walk go to coffee shop all these things and So I forgot about it completely and I was on just like a morning walk and I remembered halfway through So I whipped out my phone I took a picture and it was just of like the stoplight and some cars, but I was like oh like my body was literally Itching because I was walking to the lake and I was like there's just no way I'm gonna post a stoplight right now I mean, it's like Ontario, but still pretty And then I allowed myself and my okay, it's the first post I'm allowed a little bit of curation, but then when I got there I just whipped out my phone took a short video And there may have been like a ship and a plane crossing at the exact moment that I took the video like that may have A perfect moment But after that I promised I really tried my best, but I was literally itching Because I wanted to put a song I wanted to like have the text right and I couldn't do that and I was like oh my god This is actually astounding how badly I want to curate this for me I got scared to add a song because under my deck there's a bunch of chipmunks I just live in there and I took a video of a chipmunk and Put the album in the chipmunk song background I was gonna say did you want to add scrolls my pants? Oh my god, Michelle. That's hilarious Now I wish I did that okay, but no, I added an album to the chipmunk song and I like people are gonna think I'm so Weird, but then I was like, but this is so funny to me like this is just hilarious Like how am I not supposed to it was hard and I know that the girls also had similar experiences to us and that Honestly, I didn't plan any of my stuff like I just woke up and I was like I need to get this done for Michelle's project But there's some parts where I was like oh, you know like maybe I'll take a photo of my face without any makeup on And like for a second I thought that you know, I might be brave enough to do it But just complete checking out then again like people that follow me on social media like they know what my face looks like in person Like they can see that I have acne like they can see that maybe my eyes are a little bit darker There's just something about it being on social media. That's like hell no because then you know They can zoom in on something then they'll have this thought of like oh, she's ugly Oh, she doesn't take care of herself. Whatever people can perceive and that's just something that I Emotionally can't deal with even if I don't see it I just know some way that it might happen. So it's just something that I will avoid But I feel like when I was posting that self perception was still like very hard The kind of expose in a way There's so much pressure on that first one because I think that first one kind of would set the tone of how I was gonna go about it And like what I was gonna pose and then I just thought I'm thinking a little too hard on this because the whole point is to not think that much about it I wanted the post to be like if we were looking at the same thing What I would say in that moment to one of you I tried to at least convey that as much as I could and then I feel like after that first pose it just got easier and easier When first Shela approached us with this challenge she kind of described that as like you take a photo in the Instagram app and you post it right away not being able to Retake the photo and retry Whatever you post like on your private story like for your closest friends You're putting that in your main Instagram story now Whereas my private story has like 15 of my close friends and it's got some of my wildest thoughts on there So I was scared going into it thinking or people gonna think I'm a weird freak Also because I don't post that active on my Instagram story Do you really like what's happening that part also scared me Obviously I was on the clock and I was posting a bunch of things to my work And this is a new workplace so also the past week I just started following all my co-workers on Instagram And in the back of my head I didn't want them to think like I was some Free who just all of a sudden started at this new workplace and was spamming her story with it Because they've never followed me before they don't know that I don't do this on the regular So that was really scary until one of my co-workers came in and she was like oh my god like your poster error so funny When I was posting was relatable they probably enjoyed it And then that's I think when I finally calm down and I was like okay, I don't care what my co-workers think I don't know why I was dressing but I think it's just because I was a new person there It's hard not to think like that though when it's so ingrained in us that we have to post a certain way, you know I think that it's like literally one of those like unwritten rules kind of like you can't have Too many photos of yourself. You know, you need some like filler photos of like just the the scenery But then you need to like make sure everything kind of goes together Because just from what I've observed in my own feed myself is like all the girls who are posting dumps They're doing it like that so I was like oh my god like is this how we're supposed to do it right now I didn't know I don't know just posting a single photo as a crime Yeah, and going back to what Tamara was saying about posting the perfect dump Who made these unwritten rules that we follow? I feel like we've kind of all contributed to it being those rules because I feel like We have to make a personal and reflect on ourselves like we're looking at other people's most likely If we're gonna be rotten real and thinking that girl posted too much of just her and that Like that's how we're judging us or like hey, we can do that then and I think it's funny because these apps are actually made so you connect with people Right like that's the cell of these apps connect connect connect yet I feel like no one ever actually does like you're actually just posting for like judgment and like no one's actually connecting But then once you get actually raw and authentic with your posts suddenly there's those connections Happening with these people yeah, and I think the fact that we do feed into these rules so much Was what made the more day-to-day type of posting so uncomfortable for us like literally It felt wrong it did feel wrong and from the start of the day I really wanted to post a selfie of myself because I was like I feel like that is the ultimate challenge But I just found that taking one photo or even if I took a couple it was just really hard for me to casually post a selfie But then I got a call from my friend and she goes are you an influencer today like what's going on here? And whatever so I explained and she goes why haven't you posted a photo of yourself? Like what are you doing? And I was like there's no way you just call me out There's no way but it just great no great fun So I did and I did like the grid on your story where it's four photos Because I just felt even though it's more photos of me. It's less close up Less personal less personal so that's what I did and it's business none of that no none of that But it did feel really unnatural People know what you look like like we're not public accounts and whatnot So like most of our followers I feel like we see those people like day to day like we know those people like those people are very aware of what we look like But the photo if it's not Instagram or the it's wired into our brain do not put that because you're not supposed to present yourself like that almost I just wish that you know I still didn't have that barrier on my own self image and people seeing what I Actually look like those little imperfections that I choose not to show I wish I was more comfortable about doing things like that I mean people when they see me in real life they Can clearly see what's on my face or what my body looks like or The color of my eyes or the how my hair is styled every day So you know, it would be more nice to break that barrier on social media But it's just something I guess that I'm not brave enough to do yet. Yeah, I know Angelina even said she just couldn't break that barrier. I think I did more of my surroundings like I realized I didn't post anything on me But I do remember trying to take pictures of me, but that was where that kind of, I feel like crossed the line for me where it was like, if I don't get that one right of me, like it's not going up. - For some reason, with actual photos of me, I found that I cared a little more and that I couldn't just do a random photo of me after my workout 'cause I didn't feel like confident enough to do that. I was like, "Hey, I can't post something crazy of me because maybe then people will actually give a reaction that I don't want." Like that was definitely a big challenge there and I kind of wish, you know, I did challenge myself a little more to post something of me and not care. But maybe I'll get there someday. I don't know. - Okay, so I had the self-confidence in person looking at myself in the mirror. I was like, "Rose and Cheek, like the hair with that "feel good." And I was like, "Okay, maybe this is a good thing to post." And then when it came to putting it on the camera, I was like, "Wait, it doesn't look how it looks to me in person." Like it was just so different. - It makes so much sense though. I'm the exact same way. I'll feel really good about myself, maybe even looking the mirror and I'll still feel good. And then the second I go to take a picture, I'm shifting my body, posing, doing all of these extra things just to look at the image and have all that initial confidence stripped away because I'm over-analysing my appearance. - Yeah. - Yeah, I get that too. And I hate it because I don't know if it's just me, but every time I stare at my photos more and more, I start hating the photo. And then I'm like, "Oh my God, wait, I can't post this anymore. "It could be a photo I loved and then I'll stare at it "for a week and then I'm like, wait, I can't post this anymore. "It's not cute." - Just going back to what we said in our last episode, it's so sad that we have so much confidence with posting and then it just slowly is getting chipped away after the whole process of it, whether that's editing the picture, putting it in a dump, getting likes or comments. - Even if you're getting the most likes you've ever gotten, it'll still chip away at that confidence. For the next post, you're gonna want to up it. And it's just gonna be this competition with yourself almost. - Yeah. - Sickening. This whole episode is just gets me, and my feel is about social media, but it's just like it's sad to think what our generation has come down to and how everything is just so picture perfect, but we're also that generation that talks about mental health. - Yeah, and it doesn't make it better, but it does help to know that from last episode, those five women that we spoke to, people who we got to answer a survey and then our best girlfriends, like we all feel the exact same way or very similarly about this topic. And so that helps me though in a sense, 'cause it's just like I can relate to people around me on this and I feel like when we don't talk about things, it makes it worse. And I've found even since we did this challenge, even since I've been talking about it more, I am caring less. Like I am not thinking about it as much. And I feel like our generation with mental health is getting better because we talk about it. - And I think that going back to our hyper awareness of our audience, Tamara even did like a little test for this, just to see what type of mere selfie would get more engagement, which was great. I love that she did that. - I did a mere selfie in the morning and then I did a mere selfie at work later when I was all dolled up, 'cause I wanted to see was there gonna be a difference in the engagement? - I covered my face to my hand, 'cause I couldn't bring myself to just doing it like right in the morning, like no washing my face, make up nothing. And surprising to me, the first one, the one in the morning got more light than the one at work. I don't know if that was because that was my first short post of the day, because sometimes when girls spam their story, you'll like it, but then there's five other posts after you're not gonna like all of them. So that was kind of interesting and to know maybe more comfortable with, oh, maybe people do enjoy just raw, authentic, like beauty, they don't need something like knee high boots, all dolled up to find me pretty. - And I honestly do think it's because number one, it was her first post of the day, so it makes sense that that's the one that got the more engagement. But then again, it's out of the norm and people love that. I mean, all of our posts were out of the norm, maybe not forever user out there, but for us who post maybe a few times a month on our story, it is out of the norm. - Yeah, and I think that because we all grew up together in Toronto, we have close mutuals and a lot of people were probably confused. And they were like, why are all these girls posting so much what's going on? But ever since the challenge, I've seen it within all of our Instagrams that everybody's having more confidence within posting. - Yeah, I know. - Like I've noticed within everybody and I love it. - I love it too. - And I think a main thing that we were anxious about is what people were thinking and how people were just gonna be like, see, one day you were doing it. And the next day I was doing it, the next day Andrew was doing it, the next day Tamara out on it. Like everybody was just doing it back to back. - Yeah. - Meanwhile, we have a friend texting us and our group chat altogether being like, what are you guys doing? I want in. - Yeah, yeah. I had a few people say that even people from high school were like, I love the realness. Like what's, I don't know what's happening, but I love the realness. - And I think the positive engagement was what helped us like keep going with it. - For sure, because if I was getting zero likes, no responses, I don't know if I would have been able to make the minimum of eight posts. I think I would have been so uncomfortable, so in my head. And just worrying about everything everybody was probably not thinking about me, but not true. - True. I did end up actually really liking it. I found it to be fun when someone would comment and saying like, oh, I love this post. I love that. I was like, wow, it's really not that serious to like post what I like, because most people will probably think it's normal or like really like it to, or maybe even post the same thing, not that I'm an influencer or anything. - I think this day that did the posting challenge, I had the most engagement with everybody. Literally, as soon as my eight posts were up, I just kept going because I was having so much fun with it. And maybe it's because I was showing more of my true self, you know, I was being more relatable to the entire audience. I wasn't just having these perfectly curated posts. And I think that's why a lot of people were engaging, but I'm gonna be honest. I think I enjoyed this challenge because I had such a positive reaction engagement. I feel like if I, for example, lost like 200 followers and people weren't engaging with my things and everyone was just saying, like, why are you weird? Like, why are you doing this? I would definitely feel a different type of way than I am now. And I hate that I'm letting, you know, other people's reactions influence how I'm feeling about posting and the anxiety I have about it. - So I posted this photo. It's gonna make it to Zee key, right? I put this on my close friends after some guy that like, I don't even like know. He like answered to the story. And he was like, this is like why I still have like Instagram on my phone. I was like, yeah. - I was like, you have Instagram on your phone so that you can wait for me to post about me to Zee key. He really picked that photo to say something. - Anything this lighted. - Yeah, I'm a little bit of a fan. - Imagine everybody was just like, did you mean to post this? Like five people to be like, I'm not doing it as many more of a show like yet. - Yeah. Did not everyone get a message being like, was this meant for your close friends? - My friends at work literally asked me, did you mean to post this? Was this supposed to be in close friends? Is like, is he like some of them thought it was like a little odd and like, at a character for me? And I said, no, like I'm just posting for this and I told him why I was doing it. But then I was just like, I kind of wish I didn't because why did I need to find an excuse for posting what I wanted to post? - Like on your main. - My friends were like, we thought you got hacked, but then we realized these were things that you would actually be doing. So then I didn't know how to approach it 'cause I didn't want to be rude. - I didn't get those messages at all. - It was waste. I guess people were like really too surprised. - Although we were all pretty good about not caring if anyone unfollowed us. - No, I got two unfollowed. I got three. - You know, losing a couple followers here and there who cares, I mean, those people are probably someone that's not very close to you anyways or doesn't want to see what you're doing. So it doesn't matter. After that day, I think I lost only three followers. I don't really care for it. Good riddance. - Okay, yes, we were pretty good, but we also all knew the exact number of followers we lost which means we all took the time to look at our follower account before we started the challenge and we're tracking it. Like I know I lost two followers. It didn't bug me though. - No, because I think that after this panel discussion, we gave each other confidence not to care what, like people thought, do you know what I mean? And like we were all very much like, well, if you want to unfollow me because I'm posting my real self, then please unfollow me. - Yeah. - Like I don't want you to follow me anyways. - Yeah, that's literally what Angelina said. - Oh, then there we go. - Yeah. - I don't think anyone unfollowed me. And if they did, then honestly, that doesn't like upset me at all. I feel like I would prefer that because it's like, you don't like the way I express myself or my pose or my day to day like life. Like there is no reason to follow me or to interact with it or look at it. - And I just think it's interesting how we were able to recognize that it's so surface level of follower legitimately means nothing, but it is funny that we were just like so highly aware of it, aware of how many people were unfollowing us. - I think if anything, this challenge made me so aware of my typical habits and thinking patterns when it came down to posting online. And I think that I do portray my idealized self and that it does make me care way too much about how other people perceive me. - I was gonna ask you guys 'cause you guys said that you were always checking. Do you feel like you were always checking because you were looking for other people's approval of your posts? - 100%. - I feel like if I didn't get that like engage from those posts, like I didn't have people replying, like I didn't have people like validating, what I was doing that I would have like gone to bed that night and been like okay like I'm not moving for the next like three months. Yeah and doing this made me want to post more not for other people just because I simply want to share my experiences with my friends and family and I'm glad that I can now recognize that not every picture has to be perfect. Mm-hmm. Even the next day Tamara said she was more comfortable with posting. Yeah that challenge really did like kind of a weak in something like for example one of my good friends Berthes was yesterday. For her birthday post I decided of all the photos we have you know we will always go out together all dolled up. I chose this one day was her hugging me for like the first time because she doesn't show affection not the best photo of either of us but it was a photo that I truly loved and I think that it shows our friendship the best whereas last year I wouldn't have posted that for her birthday and that photo did exist then. Obviously you know for girls Berthes post it's like either a cute little dumb. There'll be pictures of them two together. Even when I see like when I'm going through stories okay you're out for dinner. Cool. Next girl I stop on. She posts some funny close-up video of her. I like her story more because I feel more relatable to it. I feel more attached to it and I started thinking you know people are engaging more because I'm being more relatable so I feel like after this challenge like I look more connective my actual self and just trying to be less like perfect with it you know not having photos be perfect. I do believe that even if we're posting our intrusive thoughts, casual images and so on we are still not able to show our actual selves online. Yeah by the end of the post like that my last few posts like I definitely did not care. I did find though there was this little pressure because it's like okay so how do I make this look as natural and as authentic as possible without making it look aesthetic. So I feel like no matter what I still was in this mindset like how do I make this look how do I do this? Like typically anything I would post I would try to make it aesthetic or something that like people who follow people like or want to interact with or will be impressed by. And so I found that like you know that mentality to get the right photo to think about where and what I'm going to post. It still kind of came along with this posting challenge because even though I wasn't making it as aesthetic and more natural I still have to think does this look natural does this look authentic. So I feel like that mentality is still there thinking of like how am I going to post this not. But I did really end up liking it. Do I feel that I'm showing more of my true self though? I don't know. I was still very conscious of I guess posting myself you know posting my acne or posting too many photos of me from maybe some weird angle like in one of the selfies that I posted you know I still had to make up on I still had kind of a cute outfit on and I chose to you know share more about like my animals and my daily life and my working. So while I feel that I showed maybe more of my true self in terms of my day to day I wouldn't say that I chose to show more of my true self you know based on my appearance. I agree and you can show your interests and experiences and whatnot online but no one can hear your tone they don't necessarily know your sense of humor and no one will ever know what goes on inside another person's head and those are all things that help make up someone's actual self. But this challenge 100% helped bridge the gap between our actual selves in social media identity or idealized selves so on. So imagine if everyone did it it would be awesome. It would be nice to kind of create an Instagram where more people can um you know engage with daily life I would love people that I care for that are maybe far away to see them do this kind of casual posting so I can see what's going on kind of a way to connect people see what hobbies they do every day what they like which is not often posted so yeah I really like the experience and hopefully I'm inspired to post more casually I guess on day to day basis. I actually I can't express enough how much I wish Instagram was genuinely casual again. If Instagram was casual and we brought our actual selves how we felt in the moment our humor all of those things to our social media identity it would allow users to feel way more connected to the images that make up their profiles and would lessen that idea of disconnect that we talked about last episode. I also think it goes back to like associating good memories like when you're posting on Instagram it shouldn't just be your best pictures it should be your best moments because when you look back like when I got my Instagram deleted the thing that I most upset about is how I can't have that timeline from when I got my Instagram a grade eight. Yeah that's what makes me the most upset so it's like then why am I posting the best pictures I want to see what I was doing I wanted to see my best moments with my friends like what made me happy back then you know what I mean I wish people were more comfortable with just posting whatever even if it's a bad picture just because you want to show off a memory that you've made. If you haven't yet I really hope that all of you at home listening try this out even if it's just a couple posts just to see how it feels and bring your actual self to your online identity see the reaction see how you feel at the end of the day see if you want to do it more. Yeah and I promise it is fun and you and you will realize a lot more about your relationship with social media than you think and if you do choose to do it or if you did it last week. Tie us send us your thoughts we want to know how it goes so you can tie us up beyond comfort podcast on Instagram. Yeah and thank you so much for joining us we had so much fun doing this especially with our best friends. Yes thank you so much to Angelina on a intamerah for joining us and all of our anxiousness and our goal of the week is go of the week is going to be to do a little journal entry to reflect on how the posting challenge made you feel. Yeah if you posted on your Instagram what you should have yeah even if you just write in your notes just a little point form of how it made you feel to actually better understand your relationship. Yeah yeah and if you didn't do that posting challenge if it made you feel uncomfortable reflect on the things that you think about when you are making a photo down. And to stay updated on our daily anxieties join in on the conversation and see what we're doing next follow us on Instagram @beyondcomfort podcast and we'll see you next week. Bye guys love ya. Bye love ya. you