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have you ever stopped to think about how much control social media has over your life? if not, now is the time. you may not even realize how much it consumes you. but if you watch this video, I guarantee that by the end you will be able to really understand how much it does.

En Español: https://youtu.be/lYz5bJak1L4

THE SEQUEL: you are not your body.

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If you want true confidence- don’t go to the people who look like they should have it.

Don’t look to those who want everyone to know that they are pretty and skinny and have excessive amounts of nice clothing. You’re not going to find it in them, because they are still searching themselves.

Don’t look into the mirror to find it. Don’t tell yourself that you’re ‘beautiful just the way you are’. Now that’s certainly better than putting yourself down.. but you will never find confidence if you are associating it with your physical appearance… in any way- positive or negative.

If you want true confidence, you must close your eyes. You must release the belief that ‘you’ are your physical body. That is not your self. Instead of changing the way your body looks, change the way you look at your body. Appreciate the fact that your body allows you to experience this life. That is the way you must view it if you want to be able to attain true, lasting confidence. Confidence that doesn’t go away after you wash off your makeup at the end of the day. Confidence that doesn’t go away when you look in the mirror and don’t like what you see. If you want real confidence you will have to learn that it is not dependent on how pretty or skinny you are by societies standards. It is dependent on whether or not you can understand that what you look like is not important. Not just saying ‘oh i don’t really care about how I look today’… but no longer attaching any feelings to your physical appearance. When you see your body in a mirror, you don’t say “Im ugly” and you also don’t say “I’m beautiful”. You simply see your body and think “hey look theres the body I live in, cool”
That is all.

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The last part of this video where I talk about discovering who you are and understanding who you’re not was inspired by the book The Untethered Soul by Michael Singer. It is a beautiful book and I recommend it for anyone who would like to go more deeply into this subject!

The quote “you are not a human being in the universe, you are the universe in a human being” is one I heard from Dakota Wint, although I’m not sure if it’s his original quote 🙂

✭This video is not about the people featured in it. In no way am I saying they are bad people. This video is about you. It’s about regaining the happiness you once had but lost in your search for more of it.

Also, I am not saying that all social media is bad. I am not saying that if you have an Instagram or Facebook account, you’re automatically doing it for likes and superficial reasons. This is only about the uses of social media that I show in the video.

This video is not to put anyone down, it is only to lift people up. So that you can see the true nature of your existence and realize that your life is too valuable to be spent focused so much on your social media status, celebrities, and beauty.

I also realize that this video is focused on how social media affects girls and Im aware that guys can be consumed by social media as well. That is just what I chose to focus on for this video but it does not mean that men don’t struggle with seeking approval through social media and comparing themselves to others as well.

My intentions were not to exclude people of color, although I do realize that the majority of the girls featured in the video were white. I was not thinking about diversity when finding clips for the video, just focused on finding clips that worked. In my sequel video, I made sure to include more diversity 🙂

And lastly, I want to apologize for the poor audio quality and random bits where I got too close to the mic. If you weren’t listening with headphones, you may not have noticed much, but if you were then you could probably tell. I spent around 40-50 hours on this video in total and I felt like recording myself over and over to make sure there weren’t any mistakes was just a waste of time. But i did do my best to reduce the booms here and there!

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Please share this video with those who you feel can benefit from it.

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my ig, where i post quotes and spiritual images with stories and amateur poems and inspirational messages: https://www.instagram.com/veganearthandsoul/

my website, where i have resources on veganism and minimalism, my favorite books, documentaries, products i use & love, + more:
https://veganearthandsoul.com

if you have any questions, need advice or help, or if you’d just like to chat about anything- you can email me at:
annareid1196[at]gmail.com