Photoshopping Our Lives

There is a wonderful photo editing software out there called Photoshop. It allows us to create wonderfully creative photos, which sometimes have no basis in reality. The program can reveal things that never were or create an illusion of something new.

The models in magazines are all Photoshopped or the designers use some other program to make them look even more beautiful or thin than they already are. It seems in this world, we are about sanitizing our image and creating a reality that doesn’t exist. What would happen if we stopped Photoshopping our lives and started being authentic with each other?

I’ve struggled with this many times in my life. When I was younger, this didn’t seem like as big a problem. As my parents used to say about me, I marched to the beat of my own drummer and didn’t really care what other people thought about me. Then I succumb to peer pressure in college because my identity was being reformed in this new environment. The expectations of others in my sphere of influence soon began to take over, rather than listening to my own drummer.

I believe the drummer I was listening to growing up was God. There wasn’t a need to worry about what others thought because I had security in knowing I was in God’s will and no one was going to deter me from my path.

In the world today, the pressure has gotten ever greater to model the perfect image. Besides Photoshop, there are numerous apps which allow us to filter what the rest of the world sees. We can essentially create the illusion of the perfect life through a few tricks of photography and putting it out on Facebook, Instagram, SnapChat, Twitter or some other social media platform to show others what a great life we have.

I want to look at the other side of the coin. We, or maybe it’s only me, are craving authenticity. I’m craving people who are real and stand up to say, I don’t have this all figured out and I might never figure this out. Most of the time I’m flying by the seat of my pants when it comes to my life. Yes, people looking at what I do on a daily basis to grow as a wife, parent, writer, coach, and a person wanting to break into the entrepreneurial world fulltime, may think I have it all together, with my goals and lists of daily to do’s, but nothing could be further from the truth.

I struggle to put healthy meals on the table when we are running kids to soccer practice, high school orientation meetings, night meetings for my job, or band concerts. I struggle with where to spend my time. Yes, I have professional goals, but am I ignoring my family in the process? Have my life choices, including my first marriage falling apart, mean I’ve permanently scarred my kids? All of them, not just my two older ones I share with my ex husband.

I tell my kids if their friends don’t like them for who they are at this moment in their lives, then they aren’t true friends. As an adult, I struggle with this also. It seems we have less and less authentic friendships, but the ones we do have are all the more precious because of the scarcity of people having time for one another.

Here’s the challenge I have, if you’re open to it. Find something or someone to let go of, even if it’s on a temporary basis. The Bible says, in Philippians 4:6 (NIV) “Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.”

Keep the people most precious close and release others to see if they come back. This isn’t the joke if they don’t return, we need to hunt them down. No, this is about keeping it real between us. We don’t need to worry about letting go of the perfect image or the burdens we carry if we do it prayerfully and conscientiously with God’s leading. He wants us to let of the things which don’t serve us and hinder us from living an authentic life.

How about you? Are you willing to take up the challenge? Share it in the comments below and what you need to release so we can support you.