Creating Female Friendships as an Adult
Creating any friendship as an adult can be tough, being a woman and creating female friendships can be even trickier. I’ve certainly navigated my fair share of tricky female relationships and I’m also proud to say I have a lot of girl friends who I feel safe and close to and I consider it such a privilege to have these friendships because not every woman does.
As I observe my own female friendships that I’ve navigated – ones that have thrived and ones that haven’t I’m present to a few things. The biggest issues that get in the way of creating female friendships are a lack of trust, societal conditioning – judging each other's bodies, sexuality, assertiveness, etc., not nurturing the friendships you want. The beautiful thing about all of these issues is that you have the opportunity to get into the driver seat and change your relationship to all these issues in order to create beautiful, thriving female relationships in your life. Here how:
Building Trust: First, it’s important to acknowledge that trust is something that is built over time and strengthened in the small moments. Brené Brown in her book Braving the Wilderness breaks down the anatomy of trust in the acronym BRAVING.
B - Boundaries: identify what is okay and what is not in your relationship
R - Reliability: keep your word to yourself and others
A - Accountability: if you’ve made a mistake, don’t be afraid to go back and clean up your side of the street.
V - Vault: Don’t share what isn’t yours to share
I - Integrity: Live in your values. Dare to get uncomfortable.
N - Non-judgment: create a space where anything can be brought into the conversation
G - Generosity: give people the benefit of the doubt.
Judging Other Women: when we judge something or someone it keeps us stuck where we are and in a state of separation. Naturally, if we’re judging other women it will keep us separate from them. The judgment provides us an opportunity to do deeper inquiry into ourselves. Hold up a mirror and look at your own limiting beliefs about women, your own judgments about your sexuality, or any mother wound. When you forgive the judgments, it allows you to move past separation from yourself and others and into a space of connection.
Nurture Your Desires: just like anything we want, we have to tend to what we want in our lives and friendships are no different. We use the saying “pay attention” because you’re literally investing into something, so pay attention to your friendships. Invest time, attention and care into your female friendships. Deep connection is created in the small moments. So listen when your girls are talking and then circle back on things they’ve said- the little things. They count more than you know.
Sending light to your female friendships flourishing!
Big love. xx