Healing the female friendship wounds
I spent this past weekend on a yacht in San Diego. My younger self would've joked that I'm officially a big deal, but it wasn't because of our floating palace. The thing that was the real big deal was realizing that I was experiencing a dream come true. I was on a girls' trip with a group of magical friends for the first time in my life.
Growing up, I was the one best friend kind of girl. I would pour my heart into being the best friend I could be for that one person and then I would be devastated when the friendship fell apart. Most of my closest friendships lasted a handful of years or less and then something would inevitably go sideways. Too scared of conflict to have hard conversations, I would retreat and add another layer of protection to the wall around my heart.
Despite the repeated friendship failures, I continued to crave the connection of female friends. I wanted to be the kind of person who had friends that could talk to each other about anything and everything. I wanted to go on girl trips and do all the things that best friends do. I kept seeing other women who seemed to have the deep and meaningful friendships that I dreamed about. Friendships that lasted decades through the thick and the thin. I wanted that so badly for myself, but I had no clue how to make it happen.
Then I decided to go see a hypnotherapist about 18 months ago. I thought I was going to have her help me rewrite my money beliefs and grow my business. As I answered a couple of her questions in the first session, the real reason I was there flowed out of me along with a bucket of tears.
I wanted real friends. The kind who would love me for who I am.
I realized that up until that moment, I had been using my work to meet my social needs. Starting my spiritual awakening and becoming an entrepreneur shortly afterward, left me craving true friendship more than ever before. I desperately wanted to find other people who were like me that I could talk to about what was happening in my life.
I also discovered that I had been creating the events that I actually needed. I created the types of experiences that I wanted to go to find and develop lasting friendships. Spaces where people could have real conversations and open their hearts to each other. It was beautiful and heartbreaking at the same time. I would watch as people created meaningful friendship connections with each other while I stood on the sidelines patiently waiting to be noticed.
I was embarrassed and ashamed to share how I felt with my hypnotherapist, but I knew I had to be honest if I wanted to change this part of my life. A few months later, I started to see the results of my hypnotherapy sessions. I met a woman who I now call my best friend. We were sharing our past female friend traumas and through those vulnerable conversations, we discovered that we were growing a friendship that was unlike anything either one of us had ever experienced before.
That friendship began to open the door for many more. My Reticular Activating System (RAS) changed its filter and I began to notice that I was actually surrounded by women who wanted to get to know me. Many of them had also shared the desire for true friendship and the wounds of their youth that kept them from opening up to it. It's still a little crazy and incredibly unfortunate that I couldn't see these potential friendships before. I also know that everything is happening in perfect timing and the friendship seeds that are meant to grow into something more are still present in my life.
To be honest, I never thought I would experience this level of friendship. I thought I would be stuck at the surface with people who take days to text me back or just talk at me rather than with me for the rest of my life. A desire to change at the soul level allowed me to see the path to manifesting that change in my reality. I was given the perfect steps for me to take to change my mindset and my subconscious beliefs to allow the kind of friendship that I truly desired into my life.
Now I have a best friend that I talk to every single day. She knows the real me and I know that she loves me even when fear tries to make me shrink. I also have a growing inner circle of friends that I'm connecting with regularly and we are having real conversations about life.
I'm sure this past weekend was just one of many magical friend weekends that I will get to experience in this lifetime and I am beyond grateful that I had the courage to admit I needed help to turn my dream into my reality.
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