Sisterhood: Friend or Foe?
Hey, homegirls!
Sisterhood saved me over the last two weeks. From my mother to my sisters, to my family and friends. These are all women who showed up in some capacity to support me. From words, food, prayer and scripture, time spent, affirmations, guidance, wisdom, love, and reassurance. I’m grateful for my community of women. I am grateful for my support.
Homegirls, this wasn’t always my story. Although I’ve always had women around me (Y’all I love having female friends), I wouldn’t let them in. I would be there for them at a drop of a dime. Give to them. Be a listening ear. We would travel together. Party together. Shop, talk, eat, laugh, create tons of memories together. But this is different. This is a different type of connection. One where the masks are off, and the guards are down. One where I make my needs known instead of harboring them. Followed by isolating and going inward because my needs weren’t being met. These are connections where I cry, hug, and allow myself to be exposed in my most fragile moments. This is different. This is healing. This is what I didn’t get as a child, deeply desired as an adult, but was afraid of. This is emotional intimacy.
How did I go from a hardened woman who was not able to create deep and intimate connections with women, to a woman who bears it all and lets them in? I met me and I met my needs.
Here are five tips for creating deep, intimate, healthy, and supportive sisterhood.
1. Meet you- If you aren’t new here, you know over here at Heal Thy Homegirl, we stress the importance of knowing you. You are a part of every one of your relationships and connections. You are you. You make your decisions. You choose or give your power away to what’s outside of you. You are the common denominator in all your experiences. If things aren’t adding up in your relationships, or lack thereof, look at you. Go within. What patterns are you seeing?
2. Know your needs- It’s more than knowing your needs. You need to validate your needs. Understand why your needs are important and necessary for you. Are any of these needs rooted in wounds or trauma that needs to be healed? What do you need in your relationships with women? What are you looking for in sisterhood? How can your needs be met? How do you respond to unmet needs? Are you able to comfortably communicate your needs without manipulating yourself out of believing they are important?
3. Identify your tribe- Sis, everybody is not for you and that’s okay. Every time I see that someone has unsubscribed from my email list, I feel good. I need women who want to be a part of HTH’s community. Anyone else is taking up space. Please apply this school of thinking to your life. It doesn’t have to be a flaw on your end, or you not being worthy or wanted. It could just be, they aren’t your tribe. (Unless you know you’re out here causing chaos. If so, it’s healing season, sis). An important part in finding your tribe, is finding you. As a woman who has done a lot of maturing, I know for a fact, “birds of a feather flock together”, holds truth. If you aren’t like them, you’ll struggle internally, to not take on some of their ways. If your values aren’t in sync, you are on two different pages in two totally different books, and your lifestyles do not intersect in anyway, it will be tough to stay in healthy connection.
4. Do your work- Are you the reason you don’t have a community of like-minded, emotionally, and mentally healthy women to support you and meet your needs? So often when working one on one with women, I am met with negative stories about women not being able to be friends. And this being the reason for guarding and closing off to connections. While women tell me this, they also want the connections, but don’t want to show that vulnerability. Sis, how have you made yourself available for deep and intimate sisterhood bonds? How are you getting in your own way? What do you do, think, tell yourself that keeps you a one-woman tribe? Or, limiting yourself to a few friends, cause too many women is enough to take you back into isolation, cutting all of them off. Whatever narratives you have about women (not just friends, because some of this distrust started at home) you’ll need to figure out, get to the root of, gut it like a fish, process, and release. Wanting sisterhood, while being afraid of sisterhood will keep you an agent of chaos in your own sabotage.
5. Clear out the clutter- I’ll make this short. You’re holding onto women that aren’t a friend to the woman you want to become. You’re holding onto women that don’t fit the story that is being written for you and you are writing for your life. I am telling you because I’ve been through this phase. What you hold onto, will keep you stuck. Stunted. Not flourishing fully. Afraid to let go of what pleases your flesh, your wounds, your ego, your insecure self, because who will I have if I let go? You’ll have you. Trust me, when you release, you make room for what you are showing you are ready for. Clear up the clutter, sis.
Well, homegirls, I could go on and on with more tips. However, I’ll leave you with these five to get you started.
Leave a comment about your journey of sisterhood and finding your tribe. You never know who needs to see it.
Until next time🤍
Signed,
Rachel K (Your homegirl in healing)
