We talked about connection the other day and discussed how surface relationships and proximity don’t equate to connection.  When we reach a certain point in life we may feel like forming new friendships isn’t worth the effort.  It’s a lot work building relationships, especially healthy relationships with trust and humor and respect and care.  It’s doable, but it can be difficult listening to our training and feeling like other women are competition but the truth is there is something special about female empowerment.  There is something uplifting about embracing the power of women unified, the power of women holding each other up.  I had a lot of male friends in my life because girls kind of burned me.  I tried repeatedly at different stages of my life until I DID feel like it wasn’t worth it.  It takes me a while to learn those lessons, so that feeling came quite recently in the grand scheme of things.  It’s so silly how we are pitted against each other and how we take the bait and treat each other as opposition, not partners.  Some women have no real issue with this and that is amazing, I wish I had that kind of energy.  For many of us, finding that bond just doesn’t come that easily.  It really is something we should all strive for, not just for the sake of having something to do, but for our health.

During that same podcast I mentioned in my last piece (Chalene Johson if you’re wondering), there was an interesting fact that I started to look into.  Johnson said, “The longest running study around longevity and things that impacted aging conducted at Harvard, looking at things people do to improve for their health and happiness, [determined] the number one factor [impacting aging], was not omega fish oil, not collagen, not enough sleep, not anything pharma, not weight, not where we live– the number one thing that impacts how well we age is when we meet new friends;  We may think we’re an introvert and don’t want to meet new friends but female friendship helps regulate emotions, reduce stress, improve mental health, habit consistency, feeling understood, and long term happiness.”  Naturally this applies to being with the right friends.  It got me thinking about my patterns and how little I reach out to my female friends for real help.  And it hit me that every time I DO reach out, every time I talk it out, I feel better.  I feel stronger.  We are not solitary creatures no matter how much we may like to think we are.  We all need someone to bounce things off of, we need someone who understands the inner workings of our minds.  Think about the weight that’s lifted when we’re able to let the thoughts flow without tailoring or restricting them.  That’s real energy movement and it’s other women that help women move specific types of energy—it is science.  Life gets a lot easier and feels a little lighter when we have someone or a group of someones’ in our court.   

I know, there are certain things we do have to figure out on our own, that’s just life.  But that isn’t everything in life.  Consider all the things we try to accomplish on a daily basis.  Think of how many times we have to pivot in an hour let alone a day.  Really, truly, deeply dig into what that feels like and how that feels like in life.  If we’re honest, it sounds pretty lonely.  A step further in honesty, if we want to run life on our own with our own DIY plan, we’d have to really ask—how is that working out for us?  Frustrating? Lonely?  Exhausting?  We do NOT need to boss bitch everything, my friends.  Sometimes we need to soften a little and allow the help to come.  We need to allow ourselves to be open to the possibility we need to learn what we need to know.  We need to know the right facts, to know ourselves and we do that with people we know and trust and who know and trust us.  We ask the things we’ve never asked before, the things that embarrass us.  Look, I am ALL for embracing power but there are different types of power and a time for each.  There’s a time to run all the shit, there’s a time to sort all the shit, there’s a time to reassign the shit, there’s a time to avoid the shit—and sometimes there’s a time to throw the shit in that person’s face who made you forget who you were in the first place.  I digress.  The point is this: life is about balance and it ebbs and flows as does our power.  We go through seasons and we aren’t ever one thing all the time—so we find those who help fill in the gaps and keep us floating, and like magic, we never sink.