How Adult Friendships Really Form And Last

Friendship becomes easier when we understand what actually builds it and when we stop trying to do it alone. We share what friendship looks like at midlife, how safety and healing change our circles, and why sisterhood can feel like medicine. 
• proximity, timing, and energy match as the building blocks of adult friendships 
• the school-run gateway and how casual chats deepen into real support 
• encouragement as a core friendship quality that expands our world 
• reason, season, and lifetime friends and letting each relationship be what it is 
• loneliness, resentment, and returning to connection when you are the common denominator 
• losing a friendship group when safety breaks and what it takes to trust again 
• long friendships that survive conflict, life events, and imperfect compatibility 
• reconnecting after years of silence and why it can be profoundly healing 
• friends reflecting back truer stories that shift self-worth and old beliefs 
• unlearning mean girl conditioning and modelling healthier friendship for girls 
• oxytocin, nervous system regulation, and why women need to gather regularly 
Keep saying it, sister, keep sharing, and keep connecting. 

Send us a comment, ask a question, or suggest a topic. We would love to hear from you

Transcript

Heatwave Catch-Up And A Theme

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome everyone to another episode of Today Sister where the camera and I see get to talk about whatever is on our mind. Um the way that friends do. We are best friends, colleagues, coaches, and women learning how to live and be in our sovereign era, and it is magnificent. And at the time of recording, I'm not gonna lie, we're sweating. We're in the middle of a red alert heat wave. Um, it's also solstice celebrations and all that outward sun energy, and uh there's no better way to do it than with friends. And after seeing a photo on, I think it was Friday or Saturday, of Karen out on the town with her newfound school school mum friends, um, I thought, yeah, let's make this episode all about friendship. It's that energy of being out there, socializing, being active, uh being part of the world. And it made me also think about the friendships that I've got, the ones who are old season ones, um, some who come into your life just for a reason, and yeah, some who are just, you know, the whole lifetime stuff. So, yeah, we're gonna talk about it. And

The Three Ingredients Of Adult Friendship

SPEAKER_00 1:14

it made me think about um some proximity stuff that is mentioned in the Mel Robbins book Let Them. Now, she talks about friendships and in particular adult friendships, and I don't think it's her work, it's some other researcher, but she talks about the three things that you need to develop adult friendships. One is proximity, so you need to be able to spend time together. And Karen and I spend every week together. We do this call, we're chatting all the time. So, although we're not physically together, we're together, and friendships do grow more easily when people are near each other, uh, whether you work together, you share activities and hobbies. Um, so even if you move away, you find a way to keep in contact. The friendship is preserved. Then there's timing, and this is about compatible life stages, and so you'll notice that um age doesn't become so significant in adult relationships, it's all about where you are in your life, whether you are parenting, whether you're a dog owner, whether you're retired. Um, and it's those kinds of that timing, experiencing the same life patterns that brings friendships together. And then there's the energy match, and that means that it's that feeling good, reciprocal kind of energy. Um, and it's like emotional chemistry. So it's not one person doing all of the work, it's that you know, both of you are in it, you're invested, you want to hang out together, you want to chat. Um, or if you're not a chatter online like I am, that you actually you know respect that and um you don't get offended if somebody needs to take time out. So it's it's an energy connection. So I just thought I'd throw that in there because as children, when you sat in the same classroom, day in, day out, the same school, well, of course you're gonna find a best friend easily, but it gets that little bit harder as an adult. So being as uh you were my muse for this topic, Karen, I want to say welcome. And what do you make of all that?

School-Run Friends And Saying Yes

SPEAKER_01 3:22

Well, I'm still in the photograph, and I'm realising my microphone is quite far away, so I'm just going to move my microphone. I think the heat has gone to my head. There we go. It's hot, it's hot, and it's like the little details are slipping away. But the photograph was really powerful for me because I didn't know it was being taken. And then when the photograph came through the next day, I was like, oh wow, like it was just such a powerful. We're all walking forwards together, and you can just tell that there's this energy that's being passed around, and I'm sort of I've got my hands in the air and I'm sort of pointing, and everything just looks amazing. The lights, you know, the nightlife lights are sort of like really neon, my hair swishing, all our hair swishing, and it was like, wow, I'm 50 years old, and look at me. And I think as I'm aging, friendships are coming back in a very different way, and it's giving me so much life because when I became a new mum at 43, I lost a lot of friends at that point, like a lot of the old fell away, and I was a bit like I was in my cocoon, and I was in that cocoon for such a long time, and then when Catalina went to school, I met some really nice mums, and we would all talk on the path. Um, I met some really not very nice mums and had lots of problems there. So it was kind of like you know, both were present, like negativity and then positivity, and over time, you know, Catalina is now in her third year at primary school. Over time, the relationships have got deeper and deeper and deeper, and we're making more of a commitment to meet up and go out and have fun. And then Friday we were one of the girls said, You know, Karen, we've booked a taxi and we're going into Leeds, knowing full well that I'd normally say, Absolutely not, like I'm not going out clubbing. And I just looked at her and I just thought, and she said, But you can get a taxi home whenever you want, we'll make sure you're fine, da da da. And I just thought, What why not? It was about half past ten at this point. I was having such a good time. Off we went, and then we went to a gay club, and that was what I used to do when I was 18. I used to go to the gay clubs, dance, you know, put my hands in the air, and it was this feeling of liberation, but I couldn't have done it without this set of friends because I think all my other friends, anyone else, would just go, she won't go. So I think there's something about friendship where we invite each other into something, and we might just say, just give it a try, or come on, like we're doing it, just come along, you know, where we encourage each other. And I think the word encourager is really, really important because for me, I want to be in friendships where we encourage each other, where it's positive, not fake, but positive, uplifting, but also there's a deep level of truth, and for me, that's what female friendships give me because I love women and I love being in the company of women, and I've got an eight-year-old girl, so I do need adult conversation, and I've lost my filter at this point in life, so I need to be around women who are who are okay with that and who can handle like real life conversations. Um yeah, that's I can't imagine my life without talking to you every week. I can't imagine my life without seeing these mums every single day on the sch on the school run. Um, and then there are other people that come and go, and when I see them, it's like I saw them yesterday, and I'm just so grateful because I feel like life can feel lonely at times, and we can feel like we're a bit lost and we don't really know like where are we going with this, and it's that solidarity and it's that sisterhood, you know, that when we plug into it in the right way, it doesn't really matter. All of the sort of like the worries fall away, and before we know it, we're laughing or you know, sharing something or planning, you know, like we're making a plan to do something else, and I think, God, we we we just need each other so much.

Old Friends New Friends And Seasons

SPEAKER_01 7:19

Tell me about your friendships.

SPEAKER_00 7:21

So I've got um I always say I've got six best friends, um, and like the the girls when they were younger, they were like, No, you have one. I'm like, no, that's not true at all. And I'm and I have a friend who uh calls them her care bears because you remember, like, they all had a different symbol on, um, and they were all for a different reason, and each one of my best friends is for a different reason, and so my oldest oldest friend, uh, we literally meet at around Christmas time every year. We have a good catch-up for about three hours, and then we don't see each other again until Christmas the next year, and we actually met when I was at high school, um, and yeah, we we spent about two years literally being in each other's pockets and sharing everything, and then she settled down quite early, she became a mum, and at that timing, that proximity, I'd moved to Nottingham. Um, so I went away. So all of those things um kept us disconnected. However, we said, uh, because it was before mobile phones when I moved up there, we said we would always make sure once a year we would always gather. Um, and it is just beautiful. We don't need any more than that. Um, but she's the one who knows me in my truest self, the one as as I was a child. And then more recently, I'd say over about the last five or six years, my old um yeah, schoolmates uh are gathering. Now, thankfully, I've got one um who is the encourager, and she's always put it, she put us in a WhatsApp group, and we uh were always planning something. And so I was with them a couple of weeks ago, and yeah, we're all at we've all come and gone at different stages because some of us had children young, some people never had children, some of them like their kids are 30 now. So, through that we we did go our separate ways, but now we've rediscovered ourselves, and actually we're all going through very similar things, just in terms of life stages and health and things like that. So that I really, really regard highly because it's just yeah, it's like being 14 again, it's just grace. Um, and we're off to an afternoon rave in a few weeks' time. Um, and then we are doing a spa in uh September because we're all turning 50 in the the following 12 months, so we're doing those special things, and then I have my best friend who I met at uni, and that is 30 years of friendship, and we love each other dearly. Um, and we have gone through all life phases together, so it's been proximity, it's been energy, it's been timing, everything. Um, and yeah, that's special. I in fact, I don't know who I'd be in this world without her. It's it's that special. And then I've I've got people who I met through business, and so you are one of them, and I've got my friend Sonia, who is another. Um, you're both very different people, so you um you're both a gift to me. Um, and then I've got my school mum friend, and we met when our uh both of our youngest were a nursery, and the girls uh just became besties. So we started doing that, oh pop round and have a glass of gin. And then it started that actually we were the friends. As it turns out, we're all like we've been on holiday together, we've done all of the proms together, we've done 40th birthdays together, we are friends, and they are friends. So I feel incredibly lucky that I've been able to maintain those friendships, but there have been times when I felt incredibly isolated and very lonely. Um, and I think some of those times it's when I've been going through stuff that I haven't wanted to put my energy into those friendships, and I felt maybe a little bit of resentment, you know, because they all seemed really happy and I wasn't, and I didn't want to play the game. But I forced myself back into it because I realized it was me that was the common denominator, so yeah, that's my relationship. I'm I'm incredibly lucky.

SPEAKER_01 11:24

Yeah, I know.

When Friendships Break For Safety

SPEAKER_01 11:26

I hear that, and I I mean it's sort of taking me into when we lose friendships as well, because as we're sort of aging and we're going on different journeys and we're also experiencing life differently, and change is a massive force and it it breaks us open. But I I think in the journey of being broken open, we almost also need something different, and not everyone can come on that journey with us. And sometimes it becomes it becomes too uncomfortable, even too painful to be in the room with people. And I had that experience because I was just like actually, I was on a different journey for quite a long time. I had a friendship group, and we would all we would all sort of been party friends and we'd sort of done a lot of travelling together and we've been to a lot of amazing places and had so much fun together. And this is from my twenties, you know, when I was working in PR and communications, and I was uh I was an it-go really in a way, and you know, I was out there living a high lifestyle, and I had the friends, and I had some really amazing friends in that group too, like people who I I still love to this day. Yet as I was going on different a different journey, you know, connecting more to my spiritual side and opening up, I I found myself thinking, I don't really know where I fit. And we and when I when we all met up, everyone fell into the same pattern. So it was the same conversations and it was the same behaviours, and it just I I was really struggling to sort of like I can't be in both of these worlds, it just doesn't feel right. But yet they were still my friends and I loved them and all the rest of it. And then life just took its own course for me. Things started to happen, and it broke up my friendship circle. I know the sexual assault that I experienced with somebody that I knew who you know was in our friendship circle, but he was a man, and it had such a huge impact on that group, and I know everybody went through they had their own version and their own experience with that, and I think it was just deeply, deeply uncomfortable. And people weren't talking about sexual assault in the way that they are today. Like there's been a cosmic shift, I think, with women being able to talk about this, being able to share it, and and people feeling more equipped. And my throat's getting tight. And I noticed it and I just thought I didn't feel safe in the group anymore, basically, and my safety was the most important thing to me. And uh it just took time, but slowly, slowly these people started to sort of move away, and I was relieved because I couldn't I couldn't carry it, and also I I I just wanted to be sort of by myself, and there was I think one friend that stuck the course with me who I met up with today. We went for a a coffee and she met Ernie, my dog, for the first time, and it was just so nice to see her, and I feel quite emotional because I haven't seen her for a while, but I know she's still my friend. And it was we just sat and we chatted and we didn't spend too long because it was really hot, but I just was like, wow, like this friendship has actually been through quite a lot, and I really value it. And when I stop to think about it, like right now in this moment, I really value it because she was solid for me, and I think when the going gets tough, sometimes people have to leave, and maybe they come back together again later on, maybe that friendship reconnects. But I don't feel that that is actually what's gonna happen, but I don't know. And I remember I've said I've told you this before, but I remember when I was working with my old coach, Helen House, and I said and she said to me, On the other side of this, you are going to have the most beautiful friendships. I'm getting emotional. Um, you're gonna meet the most amazing women. You won't believe it right now. You will not believe it. Because when I was doing the therapy work as well, they were like, Well, who who actually had the sexual assault? Was it you or was it somebody else? Because it sounds like it wasn't you, like it was sounds like they've made it about them, and so I had to untangle all of that, and so then I thought, well, friendship, like what is friendship really about? And I went on a deep journey, but then as I did my own healing work, women did start to arrive. Like you came back into my life with similar shared experiences, and slowly and surely things started to evolve, and there is like a an opening that needs to happen on the inside for us to have partnerships and relationships with friends where we have to be able to look in that person's eyes and think, You've got my back, I can see that you've got my back, you want the best for me. It's not always easy, but like we're committed and we're going to sort of, you know, do the work on our relationship and we're going to stay the course. So I think there's a lot, there was a lot from me there, but I am so happy and so grateful that I did my own personal deep diving healing work. I allowed myself to open and then I allowed myself to trust again because if I hadn't, I wouldn't have all these amazing women in my life right now and all these amazing friends. It's not thousands of women, but it's like it's a solid crew of different women who I know I know who to go to and they know who to come to when to come to me, and that's what matters to me really.

SPEAKER_00 16:41

And it's interesting for me, um, because like with my ride or die, my 30-year-old friendship, um, there's lots of qualities about me that she doesn't like, um, there's lots about her that I don't like, and there we can annoy each other. Um, we know we're never gonna go on holiday together because we're we'd kill each other. Um, but there is something there that is so soul-based because we have been through births, deaths, marriages, miscarriages, infidelity, divorces, you name it, we we've held each other all the way through that. And it is probably the longest and most significant relationship of my life, and um that's why I said I feel really grateful, but it's not all happy clappy, we're all having like laughter all the time. It's a friendship that is beyond that superficial. I've got other friends who they are just like my laughing buddies, um, and it is all superficial, and I go to them because it's no stress and it is just barbecues and giggles. Um, and I really appreciate them, but there's only two people I can get really deep with, and that is my other friend, and that's with you. And I think you two probably know me better than anybody on this planet, and it's that is something really special, and that's why I said, you know, you have like a reason, a season, and the lifetime friends, and the lifetime friends are special, and like you said, we only reconnected what four years ago, maybe. Um, and before then, we'd been, I guess, acquaintances, Facebook friends. Um, and so it's a real gift to be able to reconnect and make friends in later life. Um, and I think that's something that surprised me, and it's something that I keep telling my children, you know, um, your high school friends or your university friends, you might get one that you keep forever, but most of your friends you haven't even met yet. And isn't that exciting?

SPEAKER_01 18:45

So exciting, and it's funny, isn't it? Because I

Reconnecting After A Long Rift

SPEAKER_01 18:48

think there can be people in our lives who we break contact with, and then if somebody's coming up in your mind, and this is another thing that happened to me. Like, I had a best friend who I met when I was five years old, and we grew up together and did everything together, like your friend as well. And we were actually very close. Um, we would you know see each other a couple of times a year, and then got to my wedding. Now, a couple of things had happened in the build-up to that, and then the wedding was like highly stressful, you know, for me on many different levels. I'm not gonna go into it but because I'd be here all day. And after that, you know, I was we had a conversation, and I said, Well, you kind of let me down in and a lot of people did on my wedding day, so she wasn't the only one. It was a really hard conversation to have, and and it it didn't get heard in the in the way that I hoped it would, because the reason I wanted the conversation was to clear it so we could move forward. I didn't want to just l let things lie in the relationship. Um and then we didn't speak for maybe six years. Wow. And but we I never stopped loving her, and I remember like it felt like there was a hole in my life, and it got to the point one day when I was going back to my parents, and I just thought, I'm gonna send a message to her, and I just said, you know, I'm I'm gonna be home. I would love to see you. Um let me know. I can't remember how I phrased it, but she got back fairly quickly and said, That would be really nice. Oh my god. When I first saw her walk into Starbucks, I I just I cried for non-stop for 10 minutes. I couldn't even speak, I just was like, you know, it was all coming out, and we just hugged each other. She had a big bunch of like white flowers and we were just hugging, and it was like time stood still, and you know, you just sometimes it's just such an ache when you miss somebody who you love, and I'm so glad we did that, and then now we get together every now and then, you know, and it's just so wonderful, like, and we're both so grateful because we were like, What what have we been doing for these eight years that we allowed this rift to be present in our lives? Because we we we've very much liked if I ever had a sister, she would be my sister, you know, and to not have her in my life now again feels crazy, and it's not like we're in each other's pockets, but there's just something sometimes in your life, if if you can have a fallout or whatever, where you feel incomplete without that person, but it takes time to allow the work, you know, whatever needed to happen in that time for both of us to finally come back together again was just so healing and so wonderful. So I also just want to say to anyone that's listening, if you have a treasure, that's my my person, if you have that person and you've let things get in the way, it's definitely worth reaching out and trying to reconnect and find your way through it because the healing and the hope and the reconnection point and the gratitude is just beyond.

Friends Who Rewrite Your Self-Story

SPEAKER_00 21:58

Oh, that's beautiful. Um Revisiting my old school friends has been quite healing for me as well. So getting back in touch with them and telling stories and hearing their perspectives of stuff has yeah, really helped me understand who I was and stuff that happened. And you know, like the stories that you tell yourself about how your life was and what school was like for you, and da-da-da. Um, then you hear it from their perspective, you're like, oh God, did I make that up? Or did I misremember it? To be probably the hero or the victim in my own story. Um, and it helped me to really understand my life and who I was and the things that I'd yeah, I'd believed and now I could unbelieve about me as a person. And one of the examples of this was um, I always felt unlovable when I was at school, and it was at the stage where all of my friends were getting boyfriends, and you know, we were probably like nine, ten, eleven, you know, it was like that Valentine's cards, and I never got any. I never got Valentine's cards, I never got asked out on a date, and so I just thought I was ugly and I was unlovable and all that kind of stuff. And then uh we all got together, they said, Oh, but all the boys fancied you, Lucy, and I'm like, Did they? And they're like, Yeah, they said, but they were all too scared to ask you out in case you said no. And I'm like, wow, and it was just something that I was completely unaware of, and it actually changed my perception of my childhood and my relationships with men and all of that kind of stuff. So there's something there that when you've got a true friend who, whether it's a new friend or an old friend, they can give you a perspective on yourself that nobody else can give. And I think that is such a gift, but I think you have to be able to receive that, be and that's where that trust comes. Like they they are giving you this information because they genuinely care about your friendship and they love you. And perhaps, you know, at that time um when you gave that um feedback to your friend, she wasn't in a place where she was ready to receive, but now she is, and and so I love that idea of just keeping the door open, yeah, just allowing, because who knows what might happen.

SPEAKER_01 24:14

Exactly, and I think with time, none of it really matters, actually, because she certainly was not responsible for my wedding day, you know, being anyway. Like that wasn't her responsibility, so um, and a lot happened on one day. So it was like it was like a mountain of things, really. I feel like in time, you know, if we if we've got if you've got a friendship or you love somebody, uh you can totally patch anything up and you want to, you both want to do the work, then you can. But I think sometimes in the moment when things are happening, it just falls feels a bit raw. Um and I was certainly going through a lot at that point. It's interesting for me as well when I think about you know the things that we believe about the things we believe about ourselves that isn't that are not true, and we're doing this work at the moment with our unapologetic leaders group, you know, the things that we you know, like being ugly and unlovable, and I've certainly had those limiting beliefs as well, by the way, as a you know, somebody growing up, I don't have them anymore, but they're definitely two that I can associate with, and I see this as a common thread for so many women that you know, like if I don't look like that and I don't um appear that way and my hair isn't like that, or whatever it might be, then I'm ugly, and therefore we have to go spend loads of money on X, Y, and Z to make ourselves look beautiful, and but actually what we're realising as we're getting older is that actually that beauty is inside of us. And uh you know, uh whatever we do, it's almost like you can't really hide beauty, uh it's a true element that comes out of us, and I think that's what I've got to in my life where I think the word that I get described the most as is beautiful. And in our leadership training, there is a type, and it's the beauty type. And that's not about how you look aesthetically, it's got nothing to do with you know, like how you look, it's more about um your reverence towards nature. Um there is a oh even a sort of a single song tone to the voice. So there is a natural beauty that comes out of a beauty type. We are very deep, yet we can be very still, you know. So there's all of this that makes someone beautiful, but it's got nothing to do with the colour of my hair or the colour of my eyes.

SPEAKER_00 26:31

The the the phrase um your vibe attracts your no, your yeah, your vibe attracts your tribe. It's so true because um actually when I was younger, um, and it was around my sixth form date, so I went to a new sixth form, um, and some of my old school friends were there, but we were all in different mindsets and stuff, and I was not in a very good place. I felt the loneliest and most disconnected from myself than I've ever done in my whole life. Um, and I was trying to find new friends and where I fitted in, and because I was unsure about myself and not actually being very kind to myself and um yeah, having one-night stands and things like that, because that there was like quite a lot of loathing going on. Um, I absolutely did attract my vibe, and the people who I was hanging around with were either using me, they didn't really like me, they were actually quite like well, looking down on me, and I was trying to get attention and trying to fit in, and you know, absolutely my vibe did attract the uh the wrong people. Whereas now, and probably for the last 20-odd years, the I only surround myself with people who are jolly good people, they think the same, they believe the same at their core as what I do. Uh, we're not like carbon copies of each other, but we believe in the same kind of things and have very similar values, and it's it's such a gift, and I think that's something that um that beauty thing that that you said. Actually, every single person you've ever introduced me to or got on the podcast, I get it. They are beautiful souls, and they're in your life because that's what you you attract.

SPEAKER_01 28:17

Yeah, and absolutely, and it's really important to acknowledge that and to see it because you know sometimes you're like, Well, who do you let in and who do you who do you keep out? I feel like that is really important question to ask yourself when you're you know entering any new space. It's like, what am I attracting in? What do I want in? What do I absolutely not, you know? And I when when I hear of the patterns, you know, where women are repeating the same patterns over and over and over and over and over again, and I just think something is really off, and we need to get into that and we need to do that deep work. Um we need to encourage ourselves to do that work and we need to encourage each other to do that work because it's only when we go in and we we see the patterns and we see what's underneath and we see where they were formed, and then we start to do the healing work, that's how we redesign our lives. But you can't just flip something that like a negative belief, you can't just flip it in your head and go, Oh, I I I I've always believed I was unlovable, and now I believe I'm lovable. Da-da, here we are. Like it just doesn't work like that. And so when things are not going to plan, when we're we're attracting the same, the same, the same, and the same, we know we've got a block, and then it's the work that is done around that which actually that creates the space, that then is the vibration that you're talking about.

SPEAKER_00 29:36

Yeah, and

Unlearning Mean Girl Conditioning

SPEAKER_00 29:37

I think the the mean girls trope is probably one of the most damaging ones because if you believe that girls are mean, because let's face it, every single person has had a bad experience with another female, and that maybe they called you a name or they didn't want to play with you in the school playground, um, and then you watch all of the movies or TV shows, and there's always a mean girl or a gang of mean girls, and you've been starting to be.

SPEAKER_01 30:04

Like, I am incensed by the crap that's on the TV for young girls, incensed, and this is on like Netflix, it's on the BBC. Not I'm not talking about YouTube because that's that's like the Wild West. Um, also, should we do that's the Wild West? I expect that kind of trash to be on those places, but this is on um, you know, like yeah, when Catalina Peppig was like, Okay, Peppa Pig, quite sweet, innocent, good with that, can deal with Peppa Pig, but after Pepper Pig, it went downhill. And I was watching these programmes when I would sit and watch the TV with her, and I was like, This is not true, this is not true, this is not reflective, and I was so annoyed, you know, the LOLs and all of that, and the and that this is all mean girl mentality, and they're and obviously the the good girls win on these. So there's always that, like, there's a you know, the the villain is the mean girls, and then the the good girl, and it's in the films, it's everything, and the good girl wins. Now we know in life it's not as straightforward as that. Um as you get older, you're like, sometimes the mean girls do win, um, but they haven't got any integrity. Whereas I might look like I'm losing, but I've got high integrity, and for that, that makes me a winner. So I'm at peace with that. But looking at as a young child, I've had to seriously work with my child, and is I'm still working with her to be like, no, that's not it. That's not the behaviour, and that's not the attitude. Um, you can be a bit sassy if someone's really challenging you and being mean, I don't mind you being sassy. But we're not going out to be sassy.

SPEAKER_00 31:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 31:32

So I had to say that because I feel like the conditioning and the, you know, it's there and it's there from probably about the age of two.

SPEAKER_00 31:42

Yeah. And and even um when uh you go to see the school teachers, uh, because your child's having some uh issues settling in and making friendship groups, and they're like, Well, just girls are horrible or girls are bitches, like stop telling them that because it gives them permission to be that. If you actually just say, well, girls actually need um support in making positive friendships, then a completely different lens. Or actually, girls feel stuff more, yeah, but actually they love and care for their friends and are loyal to their friends more. Have that lens instead because I see so many um women who don't have the blessings that you and I have about how many friends that we've got, and they are lonely, but then it goes back to um when you talk to them, it's like, well, um, I go to baby group and nobody talks to me. I'm like, Well, are you talking to them or are you leaning in? Uh, because they might have a bit of judgment, or they might think, Well, I don't like the look of them. People can sense the negativity coming off you, so I'm not blaming people who are lonely, but I'm saying that actually the energy that you put out there, um, because I'm a little miss ray of sunshine, I'm positive, I'll go and talk to anybody. I hate to see anybody sitting on their own, and um, and I will go and and try and make friends with everyone, but if the energy vibe isn't there, I leave well alone. Absolutely. Because uh, but if there's an energy match, wow, we're best friends.

SPEAKER_01 33:04

Exactly. No, I'm with you on that. I'm with you on that. I think as well, I have thought a lot about like female friendships and even that how we are, and you know, I'm gonna go back to Cleopatra. This is about women are strategic. We are we we really are working things out, and there's a lot going on with the psychology with women, and because we are intuitive and we are using our instincts. Now, this gets trained out of us, we are sensing stuff all the time, and we're making very fast judgments, faster than what our brain can keep up with. And I really, really believe that we we have this sort of like antennae for things, and that is the female approach, and that's the gift of of women as well, like working it all out on such a top level, and then able to sort of like move now. If women do this together and align together, then you've got such a powerful force, but un unfortunately, everything is set up for that to be trained out, and therefore women then get quite lost, and then they don't know how to align, or they've they're unsure that they're gonna be understood. I went through that, like I was always like scared that people would not understand me, and I I must have had some sort of problem with communication quite early on. I don't know where it came from exactly, it doesn't really matter. But now I've got to a point where I'm like, no, I know how to communicate. I've been a great communicator all my life. Where this other thing comes from, it's from the side. Could it be conditioning? Yes, it could. Who knows? But I'm just not I'm just not listening to it anymore. And I will show up and speak, and if no one understands me, I don't care. I'm still gonna keep speaking because someone will understand in the room and someone will get on board with me, and that's all it takes. Um, so that's a long-winded way of me saying that, you know, rather than being like girls are more bitu, I just think they're working stuff out. Yeah. And they don't necessarily have the language for it yet as children, but they're like, like that person, don't like you know, like it's and they're not gonna start necessarily bopping people's around people around the head or the other kids around the head, whereas the boys will, you know, bop someone over the head if they don't like something. Like the girls are just we're program we are we progress.

SPEAKER_00 35:10

We use our words and our emotions um to communicate whether we like something, tolerate something, etc.

Why Women Need Oxytocin And Gathering

SPEAKER_00 35:18

Um, I um uh read about some uh some bit of science which I found absolutely fascinating, um, and it was about how um the male so everything we know about the nervous system has was only ever tested on men. And so when we were told that to regulate ourselves we needed dopamine, that reward factor to make us feel good, and we kept then reinforcing that that behaviour that would give us that, and it was all positive. Well, actually, that was just how men responded, and now uh I think only since the year 2020 uh no, some it had a two in it. Um they they've uh they they've been studying women's nervous systems, and actually it's oxytocin that is the one that regulates women, yeah. And uh dopamine, absolutely for women, these constant driving and trying to like get rewards and keep going and keep striving for success, that actually depletes our oxytocin, it makes us into lone wolves, it makes us isolated. Well, that's burnout, isn't it? That's burnout for women. That's where it turns out, and actually, all women need to do to restore is just gather with other women. It's really quite that simple. We need uh loyalty, we need connection, we need to just feel held and safe. Um, and that's what we do obviously in our women's groups. Um, but every time we do coaching, every time we go for coffee or go on a dog walk with somebody, meet another mum to take your kids out, it's just oxytocin, oxytocin, oxytocin. It helps regulate us because pretty much every time I've spent time with another woman who has got that same energy vibe as me, I come away feeling better.

SPEAKER_01 36:59

Yeah, it's amazing, isn't it? It's like plugging into each other is the it is the medicine for sure, and feeling like we're safe in the space is the medicine. I mean, it is simple for him, and I agree with you, and yet we need that and we need to be doing it and cultivating it every single week at least.

SPEAKER_00 37:15

And it feels like rebellion because it's everything opposite to what we've been conditioned to believe.

Solstice Closing And A Spoken Rallying Cry

SPEAKER_00 37:20

And do you know what, Karen? I have to tell you, it is 40 degrees in this room. I am sweltering, so I'm gonna ask us. Can we close this? Absolutely. As friendship, like just saying it as it is.

SPEAKER_01 37:31

Absolutely, and we've been talking here for quite a while, so I think we've probably covered everything we need for today. I'm gonna read something. They say women become invisible as they age. They say we shrink, soften, and stay quiet. They say we took our truth neatly out of sight. They say we lose our voice, that we fade, that we are finished, that we are alone, that we are friendless. They were wrong. This is the era of remembering. This is the era of rising, of taking up space in ways we were never taught to, of joining the dots in friendships together, to rewriting the stories together. Who's in? So thank you for listening today. We are so grateful for you, and we wish you the very best of times this week. Keep saying it, sister, keep sharing, and keep connecting. Lots of love. Love you.