As you get older, it gets harder and harder to have close friends. Life gets busy, you get married, work gets busy, and you’re not ‘naturally’ put in positions that make friendships easy. What I mean by ‘naturally’ in position, is when you’re growing up, it’s sometimes easier to have friends – there’s elementary school, and high school, sports teams, and college, where we’re put in social situations with other girls almost constantly. As we get older, that’s not always the case – and sometimes, it seems harder, as an adult woman, to have healthy, thriving friendships.
We live in a world that constantly tries to pit women against each other. Sometimes, even in the guise of defending other women, we put down each other.
I think one of the things that I value most in my life, are my girl friends. Like we aren’t made to live life alone – we need community. Today, I’m sharing a few of my thoughts, for what I’ve found works for my life, and my female friendships. I am by NO MEANS AN EXPERT (if I were, I probably wouldn’t be writing a blog, but would be one of those cool, conference speakers that wear those all white power jumpsuits and seems to always have their life together). I’m just sharing what’s worked for me.
-Confront problems head on
Stuff happens – talking about it helps. It’s never easy to talk through problems, but if there’s one thing I’ve found, it’s that talking to other people about a problem, before you talk to the person that you have the problem with, only magnifies it. A long time ago, my pastor taught me to press into relationships when they got hard, instead of to pull away, and it REALLY helped me to have much stronger friendships.
-Have each others backs
I think my favorite quality in a person is loyalty. I just love someone that I can trust to have my back, you know? With my close female friendships, they all work really well, because we all trust each other not only to not talk about each other behind each others backs – but to shut down the conversation if we hear other people saying things to.
-Make intentional time
Life is BUSY. There always seems like there’s something to do. For my closest girlfriends and I, we’ve always had to try to carve out intentional time – whether it’s bachelor Monday nights, Sunday night dinners, or bi-weekly lunches, to make sure that we’re connecting, and finding out what’s going on in each others lives. 