The Sisterhood Wound & Female Friendships

What's up guys, welcome back to the podcast. Today's episode is going to be about the sisterhood wound, female friendships, my experience throughout my life, all the different phases of my life, how I've navigated friendships, what my challenges have been. And I'm planning to share with you guys some of the deeper, more like intimate details of my— yeah, just like inside my head and my personal relationship with female friendships and how it's played out over my life and all of the different phases and stages of my life. So I'm excited to dive into this topic because there have been people asking about sisterhood and friendships to do an episode on this. And when I sat down to think about, okay, what's my, you know, perspective or my advice on this, I really just came to the conclusion that This episode is going to be less about giving advice and more just about sharing my own story and my own experience, because I know that there's so much healing in that in and of itself. And I don't think that I'm necessarily the person to be like the friendship expert, quote unquote, or to be able to give advice and say, you know, this is how you should make friends, or this is what you should do to be a good friend or whatever. I mean, I think that I am a really, really good friend, but there's definitely places in my female friendships where I've struggled before. So I'm going to share those with you guys today. And I think the more that we share about our experiences in female friendships, the more that we collectively start to heal this sisterhood wound. So if you've never heard of the sisterhood wound before, it's really just a way to describe the kind of pain or trauma, maybe even, that a lot of us women have when it comes to female friendships or just being in a big group of women, feeling accepted by women, feeling not judged by women, feeling like we can be ourselves, um, feeling comfortable around other women and not in competition with each other. So I will talk more about the Sisterhood wound when we get into this episode. But just to give you context as we start, that's like a general gist of what it means. And I think all of us on some level have inherited or experienced this wound in this lifetime. Female friendships, for whatever reason, are really challenging. And I think a lot of that has to do with our society and the way that we are sort of raised in an over-masculine world that prioritizes productivity and competition. And, you know, there's a huge business in sexualizing women and pitting women against each other. And, you know, us just trying to compete against each other for— to get the guy or to be better, to be more beautiful or whatever it is. So there's a lot of reasons why I believe the sisterhood wound is so present in our world today, and it's a part of a lot of our experiences as women moving through the world. But I just thought the best way to go about this episode about friendship is to talk about my experiences with it. So that's exactly what we're going to do today. If you want to stick around, we're going to dive right into this episode. Welcome to the Makeshift Happen podcast. I'm your host, Samantha Daly. Entrepreneur, life coach, and your no BS bestie here to bring you all things mindset, manifestation, and personal development. This podcast is designed to help you expand your mind and uplevel your life. So turn the volume up and roll the windows down if you're coming along for the ride. Let's go make shift happen. So a few things sparked the idea for this episode. The first one being, I asked recently on Instagram, I put a question poll up and asked you guys what you wanted to hear more about on the podcast. And some people said sisterhood, friendship things, like there was just a couple. It wasn't a lot of people, but it did kind of stick out to me. And I noticed that in myself of like, ooh, that feels like an interesting topic. Maybe I could talk about that. And then also recently I was invited to an engagement party for my best friend from college who recently got engaged, and I haven't seen her in forever. I haven't seen most of my college friends apart from one who— she was traveling around Europe, and so we found a place where we could meet and I saw her. But I— for the rest of my college, my really, really close group of college girlfriends. I haven't seen them since we graduated because as soon as we graduated, I basically like packed up my stuff and I moved to Spain, and I haven't been back until now in the U.S. So it's been, it's been really hard like over the past few years not having the same level of intimacy and contact with those friends and just feeling out of touch and not knowing what's going on in their lives and not knowing all the details, because these were girls that like I was so close with. We lived together for years in college. Like, you know how it is when you're— I mean, maybe not everybody does, but when you live with your friends, it feels like you know everything about them. Like, every morning you wake up and you go into their room and you sit on their bed and you talk about what happened the night before, or they tell you about who's been texting them, or this, that, or the other thing, or what's going on in their family, or what their plan— like, you just know everything, the intimate details about their life. You know that. And for me, being so far away and so far removed, I lost all of that kind of nitty-gritty context of what was happening in their lives. And that was like really, really hard for me. So anyway, I got invited to this engagement party. And I'm like, finally something that I can go to because they've all seen each other at different times. Not, not everybody lives in the same place anymore and everybody has jobs and, you know, life is moving and, and changing all the time. And so it's not like they're all still living together and I'm just the one who's apart, but I've been really far away. So everybody else has kind of had little opportunities here and there to see each other and do trips and hang out and that kind of stuff. Um, but I, I haven't gotten that opportunity yet. So it felt really good to be like, oh my gosh, I can't believe I'm gonna actually get to see everyone and be back together again. Like, it's been literally 6 years since I've seen them. And so our whole group of girlfriends is going, like my best friends from that era of my life when I was in college, the girls that I was the closest to in my sorority. And, you know, we lived in the sorority house together, we shared rooms together, and then we lived in our own house as a big our senior year. So I wasn't like— I, I wasn't shocked that I was invited. I was really glad that I was invited. I was so excited that I was invited because I don't usually get to get invited to things because I'm just like living off on another continent in a foreign country. So it makes sense that I can't be invited to everything. So it just felt like nice to be invited. But yeah, I, I started to notice that I was like, gosh, like, I hope I hope that they— like, when I go, I hope that they don't think that, like, I've been a bad friend over the years since I've been away and, you know, haven't really, like, been texting them and calling them all the time. And that's the first thing that I thought of when I was thinking about friendship and my experience or relationship to friendship for this episode. I was like, I'm a really bad long-distance friend, and I know that that's probably like a story or a narrative that I don't want to continue to perpetuate. Like, that's a bad thing for me to think, like, oh, I'm a bad long-distance friend. Um, but I also think that like a lot of other people are too. I think it's hard to be a long-distance friend. Um, as much as we want to believe that like distance doesn't change anything in my experience, it just does, you know. And I'm not a very good texter, let's say. I mean, I don't take days to respond to people. Sometimes if I miss your message, I guess, maybe, I don't know. And I, I started to see things recently like Sagittarius memes that are like leaving you on read and not answering, and I'm like, oh my gosh, is that like a trait? But I don't want to start to like use that as an excuse or think that that's like part of who I am. I, if it's like someone I'm newly dating or romantically interested in and I'm like so excited and can't wait to see their name pop up on my phone, like I'm an excellent texter, but I think everybody is in that scenario. So I'm just not that good. Like I'm not good at just texting people like, hey, good morning. Like, how are you? Or something. I feel like there needs to be like a reason for me to text. A friend. I'm not good. Yeah, I'm just not good at like reaching out just for the sake of reaching out. And I guess that's something that I have to own or work on or both. I'm also not a huge FaceTime person. Like, I do love when other people call me randomly or FaceTime me and we get to chat, but for whatever reason, I'm just not usually the one to sit down and be like, okay, let me FaceTime this person. And I don't, I don't know why. Like, maybe it's something in my, in my brain of like the concept of time. And I'm like, oh, if I'm going to call them, I want to actually, you know, call them in a time where I can really give them my undivided attention. Like, so if someone FaceTimes me and they're like out shopping or they're like at the store or something, I'm like, how are you doing this? How are you like multitasking and how does it come into your brain, the thought of calling me while you are doing this other life activity? Like, that doesn't usually happen for me. If I'm doing something, I'm doing that thing. I'm not thinking of calling someone while I'm doing that. So then it's like, okay, I have to set aside the time to actually basically kind of like make an appointment in my day to be like, I can be fully present with this person and sit down and call them. So then that's why it never happens. And even in my long-distance relationship with Jaime, like, we were long distance for a full year when he was still in Spain and I was finishing school in the U.S. He would usually have to ask me to Skype. He would be like, we haven't Skyped in a while, like, can you call me today or something? And I guess, I don't know, like, that's I'm not usually the person to initiate the calls or the FaceTimes, even with my family. Like, I obviously was a long distance from my family for a long time when I was living in Spain for 6 years, and it's not like this is— so I guess my point is it's not like this is like special for friends and it's like I care less about friends than I do about other people. I feel like this is a trait of mine that I need to either accept or work on. But even with my family, like Even when I was in college, I was long distance from my family. I was like 5 hours away, not as long distance as being in Spain, but I wouldn't text or call them that often. Like, my mom, usually when I call her, she thinks that something's wrong because I guess that's like, I would call her when I needed help with something or when I needed her to, you know, give me my like bank account something, or like when I needed something, which is so bad. Like, that sounds so shitty now that I like say that out loud. But yeah, I didn't really text or call my family that much when I was away in college. Like, if I wasn't talking to them, they knew that I was fine because they knew that it meant that I was having fun and that I was busy. And it was the same when I was in Spain. I would try to make— I would have to make conscious effort to be like, I'm gonna call my parents. But again, like, it also with time differences was hard because If it's evening time for me, they're working, and as soon as they're done working, it's midnight and I'm sleeping. So that was a challenge too with calling friends and family. The time zone thing like that was very real. But also anytime I called my parents, it was like an hour long or more call because we would catch up and we would talk about everything. And I'm, I'm just always perplexed by people that can have these like 5-minute phone conversations and then be done. Like Jaime is very much this person. He's very good at staying in touch with all of his friends and his family. He calls his parents every single day in the morning. They talk for like 10 minutes, nothing more. And he'll have phone calls with his friends and it'll be quick. And I'm just like, why can I not do that? Like, I don't know what is wrong with me, but I literally have never in my life had a 5-minute phone conversation, I don't think. If it's like a catch-up or like, I'm calling because I love you and I want to talk to you, like I'm incapable for whatever reason of just being like, hey, how are you? Okay, I'm glad everything's good. Bye. Like, that feels so weird to me, so I don't do that. But it would be nice to just like call someone and be like, hey, I'm thinking of you. Like, how's your day going? And talk for a few minutes and then say, okay, gotta go. Bye. And maybe it's because I've gone so long without doing that that I feel like the first time I call them, it obviously has to be a longer chat because we need to catch up on everything. But then I let a lot of time pass again between that call and the next call. So it can never be just like this quick, frequent, little mini 5-minute check-in because I owe them or the friendship requires more of a catch-up than that because it's been too long. Do you get what I'm saying? I don't know. This is my, this is my shtick with friendships and just long distance and my experience with it. But like I said before, I think other people are not very good at being long distance friends either. And it's not like I'm the last person to blame them or like be worried about it because I know that I suck as a long distance friend too. So I feel like the best friendships for me are the ones that are so solid that they just don't need a lot of maintenance. And I don't know if that's like a toxic thing too. But like, when you see each other, if you have a really solid friendship and you move to different parts of the country, or you move to different countries, or you're just in different phases of life, or someone gets married or has kids, and like, inevitably things in, in a friendship are always going to evolve and change because our lives become so much more complex and there's a lot more going on in our personal lives. So I think the best kind of friendships for me are, are the ones that are built on such a strong foundation that they don't need all of the maintenance all the time. Like when you do see each other, it feels like no time has passed and you just pick back up where you left off and there's no hard feelings and it's, there's no judgment of like, you haven't called me all these years or done this, that, or the other thing. Um, because we both know that like neither of us have really, it's not like it was one-sided and one person was constantly reaching out and the other person wasn't responding. It was like we both just kind of are not that great great at long-distance friendships, but we love each other. We have a solid friendship, like we care about each other, so we can just resume when we are together. Like, if I have a friend who's gonna get mad that I haven't texted them or something, or they're gonna think that I'm mad at them because I haven't called them in X amount of days, I just know that that type of friendship for me is not going to be a very long friendship because I can't— I can't be constantly nurturing it all the time. And I don't know how I feel about that. I don't know if I'm supposed to feel bad about that or if I'm supposed to just accept that that is how I function in friendships, or that's how I am. And there's friends that are also like that too. And so we're just compatible with each other. Like, I don't know, but I am sort of like this gypsy soul and a traveler. And so far in my life, I've not been one to really like stay in the same place for too long, or like be super grounded and stationary in one place, or be super accessible, I guess you could say. Like, it's definitely been harder to reach me or to come visit me in a lot of cases. Like, even I was very close with a small group of friends in high school, but then I went away to college and it's not like I was texting them every day. And then I went away and I lived in Spain and I was traveling around and doing whatever. And, and now I don't really know. Now that I am coming back to the States and I'm going to find a home and try and root myself in a community and like build a more stable foundation, I'm interested to see how that's going to play out with friendships, you know? Like, is this story that I have in my head of how I operate in friendships going to affect me building beautiful new friendships when I am in an accessible, stationary place, you know? So there's a part of me that like constantly wonders if if this is really who I am, or if these parts of like my personality and my life are just convenient excuses for me to continue to be like less, a less engaged friend per se. Okay.

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And I, and I don't want to say like a lesson. I mean, you get what I mean. I'm a less engaged friend when we're not in the same place. And we live very far apart and we live different lives in different time zones and, and all of that. Like when I'm someone's friend in person, I really do think I'm an incredible friend. Like I'm always thinking of other people. I'm always conscious to invite everyone and make them feel included. And I love spending time and I'm super present with people. And you know, I really try to ask people about their lives and get into the details and context of what's going on for them. And we have such great conversations and. We have a lot of fun and laughs and like it's always a good time. Like, I do— I think I'm an incredible friend, but I'm just not a very good long-distance one. And I still, as you can tell, I still don't know like how I'm supposed to feel about that. I think if I were to go really deep, I would be able to recognize that I do feel a little bit of shame around that. There's a little bit of guilt of— because I want to be good at everything, like everybody, you know, we're all striving for this false sense of perfection. So I think I do wish that I was better and that I, that I had been better about that. And maybe this is like coming up for me now because I'm in a couple of weeks gonna like reunite with some of these old friends, and there's a— maybe there's like a bit of nervousness around what it will be like reuniting with everybody having been apart for, you know, longer than we knew each other. That's what's crazy too, is we've been apart for 6 years. We only ever knew each other for 4, not even. So I'm like, what do I— are they, are they thinking about things like in a weird way? Are they like, is anybody going to be like, oh, I wish you had texted me or called me more? Or are we all just kind of on the same page of like, like, yeah, we love each other, we're friends, when we see each other we pick right back up, and we don't need a lot of maintenance because I suck at being a long-distance friend too. I don't really know because I haven't had those conversations with them yet, um, and I don't know if they listen to this podcast, so I'm telling you guys, um, I don't know if they'll be listening to this, but I will let them know how I feel when I get there. But yeah, it just feels sort of weird to like be getting back into social life activities in the U.S. It good way. Like, I'm excited, um, but I'm also a little bit nervous. And yeah, I'm just— I'm wondering what friendship is going to look like when I do move to a new city and start to settle in. So I'll do my best to take you guys along the journey and let you know how I go with that. But I thought I would share a little bit of like history of my friendships with you for the, the sake of this episode. So I think I've, I've always been the girl who has like a few really close friends and then is friendly with everybody. Like, it's not like I wasn't friends with everyone who was in the bigger groups, but my true like crew has always been small. Do you know what I mean? Like in middle school, In middle school, there was this group of girls who, a lot of them were my good friends through middle school and high school and beyond. Um, but they together like created this group, and it was like a bigger group of, of 7 girls, and they called themselves— they started to call themselves the Sexy Seven. And this is so funny, like thinking about this memory. And, you know, I could look at that group and individually every girl on that group I was friendly with, I was friends with on some level, but I wouldn't be invited to their Sexy Seven group sleepovers or do you know what I mean? Like, I was friends with all of them, but I wasn't deeply inserted in that group. So it's like I always had a lot of friends from, you know, one perspective. I was friends with everybody, but in my personal experience, I only ever had like a really tight relationship with a few close friends at a time. So I had like my 3 to 4 solid friends that I would have sleepovers with and all the deep convos and, you know, late nights and study sessions and weekend adventures with. And but it was just, it was those like 3 to 4 girls, they were always my like go-to people that I would hang out with. Like I think the people that you hang out with on an individual basis says a lot about how deeply you are, like how, how deep your friendship is with them, you know, cuz there would be other people that I was quote unquote friends with, but would I call them up on a random day and go over to their house, just me, and have a conversation with their mom or eat dinner with their family or have a one-on-one like sleepover with them? You know, it's just like a different vibe. It's a different energy. So those types of like really close friends, I only ever had like a couple, like a handful, you know. And those were always the girls that I went to parties with and that I got ready with and whatever. We did all the things, but it was always like me with them. That was kind of like my comfort zone, I guess you could say. And sometimes in high school, I remember feeling like I would get invited to things through my friends, but it felt like whoever was having the party or the sleepover or whatever it was, they didn't think to directly reach out to me, like directly text me or tell me in person like, hey, I'm having this thing, come, like invite me personally. But I would get invited through my friends and they would say, yeah, they said you could come, or yeah, they want you to come. But I think I created this idea in my head from that experience that I'm not really at the top of these people's like list per se of their favorite people or the first person that they want to tell or like someone that they really want to be there that is important for them to invite. You know, aside from obviously my close friends. Like, I'm not talking about them, but that was one experience that came through when I was sitting down thinking about how, how I've felt in friendships and in groups and stuff throughout my life. I think that was something that I, that I took notice of. Like, it wasn't just something that was happening that I was unconscious of. Like, I definitely noticed Oh, they invited this person who's my friend, so then through them I've been invited. But I did want to feel like they invited me to invite me, you know, not to invite my friend to invite me. Hopefully that's making sense. Um, if I think about friendships when it comes to my life abroad and living in a foreign country, I would say that was probably the most challenging time in my life when it comes to friendships because it— yeah, it was just like different. Like, I made a lot of friends in the first year because when I originally went there, I was like, I'm not gonna live with my boyfriend, I want to live in a flat with other people, I want to meet people. And so I made an effort, and I did. I lived in an apartment with 10— there was 10 of us, so I had 9 roommates. And every semester, because there were a lot of people that were students at the time, they were doing master's degrees or whatever in Madrid, they'd come from other countries. And so every semester, some of the people in that flat would rotate out and we would get new people. But it was a really great way to meet people, and I made a lot of really great friends. And there were some American girls there that I'm still friends with today. But the, the problem was that Madrid was like a very transient place for people, especially people in my age range of like early 20s. There was people that were studying abroad or they were just doing a gap year, or they came to be an au pair for a short amount of time, or they were studying for a master's degree or something like that. So it wasn't, it wasn't— I wasn't meeting as many people that were like, moving to Madrid to grow roots in Madrid and be in Madrid. And so I think that was hard because I did, I made a lot of friends, but over the years it felt like I still didn't have any friends because people would leave inevitably, like after a certain amount of time they would leave. And I did try some of the like apps when I was in Spain for the first year. I got on like Bumble BFF and, you know, I tried meeting people that way, but it was the same thing. People were just there for a short amount of time, a couple of months or whatever, and they wanted to meet people. And it just felt like it wasn't really what I wanted in a friendship. I, I was craving the deep female friendships that I had had in high school with my close group of girlfriends and my college friends who I was so close with. Like, that was the deepest sense of sisterhood that I had had in my life. Ever was probably my, my college friends who we were all in the same sorority. And obviously sororities are fostered around the idea and the concept of sisterhood. And for some people it seems like cheesy and fake and whatever, but like it actually was a really, really deep sense of sisterhood that I had with those girls. So that is what I wanted because that is what I was closest to at that time. I had just left that experience. And I, I wanted to create that again in a different country, but it just wasn't really like happening, you know. And I think also at that time, my life and my work wasn't always conducive to making friends. Like, the first school that I got placed in to be an assistant English teacher, there were no other assistants in the whole school. So normally when people go and they teach English through these programs, there's a couple— there's like a group of assistants in the school, and you kind of work with those people and talk with them, and that's who you take breaks with, and then maybe you go out with them on the weekends. And it's like how you meet people. But the school that I got placed in was a really small school, and I was the only one. I was the only one. So, and it was also 40-minute— a 40-minute train ride outside of Madrid. So Okay, yeah, maybe I could make friends with the other teachers, but also they were like so much older than me at the time. They were in their 30s and 40s and they had families and kids and they lived in a town that was like 40 minutes outside of Madrid. Like it just wasn't, it wasn't really conducive for me, like making friends that first year. And then when I started my business and I was like working from home all the time and working on the weekends. That is definitely not conducive to making friends because I spent a lot of time by myself in my house. Do you know what I mean? So, and then it's like, okay, could you— why didn't you make friends with Spanish people? Because those are the people that are gonna be there forever. If all these other expats are kind of transient, make friends with Spanish people. One, again, like my life and work wasn't really conducive to meeting Spanish people of my age and who, you know, would like be my vibe. But also, like, Jaime has a lot of friends. He's probably like— he is a person who has the most friends that I've ever known in my— he's a Gemini, okay? So he has a lot of friends. Um, he's a very, very social person, obviously, and he's great at maintaining friends from his entire life. That being said, he's always lived in Madrid. And so do a lot of Spanish people. They just end up kind of staying where they've always lived, so it's a lot easier, I guess you could say, too. But even now that we're here, like I said, he's been very good about calling his friends and staying up to date with them and whatever. So he's just a different— he's just a different person than me. He's a social butterfly, so he has a lot of friends. And I did make friends with his friends, but I always felt like I never felt like they were my friends. Do you know what I mean? It was like they're friends with me because they're friends with him, but they're not my friend, right? They're friendly with me, and it's cool when we hang out because we're hanging out in a group with Jaime and his friends who have girlfriends or whatever. But I didn't feel like we were ever— I ever was like close with people from Spain to like just text them or just hang out with them by myself. Like, it was fine when we were in groups with everybody, but it wasn't like they were my close friends. And I also felt like Spanish people didn't really get to know the real me on a deep level because it's hard to be fully expressed in another language. So I know a lot of people won't be able to relate to this, but I know that there will be some people who do. When you speak a second language or a third language, like, even if you're fluent in the language, it's just a weird experience. It's like your personality is just kind of different in that language. And it's not like you're faking or trying to be something different. It's just very hard to be— to feel fully authentically expressed when you're communicating in a language that is not authentic to you. I think that's the best way that I can articulate it. So I felt like even like Jaime's parents, so weird to me because I'm like, they know me and they love me, but I feel like they, they only know this one version of me. Like, I don't really feel like anybody who only knows me in Spanish gets to know my truest essence and like all the different corners of my personality and Hey, don't forget that every month we are picking a listener of the month to win $50 in cash just for showing love to the show.

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Yeah, it's weird. It's really weird. So friendships and sisterhood has been like a bit of a weird one for me. Um, even now, like, I have a lot of online friends and like quote-unquote like biz besties, and this is an interesting experience as well because I feel really close to a lot of these girls that I've met online. And it's weird because like we've never met in person. Even like my assistant Lori is someone that I've known online for years now, and we've worked together so intimately and She was first a client of mine and she's been in all of my programs and we've worked together one-on-one and now she's part of my team and we work together and still I've never met her in person, but she's coming to the US this summer and like, I know we're gonna meet up and it's gonna be so crazy to just like be finally in person with someone who you've known so long online. And I've had that experience this year with a couple of other girls. You guys know Sam Altieri, she's on the podcast a lot. We met initially online and now we've seen each other in person a couple of times, and it literally feels like we are so close. It feels like even when I saw her in Tulum, I was like, it feels like I've been your friend forever. And it's so weird that this is only the second time I've ever seen you in person. Like, it's perplexing. It's very, very weird. And actually retreats have been something that have facilitated a lot of my closest online friendships, like meeting someone briefly in person through a retreat experience has fostered a lot of these really close online friendships that I have now. Maybe some of you guys are familiar with Jazz Boree. She's been on the podcast. I'm going to have her on again. She's— I have a course with her. Cosmic Cash is, you know, run with Jazz, and she's someone that I met on a retreat in Bali. And then we just became really close. And there's a couple other girls that I can think of that I've maintained relationships with. And, you know, we call each other sometimes or we, we send updates via DM. And I think social media is a better place for me to stay connected with people, honestly, than texting. Like, if my friends are not following my life online, which they have no obligation to do so, I feel like it's so hard to keep them updated with everything also because so much goes on. Like, even when I try to update you guys in the monthly, you know, Roundup episodes, I feel like there's so much to say. So it's like, if you're not watching my daily stories, it's going to be very hard for me to update you on my life when we do see each other again. So following people on social media and having these online relationships has been really good for me, and it's made me— sometimes I feel like I'm closer with my online friends than I am with my in-person friends for that. When I think about ways that the sisterhood wound has shown up for me in my life, I really— the main event that I feel has probably impacted my relationship with women the most was when I was in 4th grade. I had 2 really close friends. They were like my besties at the time. And it's probably like a trauma response that I don't really remember what happened. I don't remember the exact incident that made them do this or made them get mad at me, but all I remember is that my two best friends decided to turn against me and kind of just decided collectively that they didn't like me anymore and they didn't want to be my friend. And I remember feeling really abandoned and rejected and hurt by that. And I think the thing that was the most painful was then they went around kind of to the other girls in the class and tried to get everyone everyone to turn against me. And I remember that this escalated to, you know, my teacher having to call my mom and me having to have private conversations with my teacher and people just being like worried about me. But I don't really remember what happened, so maybe I'll have to have a conversation with my mom because, you know, she always tells me, I knew that those girls weren't nice girls one girl in particular. And she was like, I knew from the beginning that she wasn't a nice girl, and I didn't really want you to be friends with her, but you kept insisting, she's my friend, she's my friend. And it's, you know, one of those things, sometimes a mother's instinct, a mother's intuition just knows. And it— I wasn't meant to be friends. I wasn't meant to be close, best friends with that person anyway. But it's things like that when we're young that we start to feel like relationships with other girls, with other females, is not safe, right? Maybe they'll turn against me. Maybe they'll talk about me behind my back. Maybe they will steal my boyfriend or say mean things about me, or, you know, abandon me or not want to be my friend anymore, or whatever. So I think for ourselves as women, it's important that we all start to have the conversation in our own minds at least, and, and with the women in our lives that we trust about the sisterhood wound and how it's shown up with us. And maybe just this conversation is inspiring you to sit down and think about your relationship to friends and female friendships and what it's looked like for you in the different phases of your life. You know, I've talked about middle school, high school, um, college friends. I've talked about my time in Madrid. I told you about this event when I was in 4th grade. Like, before recording this episode, I really sat down and tried to think about all the areas and stages of my life and how I felt in my female relationships at those times. The ones that were really special to me and still are to this day, and the ones that maybe hurt me or left me feeling rejected or left out and All of that is important, and it's just another piece of the puzzle of us really building a deeper sense of self-awareness and inner knowing of who we are and the work that we need to continue doing to be more genuinely loving and trusting people. I know there's so many women that are probably listening to this podcast that maybe you felt like, you know, you're not really a girl's girl, like you've always just got along better with the guys, or you find it really hard to be vulnerable with women or open up to women or trust women. And if that's you, like, I see you and I feel you. And it's so beautiful to know that there's other women that have also been jaded or hurt by their female friendships. But we don't have to stay in that. We don't have to continue to move through our life being afraid of getting too close to female friends or opening up too much. You know, we get to have these really genuine, beautiful, authentic, sisterly relationships with our female friends. And I know that to be true in my heart because I've experienced some of those friendships in my life and they are so, so special. Um, but this is something that I have to continue working on myself. Like I said, like this episode isn't really like an advice thing. Like I'm not an expert in friendships by any means, but I think even us just sharing our testimonies and our stories and our experiences with the sisterhood wound and with friendship is healing in and of itself. So I hope that you found some value out of this, out of this conversation in this episode. Um, after my trip to Tulum, you know, whenever I go on these retreats and I'm in groups of women who are all very much on the same page in terms of our consciousness and our intention and our you know, our hearts. Um, it is super healing because you get to be witnessed and experienced and seen and heard by other women who really are truly there with the best intentions, that want to hold you and see you and love you and lift you up and be proud of you and excited for you and celebrate with you. So I also think retreats are super healing in that aspect, and I'm so excited to bring that to my own retreat. Experiences as I start to create them, especially this first one that I'm going to be facilitating at the end of 2022. But after the retreat in Tulum, I wrote something about the sisterhood wound in a caption on Instagram. So I thought I would close this episode just by sharing this little piece of writing with you. Women have been community weavers since the dawn of time. Space holders, storytellers, nurturers, healers. It feels really good to return to this knowing, to feel in my bones that the women I'm surrounded by are here to love and support me rather than judge me or tear me down. We spoke a lot about the sisterhood wound this past week. Even if you don't know what it is, you know exactly how it feels. It's the inconspicuous but ever-present feelings of insecurity, comparison, judgment, superiority, or not enoughness that arise as you walk into a room full of women. It's interesting to examine our female relationships more deeply and really question how comfortable we are being seen by other women. How comfortable do you feel gazing into the eyes of another woman, being naked in front of another woman, sharing your deepest fears and shadows with her? Crying in front of her, witnessing her rawest form of expression, holding her in grief, celebrating her wins without thinking about your own. The more that we can surround ourselves with open-hearted, soul-aligned women, the more we can heal this wound. Allowing ourselves to be seen by our sisters in all our forms is what reminds us that we are not each other's competition. We are each other's liberation. Because the truth is, when conscious women come together, we are fucking powerful. The patriarchy teaches us to turn against each other because it serves the greater mission to suppress our innate power. But the divine feminine creature which creates human life inside her cannot be reduced to petty fights, bullshit beauty standards, and competing for the male gaze. We are God's greatest creation, and when we come together, we heal the world. Period. Thank you to my sisters who held me so beautifully this week, who wiped my tears, witnessed me in my vulnerability, skinny dipped with me, laughed just as loud as me, spoke words of encouragement over me, and reminded me of my power. I love you eternally. May we always remember that we are the medicine. I hope this episode touched you or helped you in some way. If you enjoyed it, please take a screenshot and share it to your Instagram stories. And don't forget to tag me at @samanthadaily and at Makeshift Happen Podcast. If you guys are loving the show, please don't forget to leave a 5-star rating and review on Spotify or Apple, wherever you are listening. I'm sending you So much love, my sisters, my community. I'm holding you close and sending you all the best energy. I will talk to you guys next week. Bye.