The Healing Power of Female Friendships

Forget Prince Charming.

As a mom, I’m waking up to the joy, safety, and healing of authentic female friendships.

They say the closest bonds form around shared context. The earliest context for friendship is usually time. If you’ve known someone for decades, you’ve lived through life’s many stages together. That kind of friendship doesn’t just witness your growth — it shapes and supports it.

Then came motherhood, and I discovered another layer of context: an instant sisterhood. Meet another mom you click with, and you both feel it immediately — you’ve been white-knuckling the same insecurities, the same “am I enough?” spiral. And maybe the biggest relief: you’re both finally sick of your own shit (and everyone else’s). You end up swapping war stories like veterans realizing they have been on the same battlefield.

Lifelong besties at first sight.

It’s this combination of age and motherhood that has unlocked an endless source of life-giving friendships for me. It almost makes me feel okay about the wrinkles. Almost. I’m not at Pamela Anderson’s sans-makeup level of enlightenment yet. But the miracle of the safety and joy I feel with my female friends now?

It’s healing in ways I never imagined were possible for me because of a traumatic bullying incident I experienced in middle school.

All this is not to say that every connection I have in this life stage is completly life-giving. But the ones that are? They form fast, cut deep, and mean everything to me.

When women share openly with each other, our stress hormone cortisol drops, our bonding hormone oxytocin rises, and we walk away feeling lighter. Neuroscientists call this tend & befriend. Dr Aviva Romm calls it “medicine.”

Authentic friendships calm our nervous system and become safe containers for us to discover and express our truest values and help us build lasting self worth, confidence, and just so much joy.

So notice, cherish and soak in the joy of the friends who calm your nervous system, who laugh and cry with you, who inspire you and call you out on your shit. Those are the ones who won’t just help you clarify your values. They’ll help you live them — and help you keep falling in love with who you really are.

Quick idea to try this week…

Intentionally connect with one (or more) of your “medicine friends.”
Let them know how much they mean to you.
It can be a simple text, phone call or even just forward this email to them and let them know how important you are to each other’s well being.

Want the full essay?

I wrote more on the science, the struggle, and what I’ve learned about choosing friendships that actually heal. You can read it here.

With so many feelings,
Diana 💖

🔑 P.S. In case you missed it — last week I talked about how I use the Tiny Creativity Method^TM to clarify my values in the busy insanity of modern mom life. I pulled it all into a YouTube video for easy reference.

@everafterisnow on Instagram | @everafterisnow on Youtube