The power of friendships & community for BIPOC women

Written By Rachel Ann

As women of color, we know the power of friendships and community - our cultures are collectivistic and “we” minded, we look for ways to share resources with each other, and we share vulnerable experiences with each other that many people outside of our communities may not understand. We feel less alone, and that is powerful!

While the “we” type of thinking is great, we’re also finding that a big part of our friendships have some unhealthy, hurtful aspects to it too:

  • Low-key competing with each other

  • Putting on our “best” face to make sure we appear fine

  • Gossiping about others

  • Being inauthentic and people pleasing to appear “good”

It makes sense if you think about it - if we learned to be community minded, then we’ve also learned to think about others before ourselves in all ways, some healthy ways and some unhealthy ways. So what do we do about it? I’m glad you asked.👀

Remember the purpose of friendships

The purpose of friendships is to add to your life - support, fun, resources, ideas, joy, encouragement, adventure. They’re supposed to add to your life in a healthy way, encouraging you to grow in various areas and enjoy life while doing it. However, because of capitalism, society, and “limited resources”, we’ve learned to collaborate with each other up until a certain point - and when that point has been reached, we learn to compete with each other. We see this all the time in the media - a woman doesn’t get mad at her man for cheating on her, but she will fight the other woman. In another post, I’ll go into why we do this as women, but for now I’ll say this - the collaborative spirit has an end point, which is sad and hurtful for you and your friends.

So here’s what to do - instead of being afraid of your friend’s success or viewing it like a threat to you, try being excited for them…

Your friend getting married doesn’t mean you’ll be single forever. Your friend getting a job promotion doesn’t mean she thinks she’s better than you. Your friend losing weight and working on her physical health doesn’t mean she’s prettier than you…

And…

You being happy for your friend doesn’t mean you’re not upset at the irritation of online dating; it means you’re happy for your friend. You being happy for your friend’s job promotion doesn’t mean you’re not ambitious in your job or you need to get another degree; it means you’re happy for your friend. You being happy for your friend’s weight loss and fitness journey doesn’t mean you need to get a gym membership too; it means you’re happy for your friend. Period. 🙂

As often as you need to, remind yourself of these differences and allow yourself to feel joy and excitement for your friends!

Be honest

Take a few moments to think about what you’ve learned about friendships, how you feel about your current friendships, and what changes you’d like to make. I have a hunch you learned about friendships from some kind of combination of media, cultural background, and peer pressure. So take a few moments to unpack all of that, and think about what aspects of these pressures you like and which ones you don’t.

Once you do that, you’ll have an idea of what changes you want to make in your current friendships. Maybe you’d like more friends who have the same spiritual values as you, or maybe you have too many surface-level friends and want to take a few of them to a deeper, vulnerable level of friendship. By figuring out what needs you have in your friendships, you’ll be able to make the changes you need to find the ones you’re looking for, or perhaps let some go.

There’s a whole lot more to the topic of friendship - so much so that this will be the next topic in the Let’s Get Real Membership! If you’re looking for peer and professional support in your wellness growth journey, where you get guidance from me and support from women like you, then you’ll wanna sign up - you get weekly teachings, journaling kits, and monthly group calls with me and other members! 

My hope is that you know what friendship really means, and you do what you need to do in order to surround yourself with healthy, nourishing people who add to your life. You deserve it.🫶🏽

Need more support? Lemme help you sis:

Rachel Ann
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