What Women Ache For

I’ve played out the same relationship dynamic over and over in my life:

I put 110% of my focus on him – on us – until he feels overwhelmed and suffocated, then runs for his freedom. As a result, I feel unloved and uncared for and he feels like a selfish jerk. They can never give me enough love and I can never give them enough space. It’s happened too many times to ignore.

Last week, I took a beautiful drive with my man to Santa Cruz. The view:

We were having a very typical conversation, asking each other things like, “What are 1-3 things you think I should focus on this year?” and “Where do you want to make sure you travel to this year?”. After an amazing conversation, we made a big decision: to each travel solo for a month! I felt the ache of missing him in advance, but still, I knew it would be great for us.

Looking out at the sun setting over the horizon, I saw a whole empty month stretched out in front of me. What will I do? Where will I go? And…what do I really want?

Listening into my desires over the next few days, I had some clear ideas of where I wanted to travel – Central America – but what I really noticed was that I ached to feel connected. And that’s when it hit me in a truly embodied way (it’s one thing to understand something in our mind; it’s another to feel it): my clingy nature in relationships simply comes from an ache for connection, and because I put most of that desire on a man, I always end up feeling lack. No one person can give us all of our love.

I knew this before, but now I really saw it. It was time to get even closer with the women in my life – more time, more depth, more revealing. I am not a lone wolf; I am a creature of community. I am a woman. I need my sisters.

What women ache for is connection, and where we can always find it is in sisterhood.

When I listened to that ache, in just 1 week, miraculous things began to unfold…

I was invited to join a women’s walking group in San Francisco.

This morning, 7 of us took a beautiful group walk to the Golden Gate bridge. We walked and talked about business, life, love, travel and interior decorating. Soul breakfast.

I was invited to stay with friends in Costa Rica and Panama.

My friends and former clients, are fellow adventurers and world travelers. When I connected with each of them this week, they invited me to join them on their individual journeys to Panama and Costa Rica. Yes please! The trip was beginning to take shape…

I was invited to a bachelorette party in Puerto Vallarta.

Another girlfriend sent me a text message: “Any interest in coming to my bachelorette party in Puerto Vallarta?”. What do you know, I thought, it works out perfectly with the rest of my travels. Yes. Here’s the trippy part: just 2 days later, when I shared the exciting travel plan developments with a close friend, she said “I’m going to a bachelorette party in Puerto Vallarta the previous weekend — want to come early and spend a week on the beach with me?”. February was starting to look awesome.

I was invited on a spontaneous girls’ trip to Guatemala.

When I moved to Jersey City, I had no friends there. I was lonely, broke, confused about many aspects of my life, and truly starting from scratch. Within the first year, I met two dear friends. These women saved me. They became some of my closest friends, allies and confidants. We’ve held hands at doctors offices and divorce court. We’ve slept on each other’s couches and beds. We’ve consumed more tea together than some small countries consume annually. We all married around the same time, we all started businesses around the same time, we all divorced around the same time, then we all found new love around the same time. A few months ago, we celebrated one of my dear friend’s wedding. When she sent a text message this morning requesting a girls’ trip to Guatemala, it was an easy yes. We all live in different cities now, but we are careful to nurture this important friendship.

If there is anything I have learned in this life, it is how much women need one another.

So many of us walk through life, without nurturing deep and meaningful relationships with women. And yet, women are creatures of community. Since the beginning of humankind, we have lived together; communed in red tents together; fed and bathed one another’s babies; loved and supported one another.

If we are to ever stand a chance at raising future generations that don’t battle with deep insecurities, body image issues, and unhealthy relationships with men, women, ourselves and the planet, it will be the result of cultivating sisterhood. Your sisterhood is a gift to us all.

When I leaned into my desires to travel and connect with my sisters, I was showered with invitations from the women in my life to travel and connect. Magical things happen when we’re open to sisterhood.

What will you do to deepen your experience of sisterhood this week?

Nisha Moodley