Making friends as an adult can be hard. Making friends as a mom can be even harder. But the most difficult thing of all is developing deep friendships.
I don’t just mean friends you have had all of your life or friends that you have a lot in common with. I don’t even mean friends you spend the most time with, like your bestie.
I am talking deep, honest, raw friendship.
Surface Level Friends
To me, surface-level friendship is the standard. Friends you meet up with for a glass of wine to vent about your daily life. You might talk about something annoying your spouse did, how you lost your cool with your kids or the drama you are dealing with at work.
You talk about an upcoming vacation, your next girls’ weekend, or heading to the salon to get a mani-pedi together. You might even go a little deeper and talk about a fight you had with your sister or how self-conscious you are about something.
And these friendships are important. Not only important, but these friendships are also necessary. These should be your go-to people. The ones who keep you grounded, make you happy and let you be yourself.
Most of us have a friend or friends like this. Some of us are even lucky enough to have an entire mom squad or girl squad to share life with. And that is truly amazing.
But what if we are missing out on a key friendship.
The one that will take us completely out of our comfort zones and help us grow into the person we were meant to be.
Deep Friendship
What do I mean by deep friendship? To be honest, I am not even sure I can define it, as I have yet to find this unicorn-type friendship. (Queue Speed Dating for Mom Friends!)
But what I envision, is a friendship with 100% honesty and transparency. A friend you can let in on your deepest, darkest secrets and fears. A friend you can talk about wanting to birth outside the system with, a friend you can share a weird personal hygiene worry with, or how your depression is reaching a breaking point.
A friend you can count on to call you out when you have done something out of alignment with your true purpose. A friend who argues your viewpoint to get you thinking and doesn’t just side with you because they are your friend.
Someone you can have raw conversations with about the tough topics. Thoughts on politics, childhood trauma, deep insecurities, your true desire for life. Someone who makes you feel uncomfortable in the best way possible because we cannot expand intellectually without some unlearning.
This is the friendship I am looking for. The friendship that will last the long haul. The friend who knows me on a soul level.
Your close friends should be willing to challenge your mediocrity by suggesting a concrete action you can perform that will pop you out of your rut one way or the other. And you must be willing to offer them your brutal honesty, in the same way, if you are all to grow. – David Deida
If you have already found this type of friendship, cherish it. Learn from it. Grow from it. Make each other the best versions of yourself.
