Women: Nurturing, Gathering and Sharing
Recently my mother (and Lynn, her close friend who ventured out here with her for the Boulder road-trip) were in town. My mother is actively involved in my life and tries to visit me frequently throughout the year – thus, she knows many of my close friends (pictures are here).
One particular evening, I invited my girlfriends over for dinner. My mom cooked, while we all chopped, plated and then supplied the wine, bubbly and dessert.
After a delicious dinner, all of the ladies were sitting around talking about what usually comes up when women gather: relationships, (past and present), love and the inevitable, loss.
In the middle of a depth-filled conversation, I sat back and began to marvel at the way women interact. There wasn’t any holding back even when an hour ago, some of these women were strangers. Stories were spilled about broken relationships, heartache, budding relationships, dreams, realizations and fears. I watched cascading laughter, heads tilted back with glistening eyes, stories of frustration, shaking heads and then nodding in silent agreement just because there was a sense of understanding.
We, you, I – are not alone.
Fight Or Flight VS. Nurture:
My mom, a longtime life coach with most of her clients over the last twenty years being women, noted that when something goes wrong with women, we choose to be around close friends and nurture. My inquisitive girlfriend (also a psychology major as an undergrad) noted that women also lack the fight or flight mentality. Men own that mentality, women do not.
A study at UCLA suggested that women respond to stress with “a cascade of brain chemicals that cause us to make and maintain friendships with other women.” Huh, imagine that.
The hormone oxytocin is released as part of the stress response for women and that actually “buffers the fight or flight responses and encourages her to tend to children and gather with other women instead. When she actually engages in this tending or befriending, studies suggest that more oxytocin is released, which further counters stress and produces a calming effect.”
Men do not experience the same effect.
Don’t Let Your Womanly Friendships Hit the Back Burner:
Ever notice when you get really busy with your family, children, work, etc. that you see your friends less? You become overwhelmed with the immediate issues at hand and you send that e-mail or text too often than not, “Ah, it’s been so long, let’s get together soon!” Then you send it a few more times…
Dr. Josselson explains whenever we get too busy, the first thing that seems to go to the back burner is friendships with other women. In my eyes, I have to work hard to be with my girlfriends but I don’t run away from them. I literally feel as though I need them when times are rough, uncertain and I’m hurting. I don’t cower, I want to be around them.
Dr. Josselson expands, “women are such a source of strength to each other. We nurture one another. And we need to have unpressured space in which we can do the special kind of talk that do when they’re with other women. It’s a very healing experience.”
So talk with your women. Nurture, gather and converse. It heals.
Do you find this with other women? Where you can seemingly connect, discuss life topics such as relationships and all just “get it?” I wonder, do men get together and discuss the same way at the same depth with men they just meet? My intuition, experience and bro’s tell me, not as much. What do you think?
Sidenote: This is not to exclude or chastise the men who I oh so love in my life. This is less about beating my chest, I am woman hear me roar, but more about the differences in genders and understanding such differences. Important to note 
