All Flourishing is Mutual
A joyful moment of connection
A forest doesn’t grow because one tree wins and the others lose. Everything is connected beneath the surface. What if the same were true for us?
Nearly two years ago, I found myself studying up in the Byron Shire. The program was delivered in intensive week-long training, and as a fly-in attendee, I ended up in a share-house with four other women that I’d never met - one being my incredible We Are Woman co-host Melissa Moss.
As the week crept closer, I found myself staring at the WhatsApp group photos. “Gosh, these women are stunning”, I thought. And the intimidation rose in my body.
When I arrived, something unfamiliar happened. I immediately felt a sense of peace and belonging. Not only were these women stunning on the outside, they were also incredible on the inside. These women would soon become some of my best friends.
Most of us have experienced both sides of sisterhood. There are those luminous moments when another woman has believed in you, lifted you up, held you through something hard. And then there is the other side: the comparison, the competition, the sting of feeling like there is not quite enough space for all of us.
In a recent episode of the We Are Woman Podcast, Mel, Sara, and I explored why sisterhood can sometimes feel so complicated. A lot of it comes down to the systems we have been placed in. Schools, workplaces and industries built around competition rather than collaboration. When there are only one or two seats at the table, it is hard not to feel like you are fighting for them.
Many women, me included, often feel more ourselves around men than women. The fear of female judgement, rooted in years of conditioning, had made safety in sisterhood something many of us have had to consciously build. In our podcast episode, I described finding it, slowly, through breathwork circles and women’s spaces, in the kind smiles and deep empathy of other women witnessing my messy moments and all of my parts without flinching.
Robin Wall Kimmerer reminds us: all flourishing is mutual. In nature, nothing thrives alone. And what if that were true for us too?
As Mel described beautifully, we are not inherently competitive. In fact, in previous generations, we were each others tribe, our village and we raised the vibration of our planet together. The truth is that changes in structures since the industrial revolution have meant that women have absorbed a great deal of conditioning and lived through a great deal of wounding. Compassion for ourselves opens the door to compassion for each other.
Sisterhood is not about being perfect with one another. It is about choosing support over comparison a little more often, celebrating each other, and letting ourselves receive. Because when women truly start lifting each other up, something powerful becomes possible.
The Return of the Sisterhood is one of my favourite We Are Woman episodes to date. Learning to return to sisterhood has been one of the most beautiful experiences of my life. I hope you enjoy the episode and if you’re sitting with your own complicated relationship with the sisterhood, try giving space to these questions.
✨ Where does comparison show up in your relationships? What thoughts accompany it?
✨ When you see someone succeeding at something you care about, how does it land in your body? Does it expand you or constrict you?
✨ What would change if you saw others success as possibility and your permission to expand?
✨ What have you witnessed in others that could help you expand?
Have a winning day!
Bec x
P.s. When we choose to lift each other, we all rise up. As Andra Day reminds us, we can do it a thousand times.