885. How to find women who truly see + support you

0:00I've had my heart broken by more women than men, I would say. But it is also true that more women have healed my heart than probably any man ever has. People becoming victims online and people claiming the status of always being right and always being the person that's harmed or being the person that's like being jealous of or all these things. A lot of times people assume constant connection and constant conversation is healthy and is safety and it's not. that means you have a dysregulated nervous system and you need to regulate with another person. Your relationships should be able to withstand conflict, to be able to withstand a few days off of conversation, to be able to withstand their bad moods, your bad moods, your ups, theirs down, yours highs, yours lows.

0:40When we're managing safety and we're sort of having this experience where we're kind of trying to heal relational wounds in relationship, it may feel intense early and then that usually is not depth, it's just activation.

1:07Hello and welcome to Almost 30 Podcast. My name is Krista Williams. You guys know it. I'm so glad you're here. And I am. In the truth of the truth of my being, I'm grateful that you're here and I'm glad that you're here. And I'm rip-roaring excited to be here. I feel inspired, enthused, excited, grateful. I just, I am so grateful I get to do what I do and connect with you guys. And if you're new, I've been doing this for around 10 years now. Almost 30 came out in September of 2016 when I was a wee one. I was four years old at that time, which was so crazy. And when I was a wee one and throughout the years, Almost 30 has been a space and place for people to come with curiosity and play, to learn a lot about themselves and the world and spirituality, personal growth and wellness.

1:57And we've done retreats, tours, courses, programs, merch, ambassador programs. We have worked with brands all over the world and we've created this really beautiful ecosystem and universe of amazing people. And I'm grateful that you're here. I now work one-on-one with women as a coach and as a guide. I host retreats all over the world and do my thing, essentially. And today's conversation was so inspired by a post that I did. And I just let me sound cringe for, you know, a few minutes when I say this. I'm inspired by this post that I did. And there's a few layers to why I was. The first was that I did not want to post it.

2:36I felt so embarrassed and it felt so it felt like I just I'm bawling in it. I have like snot crying snot all over my face. And it felt very vulnerable, so I wasn't going to share it, and I did. And I was so grateful that this post did well because it's all on female friendships and the beauty and power of female friendships. And so in today's episode, I wanted to sort of like follow up to that post and talk about how powerful and magical female friendships are and also how women could have those types of relationships that I'm talking about in my reel. There was so many comments. I think there's 2 million views, 60 ,000 likes, thousands of comments.

3:17And most of the comments are from women that are saying that they have really deep, meaningful relationships and friendships. And a lot are from women that are saying they want meaningful and deep relationships and friendships. So I wanted to talk about what it takes to have really deep, meaningful relationships and friendships with women and how you can support yourself in being loved and seen by women in the world. because there's no greater medicine than to be loved and seen by women. I will tell you that much. And this is coming from someone that didn't trust women for most of my life. Let me walk you guys through this post and let me walk you through what actually happened and then what I shared, but I'll share the post first.

3:55If you do one thing in your life, it is be friends with women who are verbose and who have vocabulary and who communicate like every fucking time I read a card or a text. I'm like the way that the women in my life, because of their extensive inner work and extensive expertise in communication and like commitment to growth, like the way that they see you and the way that they communicate that they see you is like an experience that like I wish for all women in life because it's like thank you for letting me into your life and for allowing me to witness the roaring power of your voice and life force what like like it's just communication in words is like, if you do want.

4:57So backstory on that. I recorded that after I had received a text from one of my dear friends, Olivia, who had been staying with me for the month. And in this text, I just felt so witnessed and seen and loved and spoken into and just cherished. And I felt this experience of being loved exactly as I was without effort, without trying, without contorting. And just the beauty of this message just kind of got me super open and just warmed my heart. And then I read a birthday card from Jessie, one of my closest friends. And the way that she just like so easily loves and shares and expresses and the way that she does express just like sent me to the moon.

5:57And I just was like, I'm just going to talk about the fact that like being seen and loved by the women in my life has been one of the most healing and beautiful experiences of all time. and that one of the biggest reasons why I think women have made it so much further than men and continue to eclipse men is because of our use of communication and language and words and our ability to communicate how much we love. For a lot of women, they've been in relationships with men that weren't expressive or didn't emote or didn't communicate or didn't say how they feel or didn't use their words a lot or like we're quiet and all these things.

6:36And it's just been so unfortunate because I don't think men have been given access to language as much as women or been like encouraged to use language as much. And what I've noticed with women and female friendships is that because of a lot of my friends' extensive vocabulary and their extensive language and their extensive like Rolodex of methods, modalities, you know, descriptor words, adjectives, they can really see you and love you and express that love to you in a way that is just so profound. And it's felt like in the female relationships that I've had that they've been able to see me when my vision's been blurry and they've been able to remind me who I am and they've been able to like recalibrate me when I've been wobbly and they've been able to just love and take care of me when I didn't even know I needed it.

7:33And so after reading that card from my friend Jesse, I just recorded that. It just feels a little raw, like I'm bawling in it. I have snot coming down my face and I'm expressing this thing that feels so true for me and real. And I just didn't know how it would go. And since it's been so beautiful to see a post and a clip like that go so viral because what's what made me so happy what made me so grateful was that I think there can be a lot of rhetoric online about friendship breakups and toxic friends and friends that can hurt you and friends that can be jealous of you or envious of you or friends that can be competitive with you and there's such a rhetoric in a you know acceptance of people becoming victims online and people claiming the status of always being right and always being the person that's harmed or being the person that's like being jealous of or all these things.

8:25And I really was talking to God and I was like, you know, I don't want to continue to perpetuate or feed the narratives of female friendships being hard or female friendships being harming and female friendships being, you know, toxic or anything like that. I want to really share how beautiful female relationships are and how healing they have been for me because it is true that I've had my heart broken by more women than men, I would say. But it is also true that more women have healed my heart than probably any man ever has. And so being able to share and express from the truth of who I am, how meaningful the female relationships have been in my life, and how instrumental they have been for me, and how, you know, just they've expanded me, they've done everything.

9:13And I wanted there to be more conversation about that. and I wanted it to be in a way that wasn't corny or bypassy or girl powery or girl bossy or none of that. You know, I didn't want to be contributing to the conversation around like, if your friends don't like your photos on Instagram, they're not real friends. If your friends are not, you know, gassing you up all the time, they're not your real friends. Like that's not friendship for me. Like real friendship is actual deep intimacy and connection and truth and integrity and being there with someone. And it's a soul thing. It's not a ego thing.

9:49My friendships are soul contracts, soul connections. It is not about validation of ego. It is not validation of agenda. It's not about pushing of agenda. It is about purpose. And so I've really found that the more I can share about the love I have in my life in a way that doesn't feel hopefully like I'm better than you or I, you know, am like, you know, I have it perfect because it's not. It requires work, but just to expand our capacity for the love of women and really help us heal the sister wound and the female friendship wound so that we can open ourselves up to love and we can open ourselves up to this greater experience of more depth and more intimacy and healing that women have to offer in our life.

10:33And the important and beautiful thing or one of the important and beautiful thing about female friendships is that, you know, female friendships are actually biologically necessary for us. Under stress, women, you know, it's our natural inclination to connect with one another. Our oxytocin levels increase when we're together. So we get this beautiful hormonal gift and response of having oxytocin released when we're together, which helps us bond more with one another. that's why it can be so helpful when we feel stressed or overwhelmed to have a friend and to call a friend and to process things with friends because not only do we lower our cortisol in their connection and in their community but we also increase our oxytocin which is our social bonding hormone we have this instinct you know as women to call a friend or call someone when we're in this instinct that we have to connect to be held and to share is wiring you know it's the wiring we have naturally as women to bond through our vulnerability, to bond through what we're going through, to bond through what our struggles are.

11:37And what I love about women too, is we have this really beautiful ability to bond through nuance. And we have this really beautiful ability to be seen in all of our nuance and to be seen in all of our layers. And I think in my female friendships now, there is such a respect and an admiration and a sovereignty focused experience of being able to allow people to be multi-layered and multifaceted and experience a lot of nuance. You know, I was on the phone with one of my dear friends the other day and I was talking about something and I was kind of being like kind of immature. I was like, you know, I just wonder about this and whatever.

12:14And I just kind of clocked myself. I was like, oh, I know I'm really in the weeds here. And she just started laughing because she's like, yeah, you're really in the weeds. And I was like, just let me be in the weeds for like a minute. I just want to be in the nuance. I want to be in the crevices. I want to be in the details. Let me just be in the weeds right now. Let me be in the nuance. And women have this beautiful ability of holding nuance, of holding complexity, of holding multiple things at once, of holding, you know, two truths at once, of allowing someone to be both good and bad, allowing a person to evolve and change, allowing someone to be multifaceted, to be angry and loving at the same time.

12:49And we have this ability through that process to lower our stress, to lessen anxiety, to improve our mood, to create higher self-worth through our connection. And I have seen that so much. The way that I feel at peace and at ease and just soothed by the balm of many of my friends has been essential for me in my process. And it's really helped me to affirm and create this higher self-worth experience of myself where I've been able to take on the aspects of me that my friends see in me and really embody them. You know, I had a friend tell me recently, she's like, I've really seen you and your integrity increase so much over the past year and you become an even more integrous person.

13:40And it just really struck me and it really affirmed for me and it really self-validated me where I was like, yeah, integrity is so important to me. And I'm so glad I'm experiencing that in myself and you're experiencing that in me. And it motivated me to want to be even more in integrity. And so when your friends can honor and see you in the ways that you're trying to be better, in the ways that you naturally are good, it can be such a gift. I even had a friend the other day who has struggled with the same sort of pattern in her whole life. And in our relationship, it's such a gift because I can see all the way she's breaking the pattern.

14:13And I always remind I'm like, this is breaking the pattern. This is breaking the pattern. This is breaking the pattern. And our deep pattern recognition and again, ability to see nuance really allows us women to be in this experience of honoring where we are, but honoring also where we're going. I will say being pregnant again has made me even more intentional about the choices I'm making. I've done a few episodes on this. I found myself reading labels more closely, investing in higher quality products and asking, what do I actually trust enough to use every single day. My standards have definitely gotten higher.

14:48That's one of the reasons Ritual has remained part of my routine. Their essential prenatal is the number one best-selling prenatal and the only leading prenatal backed by its own human clinical trial. I also really appreciate the experience of taking it. The capsules were designed with an upset stomach in mind and dissolve in the small intestines. And compared to other supplements I've tried, they've felt easier just overall to take and gentler overall. I trust that I'm getting thoughtfully selected traceable ingredients like choline, folate, and omega-3. And I love that ritual aligns with the choices I am already making.

15:27They're non-GMO, gluten, and major allergen free, and don't use synthetic colorants. Don't settle for less than evidence-based support. Save 25 % on your first month at ritual.com slash almost 30. That's ritual.com slash almost 30 for 25 % off your first month. Women's relationships and female relationships also support our longevity. This is also about survival. Like the reason why we connect so much with other women is also for survival. It can help the tribe when women are connecting, when women are gabbing, when women are talking, when women are keeping in communion. And so it's been a part of our survival strategy to have deep connection and union, but not all friendships, and I think we all know this, have been really healing for us.

16:16And this is where it's been challenging for some people. They've had friendships that can recreate the wounds from their childhood, like comparison or competition or subtle judgment or performing, but the most healing relationships and friendships feel very safe. There's no evaluation. Everything is mutual and reciprocal. It's not just one-sided. And they're very honest. Friendships that are honest are some of the most important ones. And friendships that are truthful are some of the most important ones. And I've found in my life that when we can really hold space for our own evolution and our own process and our own goodness and our own badness, we can hold that space in others and we can have deeper, more meaningful friendships in our life.

16:59at this point in time in my life I would say that the people in my life are they're sticking they're staying I wouldn't say that I have anyone in my life that I feel or have that off feeling about I think we as women usually have someone in our life that we kind of have an off feeling about where we maybe feel like they're jealous of us or they're competitive or they don't want the best for us or they maybe aren't in alignment with our values or their values or maybe they're going to potentially be going down a different path. But I think at this point I feel so stable and confident in the depth of my relationships and the value that my relationships bring but it hasn't really been an easy journey and what I'll say is one of the most important things that has brought me to this place of having these really amazing friendships in my life with powerful successful incredible women was first having the model of one healthy relationship.

17:57And so for you, if you're on your path of seeking to have really deep, rich relationships with women that see you and love you is to have one healthy relationship. And Lindsay was my first. She was my first true healthy relationship, my secure attachment in life. And she really showed me what it meant to be in deep relationship with someone where we were sharing the most vulnerable aspects of us. We were helping each other grow and evolve. We were giving each other feedback. We were taking on the feedback. We were honest. We were authentic. We had issues. We worked through them. We never gave up.

18:31We never surrendered. We never stopped loving each other the entire way. And when you can have one relationship in your life, then serve as a model for the other relationships, it can be so much easier to mirror and mimic a healthy relationship. This is why coaching or therapy is so important because therapy sometimes becomes, or coaching sometimes becomes, the first foundational relationship you are in that is healthy with someone that is sovereign and free and not codependent or controlling or enmeshed or wishes the best for you. So if you are able to be in relationship with a therapist or coach that is also healthy, that can also be a patterning that you can take on for a healthy dynamic with women, for a healthy, loving, supportive, dynamic relationship with women.

19:15And I think when we think about the finding better women comment that a lot of women were making on the post where they were like, I need to find better friendships. I need to find better relationships. It's really more about women that create a different relational field. Because the women of my relational field, we have the same relational field. and let me explain that because it seems a little woo-woo but as an example there's other relationships or friends that I know of or that I'm friends with that I'm not as close to that have different relational fields they like to relate to women based on work and growing their business and money and looks and shopping and other things which is great that's their relational field this is how they want to relate to women to connect with women on shopping clothes looks you know, travel, money, growing their businesses, etc.

20:07My relational field, that's not my relational field. My relational field is on the internal landscape of what's going on inside, how you feeling, what's up with your life, your soul, joy and play, curiosity, growth, and your essence. You know, I'm not really interested in much else. So my relational field got very clear in my life, and it caused me to be in deeper relationships with many women because we realized there was so much alignment in how we relate to the world, how we see the world. And it caused some relationships to sort of vibrate out because we don't really see the world or relate to the world or one another in the same way.

20:45Female friendships in our lives and in the world aren't really, you know, breaking down randomly. Any relationship that's leaving your life at this time or any friendship that's exiting your life at this time is very on purpose. It's very for reason. You can trust that it's meant for your highest and greatest good because relationships that are breaking down now are usually based on comparison, performance, and maybe even unspoken expectations. So if you feel like you have to perform to be loved, you have feel like you have to be someone else other than yourself to be loved. Or if you feel like, you know, there's comparison, you probably want to exit that relationship at some point.

21:24You probably want to exit that relationship at some point, or you want to bring it up during a conversation. This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. Can we normalize needing support before we're completely overwhelmed? I think so many of us wait until we're at our breaking point to ask for help when support doesn't have to be a last resort. BetterHelp's 2026 state of stigma report surveyed 2 ,000 Americans and revealed that 85 % of Americans believe getting support is wise, yet 74 % say society discourages people from doing so. We talk about mental health more openly than ever, but there's still this message that we should just push through and handle it all on our own.

22:08But with over 30 ,000 therapists and more than 6 million people serve globally, BetterHelp does the initial matching work for you so you can focus on your therapy goals. And if your match isn't the right fit, you can switch at any time. Don't let stigma stand in the way of support. Start therapy with BetterHelp. Sign up and get 10 % off at betterhelp.com slash almost 30. That's betterhelp.com slash almost 30.

23:05by how soft and fluffy and delicious everything is that they make. There's no stiff cardboard texture, just the bread, buns, tortillas, and bagels you actually crave. I've been using their tortillas for easy lunch wraps for myself, for my son. They're bagels when I need something quick and satisfying in the morning. And nutritionally, it's such an easy swap. Depending on the product, Hero has zero to five grams of net carbs, zero grams of sugar, and 11 to 32 grams of fiber, which is unbelievable. They even have noodles with 32 grams of fiber and 12 grams of protein. I'm obsessed with the noodles.

23:39So is my son and husband. So Hero Bread is offering 10 % off your order. Go to hero.co and use code A30POD at checkout. That's code A30POD at hero.co. So some of the ways in which you can support yourself in having these really deep, rich female friendships that I was talking about in this video that I love so much is first increasing your vocabulary and your ability to communicate. This by far and away is the most important part of having deep meaningful relationships is your ability to communicate. And communication doesn't always mean I'm communicating with words, I'm saying everything I feel.

24:20Sometimes the best communication is not communicating something, is discerning when to hold back, when to edit and when to filter. But the communication that I'm talking about is having a deep access to your inner world and an access to a vocabulary that can communicate really beautiful, loving things to people that you love. There is a creative act of a compliment. There is a creative act of telling someone that you love them, of being verbose in the way that you express to them how much you love them and saying all of the little intricacies of who they are. I love how you say hi to everyone at the supermarket and you make them feel so seen and you ask them their astrology.

24:57I love how, you know, one of my friends, Jenna, whenever she's thinking, she has this really cute look on her face and she looks up and she looks away and it's just so darling. Like noticing the intricacies and the crevices of your relationships and being able to communicate that to them creates more depth and richness and intimacy rather than if I'm like, that's her and that's what she thinks and that's what she feels. Like your ability to hold conversation and of connection and communication is actually essential. And I think when I think about the most beautiful relationships of my life and the texture of them, they're with women who are incredible communicators and are incredibly verbose and really great at speaking or expressing themselves.

25:37And their ability to express themselves has not only created a space and place where we could get closer because I know how they feel. I understand how they feel, but I feel more seen and heard. And I feel like there's this like honoring of me and who I am. So increasing your vocabulary, increasing your ability to communicate, and then using your voice are huge things. And I did an episode on how, and I've talked a lot about how to be more articulate and how to be more expressed in my work. So that is also available on my Instagram if you want to check that out. But having communication is huge.

26:10And that's a lot of what I was talking about in that post. I think the second thing that I'd say is choosing women that you can be honest with, not impressive to. and this has had to be a journey for me, especially living in Los Angeles, that there's a lot of women that want you to be impressive or want you to benefit their business or their career or really want to use you for, yeah, their businesses benefit, their pockets benefit, the way they look's benefit and I've found that the deepest relationships I've had in my life are with people that our relationship is built on truth, emotional safety and capacity for real conversations and play.

26:50like play is at the core of my life and my relationships and a lot of female friendships are built on aesthetics lifestyle proximity like we like Pilates we like matcha and similarity and similarity means that you guys have the same opinions and ideas and it's very easy to be around each other because there's not a lot of discrepancy and there's not a lot of difference in what you feel and they feel so there's not a lot of friction there but understanding if you feel like you have to perform around someone is a really good gauge. And then feeling and wondering if you can just land with that person is a really beautiful thing.

27:29Having someone that you can land with that you don't need to perform or be anyone else but yourself with is essential. And, you know, I always take responsibility. It's always on us to, it's your responsibility to not feel like you're performing, but if there is a time and a space and a place where you have to transition or exit or, you know, kind of take space from a relationship so that you can no longer perform, I think that's a really powerful thing. I think the third thing is saying the thing in relationship instead of storing it. So whether it's something loving and kind and you want them to know how much you care and how amazing they are and how special they are, or it's not holding something in because that breeds resentment.

28:11And the Gottman Institute, which is, you know, the most studied relationship institute, talks about the four horsemen of the, you know, relationships. And they talk about romantic relationships, but resentment is one of them. So resentment is a silent killer in relationships. And this is for women, you know, thinking about this for women who are really good at, and especially if you are a woman or you're in friendships with women who are really good at sensing if something is off, if you're not saying it, and then you're kind of pulling away, that can be so detrimental and so cruel to the person that you're in a relationship with.