01/24/2026
Making new friendships as an adult has been one of the more humbling parts of my life. It’s brought up way more vulnerability than I ever expected.
We assume friendship should be easier than romantic relationships, but friendships are attachments too. They can feel surprisingly tender because they touch in us the need to belong.
So of course it stings when plans change, when you feel left out, when the energy changes, or you don’t know where things stand. That’s not you being dramatic - that’s attachment.
Friendships aren’t casual to the body, they live in the same tender territory as love. Which means if friendship feels vulnerable, it’s because it matters.
The work isn’t avoiding that vulnerability but noticing how you show up inside it.
Do you shrink?
Pull away?
Judge yourself? Or others?
Cut people off to protect your pride?
Or can you learn to stay, soften, and hold yourself a little more gently in the tenderness of caring. In the unknown if someone wants to meet you there to.
Anything that touches our need to belong will always feel vulnerable, the work is learning to hold ourselves in that vulnerability and show up as our true self.