Hey Girl, We Need to Talk!

Hey Girl,

You have been on my mind all week. Honestly, you've actually been on my heart for the past few years. And so has this very thing...

I get it.

So many of us have felt used, abused, discarded, and dismissed. But, here is the question I cannot shake: As a collective, have we stopped to consider whether we are perpetuating the very behavior that wounded us?

Have we become so desensitized to our own pain that the lens through which we see other women is now stained? Stained to the point that we release the same bitterness, cruelty, and vitriol that was once forced onto us?

The truth is, each of us carries wounds. All of us bear scars. And yes, they are different. Yes, they come from different places, but we are all affected, and we have all experienced some form of hurt.

In any event, what defines us is not the wounding, and it is not the scarring. What defines us is how we choose to show up in the world afterward. It is how we treat others in response to our pain.

Bitter or better, is a choice!

I ask this because, as a woman—a black woman, I regularly experience the harshness we direct toward one another. I understand the survival. I understand the defensiveness. I understand how often we have been left to fend for ourselves by those we expected to protect us.

But we have to be honest about something else...

Sometimes, it is not even what is said that hurts the most. It is the eye rolls.

The slow looks up and down. The “who does she think she is” written plainly across your face. It is the meanness. Women can be mean!

I am not claiming to be able to read your intentions. I cannot tell you what lives in your heart however, I can tell you definitively that I often leave the presence of other women feeling downtrodden rather than empowered.

No, this is not one hundred percent of the time, but without a doubt, it is at least fifty-fifty.

And maybe I am gullible, but it ought not be this way. I don't believe I should feel less free in the very presence of those I relate most to.

I do not speak from theory. I speak from lived experience. This calling, the one God placed on my life to work with and empower women, has been one of the hardest assignments I have ever carried. Not because women lack strength, but because women are often not safe.

We can be harsh.

We can be cutting.

We can be destructive.

There have been moments I've tried to negotiate my way out of this calling. I've asked God if I could mentor anyone else, do anything else, lead in any other capacity, as long as it did not involve women’s empowerment. That is how deep the wounds have been. That is how serious this is.

And here is a truth many are not ready to hear...

White women and Black women are often two-sides of the same coin.

One is crushed by the pressure of doing it all. The other is crushed by the loss of self, in exchange for having it all.

One is punished with isolation for her boldness. The other is imprisoned by expectations that erase who she truly is.

Neither is a victory.

Neither is a come up.

And until we stop measuring our survival against another woman’s struggle, until we stop hardening ourselves against one another, we will keep recreating the same cycles that broke us in the first place.

We were never meant to win alone, and we were never meant to destroy one another on the way to healing.

I am choosing to believe that we can do better. Together.

So today, I am calling us higher. Higher than competition. Higher than comparison. Higher than the need to be right, superior, or self-protected at the expense of sisterhood.

Healing does not require us to harden. Strength does not require us to wound. And empowerment does not require another woman’s silence or suffering.

If we truly want freedom, we have to stop bleeding on one another and start building with intention. We do not lose by making room. We do not shrink by choosing unity. We rise when we decide that our healing is tied together.

Closing Prayer

God,

Heal the places in us that learned to survive by suspicion. Uproot the fear that makes us see other women as threats instead of mirrors. Teach us how to be safe spaces, not battlegrounds. Soften what has grown hard from disappointment, rejection, and betrayal. Give us the courage to heal without armor and the wisdom to love without comparison. Remind us that collaboration is not weakness and unity is not self-sacrifice. Help us link arms instead of raising walls, so that what feels impossible can finally begin to move.

Amen.

Call to Action

So, here is my ask...

Before you correct another woman, check your posture.

Before you compete, pause and consider why.

Before you dismiss, ask yourself what pain might be speaking.

Choose one intentional act of sisterhood this week.

A compliment without comparison.

A moment of grace instead of judgment.

A posture of curiosity instead of critique.

If something in this stirred you, sit with it. Journal it. Pray through it. Let it expose what needs healing, not just what needs defending.

And if you are willing, share this message not to point fingers, but to open conversation. Not to shame, but to soften. Not to prove anything, but to practice becoming safer for one another.

Healing starts with how we show up.

Sisterhood grows when we choose better.

Together.