Written by After5 Member & Contributor: Jane Adojutelegan
Jane joined After5 in London to connect with like-minded and ambitious women in her city and further afield, as she’s always open to making new and exciting connections, both personally and professionally, with a vast and diverse group of interesting people.
‘To My Sisters’ is a book which outlines the value (and struggles) of building and keeping friendships from a female perspective.
The authors, Daniella and Renee, are long-term best friends who met in school and are transparent about their experiences as friends with one another, and their other friendships.
The book feels like a long overdue chat at a kitsch and cosy coffee shop with a girlfriend who is softly giving the advice you’ve needed. It’s easy to read and somehow manages to find the perfect balance between being frank and honest with oneself while showing compassion and grace after making mistakes and why it’s important to do the same for friends.
They talk about ‘sisterhood’, the special bond that women can have with one another, and how beneficial it can be for a woman’s happiness, mental health, wellness and other relationships. Their experience of sisterhood has evolved over more than a decade and required work to build, maintain and strengthen over the years.
Using their own experiences, they also point out how it’s normal for friendships to go through different ‘seasons’ and how these connections are easier to make and maintain in youth due to how schedules is structured earlier in life. Being in school together, as one example, forces people to spend time with one another, which, in many cases, is the most valuable resource in building good friendships.
What do you do, though, when personal or professional commitments impact the time given to these friendships? What happens when one friend moves away or when school is over? How do you invest in the relationships that existed before those significant life changes? How do you deal with the loneliness associated with potentially drifting away from people who were such a massive part of your life when you were younger, and how do you decide whether to continue to invest in these strained relationships or let them go?
These are difficult questions which many of us have asked ourselves at some point in our lives, and unfortunately seem to be a common part of life these days.
To My Sisters, in all honesty, doesn’t have all the answers, but it does force the reader to consider options that hadn’t been thought of before.
Unfortunately, many people may find that there is a culture of passivity in communicating that contributes to their dissatisfaction with friendships these days.
Social media, in many cases, has provided the ability for people to connect with others in novel ways. But, a lot of people look at content their friends post without engaging with it or using it as an opportunity to talk to people.
Instead of ‘keeping in touch’, many are just ‘keeping tabs’.
The book highlights that, in many ways, how we are not only passive as communicators but also that we all may fall into habits and archetypes that we should all be aware of and could be affecting our ability to build or maintain relationships.
The behaviours associated with these archetypes can affect our relationships and influence how we communicate our issues or dissatisfaction with relationships. We may be people pleasers or people who refuse to share our problems. We could hold grudges against our friends when mistakes are made or be people who lack self-awareness about the way our actions impact others. We can experience jealousy when a friend is doing well or judge a friend for not being as successful as we think they should be.
A great thing about the book is that it speaks about the archetypes with acceptance and compassion as it acknowledges that both authors and the reader have been any number of these archetypes at any point in our lives and could also potentially be different archetypes to different people.
In my opinion, the kindness given to the reader by the authors makes the book feel like a judgement-free, safe space for the reader to truly explore their contribution to the state of their friendships.
Even though the book is fairly short, it is comprehensive and also provides exercises to help the reader examine their behaviours and take action to either be better friends or understand their friendships (and themselves) more thoroughly.
Friendships are so important and shouldn’t be neglected or seen as beneath romantic, familial or professional connections in a hierarchy of relationships. All these relationships are important and should be treated as such, and To My Sisters is a guide for anyone who is looking to ensure that the worthwhile connections in their life are invested properly but are unsure of how or where to start.
