Sisterhood — a word that once made me laugh. Now I know what it truly means.

For many years, I was the kind of woman who would say, “I just get along better with men.” You know the type. Relationships with women seemed complicated to me — full of unspoken things, tension, and competition. I preferred simplicity. Or at least, I thought I did. For some reason, female bosses were much harder for me to build relationships with than male bosses. And I carried all the usual stereotypes: They’re too emotional. Crazy. Dramatic. Jealous. Difficult.

Now I understand that it was simply a form of protection. I was afraid of intimacy. Afraid of being truly seen. Afraid that when other women really saw me, they might not like what they saw. When you’re a young woman, it can sometimes feel easier to build relationships with men. But something began to change when I worked at one of the largest banks in Poland. There, women supported one another through a mentoring programme — and for the first time, I experienced a structured space dedicated to women’s growth and development. It wasn’t perfect. But it created the foundations for something important: bridges of understanding, connection and support.

„Sisterhood isn’t perfect. It’s real. And that’s exactly why it changes everything.”

The first time I sat in a circle and heard another woman say out loud exactly what I had never dared to say myself, something inside me cracked open. In the best possible way. Like a pane of glass behind which I had been hiding for years. When the first woman in the circle dares to go deeper into what is really happening within her, it becomes a kind of key for the rest of us. Her honesty gives others permission to be honest too. I could hear myself in their stories. My own fears. My own doubts. I could see the masks I had been wearing just to move through life.

The sisterhood that grows in these circles isn’t about admiring one another or pretending that everything is beautiful. It is a space where you can say, “I can’t do this anymore,” and hear, “Me neither.” It is a different kind of strength from the one we are so often taught to value in corporations and on social media. Here, you can simply be yourself. Or perhaps, you can begin to discover what it actually means to be yourself. Because years of living within rigid social expectations can leave us wearing masks made of concrete.

And it takes time for those masks to soften, crack and finally fall away. In the circle, we learn something surprisingly difficult: how to listen without giving advice. How to simply be with another woman without feeling the need to fix her. It is an act of deep respect. And, in its own quiet way, an act of deep love.

You don’t have to like every woman in the circle from the very beginning. You don’t have to share your deepest stories straight away. You can simply come. Listen. Feel. And give yourself time.

Sisterhood is built slowly — and when it is real, it can stay with you for a very long time. If somewhere inside you, you long for genuine, meaningful connection with other women — perhaps the circle is exactly where you are meant to be. You are warmly invited.