The Tender Yearning for Connection—and How Comparison and Perfectionism Get in the Way

It's one of my favorite times of the year – when I go for a walk in the woods near my house, the ferns are just emerging, fresh and vibrant green, unfurling in their spiral pattern. They're so abundant right now, so full of life and possibility. I’m even more grateful to see them now, aware I missed this season entirely last year because even though I was only in my second trimester last year, I felt like I was in my third. 

But there’s this twist in mid spring growth that always catches my attention, like a full-body attention awareness. Right alongside those beautiful, delicate ferns? The poison ivy is also thriving. It's equally green, equally vibrant, and if you've ever had a poison ivy rash (I have, and oh my god), you know how terrifying that plant can be. That invisible oil, you just imagine it’s going everywhere…

As I carefully navigate the path, admiring the ferns while scanning vigilantly for the three-leaved threat, I've been thinking about how this is the perfect metaphor for something I've been noticing in my discussions lately – this deep, beautiful yearning for connection that so many women, especially working moms, are expressing. And right alongside that yearning? The fear, anxiety, and vulnerability that comes with reaching out.

The Yearning for Connection Isn't Superficial—It's Sacred

I hear it so often in my work with women who are navigating careers while parenting – this almost wistful longing for deeper friendships, for a community of peers who really get it. It usually comes up sideways, as an aside: "I wish I had more mom friends who understood what this juggle is like," or "Sometimes I just want someone to text at 11 PM who gets why I'm still awake finishing this presentation after finally getting the toddler to sleep."

What strikes me is how this yearning isn't some superficial desire. It's not about having a packed social calendar or Instagram-worthy girls' nights. It's about something much more essential – intimacy, belongingness, and support. It's about being seen in the fullness of your experience. It's about not having to compartmentalize the professional self from the parent self from the human self who's just trying to figure it all out.

And in times like these, with so much uncertainty in the world – whether it's politics or rapid changes with AI or climate or economic shifts or the ongoing aftereffects of a global pandemic – this yearning for connection feels even more vital. It's not a luxury; it's a psychological need. It's one of the most human drives we have.

How Anxiety Hijacks a Beautiful Drive

But here's what I've also noticed, and maybe you've experienced this too: that beautiful yearning for connection barely gets a moment to exist before anxiety snatches it right out of our hearts.

It happens so fast. One second, you're acknowledging, "I really wish I had closer friendships with other moms," and literally the next thought is something like, "What's wrong with me that I don't already have that?" or "I should have prioritized this years ago." Or even, "Everyone else seems to have these deep friendships already – I must be doing something wrong."

Do you ever notice how you have this perfectly beautiful yearning to cope with something in a very helpful way, and then anxiety takes it on as a task to be good at? Not just good at, but really good at, so we can protect ourselves from feeling any bad things?

This is how anxiety works. It takes something that's meant to be nourishing and turns it into a problem to solve or another task to ace. It transforms a healthy yearning into yet another metric by which we can measure our inadequacy. And honestly, most of us mothers are already carrying around enough metrics of supposed inadequacy – we don't need another one.

Comparison Is Human—But It's Not the Truth

What makes this particularly complicated is that once we start reaching for connection, our brains naturally shift into comparison mode. I see this all the time in my work – not just around friendship and community, but in how we approach our careers, our parenting, everything. It's almost like the need for belonging is constantly fighting with this need for comparing and proving that, "Hey, I'm not so far behind. I'm a better communicator than this other person at the organization, or I get paid more, I’m better with money, or braiding hair, or whatever."

I honestly think comparison is quite simply part of our human brains. It's a natural process that our minds go through. The problem isn't the comparison itself – it's the attachment to praise or external validation that gets us stuck. It's when we use comparison not as neutral feedback but as justification: "I am worthy…see? All this shame I keep feeling doesn't have to be true because I'm better at X than she is."

Social media, of course, makes this so much worse. We're comparing our 3D lives – messy, gritty, boring, sad, joyful, complex – to someone else's carefully curated 2D performance. And that comparison will always leave us feeling like we're missing something essential.

In Uncertainty, Connection Isn't a Solution—It's a Lifeline

I think this yearning for connection feels especially poignant right now because we're coping with so much uncertainty. We're acutely aware of how little control we have over massive changes happening in the world. What we really want to do is find others and connect – not just superficially, but to almost rest in connection. To be still together in the not-knowing, to restore together to gather energy for the long road ahead of making the future hopeful, bright and better. 

To have a peer to level with you and look you in the eye and say, "Hey, this is a lot" can feel like she took a big, uncomfortable backpack off your shoulders. It doesn't solve the uncertainty, but it makes it more bearable.

We won’t find solutions to feeling out of control or lacking clarity about what's going to happen in the future when we feel more deeply connected. But something else happens. We understand that we never really could control the future in the first place. We understand that connection is the thing that matters most to us. We understand how invaluable it is to share our lives with other people.

We understand that there is no perfect way of doing anything, and that life is both short and also the days (especially the hard ones) can feel really long. We understand that lives in 3D, not the 2D of social media, are messy and gritty and boring and sad – and that makes it a lot easier, even if you just have those few laughs, those few deep breaths with someone else.

The Ferns and the Ivy: Making Room for Both

This brings me back to those ferns and that poison ivy. They grow in the same conditions, in the same season. You can't have one without at least the risk of the other. And I think that's true of our yearning for connection too.

The beautiful, nourishing desire for friendship and community grows right alongside our fears of rejection, inadequacy, and vulnerability. They're part of the same ecosystem. And we can choose to avoid the whole path because we're afraid of the poison ivy – which means missing out on the beauty of the ferns. Or we can walk carefully, mindfully, knowing that both exist and we can navigate this terrain because it’s what matters to us.

Sometimes I think we expect connection to be easy and frictionless. We don’t set aside an emotional budget to build, nurture, and sometimes let go of meaningful friendships. How can we consider expanding our budget toward making friends? Well, that depends on what is entailed for you. Finding friends and community, finding colleagues that feel like they fit really well into the way that you work – it's kind of like dating. It's a process of discovery – discovering who you are, what kind of friend you want to be, what actually feels like friendship to you.

Do you love when people really stop and listen to the nuances? Do you love when people say just that right thing? Do you love when someone can capture a part of you that is rarely reflected? These are all beautiful questions to explore.

Friendship as a Living Process, Not a Proof Point

There's this myth, especially as we get older – I'm thinking about what it's like to be in my 40s – this pressure to be like, "Well, I should have this huge, long-lasting group of friends, and that means something about me socially, that I've stayed connected." As if our social circles are a testament to our worth or social skills.

The reality is that many of us have experienced friendship breakups that have been hard on us. Often, because we especially as moms didn’t give ourselves space to grieve the loss of those relationships or that they just weren’t what we expected. 

Community is not a contract, friendships are not either. How much we belong in these relationships is a dynamic process. And I think that's important to remember when we feel that yearning for connection but find ourselves afraid of the vulnerability it requires.

We want to feel, at so many different ages, like our relationships are all booked – like airline tickets with assigned seats, no room for awkwardness or vulnerability or the unknown. But real connection doesn't work that way. It's messy. It evolves. It surprises us.

There's nothing wrong – there are so many things right – with yearning for connection. And I think it's just important to find a space where we can reflect on how our anxiety (and sometimes shame) might jump a hold of the goal of connection and fast forward us through all the awkward, feeling dynamics. We don't need to skip the uncomfortable parts. They're part of the journey.

A Gentle Invitation

So the next time you feel that yearning for deeper connection – with other moms, with colleagues who understand your unique challenges, with friends who can hold space for all the different facets of who you are – I invite you to notice what comes next. What thoughts rush in after that initial yearning? How does anxiety try to turn that beautiful impulse into a task or problem?

Can you hold space for both the ferns and the poison ivy? Can you acknowledge the risk while still walking the path toward what your heart knows it needs?

There's nothing wrong with your yearning. It's one of the most right things about you. It's a sign that you're human, that you understand what truly matters in this one wild and precious life we're given. And while anxiety might try to complicate it, at its core, that yearning is so simple and so true.

I'd love to hear about your experiences with this dance between yearning for connection and navigating the vulnerability it requires. What kind of friend or colleague are you yearning to be right now? What would it look like to practice that, even imperfectly?

Connection doesn't have to be perfect to be nourishing. Sometimes, like those ferns in spring, it just needs a little space to unfurl.