I don’t know about you, but in my life I’ve had people I loved and believed were on my side betray me - especially women.

It’s made me want to avoid women all together and keep to myself. But the truth is, we can’t do that.

We can’t let a few bad apples spoil the whole bunch because in the long run, it’s only going to hurt us even more.

No matter how great you are, if you exist on an island by yourself, you can only get so far. Being great requires connection with others.

You need to find the support of those in your community, and more importantly you need to offer the same support you want to receive from others.

Be the light everyone else wants to be around.

It’s too easy to discredit, nit pick, point out flaws and cut other people down. It takes wisdom and maturity to not allow yourself to stoop to being that person no matter what you’ve experienced.

Instead choose to offer grace and forgiveness to people who may never acknowledge their wrongdoing. It’ll only free you and help you become better, as well as, force others to respect you even more.

To dive deeper into this, I wanted to bring you the author of, She Wins, Andromeda Raheem.

After experiencing years of negative interactions with women, Andromeda made the choice to turn her pain into power and do her part to empower and unite women. While working a government accounting job, Andromeda started a blog to share her stories of betrayal, loss of friendships, and lack of support from other women. At the time, it was simply a passion project and she had no idea that she was putting herself on a path to become the founder of a global network that promotes support and sisterhood among women.

She took this message to social media and began encouraging women to collaborate instead of compete, make themselves accountable for their own happiness and success, and be confident in themselves.