I’m writing to you from an airport lounge in Christchurch, New Zealand, while I wait for my flight home to Brisbane.
I’ve spent a lot of time in airports over the years, and while the experience varies from one airport to another, there is something about them that makes me appreciate the life I get to live and the parts of the world I’ve been able to enjoy.
I’ve spent the past few days with my Kiwi friends, whom I’ve had the privilege of knowing for more than 18 years. They are dear friends from my life in the UK, long before I moved to Australia.
Friends I worked with. Friends who came to my wedding and then helped me mend my broken heart when it ended.
These friends knew me in my twenties and thirties, and now they know me in my forties. They knew corporate achiever Glin, and they’ve watched me transition from that career into coaching and consulting.
A large part of my second book, Unstoppable Woman, was written in their back garden while I enjoyed the beautiful view overlooking Tasman Bay.
There is something incredibly special about spending time with friends who have witnessed and been part of so many different seasons of your life.
There is an ease with which you pick things up, often as if you were together only yesterday, even when years have passed between face-to-face catch-ups.
There is the banter, the directness and the calling each other out on our BS in a way that is only possible after years of trust and presence have been cultivated within a relationship.
It is a friendship that deepens in love and connection because you have shared the highs and lows of life together.
It can never be a surface-level connection when you have shared the moments that humbled you.
I feel immensely grateful to have good people in my corner. Friends who are very much like family to me.
I’ve been told that I’m a collector of good people, and as I reflect on that statement, I know it’s true.
For me, the consistent quality among the people I keep close is their willingness to be seen.
They don’t pretend everything is fine when it isn’t. They don’t perform success. They openly share their challenges as well as their highlight reel. They prefer an uncomfortable truth to false harmony.
They don’t gatekeep information that could help you get ahead. They openly share what they’ve learnt through their own experiences so that others might avoid falling into the same traps they once found themselves in.
They also ask what you see.
They are humble enough to recognise that the people around them may see something they can’t. They know they won’t always see themselves clearly, so they ask for a mirror because they genuinely value your perspective.
I love my friends.
They help me see myself clearly too. They remind me who I am whenever I feel lost. They cheer me on and always hold space for me to be fully myself.
I hope you have friends who are a meaningful part of your life. I know my life is infinitely richer because of mine.
As I sit here, I’m wondering what I’m really trying to share through this blog post.
I’m not trying to teach you anything. As I write this sentence, I don’t feel as though I have any great words of wisdom or nuggets of guidance to offer this week, other than to invite you to pause and take stock of the friends in your life.
Who has witnessed your different seasons?
Who remembers the versions of you that existed before the person you are today?
Who helps you recognise how far you’ve travelled?
Even though I have control over my own calendar, I still find it far too easy to fall into the trap of not making time for travel and adventure in the way I once did.
It’s easy to stay close to home, settle into familiar rituals and routines, and forget there is a whole world out there waiting to be explored.
Whenever I get out of my own way and book a trip, I’m reminded of how much I love being somewhere different. Experiencing a new place shifts my thinking. I’m always changed by it, sometimes in small ways and at other times much more significantly.
This weekend, as we enjoyed many hours of conversation and shopping, I found myself in awe as I reflected on just how much our lives have changed from the ones we were living 18 years ago.
It reminded me that so much of the life we eventually experience can’t be predicted, no matter how hard we try to create certainty from one day to the next.
It also reminded me that although I sometimes focus on how far away I still am from the goals I want to reach, I’ve already covered an extraordinary amount of distance.
The gain is often far greater than the gap, but we forget to acknowledge it.
Much of our growth is invisible. It happens on the inside, much like the growth of a seed beneath the ground as it develops its roots, long before any green shoots appear above the soil.
We judge ourselves and our lives so critically, but each of us is here to experiment and experience life fully. We can’t do that if we don’t allow ourselves time to play, connect and enjoy the adventure.
Perhaps that is what this trip has reminded me.
The people we love don’t simply accompany us through life. They hold the memories of who we have been, reflect the person we are becoming and help us see the distance we’ve already travelled.
So, perhaps this week, call the friend you’ve been meaning to call. Book the catch-up, take the trip or make space for something beyond your usual routine.
Life is moving, even when it feels as though you’re standing still.
And sometimes it takes an old friend, a new view or a few quiet hours in an airport lounge to help you see just how far you’ve come.
Keep going and keep growing.
Love Glin x
P.S.
This week’s conversations in The Expansion Room continued to remind me how powerful it is when we take the time to truly witness each other. The experiment is already proving that just by putting our inner negotiations under observation that how the energy under those negotiations can shift very quickly.
If you’re curious to learn more, and join us in a fortnight’s time, there’s still four more sessions for you to participate in. The details for each of the sessions and the calendar links to join can be found in The Expansion Room members area.
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