Long before she became a renowned mental health expert, Dr. Joy Harden Bradford was a kindergartner sitting on her grandparents’ porch in Napoleonville, La learning about the healing power of sisterhood.

The porch was a lively gathering space for the women in her family. The air boomed with the laughter of her aunts and sizzled with the latest town gossip. They enjoyed a cultural communion where they did each other’s hair and sipped on frozen cups. While Bradford didn’t understand the context of those conversations back then, they have since become examples of how Black women uplift and ground each other.

Metaphorically, Bradford never left that porch. She has recreated that sense of communal care during her more than 20 years of being a licensed psychologist in Atlanta. She has helped thousands of Black women find hope and tools for their mental wellbeing through her podcast Therapy for Black Girls. Her Sister Circle platform gives Black women space to be and breathe without shrinking their authentic selves.

Now Bradford is helping people cultivate their own sister circles through her book “Sisterhood Heals.” Written like a love letter to Black women’s companionship, Bradford guides readers – who she often calls “sis” – on how to find and nurture more fulfilling friendships.

The wisdom of Sisterhood Heals comes at a time when racial inequality and microaggressions are causing Black people to experience more loneliness than any other group. Bradford talks to Black Joy about why Black sisterhood is important to prioritize throughout our lives (including multigenerational relationships) and how women can avoid the pitfalls of friendship.

While reading the book and thinking about your work in general, it is clear that there is something special about Black women. Do you mind diving deeper into that?

When I’m thinking about the spiritual piece of it, it feels like a connection that is not visible, but it connects us no matter where we are in the world. It’s funny because I just saw a TikTok of two groups of Black women randomly meeting in the streets in Iceland. It was just a beautiful reminder for me of no matter where we are, there is this connection that is unspoken. I mean, literally, if I don’t talk to you, I don’t know anything about you. But I know that there’s likely some shared history, some shared inside jokes that we can connect with and connect on just by virtue of us being black women in the world.

I was wondering if you wouldn’t mind speaking on the historical connections to that? I remember doing an interview with National Geographic Explorer Tara Roberts about her podcast following a group of Black divers who explored sunken enslavement ships. In one of the episodes she talks about how captured Africans would communicate to each other by stomping their feet and clapping their hands even while they were shackled. It’s kind of like what you were talking about before – this invisible connection.

I feel like so much of it comes from that experience of being enslaved. For sisterhood in the U.S., a lot of where it started is for survival. We needed one another, right? Even hearing you talk about the way they would clap their hands and stomp their feet, it connects to the hand games we played as little girls and those kinds of things. I feel like there’s a history behind why we do those kinds of things, even if we don’t know where it comes from.

Let’s talk about the myths we see about Black women sisterhood? I know in the media we see this narrative that Black women can’t get along. That we see each other like enemies of frenemies. Where does that myth come from?

I think one of the byproducts of slavery is a scarcity mindset which sets us up to believe that there are only enough resources for a certain amount of people. When you think about conversations around colorism, texture-ism and who was assigned to be in the Big House or be in the field, those things that were manufactured as a part of slavery I think have carried over to our relationships with one another in some ways. But I think we have to look at who benefits from us continuing to buy into those kinds of narratives because there are all kinds of systems that benefit from us being at one another’s throats. But when you look at the experience of Black women kind of connecting in the wilderness sort of speak, there is much more often a sense of grace, generosity and a sharing of spirit that I don’t think is always captured in TV and film and those kinds of things.

Like, you’re not going to be cool with everybody. That’s not how we’re designed to be. But I think much more often Black women do have more of a sense of responsibility to random other Black women, than in other groups. And so I think that is probably a far more accurate stereotype than the idea that we don’t get along or that we don’t look out for one another.

So how do Black women keep friendships going even though there is so much going on in our own lives and the world, like capitalism. These bills ain’t playing fair. These companies ain’t playing fair. And I feel like people are overwhelmed.

I think we have to talk about why friendships are not the priority for people. So much of our socialization – especially as women and as Black women – is around romantic relationships. So we’re taught and socialized to think that a romantic partner is the prize, and that’s why you go to school. That’s why you do all of these things. And I think it will take – and I’m very excited to see – more women having these conversations where they’re saying, ‘Yeah, that might be nice, and if I desire that I can do that. But my girls are really where I come to life. And these relationships are just as significant to me as a romantic partner.’ So I think we have to start there and talk about why many of us have been socialized and brainwashed in a lot of ways to not prioritize our platonic girlfriends type of relationship.

That’s a really good point. So what do you suggest we do to connect with one another?

What I tend to encourage people to do is to put things like socialization and, like, frolicking on your calendar just like you put everything else because if you don’t make time for it, then it’s very easy for it to kind of slip off. so I think the intentionality is really important about carving out time to spend with your girls.

I also think that when we think about the fact that so many systems have fallen and crumbled, we have to look at what actually has sustained us. It is quite often relationships with other people. How can you lean on those relationships more to resist some of these systems? So yes, everything is much more expensive. Is there a way you can get with your circle to kind of pool resources so you’re conjointly buying groceries? Are carpooling? What kinds of ways can we be creative to actually combine connection and resisting capitalism?

I remember when you did a call out for multigenerational friendships on social media. So I wanted to hear more about your interest in exploring those friendships in your book?

I think age only enhances what we are able to learn from and offer one another right. So there’s so much that we can learn from the sisters who are older than us and have walked these paths before. They can let us know where the landmines are. Then there’s all these kinds of things that young sisters are into, like all this TikTok stuff and different ways of thinking that I think can be very valuable. But again, I think what some of these oppressive systems do is want us to turn against one another. So then you will hear stories about, ‘Oh, how the worst management experience I’ve had in a workplace was an older Black woman.’

That is heartbreaking to me. Because in my mind, sisterhood tells us that if I see another sister in the space that I am saved. So I think if we can do a better job of pouring into multigenerational sisterhood in friendships and sister circles, it kind of decreases the likelihood that we see those kinds of things because I don’t see you then as a threat, I see you as somebody who is kind of continuing in the legacy. I see you as somebody that I should be sharing the secrets with so that you do a great job, and then you create a space for somebody else to come behind you and do a great job.

I know that you talked about the importance of maintaining your friendships, like putting things on the calendar. But what are other pitfalls that we should be made aware of and if something does happen, how can it be repaired?

One of the big ones I see pretty often and even in conversations online you’ll see people talking about jealousy in friendships. I think jealousy gets such a bad rap because people will

experience jealousy and be like, ‘You and I are friends.’

Let’s say you get engaged or you’re bringing a baby into the world. That hasn’t happened for me, so then I immediately get jealous. What often happens is that when you experience that feeling of jealousy and then you feel so much shame about it that you’re not able to act in any way that’s productive. But jealousy is an emotion just like disappointment or sadness. Our emotions are just messengers to tell us something. So often what’s happening when we feel jealousy is that there is some unmet need that we are not tending to. And this person’s life experience has just shone a light on this wound that we had that maybe we didn’t even realize.

So it’s not the fact that jealousy exists. The problem often becomes how we manage jealousy. So instead, say to your friend, ‘I’m really happy for you, and I’m also really sad that this thing hasn’t happened for me.’ We don’t typically say that, which is a better way to manage it. What often happens is that we don’t say anything and we get really passive aggressive or we start acting out in all of these ways that can then cause a rupture in their friendship.

What’s your advice to Black women who are struggling to find sisterhood right now?

I just encourage people not to give up hope. I frequently talk about the fact that you have not met all the people who will love you yet. And so continuing to put yourself out there, looking around at the background of your life to see who could become important to you. Maybe there’s a sister in your yoga class, or somebody that you see as you’re picking up your morning coffee. Y’all maybe exchange light pleasantries, but could you extend that to asking for lunch? Or like, ‘Hey, do you want to grab a smoothie after yoga?’ Are there people who are in the background of your life that could move to the foreground with just a little bit of work?

And to the sisters who are doing that work and feeling tired because they are putting themselves out there, but feel like other people aren’t putting in the other half of that effort.

You can always take a step back, right? Like if you start investing in this thing and you realize, ‘I don’t really feel like I’m getting my needs met here.’ I think first you can say something about it and ask for what you want because I think a lot of times we don’t do that. We think, ‘Oh, they should just know that I’m doing all these things. So they should  know to do all these things.’ They don’t always know. So I think, one, it is okay to ask for what we want from our relationships. But it’s also OK for us to change things or leave. So if you realize the relationship is not giving you what you want even after you’ve asked for it, it’s also OK to put yourself back out there and find new people who might be able to give you that. So much of friendship and creating circles for ourselves is a numbers game. Unfortunately, and I know this isn’t always easy to hear, but to find people who are going to be good matches for you, sometimes you gotta kiss a lot of frogs. Keep yourself out there so that you can continue meeting people who are going to be a good match for you.