Last week I hosted an intimate salon on female friendship.

We gathered a room full of women to talk about what it’s like to need connection as our lives change — and how our friendships change, too, as we drift apart or become the next versions of ourselves.

One of the themes that kept coming up was this idea that even if we have good friends, many of us still feel disconnected and lonely. Most of us only need three to five good friends to feel very satisfied with our connections, Anna Goldfarb shares in Modern Friendship. But the challenges we face are all very real:

• Work lives are incredibly busy, and scheduling feels impossible.
• We don’t get enough depth and real-real connection, it stays superficial.
• It’s not frequent enough, and feels like more labor than routine.
• We miss our 20s and 30s, when we might catch up with someone several times a week.
• Life changes—marriage, kids, family, illness, divorce, death—can cause sudden rifts in friendships, because you have changed, and your needs have changed, and that can cause additional grief and longing.

This is one of the reasons that I made The Council. It’s for women in midlife who want a recurring weekly connection to go deep and spend time with other women, in community. We meet every Thursday for 90 minutes. I host the calls. Early bird discounts are available, but only for the next week! Our next group starts in October.

​Apply to join The Wise Women's Council — the best group of women to hold space for you over the year ahead.​

I designed The Wise Women’s Council around the science of friendship and connection in midlife. According to research, it takes about 90 hours to really become friends. It’s not enough to say hi to someone, or just have a few coffee chats—we really need to invest quality time to get there.

Over the course of a year, nestled into one Thursday call every week, together, women in the council get 90-100 hours of high quality time to listen deeply, talk fully, and see each other through our ups and downs.

Many members of WWC have remained friends long after the council is over. I still hear from folks that met in 2017 and 2018, and they now have annual retreats together!

My goal is to bring you into this group, create a year that sparks deep connections, and then send you off with amazing people that you can be in touch with for the years to come.

If you want to be a part, we are now open for applications for our Fall 2026 class.

Early Bird applications close this coming Tuesday, September 22!

I hope you apply to join us! Or—send this to someone you know that needs it.

Be brave and be kind.

— Sarah

Curious to see what we’re about? Join us at an upcoming Salon:

Wise Women's Salon: Saying the true things out loud | Wednesday, September 16.

Wise Women's Salon: Reinventing yourself and reimagining your career | Wednesday, September 30.

Book Club: Communion, by bell hooks | Wednesday, October 14.

Be brave and be kind.

— Sarah