she had 100 friends and felt completely alone

This week, I had a  session with a client that I'm still thinking about. One of those conversations that reminds you why this work matters so much.

She came in talking about her friends. Lots of them. Group chats, weekend plans, people who knew her name and the whole thing looked like connection on the outside. But when I asked her how she felt in those friendships, she paused. And in that pause, everything shifted.

"I have so many friends," she said, "but none of them really know me."

That's a heavy thing to carry. Surrounded by people and still lonely. It's more common than we talk about,  especially for teens, and honestly, for a lot of adults too.

So we started asking some questions. Not questions I had the answers to, but questions she needed to sit with:

What do you think is holding you back from the connections you actually want?

Why do you keep people at arm's length?

What would it mean to let someone get close?

Something cracked open. She started to see it,  that she wasn't just lacking deep friendships. She was blocking them. Energetically, unconsciously, she was keeping the very thing she wanted at a distance.

And then she told me why.

She  told me she's awkward. That she's afraid people will see the real her and not like what they find. So she stays in the shallows where it's safe and she can manage how she is perceived.

Here's what I love about her: she said all of this, and then she started to challenge it herself.

Because when we looked at the evidence, the actual, real-life evidence,  she's the girl who makes everyone laugh. The one people call when something goes wrong. The friend who shows up. Awkward? Maybe in her head. But in reality? Funny, warm, magnetic, kind.

Her negative thoughts weren't lying to be cruel. They were trying to protect her. That's what fear does,  it disguises itself as self-awareness. But protection and isolation aren't the same thing, even when they feel like it.

So we turned the lens around. What if instead of focusing on what might go wrong if she let people in... she focused on what she already knows to be true about herself? That she is worthy of real friendship. That she has so much to offer. That the right people, when they see the real her, won't run — they'll stay.

By the end of our session, she made herself a promise: this weekend, she was going to practice being open. Not perfect. Not polished. Just real.

And here's what I want to say to you:

She is not the only one.

If you're reading this and you felt something in your chest when I described having a lot of friends but still feeling alone,  that's not a coincidence.

We are wired for deep connection. Not likes. Not followers. Not surface-level plans. We crave people who know us — really know us — and choose to stay. That longing is not a flaw. It's the most human thing about you.

But deep friendships require something that feels terrifying to a lot of us: vulnerability. Being seen. Risking rejection. Letting someone past the highlight reel.

So if you've been keeping people at arm's length, I want to invite you to ask yourself the same questions we explored in our session:

→ What would it mean to let someone truly know you?

→ What are you afraid they'd find?

→ And what if that thing you're hiding is actually what makes you worth knowing?

The inner work is real. It's not always comfortable. But the friendships waiting on the other side of it are…….Worth every bit of it.

If this hit home, let's talk.

If you read this and immediately thought of your teen — trust that instinct.

So many young people are walking around with full social lives and empty connections, and they don't always have the words for what they're feeling. But they feel it. And it shapes how they see themselves, how they show up in relationships, and how much they believe they are worthy of being truly known.

This is exactly the work I do.  Online, one-on-one, in a space where teens and young adults can actually say the things they can't say anywhere else. No pressure. No judgment. Just real conversations that create real shifts.

If your teen or young adult is:

→ Social on the surface but seems lonely underneath

→ Struggling with anxiety around friendships or fitting in

→ Holding back from people without quite knowing why

→ Going through something big — a loss, a transition, a quiet kind of pain they're carrying alone

...they don't have to keep figuring it out by themselves.

You can be the parent who gets them the support that changes things.

[Book a call for your teen or young adult here] because sometimes all it takes is one conversation with the right person to help them see themselves differently.