I was listening to Essence Magazine’s “Black Women In Hollywood” livestream and heard something powerful and meaningful from Iyanla Vanzant. She said a woman needs a posse.

I had already planned to write a post about the power of female friendships. Iyanla confirmed I should with her statement.

There’s power in true female friendships. These are women who will stand with you though thick and thin, tell you the truth when you don’t want to hear it, be nice when they say that shade of lipstick is not right for you, and get madder than you when someone does you wrong.

When I think of a posse, I think of Western movies. Posses in those movies rode with you, for days, in heat, through dirt, and on horses. Talk about through thick and thin. Posses had a purpose. Posses always had each other’s back. Posses rode together through the night. They were never called friends but when you look at how they came together for a common cause, isn’t that what friendship is?

I believe Hollywood has provided us with some great tv shows and films that exemplify great friendships. Some of my favorites are Living Single, The Golden Girls, First Wives Club, Sex and the City, Now and Then, and Waiting to Exhale.

True friends are like family. You don’t have to see them or talk to them all the time but they are there. And if you are like me I think about them when I haven’t talked to them in a while. Those thoughts are love and prayers.

I’m grateful and blessed to have some wonderful women in my life that I call friend. They bring out the best in me and will tell me when I’m not at my best. They’ve talked me off the ledge (not literal). They’ve reminded me who I am.

So for those wonderful women in my life and those in your life that you call friend, I share this: