How Empathy Builds Connection and Confidence

Source: Jim.henderson/wikimediacommons

I already rely on Cynthia, my new therapist, to give me something to chew on until I see her again.

The Need to Be Seen

This week, the bone to gnaw is about that psychological need to be seen. It’s a big issue for me right now, with self-esteem down the toilet and motivation nowhere to be found. Usually, I am social and engaging; I share humor and joy. But, right now, I’m depleted, hypersensitive, and tense. I have turned inward, anxious to not impose my snark and sadness on others. I’m 180 degrees from where I want to be in terms of my relationship with the world.

In therapy this week, a hefty discussion of my emotional state, I suddenly veer off course. Cynthia is getting used to my holding forth, telling a story in detail during session. This week was a vignette about Michael West.

A Story From High School

Mike was in my homeroom in high school. He was a nice guy, mature and calm. He and his sister were unusual in my world: one parent “Black,” as we said then, and the other white.

Our senior year, I succumb to peer pressure from my friends and go out for track. So far, I have made it through school without showing any athletic inclination or talent. A bunch of us nerds show up for the first track practice. The coach, our physics teacher, welcomes us. Track and field events are summarized; the practice schedule is reviewed. We head off for “a slow jog” with senior track star Ann leading the pack. I gradually fade to the back of the line as my short legs and lack of motivation make me slow and tired. I return to the school a few minutes after everyone else, panting and red. The coach nods. “Doing OK, Young?” I turn deeper red, embarrassed by my deficit. “Yes, thank you.”

I go home and wonder if I am going to vomit. I know my blood sugar must be low and swallow some juice. I lie down and ache, and then immediately sleep. For 12 hours. Then up for school again, and for practice. Hills this time, plentiful hills. I walk, with some other girls, up most of those. Home, eat, sleep, school, practice, home, eat, sleep. The routine gets established. On weekends we are to run by ourselves as long as we can. I run 10 minutes.

I keep going to practice and quickly become more able to breathe. Coach Porter looks at me when I tell him I want to learn to hurdle. He sees, I now realize, a young girl with heavy thighs above short calves, harboring a desire to be light, lithe, and strong. With compassion, he shows me what to do, generously doing hurdles himself (which I now realize was impressive in a man his age but, which, at the time, struck me as evidence that I could do it easily if old Porter could).

I whack my left knee on the first hurdle and my right on the second. “You need to get your leg up higher, Young! Spring off your feet when you get close to the hurdle.” It sounds easy, so I try again. At this point, several girls who are practicing field events have stopped to watch. Focused on lifting my leg, I spring long before the hurdle is close enough, and domino the first three hurdles before landing on my hands and knees in front of the first one. I sprawl on the track with its ashes shoved into my skin. My knees start bleeding, and my palms start to sting. Coach walks over to give me a hand up and look at the scrapes and scratches.

“You’d better go clean up. Use warm water, soap, clean towel.”

The shame and pain wash over me. “No,” I tell myself. “No tears.”

“Be gentle,” Coach says as I head off to the locker room.

Practice ends just as I get back to the track. “First meet next Friday,” Coach announces. “I’ll get the official roster to you on Monday, but most of you’ll be doing what you worked on today.” I know I won’t, and the tears come up again. I blink them out.

I’m assigned to run the 440 in the meet the following week. I am not fast, and though it is the shortest individual event to run, I know I can’t win. But what else is there? I can’t breathe long enough to run the 880. I don’t know how to hold, much less throw, a javelin. I do see Coach's kindness: He is looking out for me; he hadn’t humiliated me when I fell. He had honored the erroneous desire to try something difficult.

On the afternoon of the meet, my mother shows up. She’s never been to any of her children’s sports events because none of her children ever participated in sports. She looks out of place as she walks up the stands in her cotton dress and flat shoes: no pants and sneakers for her. She sits alone; I feel a combination of gratitude and pathos for her. Like me, she doesn’t fit in there.

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The 440 is one lap around the track. A group of 8 or 10 girls starts off when the gun fires. I go as fast as I can from the beginning and stay in the pack for about 15 seconds. And then the distance from the other girls grows. I want to abandon the race at the 110 mark. At the 220, I fear I may vomit. I want to cry at the 330.

Instead, I walk, head down, toward the finish line, where the other girls jump around, pat the winner on the back, drink water, and roll towels around their necks.

I am alone on the track.

Then suddenly I hear a voice on the edge of the track beside me. A body attached to the voice: Mike West, Afro floating in the warm breeze. “Come on, Liz, you can do it!” he shouts as he jogs me home.

He gives me a high five at the finish line.

I never thanked him. But every time I glimpsed Mike, at high school and then later when we attended the same graduate school, I experienced that moment on the track: The popular Black boy, seeing the solitary white girl struggle, comes over to protect her and cheer her on.

Source: Tom Sodoge tomsdg/wikimediacommons