How I Learned the Importance of Empathy

I started breaking in 1997, the same year that I began studying Linguistics at Edinburgh University. Breaking has taken me all over the world, teaching dance classes, performing in and choreographing theatre shows as well as competing in, judging and organising competitions.

This seems like an unlikely career for someone who spent half of her first year of primary school as an asthmatic inpatient at Yorkhill Children’s Hospital in Glasgow. 

Being an inpatient when you start to feel better is difficult. You start feeling bored, restless, lonely and trapped. I remember one particular hospital stay when I was feeling like this, but my spirits were buoyed by the upcoming visit from my mum. When she arrived, I led her over to the play area where we sat on the floor and I expected us to start playing together. But there was another wee girl there, and she started playing with my mum. I was mad. I waited until they had finished their game, and I said vehemently to my mum “You’re my mummy, not hers!”. My mum looked at me and gently said “Maybe her mummy isn’t able to come and visit her.”. My jealousy immediately dissolved, and I realised that the other wee girls and boys on the ward must also be feeling bored, restless, lonely and trapped and maybe they weren’t as lucky as me to have their mums come to visit. 

That was how I learned about empathy. 

That lesson has stayed with me. Empathy plays a big role in how I approach my work, whether I’m teaching, choreographing, giving a competitor feedback after they lost a round in a competition or any other situation I find myself in. 

Empathy fosters positive relationships, community and collaboration. All factors I value in my work, and in my life.