Seeing people
Hi friends -
I’ve mentioned here before that I am obsessed with the Marco Polo app.
If you haven’t heard of it - it’s a video messaging app that allows you to send video messages either one-to-one or in a group. The recipient can watch it when they have time and respond back whenever they want.
I discovered it during the pandemic, and it has become quite a lifeline for me in connecting with my friends and family members across the miles.
Two of my closest girlfriends, Sam and Jenny, and I use it pretty much every day. We check in with each other, chat about our day, do cameos of our pups, and, ya know, casually talk about deep intergenerational trauma.
A few days ago, Sam told us a story about her cousin, Chithra, who she recently visited in New York. Sam and her family, including Chithra, are South Asian.
In her next Marco Polo response, Jenny stumbled over the pronunciation of Chithra’s name - and acknowledged that she sorta butchered it.
In Sam’s next message, she half-serious, half-jokingly said, “Her name is pronounced Chithra. Chith-ra. It’s not that hard, you little White lady!”
Jenny responded with, “You are absolutely right - it’s not a hard name to pronounce. I’m really sorry about that.”
Sam took the opportunity to say more about the impact that mispronuncing names has on her. Despite the fact that Sam has a common-in-the-U.S. name, she has dealt with the mispronunciation of her friends and family’s names for most of her life.
Sam shared a frequent scenario goes something like this… someone tries to pronounce a name that is unfamiliar to them, they stumble over it, they try it a few more times, and then laugh embarrassingly at their attempt.
Sam said that the lack of effort and/or willingness that people often have to learn the correct pronunciation of an unfamiliar name takes a toil on members of her community.
I gotta admit, I’ve made this exact same mistake more times than I care to count.
However, Sam’s words challenged me to put myself in Chithra’s shoes for a moment - what must be like for her to have lived in the U.S. all her life, but to continually hear others stumble over her name. I imagine that it occurred in school when she was younger, in the workplace now, and at networking or other social events.
If it were me, I think this slight would make me feel unseen, unimportant, or not worth the extra effort it would take to learn to say my name correctly.
I also started to think about the amount of effort it would take to do better in this area going forward. I gotta say, I think it’d take pretty minimal effort.
I could:
listen carefully when someone introduces themselves,
repeat the name several times in my head to be sure it sticks,
look ahead on my work calendar and practice saying the attendees names before the meeting,
google the pronunciation of any names that are unfamiliar to me.
I imagine that the impact of this nominal amount of effort might be pretty significant. It might help the other person know that they are important to me, that I value and acknowledge their cultural background, that I see them.
I’m grateful that exchanges like this one between me, Jenny, and Sam happen all the time. One of us will speak up about something that was hurtful, or set a boundary, and the other two will listen, check our egos, and do our best to acknowledge it, and correct course.
Recently, Jenny told us about an article she read that said one of the biggest impacts on our mental health comes from the people we most closely surround ourselves with.
I, for one, want to be surrounded by people who challenge me to be a better version of myself - people who grow alongside me, people who look for ways to be kinder, more empathic humans, people who I see and who I know see me.
I’m curious: What have you learned from your close friendships lately? How do you think your mental health is impacted, positively or negatively, by the people you spend the most time with?
If you have any reflections you’d want to share with me, I’d love to hear them.
Warmly,
Rachel
Rachel McCrickard, LMFT
CEO + Co-Founder, Motivo
rachel@motivohealth.com