A few days ago, an incident in a hardware store parking lot forced me to face some deep internal struggles and reminded me why I use running as my laboratory for growth.
As I walked toward the entrance, I made eye contact with a driver approaching me. He appeared to stop, so I kept walking. Suddenly, he accelerated, crossing so close in front of me that I had to push off his car to keep him from running over my foot. He rolled down his window and yelled, “Fuck you!”
My first response was disbelief. “What are you doing?!” I yelled back. But when he yelled at me again, I snapped. “Fuck YOU!” I yelled, taking a step toward his car. But he drove on. I flipped him the bird and walked into the store.
I felt a storm of conflicting feelings. Anger at his nerve, relief that I wasn’t hit, and fear of a second confrontation in the store. And I also felt shame. It took me some time to think about it, but that shame was because I was worried about that potential second confrontation in the store.
I know this shame comes from childhood insecurities and a lifetime of fearing other men. For years, I built a mental defense by “othering” myself to stay safe, and isolating myself to avoid conflicts exactly like this. I am certain that’s why I limited my exposure to close friendships and generally grew up distrustful.
In this moment, the manosphere would tell me that the shame I felt was a sign of “low status” or being a sissy. Their rhetoric would reinforce that “winning” the fight would establish my dominance and protect my “alpha” ego. And then I wouldn’t feel shame.
But as simple as that sounds, that approach doesn’t feel right, either. It relies on a zero-sum worldview where you must out-compete and exploit others to feel secure. It wouldn’t have helped me that day in the parking lot because it only reinforces the isolation that makes men vulnerable to depression and loneliness in the first place.
What I am working on instead is being for myself but not against anyone else. That man was irrationally angry and didn’t deserve any of my energy. I’ve been thinking about it ever since, and I think my best comfort would have been to recognize my right to be upset, then have the self-compassion to simply turn around and walk away. This is the Care pillar in action: taking responsibility for my internal state rather than just reacting. Obviously, I have some work to do there. I mean, sure, fuck that guy. But this incident has been with me for more than a week, which tells me I have something to work with, and I’m choosing to do that. Because his bizarre behavior is not my problem.
There is a direct tie to the track here. When I run 200m intervals lately as I work toward a race goal, I frequently hit a wall of discomfort halfway through them. But my past 50-mile runs have taught me that I can survive hours of much worse discomfort. So, I support myself in the middle of the 200 intervals by telling myself, “Dude, you’ve experienced way more than this. You got this”. Often, I don’t even finish the thought before the interval is over.
It’s not merely talk. The experience of reminding myself that I’ve lived through far worse, and then doing it again and again and again on the track, rewires my body and mind.
I’m learning to apply that same constructive approach to everyday life. Instead of letting a stranger’s rage trigger a defensive “war” in my head, I can recognize the discomfort, offer myself some grace, and keep running my own race.
How would you have handled it? What do you do to find compassion for yourself when stressful moments arise? Leave me a comment (below if you’re reading this on the site), or send me your thoughts to FrankField@protonmail.com.