Finding what’s right in what’s left!

That title was my third attempt to place a positive spin on one of (what I consider) my biggest obstacles! Now some of you, I could make up a statistic here, will struggle to understand this, but I don’t automatically know my left from my right. Never have done, I must have been in the loo when my name got called for that gift! To some extent I've muddled and laughed or apologised/excused my way through this great crevasse of paralysing limitation all my life. But, as a yoga teacher it’s now with me, crouching gargoyle-like on my shoulder (I’m not sure which one) every single class. Actually that’s not entirely true, some days it clearly has been invited to the beach or has a spa day organised but even then it leaves me a small post it note so I don’t fret over its return!.

I feel the weight of this seemingly ridiculous lack as though it were a concrete boot hardened around my left leg. I know it’s my left because I can do left leg splits more easily than right. It interrupts my speech, takes me out of my flow and constantly threatens to derail me...or at least that’s how I felt about it until today.

Today I had a retrospective epiphany, or at least a moment when something completely opposite to my usual conclusion came tumbling into view. No it’s not that I discovered you can make an L with your left hand! I actually realised that having this vulnerability is a boon. Not only does it humble and ground me but it reminds me that we are all quite beautifully flawed in some way or another and part of that beauty is our how we regard our flaws - our willingness to embrace them rather than wanting to conceal them.

So while I continue to work on which arm is wrapped around which leg and what direction you are supposed to be twisting towards with an ardent hope of getting it right (or left) every single time, I’m now equally channeling my energies into letting go of perfect for the joyful benefits offered up by our imperfections. The revelation of that opportunity to let go and flow more easily, to move on, to relax from a white knuckle grip on the script and feel those threads of real human truth spin out and connect us to each other - flaws and all, uniquely and brilliantly beautiful.

Sat Nam