learning how to be grateful for humiliation

last night i went to my yoga class, knowing that i was stiff and in a little pain. i can expect that when it's cold like this and i haven't done any deep stretching in a week. normally i love my tuesday classes because jodie's my teacher - she's so sweet and gentle that i liked and got along with her right away.

she had the stomach flu yesterday so a different teacher subbed for her - a man. i've taken a lot of studio yoga classes in my day and i'm not sure what it is (i mean no disrespect) but i've never liked or felt comfortable around any male instructors.

...but that has a lot to do with my herstory. i've found as well, through my informal polling, that male instructors like to touch and manipulate their students' bodies more - which is, in general, a no-no in my book.

so i took a deep breath once i figured this all out and told myself to stay open to the experience - that maybe i was wrong, and that there was a reason why i was supposed to take that class. i changed and unrolled my mat and got ready.

right away my "worries" were confirmed. in yoga i love doing flexibility postures (where the emphasis is placed on warming up and opening up the joints) because my joints stiffen so quickly and close in on themselves. i hate doing balance postures, because - well, i'm out of balance. one half of my body is literally shorter and lighter than the other half which means i can barely stand on one foot, much less tuck the leg i'm not using into the fold of my hip.

yesterday was a balance-postures class. i felt my heart sink right away as soon as i figured that out, because not only does my heart rate speed up (in the anxious, oh no i can't do this he's going to constantly correct and draw attention to me way), but it means i simply can't physically do a lot of the postures. so i'm left cooling my heels when all my body wanted and needed was a good 90 minute stretching out.

of course the teacher, never having read my file (which says under 'health concerns': born with cerebral palsy - i know because i wrote it down) constantly did what i was afraid he was going to do. in the leg lunges, which were fairly simple, the students were supposed to keep their knee straight and above their ankle.

(if you tried that right now, it's fairly simple. drop to the floor, extend one leg behind you, and keep your forward leg bent in a 90 degree angle. no matter how low you can sink into the posture, keeping the knee in front of the ankle is fairly easy - except for me. my left knee has never been able to do that properly - because of the spasticity of my tendons, my knee angles in, towards my other leg, and it hurts and is extremely uncomfortable when i try to reposition it. i'm working on opening up that area, but it takes time.)

so of course the teacher said to me, "no. the knee over the ankle. the knee over the ankle. see? like this." and i'm trying to maintain the posture and trying not to burst into tears (because this is a shy person's nightmare) and trying not to yell at him, "you think i don't know what you're talking about? i just can't do it, you jerk!"

this continued, with him commenting on the position of my arm in the warrior pose (ironic, no?) and then, at the end of the class when we're all rolling up our mats, he came up to me and said, in a loud voice,

"so, what happened to you? were you in an accident or something? is it your leg or your arm? i was trying to figure that out all class." and i said, quietly,

"no, i was born with cerebral palsy."

and he sort of stopped and looked and me and said, "oh? i don't know much about that. so...the yoga's helping?"

i told him, yes, it was, and that's why i did so much of it.

on the way to class afterwards i had to walk quickly so that i didn't start crying.

i know, for me, that my 'disability' is where a lot of my insecurity comes from. i guess i thought i was dealing with it better. i wish it didn't; i don't think that any disability should affect people's 'soul cores'.

for me, a lot of my confusion and insecurity comes from the fact that i can 'almost pass' for an able-bodied person. that's what my parents wanted me to do - that's why neither of them told me that what i had was actually c.p. - they didn't want me to grow up under a label which would help me determine my own limitations.

i remember lying on my mother's bed for so much of my childhood as she helped me do my physiotherapy exercises, watching the two of us in her mirrored closet.

"your left side is just weaker than your right side. if somebody asks you about it and you don't feel comfortable, just tell them you got in a football accident."

i remember going to kiddie kobbler to buy shoes for my first day in grade school and my face burning with embarrassment as my mother told the salesclerk, "see...one foot is about a size larger than the other. can you mismatch two pairs?"

i remember stroking the fingers of my left hand, imagining i could feel new nerves growing, telling myself that if i just kept it up, i wouldn't be this way anymore.

i remember sitting on the window sills of the library, because nobody picked me for recess dodgeball, and i'd close my eyes and in my head i would be the most graceful ballet dancer in the world. i would be light and beautiful and strong.

throughout my life i've had people tell me that i wouldn't be able to do things. like climbing trees (well, maybe they were right about that), or playing sports well enough to make a school team (so i didn't try), or building campfires ("watch out! you'll burn yourself! let me do it!"). and even though now i know that there's absolutely nothing wrong with me, and that it doesn't have to define me in any way that i don't want it to, and that i can do anything i set my mind to, there is a lot of rewiring that i need to do. a lot of sensitive spots that i'm trying to teach myself to let go of.

like it or not, people are often going to remark on my body, and i want to stop the internal cringe that happens when they do. the internal cringe happens because of a sense of shame that i have, i know that. i want to be gentle with myself and let it go. i want to understand myself better.

i want to be grateful to the opportunities and gifts that this life has given me, even the ones that come in lopsided and sometimes painful packages. and i am, most of the time.

i just wish that my first reaction towards such an integral part of myself - what makes me me, wasn't shame.