“To share your weakness is to make yourself vulnerable; to make yourself vulnerable is to show your strength.” (Criss Jami)

* update - I posted this in March, and now know that I have Dyspraxia, rather than Dyslexia, however, the post remains just as relevant.

We told my team at work on Monday, and I feel the time is right to re-post this to spread the word.

Seeing the real you

Once you become comfortable with yourself, you can let others in. 

I was recently diagnosed with Dyspraxia, I'm still coming to terms with it. I didn't know I was Dyspraxic until I was 33. I was pretty much a straight-A student at school, and in my final year turned my Maths mark around from a failing grade through sheer effort of will with a whole year’s worth of extra studying after school because I didn’t want to be moved down a level into a different class away from my friends.

Until a year ago, I wouldn't have told anyone about this. The closest I would have got to sharing any weakness would be to admit to listening to the "Jonathan Livingston Seagull" soundtrack or other chilled music if I was feeling low. Or the fact that I like cheesy 80s rock music (this one wasn't so much of a secret!)

Then this week at dancing I told a few friends about my Dyspraxia and was surprised how they handled it with equanimity. They didn't judge me as I had feared, they just asked to hear more about it. They were curious to know why it hadn't been diagnosed before, and what coping skills I had learnt to manage it. They wanted to know how I had adapted myself to accept it. 

I think that swimming may have given me the confidence to let others see the real me - after all, swimming requires you to be as close to naked in public as you can be whilst still wearing clothes. It allows you to look at yourself, your  body, your arms, your legs, your toes, to see how others see you, and to ask yourself if that is how you want them to see you. 

So gradually you begin to take steps to improve yourself - you paint your toenails, you make a change to the way you pack your swim kit, what you take you buy a more colourful swimming costume. 

You get to know other swimmers - you say hello and learn their names, they are no longer strangers and people to be feared. They are people just like you, with their own strengths and weaknesses. 

I'm glad now that I didn't know about my Dyspraxia when I was at school, because I know that I overcame the challenge by myself. My mother's favourite saying is that "according to the laws of aerodynamics, the bumblebee shouldn't be able to fly, but no-one ever told the bumblebee that!" (this isn't actually true, however, their small wings do need to move a very large volume of air relative to their size, to reduce the power required to sustain flight*).

Looking back this might be the reason I am so passionate about helping others because I don't want them to struggle the way I did when there is an easier way to get things done.

Take a look at the real you, and acknowledge the challenges you have overcome to be who you are now. 

Purlgirl xx

* John Maynard Smith. "Flight in Birds and Aeroplanes - Science Video". July 2010