Balancing the Right & Left

Like most people, I have one side of my body that’s just more capable. It’s more coordinated, more accessible, more dexterous. For me, that’s my right side.

 I used to joke that my left side was my “stupid side.” In dance, it was the side I could never quite get to follow along. In weightlifting, it lagged behind in strength. And in writing—well, let’s just say my 4-year-old's handwriting is similar.

 What I didn’t realize for years was that my so-called “stupid side” wasn’t stupid at all. It was essential. My left side was the anchor that allowed my right side to move freely. Without its quiet, constant support, my right side wouldn’t have the freedom or precision I’d always taken for granted.

 Movement teaches us that opposing muscles (agonist and antagonist) exist in a constant relationship with one another: front and back, left and right. One contracts, the other releases. Balance is never about making them the same; it’s about communication, coordination, and the ability to adjust in real time. When that relationship breaks down, we don’t just lose strength, we feel it as discomfort, pain, and dysfunction.

 And how do we usually approach imbalance? By forcing it into place. We load more weight on the weaker side. We stretch the tightness out of the stronger side. We push, pull, manipulate, and try to make the body conform from the outside. If none of that works, we just ignore it through medication.

 But what gets overlooked is the inside job: the conversation between the brain and the muscles, the subtle invitation for the nervous system to let go, the curiosity about why the imbalance is there in the first place. That’s the difference between imposing balance and cultivating it.

 I learned this lesson the hard way when I was pregnant. My left hip started screaming at me with tension and pain. My mentor reminded me: pregnancy has a way of exposing our patterns. And motherhood has only deepened that truth. I cradle the baby on my left side while my right hand gets to be the do-er, the one that “gets things done.” The right side gets the glory, while the left shoulders the load in silence.

But here’s the thing: the right can’t function without the left. The left can’t thrive without the right. They depend on each other, even when the balance is messy or unseen.

 That’s not just a lesson in anatomy, it’s a lesson for our times.

In my time as a Functional Fitness Trainer and Somatic Movement Teacher, I've come to learn that the lessons of the body echo the lessons of life. I even wrote a blog about it years ago.

We live in a culture that loves sides. We categorize ourselves as this or that, left or right, for or against. And the higher the tension gets, the easier it is to see the “other side” as stupid, or weak, or wrong. But just like in the body, when we've made a decision about a part of us - "my left side is stupid," "I have a bum knee," or "I can't change due to my past or family," we cut off an opportunity to look a little more deeply.

I consider myself on the political left and I live in Chicago. I can attest: we are living in unprecedented times as it pertains to our government's unconstitutional and illegal actions. I don't want to step over that, but the wisdom of the body tells me that continuing what we're doing as a society: forcing outcomes, making assumptions, or simply not communicating with the "other side" is not getting us where we hope to go.

Inside this analogy, I'd assert both sides see the other as a metastatic cancer or terminal disease that is beyond fixing. There's nothing wrong with this outlook, and we can all point to "proof" of it in our own points of view, even as the system that maintains us dies.

But is that what the various parts that make up this system want? Just because we're dealing with a proverbial cancer, are we prepared to maintain what got us here? I don't know all the answers, but what I do know is what we're doing is not working. I am grateful that I am privileged enough in life to be able to ponder this and remind myself to soften again and again and again.

Balancing opposition isn’t about collapsing the differences or pretending they don’t exist. It’s about softening into curiosity. What does this side know that the other doesn’t and how can they share knowledge freely, without tension? What burdens have each side been carrying and is there a way to lighten the load? How can they support each other so the whole system works better?

 I admit to being a bit of a Pollyanna, and, in earnest, it's what's made being a political organizer for two decades doable. Curiosity, playfulness, and consistency are superpowers. In the body, they allow us to listen, explore, and recalibrate. In our communities, they invite us to drop our assumptions and expand our capacity to hold tension without breaking.

True resilience is found in learning to dance with opposition; to let each side teach the other, to release control, and to trust that the conversation itself is where balance lives.