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Men fear it. Women love it. Children live and breathe it. Cuddling. This past week I instituted it into my Savasana adjustment series. Along with the head massage and foot rub, on occasion I’ll slide next to a few lucky students (female) for a cuddle. Some of the warm and wonderful comments I’ve heard:

“This is nice. But you smell.”

“My husband is on the mat just to our left.”

“Um, ah, I hate this.”

“Actually I’m a man.”

Oh cuddling. What a wonderful expression of love. In that perfect moment of comfort, to wrap your arms and legs around another. But for one reason or another, “cuddle” is not a word that men use around other men. In fact, “cuddle” is one of the Top 5 Least Used Words Amongst Straight Men in addition to “feather,” “dinky,” “hunk,” and “teeny.”

Just as a test, while watching the NBA Finals the other night, I left early and when harassed as to where I was going, I said in one groundbreaking sentence to my buddies, “Gotta get home and find a place to cuddle because the feather mattress this dinky hunk dropped off earlier today is way too teeny.”

Not sure where I’m gonna be watching tonight’s game.

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But wait, to dudes out there for whom this blog is getting too touch-feely, consider a
NY Times article on touch which reported that the most successful sports teams “tended to be touchier than bad ones. The most touch-bonded teams were the Boston Celtics and the Los Angeles Lakers, currently two of the league’s top teams; at the bottom were the mediocre Sacramento Kings and Charlotte Bobcats.” Why? A warm touch releases oxytocin, thus enhancing trust.

This same article reported that humans have a much more articulate sense of touch than previously imagined.  In an experiment, volunteers tried to communicate a list of emotions by touching a blindfolded stranger. The participants were able to communicate eight distinct emotions, from gratitude to disgust to love, with about 70 percent accuracy.

Touch nourishes a human being in ways and places that words and gifts could never reach.  So next time you’re seeking a special gift on a special day, consider the cuddle. As Shel Silverstein said, “I will not play tug o’ war. I’d rather play hug o’ war. Where everyone hugs instead of tugs, where everyone giggles and rolls on the rug, where everyone kisses and everyone grins, and everyone cuddles and everyone wins.”

She is a student named Laura from Yuma and she only practices yoga on her left side. In other words, instead of doing warrior 1 on the right side and then the left side, she’ll do it twice on the left. I actually went up to her when she took my yoga class and said quietly, “I think you forgot to do the right side.” She replied, “That’s why they call me Lefty Laura.”

In another class, I went up to her and in a very loving way tried to guide her into the twisting triangle pose on the right side. She looked at me, smiled, and again said “I’m Lefty Laura.” I replied respectfully, “You already told me that, but what does it mean? Something is wrong with your right side, right?” She answered, “Right? No Left. I’m Lefty Laura.”

Hmmmm, maybe she was mental? Or possibly she had a stroke and didn’t have access to her right side. Or maybe she’s just flat our weird? So I started researching lefties. The science suggests left-handed people as a group have historically produced an above-average quota of high achievers. In fact, of the 7 most recent US Presidents, 4 have been left-handed, including Barack Obama, and one was ambidextrous. Australian research shows that left-handed people think more quickly when playing computer games or sports. Left-handed people also tend to earn more money. And most interestingly, research from Canada reveals this interesting quality of left-handed people: they’re more likely to be homosexual.*

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I know what you must be thinking and I agree, if in fact it’s not just Lefty Laura but Lesbo Lefty Laura, who the heck cares?! All the power to her! We’re always trying to break down statistics on righties and lefties, gay people and straight people, red-heads and blonds, short people and tall people. Our society is increasingly based on information and proof and less on dreaming and the imagination. And that is not good for our happiness.

According to Eric Weiner, author of Geography of Bliss, the people of Iceland are some of the happiest people in the world because of their ability to relinquish the need to know. Icelanders tend to believe in strange things like dwarfs and fairies, regardless of whether or not there are any statistics to prove their existence. As Weiner goes on to describe, “a pinch of self-delusion and naivete” are important ingredients in the happiness recipe.

So I’ve decided to let Lefty Laura do her thing. I don’t need to know why she only practices on the left. Some of the energy I spend thinking, is better spent dreaming. As a wise one said, “Live in the glory of your imagination, not your memories.”