You may ask why I’m doing this. I mean, left handed people have traditionally been the subject of bad social stigmas. The derivative of the words for right handed people have been associated with justice, authority, and dexterity. However, the root of the word for left handedness, sinestra, eventually took on the meaning of evil or unlucky. There are also negative colloquialisms associated with left handed people: for example, having two left feet. Interestingly enough, phrases similar to this one can be found in many languages. In Spanish there is a even a reference to doing something on the left that means doing it underhandedly. Even the term ambidextrous implies doing something right handed on both sides. Poor lefties – they get no respect.

With 93% of people showing right-handed tendencies, maybe I just wanted to see what it felt like to be left handed for awhile. But there were more reasons that caused me to begin using my left hand. A couple of years ago I broke my collar bone and couldn’t move my right arm much for about 6 weeks. I recall feeling baffled by how limited the dexterity was in my left hand. How could I be so strong on one side and so infantile on the other? I was also inspired by my husband who writes with his left-hand but plays tennis, baseball and eats right-handed. I think that level of ambidexterity is admirable! I wanted some of that. But there’s also the mental challenge of it. I’ve read that the brain needs to be “exercised” to learn new tasks – whether that’s learning another language, a new skill…or writing with your left hand.

In fact, Lawrence C. Katz, PhD and Manning Ruben promote neurobics, a system of brain exercises based on scientific research. Dr. Katz discusses the concept of switching the hand that you normally write with. “If you are right handed, controlling a pen is normally the responsibility of the cortex on the left side of the your brain. When you change to writing left handed, the large network of connections, circuits, and brain areas involved in writing with your left hand – which are normally rarely used – are now activated on the right side of your brain.”

Dr. Katz refers to this as neurobic exercise which he defines as including the following:

• Involve one or more of your senses in a novel context
• Engage your attention
• Break a routine activity in an unexpected, novel way

So in addition to to improving my dexterity, I’m also exercising my brain! In fact, I’ve heard some people suggest that people who are left-handed are smarter. I haven’t seen the evidence on this, but after a year of writing with my left hand, I would like to suggest a new theory. People who are left-handed are required to be more ambidextrous. Because the majority of people are right handed, left handed people are sometimes required to do some things with their right hand – using scissors, cameras, guitars, etc. I think being ambidextrous must better develop both sides of the brain.

I’m going to be writing more on the topic of left handedness in the future, but in the meantime, why not give your left hand a try at something? If you’re not ready to tackle writing, try brushing your teeth with your left hand or eating dinner. You’ll be surprised at how uncomfortable and taxing this can be. But remember, you’re giving your brain a workout so it is well worth the effort!

If you doubt the impact that changing a name can have on a life, consider Barack Obama. Yes, it’s true that his given name at birth was Barack. So how, you may ask, did he change his name?

When he was a child everyone referred to him as Barry, the same derivative of Barack that his father chose. The story goes that his father chose a nickname just as a lot of people from other countries do when trying to fit into this culture. It seemed only natural then, that Barack who was given the same name as his father, would use the same nickname.

It appears that Barack took comfort in the name Barry. A black boy growing up in Hawaii with a white mother and grandparents would want to fit in somehow. A Newsweek article on Barack’s name shows that when questioned about the nickname, he described, how “he didn’t want to have to explain his name. ‘Barry’ was just a way of simplifying things—a small compromise to smooth the way in society.”

He continued to go by Barry until his early twenties. In college his struggle transformed from trying to fit in to trying to find himself. Friends encouraged him to claim his heritage and go by Barack. I can imagine how that must have resonated with him.  How better to stake a claim for new territory than putting up a flag that labels who owns the property. A name is like the flag testifying who lives here; who owns this life!

You may still think that changing a name from a nickname to a birthname is not technically a name change. But I would argue that it requires the same steps. It requires courage to ask people to call you something different. It’s why there can be comfort in being around new people where you can call yourself what you want. It’s when you’re around people who have known you for years that it’s difficult. People don’t like change. They don’t like it for themselves and they don’t like it for those they love.

Asking people begin to call him Barack wasn’t always easy. Some members of his family insisted on calling him Barry. Through the years he must have won this battle. I think he is a better person for figuring out who he is and how he would be named. Larry Ackerman describes one problem with politics: the expectation to try to be someone you’re not. Maybe having gone through this this process of figuring out who he really is can help him be an authentic leader. I also think the name Barack suits him much better. We all would be better served for this opportunity. To be self reflective. To consider our identity. To choose how we will be named.

Think about it. If you received a bad haircut, you wouldn’t continue going to the same hairdresser and asking for the same cut. If you had a pair of shoes that caused your feet pain every time, you wouldn’t (or shouldn’t) continue to wear them. Maybe you might try to work out the rough spots, but if the pain persisted, you would put them in the goodwill sack and say good riddance! Yes, returning a gift you don’t like can cause some turmoil, but avoiding turmoil is not a good way to live life either.

People give us gifts all the time and we’re good at figuring exit strategies from the ones we don’t like.  You were given a gift when you were born – your name. Do you like it? If so, great!  Enjoy it, revel in it, appreciate it. However, if you’re one of the many people I talk to who hate their names, then you should consider changing it.

Your name is a big part of who you are, and living under a moniker that you hate or that doesn’t suit you, well, it’s like wearing a pink bunny outfit that your aunt made for you. It certainly makes your mom and your aunt happy.

What was the secret? That I had changed my name. For years I had been introducing myself to new friends as Marly. They didn’t know that there was a different name given to me at birth. That I had been using this birth name most of my life. But I hadn’t told my family or old friends that I was using a new name. I had been living a double life.

In the end, I changed my name. Now everyone knows me as Marly. The transition wasn’t always easy, in fact sometimes it was downright messy. Some friends surprised me and totally embraced the name change. “You never seemed like your old name to me in the first place” one friend exclaimed. Other friends were not so supportive, suggesting that maybe I was going through some sort of midlife crisis (a little too early for that if you ask me). I’m not one who likes a lot of conflict. In fact, to be more accurate, I can dodge conflict better than Keanu Reeves can dodge punches in The Matrix. So I didn’t automatically jump on the idea of asking people to change the way they referred to me. In fact, I cringed at the thought of it, but something deep inside was calling me to make this leap.

Even armed with the knowledge that this was an important step in living my authentic life, something still held me back. I felt I was standing on a precipice, afraid to take the next step. I was terrified of telling other people about this change.

I read recently about a black bear who was cornered into a tree by a cat. A yellow, tabby, 15-pound cat scared this fearsome bear high into a tree. Now, I should tell you that the average black bear stands around 5 feet tall and weighs between 100 and 400 pounds. Each paw has 5 large claws. They can kill a large elk with just one blow from their powerful front paws. Here was this fearsome black bear cowering in a tree because of a domesticated cat!

I realized I was a lot like that bear. Not aware of the power I had within me, I let the fear of telling others about my name change keep me cornered in a tree. It felt safe there; much safer than facing that hissing, growling creature below. Had I realized that the people I feared most to tell about my name change were simply (and metaphorically) tiny housecats whose “bark” was much worse than their bite, I could have come out of that tree and lived a self-expressive life so much sooner.