Sex, Lies, and Handwriting

I first found YOUR HANDWRITING CAN CHANGE YOUR LIFE by Vimala Rogers, which was incredibly illuminating for me.*

I just finished reading SEX, LIES, and HANDWRITING by Michelle Dresbold.

             

Handwriting can be incredibly revealing, not just to me about me as I found in Vimala Rogers' book, but, as Dresbold says, about others.

She is a handwriting analyst, and has been engaged in profiling criminals by their handwriting. In SEX, LIES, and HANDWRITING, she uses real people's handwriting, both famous and infamous, to illustrate her points. Some of the people she names in her book have committed horrendous crimes (Jeffrey Dahmer, Timothy McVeigh), others are presidents and celebrities (Richard Nixon, Bill Clinton, Jimmy Carter, Zsa Zsa Gabor, Michael Jackson).

She describes how phallic symbols can indicate sexual frustration or obsession, as well as how some symbols that show up in handwriting can indicate a propensity to violence. How small, tight writing can indicate someone who doesn't like to interact with people and, conversely, how large handwriting can indicate someone who likes social interaction. She talks about legibility vs illegibility, how sometimes people write illegibly because they don't want others to see who they really are in their interpersonal relationships.

She also seems to agree with Vimala Rogers in that changing one's handwriting can change one's behavior or outlook. When Dresbold was studying handwriting herself, one of her teachers pointed out that the way she made her "p" - what the teacher described as a "pugilistic p", indicated that she could be argumentative and confrontational. As Michelle paid attention to her interactions, she realized that her teacher was right. She indeed found herself in situations where there were arguments and not much resolution. She decided to change the way she wrote the letter "p", and found that, over time, her interactions with others improved.

The last chapter of SEX, LIES, and HANDWRITING included letters she received and responded to as a columnist called The Handwriting Doctor. People wrote her to ask if she could give insight into themselves or loved ones through their handwriting. Could Dresbold tell if someone's sister was anorexic? (yes) Would the man a woman was with be a good life partner? (no)

Handwriting can be an indication of how one is in the world. Changing one's handwriting, according to Dresbold and Rogers, can change one's outlook and presence in the world. In the last chapter, Dresbold urges some of the people who wrote her to change their behaviors, which would then result in different handwriting. I found it interesting that Rogers and Dresbold both recommend changing one's handwriting to change one's life, and that Dresbold recommends changing one's life which would also change one's handwriting, a reflection of one's life.

I find it quite fascinating, and am taking yet another look at my own handwriting. How's yours?


*See this post - one of my favorites - to see how handwriting may have changed my life:
http://notthenewyorktimesbookreview.blogspot.com/2010/03/your-handwriting-can-change-your-life_28.html


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Your Handwriting Can Change Your Life

      
Can it? Can it really? Can one's handwriting change one's life?

That is the premise of Vimala Rogers' book, YOUR HANDWRITING CAN CHANGE YOUR LIFE She says that the way we form letters and place words on a page as we hand write things is indicative of our attitudes and behaviors. And if we change our handwriting, then we can change attitudes and behaviors.

Well, I love this stuff...this was just another in a long line of tools I've worked with...personality tests, temperament tests, godesses in every woman...tell me more about ME. Also, when I found this book I had been depressed for some years, dissatisfied, but didn't know how to make it better. So this is handwriting? Great, let's do this.

The initial exercise in the book had me write a page in my usual handwriting, and then she analyzed aspects of the sample from how it's placed on the page, to handwriting size and slant, and then each letter individually.

She described a way of forming the letter 't' that one might want to avoid...she said that when the crossbar across the top is made with a bowl-stroke, sort of scalloping down, that it is saying..."I know I'm bright, I know I'm talented, but I don't know where I'm going."

When I read that I felt as though cold water had been poured over me. That bowl-stroke was how I crossed my t's. All of my 't' crossbars bowled so much they could have held soup. And what she said was how I'd felt for YEARS, not knowing what I wanted to do, knowing there was something else, maybe lots of something elses, and not feeling as though I had any idea how to go about getting there or knowing what it (or they) was (were).

I didn't LIKE feeling that way, so stuck and frustrated. She said, "change the crossbar into a straight, upward directed one that has purpose and drive. In no time at all you will begin to have a sense of direction."

So I practiced. It was hard. But I changed how I wrote the letter 't'. Practiced for months. I made sure that top crossbar on the 't' was not bowled, that it was straight across and strong. I changed my handwriting.

Did it change my life? Well, not too long after I changed how I wrote this letter, I left my marriage, in which I'd been unhappy for years. I started a new, much more fulfilling relationship (with a woman! yay!). I felt as though I was making steps in my life to be truer to me, stronger in the world and with others.

Were those major changes a direct result of my changing my handwriting, how I wrote the letter 't'? Could the changes have resulted from me having my mind focused on getting direction while I was practicing my handwriting, kind of like a meditation or affirmations? Or could the changes have come from some other catalyst? Or would they have happened anyway??

Of course I don't know.

But it is awfully interesting to me that those changes seemed to coincide pretty closely with me making that specific change in my handwriting.

I took the book off the shelf again recently. There are a few things in my life that I'd like to work on, a few patterns I have that I would like to change (perhaps residue from that marriage I left?). So now I have a few other letters I'm working on. Will changing how I write those letters change my behavior? I think it's worth a try.