Change Your Handwriting, Change Your Life : One Key Pivot Point

The idea that you could change your life by changing your handwriting--or even by merely changing your signature--was hardly uppermost on my mind when I began my study of handwriting analysis in early 1980. Rather, having studied both serious psychology (extensively) and serious astrology (briefly), I simply wanted to be able to gain serious insight into other people with or without their knowledge or--quite frankly--consent.

Sound nasty?

Perhaps it was. In any event, I had yet to fully appreciate the need to know myself before worrying overmuch about the rest of the human race...but a wakeup call was a-comin', big time. Two books had come into my life, graphoanalysis texts put together by a fellow named Milton N. Bunker (no relation to Archie that I know of). His organization, the International Graphoanalysis Society (IGAS. and don't ask me if he'd thought that acronym through thoroughly before adopting it!) sold me both volumes...and I set to reading. Studying. Analyzing handwriting wherever it could be found.

I was about to experience the shock of my life.

My original search for better methods of gaining insights into almost anyone did indeed bear fruit...and lots of it. An inveterate liar will jump out from the handwritten page and slap me upside the head in a heartbeat to this day. So will the individual who is always out for Number One and only Number One, or the adult in years who is still devastatingly immature, just for example.

But the axe handle between the eyes hit as I applied the proven methods of graphoanalysis to my own handwriting--and more than anything else, to my signature. Folks had tried to tell me I had issues all along, but they were jerks, right?

Wrong. Well, maybe they were jerks, but the ugly truth was that, more often than not, their criticisms were based in fact.

I hadn't changed my signature one bit since grade school. Had I been "all good" as a kid, that would have been fine--but there were "things" in that signature (as well as in the rest of my handwriting), aspects of my personality, that I did not like one little bit. They were simply not acceptable.

There were three key negative personality aspects  that I purely hated (plus half a dozen more that were a bit irritating).  The three worst were:

1. Sharp points on some of the finishing strokes. They were particularly noticeable in the final stroke which curved back over the top of the entire signature, in a small d, and in the stroke atop a capital  F. Guess what? Anyone with that stroke has an irritability problem. Doesn't matter whether or not the waspish nature shows outwardly (mine did at times); it exists. Temper, temper. That had to go.

2. The super-tall d stem (out of proportion to the lower loop) indicated the very opposite of independence (a trait I'd thought I owned!)...and the opposite of independence (it turns out) is out-of-balance pride. As in, pride goeth before a fall. To gain true self confidence, it seemed, pride had to be abolished.

3. Artistic and graceful (I'd thought!), the final, back-curving overstroke...is there a more PC word for sucks?!   It turned out to be a bit too much what it looked like, a horrible attachment to the past, not exactly the mark of Mr. Self-Reliant. Ouch!

So I decided, being unable to avoid the grim conclusion that I'd been a self-blind jerk from Day One worthy of comparison with today's Charlie Sheen--okay, not quite that; I just looked at his handwriting. But still, not great.

With that knowledge in hand, it was time to change my life by changing my handwriting. FAIR WARNING! The course materials shouted, "DON'T TRY THIS AT HOME!" It seems you can really mess up your life by trying to do too much, too fast, too hard, without supervision.

Yeah? So? Accepting supervision and/or guidance was never anything I wanted to learn to do, then or now. It could mess me up? Big deal! I was already messed up! Time was of the essence! Within days, I'd decided on a new signature...which has been in place from that day (in March, 1980, if memory serves) forward.

Sticking to just the three problem areas outlined above, the revised signature accomplished the following:

1. Elimination of strokes ending in sharp, tapered points. There was still an occasional taper-off at the end of the capital B--a bit of backsliding that needed regular attention--but even that stroke lacked the "twist" that produces a sharp point. The remaining stroke endings were all blunt, firm, and square. Summary: Testiness almost completely eliminated.

2. The d stem was much closer to being in balance. Not stubby enough for the "true independent", which I understood from the beginning would not be my goal, but enough to get rid of that look-at-great-little-me problem. Summary: Much better self-evaluation.

3. Replacement of the squirrely backstroke with a strong underscore--which does not shout independence but does indicate self-reliance, my top priority in the personality makeover. Summary: About time!

Once this makeover was instituted, two key questions remained to be answered: Would it actually work, and would I have to pay a horrendous price for charging in where angels feared to tread without a graphoanalysis counselor looking over my shoulder? The answers were and are: Yes...and yes.

Very briefly, the following 31 years saw me through five more divorces, two bankruptcies, one foreclosure, an attempt by a certain group of folks to see me destitute and in prison, an attempt by cops to frame my sorry tail, and a whole lot of other "stuff".

Yet on the other side of that, sticking to my guns and hammer down throughout those same years--when all was said and done--Life also saw me build a business that grossed in excess of two million dollars over time, survive every attack without so much as getting arrested even once, win the love of my life in wife #7, and come into my own when I built our Border Fort in southern Arizona. Not to mention becoming (as a close friend recently put it) a "hardcore Tea Partier" and (amazingly) a highly effective public speaker when I need to be.

Go figure.

Talk about a pivot point.

Bottom line: 'Tis said that personality changes are always reflected in a person's handwriting. Not so often, however, is it pointed out that the reverse is equally true, that you can change your life by changing your handwriting...though you may be in for a wild ride.