(Hand)Writing a Wrong...

I recently had a revelation about a narrative I have been telling TO myself ABOUT myself for a long, long time.

The narrative was about the quality of my handwriting. Actually that’s not even quite accurate - the narrative was about ME, and what I thought of myself as someone who only occasionally sits down to put actual pen to actual paper. The narrative went something like this:

My handwriting is awful…messy, scratchy and practically illegible.

I have a hard time writing with a pen because anything I write other than signature I do on my computer.

I hate writing with a pen on paper because it is so much more comfortable and efficient to type on a computer keyboard in a word processing app.

My hand and fingers cramp when I write by hand anything longer than my signature!

I told this narrative to myself so long and often that I resisted my desire to work with the book The Artists’ Way by Julia Cameron, a wonderful resource with interesting and tangible exercises to help us awaken, reawaken, or enhance the “artist within,” that Cameron believes lives in all of us. I first acquired the book in 1998. That’s a long time to resist something that I believe in my heart would be a good experience for me.

The keystone activity/exercise of The Artists Way is “morning pages,” which Julia Cameron insists should be written long-hand, and on paper, in order for the exercise to be successful at freeing the inner artist. A couple of times since getting the book more than 20 years ago, I attempted to modify “morning pages” by doing them on my computer. For some reason, I was never able to stick with them, even though I have been used to some sort of journaling most of my adult life.

This time, though, I was curious and eager to do them the way Cameron conceived: three full pages of stream of conscious writing by longhand, on paper, immediately upon arising every day.

And so I began, telling myself I’ll just have to deal with the fact that my handwriting is ugly and illegible, that it was going to cause pain in my hands and fingers, and there was nothing I needed to do about it, because the three pages of writing were not FOR anyone else. They were just for US to clear ourselves of the day-to-day, programmed thoughts, worries, reflections and musings that actually prevent us from accessing more expansive and deeper expressions of our unique perspectives on life.

Sure enough, my entries out of the gate are practically indecipherable. Chicken scratch on a page, because I was trying to write as fast as I was thinking my ever-so-profound thoughts, which of course was next to impossible (even though I knew I could easily type those profundities so much faster and clearer, and they’d actually be readable!).

Then one day, I was writing about my resistance to going the “extra step” that is often required to achieve excellence in our life’s numerous, diverse endeavors. If something that I wanted in my life didn’t come easy for me, I would often give up the quest for it, and make up some self-delusional story: maybe I don’t really want it, or maybe I don’t want it bad enough to jump through certain hoops, or maybe I just don’t have the talent that I see others involved in this activity have, so why put my self at such a competitive disadvantage?

So as I furiously write all down all of these of these sad, self-defeating narratives of limitation, ambivalence, inertia, and fear, I look at my handwriting. Can’t read a word of it.

“And why is it illegible?” a silent voice from deep inside me inquires. “Are you or your hands incapacitated in some way? Or maybe you never learned to cursive write with pen and paper?”

Interesting, I reflected back to the Voice Within. My hands both work; I am not incapacitated in the least. I have been writing cursive since I was 10. I probably started getting careless with it after I learned to type on a computer keyboard, and the need to write by hand had become a tremendously inefficient, outdated, and useless way to communicate. Sure my handwriting was sloppy and scratchy and illegible — but who cares? Why should I worry about something that I planned on weaning away from? Why do I care about legible words that no one can read or is going to see anyway? My handwriting sucks…I know it, everyone knows it!

But that Voice Within was persistent.

“Perhaps someone, even YOU, might want to read something you have handwritten someday. Whose fault would it be if you pulled out something you wrote long ago that you, or someone you love, really wanted to read…”

Ugh. Isn’t this very question what I am lamenting about in this entry about my relationship with excellence? Here I am, fully committed to doing The Artists Way exercise with pen and paper as proscribed, and somehow I was totally fine with not being able to read what I will have spent so much time writing “because my handwriting sucks…”

The Voice Within is cautiously optimistic:

“What if, with just a few adjustments to your routine, your handwriting might NOT suck? What if you just wrote a bit slower, and took more care to ensure that you are actually forming the words on the paper you are expressing? Then, you could proud of yourself, not only for doing your daily morning pages, but writing them so that you can actually return to them for inspiration and future reflection.

“And think about it…wouldn’t caring a bit more about making your handwriting more legible demonstrate that you CAN and DO pursue excellence in your life?

Go on, I encourage the Voice Within…

“And, most importantly, wouldn’t doing this little experiment about improving your handwriting reveal that you CAN change a limiting narrative about yourself that YOU developed? That you don’t have to stick with a narrative once you realize you have the power to change it? That you can take responsibility and accountability to make the shifts in life that YOU have long desired to make?”

Well, when you put it like that, Voice Within…

And so…here I am…on the path to an evolved Me…changing my own story…because I used to be a person with ugly, illegible handwriting. With a few conscious tweaks, am becoming someone with easy-to-read, GORGEOUS handwriting!

I'm assuming that being able to read what I have written previously will make life -- and my morning pages, so much more convenient, enjoyable, and creative.

And just how does a person with GORGEOUS handwriting live? I sure looking forward to finding out!

Peace and legibility -

Rev Rob