SWITCHING HANDS

Fifteen or twenty years ago I decided to do something which may have been done before, (but I never met anyone who decided to do it).

You see, as a counselor I take notes, lots and lots of notes, especially during the first couple of sessions when I am gathering a great deal of information from my clients. And since it wasn’t unusual, at the time, for me to “sit with” twenty or twenty-five individuals and/or couples a week, you can imagine the wear and tear on my dominant hand.

As a result, I decided that I would deliberately train myself to switch hands during the course of a given session. Of course, initially the results of my efforts were both slow and almost illegible. With a bit of time, the results continued to be rather slow, but more legible. And when I finally mastered the art of writing with my non-dominant hand, my speed had improved slightly, but my legibility was nothing less than superior.

With the passage of time, I noticed three unexpected variables related to my hand writing.

My left-handed writing looked nothing in the world like my right handed writing. Over the years, I have never been all that impressed with my hand writing. I always thought it looked like something a sixth grader would produce. However, as I gained the necessary skill to write with my non-dominant hand, what I saw looking back at me seemed almost like calligraphy.

The second characteristic which I noticed was not as impressive. My dominant right hand trembled now, and the ‘chicken scratches’ I left behind were somewhat difficult to read. 

The third issue which I noticed was my almost total dependence on my left hand. Whereas, I had initially hoped to switch back and forth during the course of a counseling session, the almost spastic tendency of my right hand increased, and in order to assure I could read the results of what I wrote, I went with the non-dominant hand.

As I reflect on my little experiment now, it occurs to me that I literally rewired my brain to use a hand for writing that was never intended for that purpose, and as a result the synapses which governed the use of my right hand for that particular purpose were negatively impacted.

From time to time one of my clients, noticing the posture of my left hand, and the way I held the writing instrument, has exclaimed, “You don’t hold your pen like most lefties do.” And, of course, at that juncture I made them aware that I had purposely chosen to teach myself to use my non-dominant hand.

Well, just another stray bit of information regarding yours truly that I am leaving behind by way of the written word, since I think it is important to share a bit of myself with multiplied generations of my family members who will come after me.

However, much more crucial than whether I wrote with my dominant or non-dominant hand, and the fading scrawl which I left on the crumbling pages of time, is the imprint of my words on the hearts and minds and souls of those whom God loves, and whom He has chosen to set in my pathway.

by William McDonald, PhD. Copyright pending