Pencil And Paper

“For me, the greatest pleasure in writing is not the topic at hand,

but the music that words make “

-Truman Capote

So much email, so much skype, so much “wasap”! ..What was left of that pencil and that paper ? Where were those letters, those Christmas greetings that occasionally appear by chance in a drawer and that we reread with nostalgia?

New technologies seem to have written the end of pencil and paper when this way of helping our memory, of communicating or clarifying our thoughts should still have a lot to say.

Before it was what there was, what would have happened if your grandfather had not written those letters since the war to his wife, your grandmother? Well, possibly, we wouldn’t be here … it sure wouldn’t have been as romantic as an email or a text message …

And what would have happened if Viktor Frankl had not been compiling in small papers that he found here and there in the concentration camp recounting all those terrible experiences that he lived and that have been captured in his wonderful book “The man in search of meaning” …

What would the world of art and culture be without the scribe monks of the Middle Ages? … Well, it would surely be a different world, a world that in a way we are losing with the habit of “writing by hand is no longer in fashion”.

However, now handwriting has been relegated to the background compared to other options whose advantages are clear. We can write something with a keyboard and in less than it takes us to think about it, it can be shared and literally open to the world.

This form of technology writing has made communication and expression much more democratic and censors have a much more difficult job of covering up a potentially viral or attractive message.

But in exchange for this immediacy, we have sacrificed other advantages that handwriting has and that virtual writing does not have. First of all, traditional writing is much more in line with the natural movements we make. Thus, you will probably have noticed, when you have returned to practice this type of writing, that it has an extraordinary relaxing power.

Anxiety takes away because it prevents us from working in “multitasking” mode. When we have a page in front of us, there is only one page and not three or four open programs and among them a browser that demands our attention since through it we can access new information, which is renewed every moment, and that has to do with topics that we like.

Why? Because with our writing, with our unique way of writing, goes the expression of our personality. Anyone can write with “Arial” or with “Time New Roman” but with your handwriting you can only write. Thus, traditional writing supposes an encounter with ourselves, something that is especially noticeable when we write some type of personal text, whether in the form of a letter, diary, story, etc.

As data we will tell you that it seems that the surrealists  already understood this deep meaning of writing; they employed what they called ” the automatic writing “, a form of writing that was to write endlessly letting the subconscious will emerge through the writing.

That said, we are going to talk to you about graphotherapy or how we can use writing to help us.

What is graphotherapy?

Graphotherapy is a form of intervention that tries to take advantage of the relationship that exists between our personality and our way of writing. Broadly speaking, we could say that if our personality is expressed through our way of writing, can we change our personality by changing our handwriting?

The benefits of graphotherapy are multiple: combat anxiety and stress, improve communication with others, promote creativity, mental clarity, for bad character and / or aggressiveness, insecurity and lack of self-esteem, obsessions , the lack of attention and a long etc.

So from here we encourage you to take a pencil and experience the wonderful little pleasure of writing.

What aids can we use to get back to handwriting? How do we transmit its value to future generations?

• Send traditional Christmas postcards to your loved ones.
• Dare to write your feelings when you have a free time or before going to sleep. It’s a great way to vent and understand yourself better.
• Teach by example. Let your children see that you like to write your recipes by hand, the shopping list, letters, postcards etc.
• Play with your child to write riddles, jokes, stories. ..

• Ask your child to make a shopping list for you.
• Play to write letters and put them in a mailbox at home.
• Congratulate your children when they write. Offer positive reinforcement such as But how well you do! What beautiful handwriting you have! Don’t you like it? Well, I love it, change what you don’t like but keep it up!
• Use modeling clay to make letters when your children are young and play fun words with cardboard letters.
• Make a family book. You can all be part of it. Include photos, postcards, and other family mementos.
  Write your journal and offer the idea to your children as well. It is a wonderful feeling when you read it over the years and see how you were then and how you have grown as a person.
• Use a magnetic alphabet in the refrigerator. It can be a lot of fun to leave you messages.

• Surprise your partner or your children with a letter written and hidden under the pillow or kept in a drawer.
• Write your own letters. Trust yourself, do not delegate your writing to others, with the typical phrase “You write better than me.”