Your fingerprints are formed five months before you’re born. No hands carry the same prints as yours. And those same prints will be with you to your last breath.
Richard Unger believes your whorls, loops and arches provide invaluable tools of self discovery. He’s the founder of the International Institute of Hand Analysis and author of Lifeprints: Deciphering Your Life Purpose from Your Fingertips.
At its simplest, your prints place you in one of four life schools, here to learn either:
- Joyful service
- Emotional mastery
- To commit to your ideas
- To feel safe (peaceful) in your body and on the planet
Assigning the life school seems a matter of counting how many prints are arches or loops or whatever. The school provides the context or training ground for your life lesson and highest potential.
As for figuring one’s lesson and purpose, I gather that different fingers carry different ranks. A skilled reader can weigh the results and combine them to craft a full report.
I gave it a whorl
My friend PJ Spur, a gifted teacher/coach/counsellor, is studying the Lifeprints process. Her report on my hands provided lots to think about.
Right off the bat, my school surprised me. I’d guessed Wisdom. I was wrong, yet I can absolutely see the school my prints point to. (Turns out I’m all whorls and loops–only my sense of humor is arch.) The report includes some nice reassurance, too:
You cannot get to your Life Purpose without making Life Lesson errors. Not only can you not stop yourself from making certain types of miscalculations, it is actually in your interest to do so.
I’m still digesting the life purpose the report lays out. If I’d been given this report at age 30, I’d have laughed. Only a fraction of the material would make sense to me. (So I reckon it’s arrived with perfect timing.)
Closing meditations on what my prince prints revealed
Ultimately, it doesn’t matter whether Mr. Unger’s system is accurate. The advice my report offered for mastering the lesson it spells out is sound. I suspect that if the system had delivered a different lesson, the advice would still be worth taking.
Throughout the system, there’s an emphasis on personal accountability, continuous learning and the willingness to embrace paradox. Pretty sound principles on which to build a life, in my opinion.
For that matter, every one of the life schools hold value. So I ask you, which of the four schools–service, love, wisdom or peace–would you guess your hands reveal for you?
Photo credit: Jennifer Lord Photography
