The best medicine
Hugs are supposed to be great. The best hugs are great. But are we too scared to give each other proper, heartfelt hugs?
How do you like yours?
I like huggers who hug gently but completely. A hug of kindness, from top to toe, long enough for the kindness to sink in. A gift of a hug, that gives energy and kindness and doesn’t take. A hug that doesn’t hurt or strangle. A hug that leaves me tingling with life. A hug I want to repeat…
A hug should be two-way, that gives and receives at the same time.
But a return hug should be received, not taken. Do you get the difference? Receiving the love or kindness from your hugger is allowing them to give; taking from your hugger is a bit like a vampire sucking the life out of a victim.
‘Give me a hug’ is the cry of a needy person. “Let me give you a hug” is the offer of a generous soul.
Heartfelt hugs are life-affirming, kind and loving
The best hugs feel safe and warm, gentle but firm, kind, giving, open, no-strings, head to toe, wholehearted and heart-felt. The best hugs are life-affirming, reviving, reassuring, generous, sharing, unconditional kindness.
Who’s your favourite hugger?
Who can you hug right now?
“You give the best hugs,” a friend told me when we were both still graduate students. I remember those turbulent years as nevertheless filled with friends and in fact the support of a community.
I meant every one of those hugs, and yet I had not come from any sort of naturally demonstrative or even warmly supportive family, and even what family I had was ravaged by a number of early deaths, rifts, and simple geographic separations.
Somewhere along the line I put my guard up even more, and if I wouldn’t go back to the person I was during my student days, I miss the simple happiness (and moment of utter safety) a hug or a slow dance brought. I don’t know whether it’s some strange midlife austerity or too much time spent looking at the darker side of life, but I seem worlds removed from that today.
On a happier note, I know better what a true friend is, and how family members can become friends, and friends family members.
Thanks, Cate. Good point about knowing more about friendship.
I think lots of us lose the hugging habit at some stage. Some give the hug equivalent of an air kiss, which is far worse than no touch at all (to me). Air kisses and air hugs say to me “I’ll make the gesture for the sake of show but I don’t want to get any closer to you than I really have to”.
My bad habit is to reciprocate the kiss or hug, so I’ll bear hug a bearhugger, and air kiss an airkisser. What I should do, really, is to give my kind of hug rather than returning theirs.
Hugs are a good thing. I didn’t really start hugging a lot until I got an Italian son-in-law. The Italians hug all the time!
How lovely – lucky you!!
Yes, he’s a wonderful guy! I am indeed lucky! And so is my daughter!