Another term for this is also known as hug therapy….

“The gift of touch is the most powerful healing you can offer another, and it is the most powerful healing you can give yourself. Give generously and watch yourself grow rich in what matters the most. Hug often, hug well…” -Kathleen Keating Schloessinger

She is the author of the book “Hug Therapy” and though I have not read it myself I feel it may be a book I put on my ‘to read’ list just from what i have read on it. Now before I get off topic, the reason I brought her book up in the first place is because of a recent reflection I had on a ‘spat’ my husband and I had and the peculiar way in which we “kiss and make up” that I wanted to share.

Most of the time its not completely obvious that there is even a problem except that we seem to not communicate as well as we usually do. It sometimes seems as though one of us has cotton in our ears and we don’t get jokes or sarcasm and take everything personally. After this goes on for a while one of us vocalizes that there is obviously something wrong and maybe we should try to be more clear to make the situation better….but that doesn’t always work. In this particular case I was being very sensitive and taking everything very personally…I don’t even remember what it was about come to think of it. My husband picked up on my bad mood and tried to ask me what was wrong. I couldn’t think of any specific reason for my mood and so brushed him off saying ‘ooooh I don’t know, whatever’ and continued on with my day causing my husband to tip toe around me. This didn’t last very long (as it never does) as my husband and I are so chatty it was hard for us to leave any kind of space. Oh another thing about me is if I am annoyed or frustrated I become very project oriented….I mean serious tunnel vision that creates this idea in my head that i don’t have time for talking or dealing with anything and I will “BE FINE”.

The learning my husband has taken from previous ‘spats’ when I become tunnel visioned likes this is to somehow make a reason for me to get close to or into the bedroom (“hunny could you come here for second? I need your help with something”) and then almost literally tackle me into the bed and hug me down. At first there is a lot of “I NEED to get _>>insert project here<<_ done!”, “leave me alone please”, “I am not up for cuddles” etc etc and sometimes even me trying to get his arms off of me. Being 6’2″ and at least a hundred pounds heavier this generally doesn’t work so well unless I actually want to cause him great pain. He usually keeps quite calm and says something like “I just need to cuddle, we haven’t been communicating and I think we just need some us time.”

When that line is delivered I usually give in only enough that he is getting his cuddles but I rebel by not hugging back to teach him I am NOT cool with this. *time passes in silence* My muscles begin to relax and I feel this need to talk and get some weight off of my shoulders. At first the words come out in incoherent jumbles of statements of how “I don’t know why I am feeling this way”, and slowly progress into “I am definitely overwhelmed or something” and then finally we hit the bullseye of what is bothering me “I am having really hard time with….” Not everytime but sometimes when I have bottled up my emotions and finally letting them pour out it seems to go side by side with a little waterworks. By this time of course we are pretzeled in a hug and just talking it all over broken up with fits of laughter (the best medicine!).

It was in reflection of this particular moment and talking to someone about hug therapy that I knew we incorporated it in our own lives already. We weren’t one of the population(percentage) that lost ‘touch’ with itself and didn’t know how to use it as a form of healing and endearment. (HOORAY) I know how important hugging is to our kids too because they will ALWAYS make sure we don’t forget our good night kiss and hug and if we did the next morning we get a whole lot of heck! Our kids love cuddles because we shower them with it and I hope that never changes!

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