the power of hugs
Sometimes I feel as though all the pain in the world is placed on my shoulders. Sometimes I feel genuinely happy. Sometimes I feel as though I'm completely numb and that I can't feel anything and that I can't talk to anybody about myself to anybody because they don't really want to hear my problems.
I have all of the same emotions that everyone else does. I have good days when I walk into my life thinking that this world is a truly great place and then sometimes I wake up feeling as though the world is a completely miserable place to be and that the pain inside of my soul is simply too much. How do I, how do we all, deal with all of these emotions that make us humans?
I used to believe that I could do it all alone: that I needed no one's help to feel better because I'm a strong person and I know that I can handle most anything that is dealt to me. Handling it on my own is the only way that I really know how to deal with my life and so far, it's worked out okay. I am, after all, still breathing, still living, which must mean that I'm still alive. There's only one thing that I really feel as though I need sometimes.
All I want in the whole world is for someone to hug me, someone who knows and understands the real me, someone who knows about all of the things in my past and knows about the pain that I feel inside and who still loves me anyway. I want someone to touch my face as gently as they would a child's and tell me that it's okay to cry, just one time, that it's okay not to be strong for once, and that I am not to blame for the things that went wrong in my past. All I want is a true hug. I want to be loved, to be hugged, and accepted exactly the way that I am, I want to be able to accept myself.
A true hug is the best medicine. It makes us all feel loved and special. This world is a very big place and this world often makes me feel very insignificant but a real hug, a true hug, one from someone who knows the real me and someone who isn't going to judge me regardless of what I say or do, makes us feel as though we are significant in this very large world. It makes us feel as though we are cared for and very special. It shows us the truth: we ARE cared for, by God and everyone else, and we ARE special.
What I have slowly began to understand is that all people, everybody, deserves the right to ask for those hugs. It doesn't make us weak, as I have believed for years, it makes us human. They give us warmth and a feeling of security that makes life much easier and much more bearable. And what's more, it's not an impossible way of healing. You have every right to go up to someone and to ask them for a hug, to tell them that you need that hug. Life is a gift, but that doesn't mean that it can be survived without being hugged, without being loved, without taking care of ourselves first.
We all need hugs, I believe, and we need hugs when we feel bad about life and about ourselves, but we also need to be hugged when we have things to celebrate. When I have finished a novel that I'm writing and I feel good about this novel, I have the right to want to share that with someone else. I have the right to smile with people and to give and receive hugs for things that are good in my life as well as when things go worse than I had hoped.
I am a strong believer in the power of conversation, but I am an even bigger believer in the power of a warm hug. Reach out...there are good people in this world, people that care about you and that would be more than willing to give you the hugs and the attention that you need, that we all need. The power of a gentle, loving touch reaches a part of me that I have believed dead for a long time. It thaws the numbness that surrounds my heart and makes me whole. It can get through to me when nothing else can, when no words can reach me. Hugs and one of the world's most needed and unappreciated tools of healing, of feeling worthy of life, of life that we have. May you all find the warm hugs and the smiles that you need when you need them, and may your heart be touched by those hugs. Asking for hugs isn't intrusive, it isn't wrong and it is not rude. It is being human, as we all are, and it is because we're human and made with such diverse and complex emotions that God gave us the gifts of real hugs. May you receive a genuinely warm hug every day of your life.
- rab, a site.
I have all of the same emotions that everyone else does. I have good days when I walk into my life thinking that this world is a truly great place and then sometimes I wake up feeling as though the world is a completely miserable place to be and that the pain inside of my soul is simply too much. How do I, how do we all, deal with all of these emotions that make us humans?
I used to believe that I could do it all alone: that I needed no one's help to feel better because I'm a strong person and I know that I can handle most anything that is dealt to me. Handling it on my own is the only way that I really know how to deal with my life and so far, it's worked out okay. I am, after all, still breathing, still living, which must mean that I'm still alive. There's only one thing that I really feel as though I need sometimes.
All I want in the whole world is for someone to hug me, someone who knows and understands the real me, someone who knows about all of the things in my past and knows about the pain that I feel inside and who still loves me anyway. I want someone to touch my face as gently as they would a child's and tell me that it's okay to cry, just one time, that it's okay not to be strong for once, and that I am not to blame for the things that went wrong in my past. All I want is a true hug. I want to be loved, to be hugged, and accepted exactly the way that I am, I want to be able to accept myself.
A true hug is the best medicine. It makes us all feel loved and special. This world is a very big place and this world often makes me feel very insignificant but a real hug, a true hug, one from someone who knows the real me and someone who isn't going to judge me regardless of what I say or do, makes us feel as though we are significant in this very large world. It makes us feel as though we are cared for and very special. It shows us the truth: we ARE cared for, by God and everyone else, and we ARE special.
What I have slowly began to understand is that all people, everybody, deserves the right to ask for those hugs. It doesn't make us weak, as I have believed for years, it makes us human. They give us warmth and a feeling of security that makes life much easier and much more bearable. And what's more, it's not an impossible way of healing. You have every right to go up to someone and to ask them for a hug, to tell them that you need that hug. Life is a gift, but that doesn't mean that it can be survived without being hugged, without being loved, without taking care of ourselves first.
We all need hugs, I believe, and we need hugs when we feel bad about life and about ourselves, but we also need to be hugged when we have things to celebrate. When I have finished a novel that I'm writing and I feel good about this novel, I have the right to want to share that with someone else. I have the right to smile with people and to give and receive hugs for things that are good in my life as well as when things go worse than I had hoped.
I am a strong believer in the power of conversation, but I am an even bigger believer in the power of a warm hug. Reach out...there are good people in this world, people that care about you and that would be more than willing to give you the hugs and the attention that you need, that we all need. The power of a gentle, loving touch reaches a part of me that I have believed dead for a long time. It thaws the numbness that surrounds my heart and makes me whole. It can get through to me when nothing else can, when no words can reach me. Hugs and one of the world's most needed and unappreciated tools of healing, of feeling worthy of life, of life that we have. May you all find the warm hugs and the smiles that you need when you need them, and may your heart be touched by those hugs. Asking for hugs isn't intrusive, it isn't wrong and it is not rude. It is being human, as we all are, and it is because we're human and made with such diverse and complex emotions that God gave us the gifts of real hugs. May you receive a genuinely warm hug every day of your life.
- rab, a site.