Thursday, April 30, 2009

Hope

Gotta tell you that it's been kind of an up and down week. Some hard emotional dredging and stuff that has come up and slapped me in the face. And then last night lying in my bath, reading Patti Digh's, "Life is a Verb", she mentions this YouTube video about Juan Mann who, when he was down and out decided to give free hugs. It is so inspirational, especially when I'm feeling so low and confused. She (Digh) says that we need four hugs a day for survival, eight hugs a day for maintenance and twelve hugs a day for growth. Isn't it amazing how children hug and hug and hug? I tried to count how many I usually get in a day. With Riley around I probably get twelve or more, he's big on hugging, especially for no reason, although he hasn't wanted to hug me much the last couple of days. It makes me want to purposefully chuck out this funk and start some intentional healing.

5 comments:

Sherry said...

Ah sweetie, I'm sorry that you've had a rough week..and here is a hug from me ((((hug))).

I love Patti's book SO much and when I read that part about the hugs I remembered seeing that video a long time ago and it made me smile because we ALL love a hug and every now and then we need one. Just because some days.

My youngest son and I were talking yesterday about his anthro class and monkeys given milk from a wire "mother" and monkeys given no milk but held and being able to touch a wire "mother" with fur (a lot of ands in that sentence!). The ones with the fur and no milk thrived more than the ones given milk.

Sometimes a warm touch is all we need to help us take that next breath and say "I'm going to make it". ♥

Kim Mailhot said...

This week has been really up and down for me too (mostly down until yesterday really). I think the tension has eased a little now. I attribute it to having spent a few hours in the company of a sweet friend who really gets me yesterday. We did hug twice (hello and goodbye) but the whole outing felt like a hug to me. I was a real gift to me in my funky week, and helped me get out of my stupid head for a good long while.

I do get virtual hugs often in Blogland but there sure is nothing else like the real thing, right ?

Where there are hugs, there is hope. ;-)
Hugs to you, beautiful Chick !

Snap said...

{{{{{{{{{{}}}}}}}}}}

I am a firm believer in hugs ... as many as day as possible. It's a law of mine. !!

{{{{{{{{{{}}}}}}}}}}

oreneta said...

I got two free hugs in Amsterdam last year. It is very cool the whole thing. I haven't seen it in BCN or Toronto

Thanks for the video.

patti digh said...

(I love the idea of you reading Life is a Verb in the bathtub!)