The Practice of Your Life

The Exercise and Pursuit of a Consciously Created Life

The Hug – the killer app of acknowledgments

May 23
2009

This is an excerpt from my upcoming book on “The Practice of Acknowledgments”. 

Hugs are to acknowledgments what wireless is to the internet.  Nothing quite says I see you and your being around means a lot to me than a hug.  As part of the human need to belong, to be acknowledged, we all need to be touched.  (Sniff.  Just hold me.) 

I don’t recommend this in the paranoid and litigious American workplace environment, but among your friends and loved ones, hug EVERYBODY. 

Hugs come in all configurations and intensities.  I differentiate between the hugger – the person initiating the hug – and the huggee – the person being hugged. Here are a few common ones:

The overhand where the hugger comes

Tears from joy and love

Jul 16
2008

The other day my friend Brenda posted a video of a guy dancing on her blog “Scrapbooks for the Soul“, and she said it made her cry. It shows a very white guy, doing a very white jig in different places all over the world. Now I’m out of the closet when it comes to expressing my feminine side, so I fully expected to have the tears welling up, but at the start of it I had doubts about the emotional value of the piece. I was reaching for the tissues by the end.

Then another friend sent me another clip showing people walking around with a sign saying “free hugs”. Tissues also. Both are below (need to have good sound with your system to appreciate fully)… Continue reading