No ads, no clickbait, no cookies, no begging for your email so I can pester you forever. Just me with a simple idea that can transform your life.
We lack contact. We lack connection. We speak through screens instead of body language. It wasn’t supposed to be like this. Most humans are cuddly by nature yet their desires are often left unnurtured or even rejected. We know how healing touch can be, we know we want to make safe and enjoyable contact with others, we just don’t know how.
Enter four simple words that have the power to change everything.
“Could you hold me?”
Feel those words for a second. How do they feel different from –
“Can I hug you?”
“I’m lonely”
“I’m scared”
Could you hold me?
Not everyone can. Not everyone should be given the opportunity to. But the question itself addresses our primal need for touch in a way that encourages a healthy interplay of consent and power. I am asking for your nurture, making myself vulnerable to you, and giving you control of the encounter.
When approached as an opportunity for the healing of both the holder and the held, such encounters are sacred space. This is an exercise in trust and communication with the potential to reactivate old traumas in the process. Holding people can get messy and uncomfortable even if both partners are doing everything right, it can get even more intense when they aren’t.
So, for best results (unless the answer is just plain No), a “Could you hold me?” should be responded to with –
“How do you want to be held?”
See what we did there? By answering the question with a question we’ve avoided committing ourselves to the interaction until we have more information. We’ve indicated that there may be conditions that would be agreeable. Now they need to share their needs as clearly as they can in order to begin the healing process.
How do you want to be held?
Do you want to be held like a baby? Wrapped in a loving blanket cocoon? Given a foot massage? Do you want your hair stroked and your neck nuzzled?
A common want is to return to the breast, especially for those of us dealing with deep mother wounds. It’s not bad, wrong or sinful to want to nuzzle or even suckle a desirable pair of breasts but those breasts and the very real person attached to them needs to be in full, enthusiastic agreement with the idea before making first contact. If your desire is for skin to skin contact, say so upfront. Asking to be cradled like a baby without also mentioning that you’re going to be working your way into any available cleavage is dishonest and potentially harmful. Just because the urge is normal and reasonable doesn’t mean that all behavior driven by that urge is healthy. Be brave in asking for what you really want but remain humble and appreciative of the human being who is giving to you.
Ascending is messy, lonely work and we could all use a boost from time to time.
Ask the people you love to hold you and tell me how it goes for you.
This blog entry is so true! Very powerful words indeed. And yes, almost everyone in our culture is so touch-starved. I swear, so many problems would disappear if people just had what they needed in that regard. Anyway, nice job on the blog entry! Keep doing the positive energy thing, it’s beautiful!