Touchie-Feelie
I started to read about emotional intelligence and some of the mindfulness exercises used in therapy, like putting people in a kind of meditative state and asking them to detect an emotion and then to describe it. It all sounded very touchie-feelie to me, but then suddenly I saw a reference to therapeutic hugging, and I read a Psychology Today article on the subject at
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/emotion-information/202012/the-healing-power-hugs
I remembered your many references to hugging and wanting to hug your kids and friends, so I thought you might be interested. I grew up in a very non-hugging family, so when I read about Henry Harlow and his experiments with monkeys with wire mothers versus monkeys with real mothers, I related to the poor kids with the wire-mothers – WAAH!
But I also thought-flashed on an experience I had more recently, only 40 years ago, when I was finishing my first degree at Illinois State. During that time I wanted some kind of spiritual solace, though I wasn’t keen on God or Jesus. A nice, cheerful girl in one of my English lit classes invited me to a couple of services at her church, the Wesley Foundation. That’s the United Methodist campus ministry. This gal’s name was Dorothy, but she was called Dodie by all her friends. It was her kid’s name – she was unable to pronounce “Dorothy” and said “Dodie.” My own mom had the same problem with her name – “Josephine” – and *she* said “Dodie” too. For some reason, I thought it was proper to call Dorothy “Dorothy,” and it cracked up all her friends.
The Wesley Foundation had a husband-and-wife preaching team, and on Sunday they got all the college kids together for a very touchie-feelie time. Everybody was very loving and occasionally the practices evoked a spiritual deliverance, like an altar call. They were also big on social awareness and acceptance of all faiths, so the preacher team arranged to have a joint service with the Baptist church catty-corner from the Foundation. The Wesleyan kids, dressed very causally in jeans and T-shirts, walked over to the Baptist church, and there was an immediate culture shock when we saw all the black kids dressed to the nines. I felt ashamed of the way I was dressed, and I thought we white kids were being disrespectful. But the show had to go on, and at sermon time the Methodist preacher couple jabbered and preached along with a couple of Baptist preachers.
Being very touchie-feely, the Methodist preachers suggested that we all turn to the person in front of us (we were scatted white and black throughout the pews) and give that person a big hug. Many people were chagrined, but I turned around and met with a very large black kid, about the size of Rosie Grier.
We looked at each other in full chagrin, and finally we leaned in to touch each other’s’ arms and then draw them back abruptly. Then I turned back around and met with a very big hug from a beautiful and enthusiastic black girl. This time I thought, “Wow!” and “Alright!” and for a moment I was with my real mother, released from the wire mom. Yes, my mom first drew me to the Wesley Foundation through the agency of her alter-ego, Dorothy/Dodie, and led me to a great realization: I need a woman, yes indeed, as expressed by Ry Cooder and Bob Dylan:
Someone who can see me as I am
Give the kind of love that don’t have to be condemned
. . .
We will penetrate the storm in search of truth that has not been tested
But she better bring along her checkbook just in case we get arrested
And I * Want * You * To * Be That Woman, etc.
All in fun, back in the proverbial day. 😉
Moral of the story: not much, really. I went on to have relationships with two very motherly women, but that’s another story.
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