The Power of a Hug ~ a message from David R. Hamilton PhD

The Power of a Hug
a message from David R. Hamilton PhD

Friday, 15 April, 2016


A hug is wonderful when you feel sad, stressed, tired and even when you feel good.


I love what the Free Hugs people do when they stand in a city centre holding a ‘Free Hugs’ sign. Their hugs produce human connection, vulnerability, smiles, laughter, positive emotion, and even sometimes tears, especially if it’s the first hug a person who has been suffering has experienced in a long while.


Hugs are also good for the heart. They increase our levels of the hormone ‘oxytocin’, which as well as being known for its role in trust, childbirth, and breastfeeding, is also a powerful ‘cardioprotective’ hormone. This basically means it helps protect the cardiovascular system.


From what? You might ask. From the negative side-effects of poor dietary and lifestyle choices and also from mental and emotional stress.


Oxytocin works by producing nitric oxide in our arteries, which then widens (dilates) our arteries. Nitric oxide helps our arteries stay flexible and also helps reduce blood pressure.


So, ultimately, hugs are cardioprotective too. And I’d say so for more than simply their oxytocin-and-therefore-nitric-oxide-inducing power, but because they make us feel relaxed, cared for, even loved. Hugs are medicine for the soul.


I remember crying in front of my mum and dad when I found out our beloved dog, Oscar, had osteosarcoma and was unlikely to live beyond a few months. Mum hugged me and I melted, collapsed in her arms. I felt like a child again, being loved by and tended to by my mum.


I think we have that memory of being tended to by our parents as children, where we were upset or in pain and we knew that ‘everything is going to be OK’, ‘the pain will go soon’, or ‘it’s OK, Mum (or Dad) will fix it’. It’s a memory held deep in the unconscious but whose emotions are released in our adult lives when we receive a hug.
So hugs are medicine for the heart and they are medicine for the soul. If we could bottle hugs, we would take our daily dose without question.


Here’s the thing, you can have a daily dose. You don’t need to wait to be hugged. You can hug others.


As a typical Scottish male (OK, I’m not really able to speak for my entire nation but I’ll make a generalisation based on my 45-year-old observations), hugging didn’t come naturally to me. To be honest, I felt like a sissy if someone hugged me. I’d do the whole, awkward, chest-held-back-not sure-about-touching thing, followed by a little pat on the back, secretly hoping that the hug would end soon.


But I learned to enjoy hugs. I think it happened when I was in my late 20’s and Mum (again to the rescue) looked after me for a week while I suffered a bout of depression. It was the first time in my adult life I opened up to someone. I think something shifted in me then, a willingness to open up to others that I’d not showed before. I then became an initiator of hugs.


Even in the bar on a Thursday night after work (that was our standard weekly visit), I’d say goodbye to my friends at the end of the night with a hug. At first, some of them were a little awkward but soon got the hang of it too. It came natural to some others. But within a month or two, a hug was the standard goodbye for us after a few drinks in the bar.


So I’d add that hugs are also contagious. As we hug others, we share a connection. It opens us a little. It feels good. And that makes it contagious.


So given the medicine that hugs carry, that they are free, and contagious (in a good way), it might be a good idea to see if you can add a few more hugs to your day.


You’d be doing yourself a favour, but each time you hug you also deliver a gentle dose of medicine to the heart and soul of another person too.


And that is the power of a hug.


http://spiritlibrary.com/david-r-hamilton-phd/the-power-of-a-hug
Copyright 2014 David R. Hamilton PhD.
Tags:
hug love

Eliza: On Being an Energy Sensitive in a Toxic World
| Blue Dragon Journal

Posted on April 12, 2015

Eliza: On Being an Energy Sensitive in a Toxic World


Yesterday, I visited an old Western town with a friend. While on the surface, this seems an innocent enough occasion, I came home feeling exhausted and ill.


I actually felt quite comfortable and happy during the trip, but got tired towards the latter portion of it, when some hitherto hidden emotions started coming up, that had existed silently between my friend and me for a long time.


As an energy sensitive, I probably started to draw this person’s emotions and feelings into my own body for the sake of keeping things on an even keel. It is a role that we have been taught, consciously or unconsciously, as sensitives through life in awkward, sometimes violent home lives. Being peaceful by nature, our unconscious motive was to soothe over irritating energies so we could survive. I did it as a child in my own family. I would venture a guess that many of my readers did this also.


It’s time to let go of this old role and to let those who are unable or unwilling to process their own c**p to do it themselves and to accept the consequences.


I feel that I’ve spent time working in the prison as I’ve been taught the necessity of having good energetic boundaries. This applies equally to the more subtle manipulations that people attempt on those who are empaths or sensitives within the population. You ARE known for who you are even if it is largely on an unconscious basis and energy leeches and vampires and off-loaders will attempt to use your energetic field as a garbage dump.


I share this information not to put people into fear, but to remind everyone that it is time to take responsibility for what you are putting out and what some people might be attempting to put on or over you.


As sensitive beings, we are naturally compassionate by nature and often wish to heal people, to make them (and us feel better). It’s time to release this need to nurture as it just serves to suppress or deny the real need for the release and transmutation of the old toxic energies. Yes, people may go through hell as their dark thought-forms and suppressed emotions begin to release from their cells, but that’s part of the preparation for waking up and setting the foundation for ascension. Without the necessary clearing done, which includes the release of all limiting belief systems (B.S.) the process of ascension cannot even begin.


Now whenever I feel an unusual energy or thought enter my awareness, I look at it and ask myself, “Is this me or someone else’s? Or is something going on in the world that I don’t know anything about?”


There is a lot going on that I don’t know, but we are ALL connected on inner levels, through the multidimensional Universe and can feel and communicate with each other in non-verbal fashion. We do it all the time without even thinking about it. Now is the time to become aware of what we are doing, to ourselves and to others when we think or act in a negative fashion towards any person or group. We are, in effect, broadcasting that negative thought or opinion against someone or something and end up reinforcing what we no longer wish to continue in our lives. We are giving our power away by hating, disliking or allowing ourselves to feel anger towards anything or anyone outside of our body.


Our consciousness is not limited to the physical edges of the body. As we awaken, new worlds and dimensions are revealed. In the early stages of awakening, this largely takes place in non-verbal messages, thoughts, visions and feelings being received from various sources. It is your responsibility to discern with your inner wisdom what resonates with you. There is no need to accept the word of any “authority” that exists outside your own heart center.


So, here I was feeling a real sense of grief rising up from my friend. I had a sense that we both knew that there would be no going forward with our relationship save as friends. And that’s okay, but difficult for a sensitive being that yearns for warmth and companionship.


I’ve recognized that I am not currently looking for a partner, being fully intent in bringing my own ascension process forward. While I may be awake, I have yet to feel the ecstasy that is spoken of with awe and longing by those who have gone before me in this process.  And I am aware that at a certain point as the Light Body fully activates, this “bliss” becomes part of everyday existence.  I hope to join these forerunners soon, which means making great changes in my present life style and taking me out of my “comfort” zone to confront any remaining hidden connections and attachments that need to be released.


Stepping off the Wheel of Karma takes commitment, determination and intent. It also takes a one-pointed focus that doesn’t seek an outside savior or redeemer, but seeks within for the answers that one needs to proceed upon the path that lies before a mature soul.


It’s time to stop making excuses for our own lack of progress and to proceed, either with the assistance of a mentor or alone (with the aid of our Angelic companions) and unload all that we have succeeded in carrying for others, for our families and friends, for our co-workers and those who live in our community.


Our community is expanding as we grow in awareness. We are becoming galactic citizens and that takes mastery of the energies that arise from all directions. As we rise to meet our galactic neighbors in frequency, we also let go of the ballast that has kept our consciousness from re-ascending to where we came from… the Stars and being fully conscious multidimensional beings. Some times that means leaving those whom we love and care for behind so that we can make our journeys successfully. It may seem cruel to some, but there needs to be some who are willing to pioneer the path for others in this time of mass ascension.  And I made my choice a long time ago.


Stepping out and upward, I go; Namaste.


I AM Eliza


©All Rights Reserved, Elizabeth Ayres Escher, www.bluedragonjournal.com
For more suggestions to assist Energy Sensitives go to the following link for a list of resources: http://sophias-children.com/resources-for-empaths-sensitives/