Always Love a Free Hug

“We need 4 hugs a day for survival. We need 8 hugs a day for maintenance. We need 12 hugs a day for growth.”
Virginia Satir

It has taken me many years to simplify the potentially complex subject of wellbeing or wellness. Years of study have taught me some incredible and esoteric things that are infinitely complicated to the curious, western mind.

Study of medicine, energy, meditation, yoga, NLP (Neuro-Linguistic Programming), Time-Line Therapy, Hypnotherapy, to name but a few, have given me some varied techniques and perspectives along the way.

However, keeping the sustained feeling of change and positivity is something that had been illusive throughout this journey. How is it possible to get so many breakthroughs intellectually and not translate them into sustained action afterwards?

For the past few months I have been giving out free hugs in London, with a few dedicated friends. On occasions I have woken up and not really felt in the mood to face the unpredictable moods of the general public.

Each free hugs session will provoke just about every sort of emotional response possible. I have seen people get angry, hostile, insulting, rude and dismissive, each time I have gone into London free-hugging. This is part of the reason that it is so magical.

The contrast in perspectives just make the interactions of those who do understand that hugging feels good all the better. Feeling good is the only thing that matters in health and wellbeing. It is not what you do – but how you feel about it that matters.

For many years I have questioned myself as a wellbeing role model.

"Do I have the healthiest diet possible?" No. I am prone to eating and drinking things that would not be considered healthy by purists. Though I enjoy what I eat.

"Do I have the healthiest exercise routine?" No. I sometimes have a lapse in my routine. But I always go back to it.

"Do I have the healthiest lifestyle?" No. I am human and have what many would consider flaws in the way I live. Yet I have stories and memories that make me smile every time I think about them as a result of these quirks in my character.

There will always be people who are better at certain areas of health and wellbeing than I am. There will also be those who sit in judgement of how I live my life. However, ask different questions like,

"Do I know how to feel good, instantly?" Yes – Everytime.

"Do I know how to be kind to myself, even when others are not?" Yes – Everything in life is a test of my congruence to my current path.

"Do I know that hugging random people feels fantastic?" Yes – Because I do it regularly.

As human beings we need to connect, we need to have physical contact and we need to FEEL GOOD. Every time I go out hugging there are always enough people who experience amazing shifts in the way they feel – instantly.

These are the memories I take from each free hugs session that I do. We were even passed by a large group of people who were hugging policemen! It was a most interesting experience – and great fun as they queued up to hug us.

Forget the research, forget the complex systems of wellbeing and alternative therapy and forget the judgements of others. The fast track to health and wellbeing is feeling good and the fastest way to do that is to spend a day giving out free hugs. It will make you smile and change your mood and your life - forever.

Please feel free to join the group at http://bit.ly/1RtZdF and maybe join us the next time to share the feel-good vibe.

Awareness, Forgiveness, Acceptance and Focus - The Keys to Happy Family Relationships

One of the most frequent things that I hear when I talk to people about loving yourself first is "How do I deal with negative family members?"

This is a great question.

There are no absolute answers to this but I will offer my opinion on the subject.

Every relationship that you have with your mother, father, son or daughter is not just a relationship between two people. It is the result of generations of family conditioning, beliefs and habits that have been passed down. We learn and model behaviours of our parents whether we like it or not as children.

An unconscious belief or pattern that you are currently running could have originated hundreds or even thousands of years ago by a long distant relative and you are just playing it out on one person who is close enough to listen to you and believe what you say to them because they trust and love you.

We are born into this world with a desire to connect and our parents are the ones who spend most time connecting with as kids. When one day they start shouting, saying negative things and appear unhappy, we take that on board emotionally and energetically. This was probably what happened to them - as they were conditioned by their parents.

All negative family members are the result of generations of conditioning that they did not have the tools to process. They were not prepared for this. They did not have the realisation to know that these feelings were not personal - just an opportunity to change their conditioning.

Because you will have hard-wired and well rehearsed responses to close family it is important to maintain a distance from anyone who is blaming you on a consistent basis. They do not realise that it is not you but generations of sameness that they are blaming.

Being big enough to grasp this concept and change the conditioning is the ultimate objective for anyone looking to move forward in a way that supports their wellbeing.

This change has 4 phases.
1. Awareness (it is not only my mum/dad/son/daughter who is negative but many years of genetic conditioning being passed along)
2. Forgiveness (everything that has ever happened has brought me to this point in my life where I am ready to be at peace with who I am)
3. Acceptance (I accept who I am and who my family are and will learn and grow from everything)
4. Positive focus (I choose to see, hear and feel only what feels good for me.)

In short - see the bigger picture, forgive the person in question and focus on what you want (or you will get what you don't!)

Forgiveness may not happen overnight, right now. Continued focus on positive outcomes and a desire to unlearn anything that no longer serves you will certainly help though.

Better Quality Questions = Better Quality Life

What would happen to me if I stopped judging other people?

There are many other such questions, though this is a good one to start with.

I still find myself judging others occasionally, though this now happens much less since I made a decision to focus more on my actions and less on the actions of others.

Every time we judge others we are projecting our beliefs on them. We don't know the real reason why others act as they do. Upbringing and life experience moulds different people differently.

By judging others you judge yourself. By accepting that life is unpredictable and relatively short it is possible to spend more time thinking about how to make the most of YOUR life and less time thinking about how other's could make the most of theirs.

Is it possible to go one day without judging anyone or anything?

What will your power question be today?