Ronny Riggs was ordered by the court to participate in a hug therapy program when he was seventeen. He had been arrested for pushing people around. One day he went on a rampage, started pushing people. Some of them he pushed down, some he made stagger and others he serial pushed until he felt released and calm. Fortunately, none of the pushed around people pressed charges; the judge told him to do the hug therapy program and gave him two years probation. No pushing anyone around, he was told, unless he did it as part of a sport. Like wrestling or football.
He didn’t tell anyone about his situation. Handing out Hugs was a cheesy name, and the whole thing was humiliating. In the first session, everyone was told to stand in a circle. Music was turned on, a repetitious sad dirge that crawled under Ronnie’s skin and made him very uncomfortable. He glanced around at the other men in the circle, wondering why there were no women. He wanted to find out what degree of pushing each of them had escalated to, but no one was talking. Just standing there listening to the boring music that creeped him out.
They were told to push each other around, in slow motion. No one knew what that meant. One of the counselors pushed one of the guys on the shoulder, a regular, though not aggressive, push. Then he slowed the movement down. it took him a good forty-five seconds to complete the push. The music made more sense. The counselor’s movements did resemble an act of mourning. As they paired off and did their slow-motion push around, the counselor circulated amongst them, urging them to go even slower.
As he did what was asked, Ronnie had an eerie experience. Waves of rage moved through him, like an episodial tsunami, flashing then subsiding, over and over. When it flashed hot it was difficult to move slowly, and when he did manage to slow down it was very uncomfortable because he had to feel the angry heat welling up, scalding his insides. Even actually putting his hands on his partner wasn’t satisfying, didn’t dissipate the feelings. A slow-motion push isn’t even a real push. He almost felt like he was using his energy to clear energy blocks in his partner. It dawned on him that his rage might have something to do with feeling shut down and blocked, himself. By slowing down, he not only cleared his own blocked energy but his partner’s too.
Then they were asked to convert the slow-motion push into a partner gather and hug. Instantly the group eyed each other with suspicion, in some cases hostility. No huggers, they! But then the counselor asked for examples of hugs they were familiar with. Some of the guys reported hugs from their mom, though they didn’t seem comfortable returning the hug. Several guys enjoyed hugging a girlfriend, in one case a boyfriend; dogs were good for hugging; bro hugs, the one-armed kind, were also popular. One of the guys liked hugging trees.
“OK, select one kind of hug and do the same exercise except slow-motion hugging instead of pushing,” the counselor said.
Ronnie decided to give his partner a bro hug. It turned out much different than he expected. Instead of a quick grab and squeeze, he felt a slow build of emotion. Not rage this time, more of a fondness. He couldn’t understand why that might be. By the time his arm slid slowly around the guy’s shoulders, he felt something that could only be a form of love. He loved his dog, and hugging him was often an expression of that. Why not feel that way toward the guy he was paired with?
By the end of the hour-long session, Ronnie had acquired new respect for the connection between pushing and hugging. They were asked to push down walls they couldn’t budge as an isometric exercise, a way of releasing their bottled-up rage. Then to practice their hugs, starting with trees and dogs, working their way up to people. Ronnie found pushing a wall down very satisfying. The harder he pushed, the more enraged he became at his ineffectiveness, causing him to push even harder until, finally, he depleted all his effort, anger included. Then he went outside and hugged a tree. He liked hugging the Madrona the best. Once their bark was sloughed off, their new bark was tight and smooth, a shiny red-green. It had never occurred to him that the tree might hug him back, but that’s exactly what happened. He felt as if warm hands held him close, making him feel safe.
