Hug Power x10
One afternoon in July when a hug saved me
Last Friday afternoon, I had forgotten a pretty major component. It wasn’t in the plans, but you can’t finish without it. The construction group overseer noticed it, and I melted. Not in a good way. My personal responsibility syndrome kicked in, and my anxiety shot through the roof. It didn’t help that it was 107º and the doors were open for work. Several other things went wrong in quick succession, and the pressure was getting to me.
Then I noticed one of the girls on the crew was starting to stress as well. And I had a new anxiety: as an overseer, you kind of need to stay steady and calm or, you know… things start to fall apart.
All day long, the crew had been discussing hugs and their physiological and psychological effects. So I reached over, put my arm around her, and said, “It’ll be okay.” I immediately felt my stress level go down. :-O
Next to me was Mike, an old friend and a very kind man. Big guy. Wanting more of that, I reached over, put my arm around him, and said the same thing.
But Mike stepped away and said, “No, bro… let me give you a REAL hug!” And he got ahold of me with both big arms and just squeezed. I felt my anxiety melt away, and I burst into tears!! :-O
It. Was. Crazy.
But I felt better, and we went from having zero of the thing I needed to having six in short order. Sometimes we just have to stay out of the way of higher powers and let it happen.
So, yeah. Definitely an F.
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