FREE HUGS

Be Happy in LIFE Inspiration - November 2006

"Depression is the inability to construct a future"
– Rollo May

We've done it! On November 18, just like we said, we went out to the Queen Street Mall and hugged the lovely people there for an hour. This is part of a new free hug campaign, which we hope will start a change in the world and encourage people to touch one another, to be touched and to enjoy human closeness.

Many many thanks to the people who came with us. You were absolutely great! We know some of you had to get over some initial inhibitions and some of you hung on to your inhibitions a bit longer, but you came and you hugged and you helped, so well done!

We hugged children, young men (!), women of all ages and even an older man, who wouldn't be caught dead hugging a man, of course. We had people asking if they could borrow our signs and give hugs for a while. We had people sneaking to us from the stores around the mall, hugging us and then running back to work. We had long hugs with people who thanked us and said they really needed the hug. But most importantly, our hugs were popular and appreciated, because people need them. We even had a chance to repeat our very important message:

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

Here are some things people said to us, or whispered in our ears:

"I'm going to take this hug with me to Sweden" [where they have the highest rate of suicide]
"I so needed this hug"
"Thank you. God bless you!"
"You've made my day"
"Can I come again later?" [and they did]

As you might have expected, we took a video camera with us and captured our campaign on video, which we had to figure out how to get off the tape (sigh), edit (sigh) and post on YouTube.com (yay!). Here it is for your viewing pleasure:

(Click twice on Internet Explorer)

If you can't see the video clip, click here.

But wait, there's more!

A Current Affair (Channel 9) showed on Monday (27/11/06) a report on teenage girls and what bothers them most. Much to the surprise of their mothers, these girls told the reporter their friends were cutting their wrists and hands and how they felt powerless to help them.

It turns out that, starting from Year 7, kids cut themselves as an act of despair and distress. In the higher classes, this problem only gets worse, affecting more and more teenagers. The other kids call these people"emo" – short for "emotional".

One of the mothers, previously a student counsellor, said this problem has spread rapidly over the past two years, during which magazines have also been featuring the slashed arms of young celebrities, with stories about them suffering from depression. The mother said counselling in Australian schools is increasingly under funded, which only makes matters worse.

The reporter interviewed an adolescent psychologist, who said that wrist cutting was not an attention-seeking method, but a sign of mental issues. She said "the concern is teenagers are lacking the resilience or the problem solving skills or even the communication skills to be getting the help they need to deal with emotional distress".

One 16 year-old girls said in the interview "I don't think it's really gonna go away if you just ignore it".

We can't agree more! We believe that these "emotional" teens are victims of an upside-down life, in which human touch, kindness and quality time with family are painfully missing. We say "let's hug these people". Are you with us?

LET'S SPREAD THE HUGS!

Make a "FREE HUGS" sign, warm your heart, grab your friends and hug people. They sincerely love it.

We will be going out again soon, so stay tuned for the event announcement.

Please send this on to the people you know and let us know about your hugs.

Important note: this campaign is about the hugs and the human touch, so please keep it clean from unrelated promotion

If you've received this notice from someone else, please subscribe to our newsletter list to receive any updates about the campaign, in case anything changes and when we do the next thing.

If you don't live within driving distance of Brisbane, why don't you start your own campaign in your very own city? Together, let's touch all of humanity!

"Hate is not the opposite of love. Apathy is"
– Rollo May