Touch

A few years ago, I experienced an exercise in pairs. We were lying on the floor, on cushions, yoga mats, and mattresses.

For the first 30 minutes or so, we were guided through breathing, a slow scan of the body, small adjustments… until each of us dropped into a deep sense of calm.

We stayed there, face up, for what felt like a long, delicious while.

At some point, still with our eyes closed, the facilitator invited us to slowly move one foot towards our partner. I remember vividly the moment our feet met. A soft, almost imperceptible touch.

My whole body responded, as if receiving a gentle stroke. The instant I came into physical contact with my partner, something shifted.

Then our hands found each other, fingertips lightly touching.
And eventually, we opened our eyes and met each other’s gaze.

It was sublime.

We were breathing together, co-regulating, creating a bond that felt almost timeless.

We all want that kind of touch.

The actual touch of another’s hand.

That meeting with another.

When two people drop together, a simple fingertip-to-fingertip contact electrifies the whole system.

By dropping, I mean moving out of the head and into the body: into sensation, into breath, into being here.

Once we drop like that —out of thoughts, agendas, and stories— a certain quality of being arrives, calming the system and bringing us into that intentional, wholesome state we call presence.

And in presence, trust is born.

The physical touch that comes from that state is not grabbing or taking, is not even giving. It’s not the eagerness of wanting a cuddle, or offering a massage. Those, of course, have their place.

The touch I’m referring to here is the contact that happens between two attuned people, simply experiencing the wonder of their proximity.

That is electrifying. Your hand meets another’s, and your heart pulses just a little more.

Last week, David Basak, in a Contact Improvisation class, called it "empty touch", a touch where you are not trying to give, nor trying to take.

He called it "empty" for comparison, but it is a touch fully inhabited with an energy that feels utterly safe.

Slowness helps. Our tentative bodies need it.

Nobody is trying to make the other feel good. Nobody is trying to extract pleasure from the contact. The stories in the head don't need to be resisted, they can simply be left alone, allowed to dissipate.

Another energy is in play.

Someone in front of you, simply being there with you, and you with them.

Touching.

Stay attuned
Jesus Acosta

If you want to go a bit further into this:

(Re-)engaging Touch as a Tango Dancer
The article argues that when practiced as a form of kinaesthetic listening, tango is conducive to a process of sensing and feeling together. In this process, it becomes possible to be touched both physically and affectively by the movement impulses negotiated between the partners. This possibility unsettles the reductive idea of one’s body as a separate entity preceding the encounter.

An invitation
Aydan Dunnigan offers his hand here with poetic lines landing in “the desire to be touched”.

Touch
David Whyte on touch and how we all need it, “a sign of our own gifted vulnerability”.