I was reading the post on keeping stones in your pocket to help us cope and I thought that was a great idea. That reminded me of "Warm Fuzzies" Many years ago I attended a retreat in Texas for people recovering from childhood trauma. One of the people who organized the event decided to bring with her those little puff balls that you see in children’s art projects. I am not sure how she got the idea but she called them “Warm Fuzzies” and handed them out to the people at the retreat. The idea was that you were supposed to give the “Warm Fuzzy” to someone and then with their permission you could give the recipient a hug. You were not supposed to keep the fuzz ball but pass it on to another person. Although I had grown fairly accustomed to hugging people by the time, I did not really like the idea about hugging total strangers. I was not a very touchy person. So I just stuffed the fuzz ball in my pocket and continued with the retreat. The retreat lasted a few days and I received a few hugs but very seldom passed them on. At the end of the retreat, I had a pocket full of fuzzies and I felt guilty that I did not give them away. I decided to take a risk and try giving just one away. The first “give away” did not feel so bad so I gave another away. I guess other people felt that same way about having so many left over puff balls and they were doing the same thing. So needless to say there were a lot of hugs given away during the waning hours of the retreat.
To this day when I see one of those puff balls I think about “Warm Fuzzies” and it makes me smile. My five year old son found a puff ball in my car the other day. It must have fallen off one of his art projects from school. I told him the story about the “Warm Fuzzies” and I gave him a big warm hug. During the rest of that day, we gave the fuzzy ball to each other back and forth. I ended up with the puff ball in my pocket. Lately I have needed to remember good things so I have been keeping that “Warm Fuzzy” in my pocket. Thanks for reminding me with your stone idea.
