Living, Loving & Learning…
By: Leo Buscaglia, Ph.D.
“Many of you know that I grew up in a wonderful, great big, fantastic, loving Italian family and grew healthy and happy and wonderful on….bagna calda and pasta fasule and polenta and all those marvelous dishes.
I learned a lot of things….but most of which was taught without my knowing.
One thing my family taught me….is that we need to be touched and we need to be loved. And so I’ve been touching and loving all my life and I’ve been having a ball, touching and loving…
It’s been so nice and I didn’t know that in “the outside world” you don’t touch and you don’t love - not without reservations.
The first note I ever received from a teacher in America was a note written to Mamma. You can imagine how sensitive this lady was if she wrote the following to a poor Italian immigrant woman who could barely speak English…..
“Dear Mrs. Buscaglia,
Your son, Felice, is too tacile.”
Can you believe that?
I brought the note home to my Mama who looked and said,
“Hey what’s this-a-tactile? Felice, if you did something wrong, I’ll smack your head in.”
I said, “I don’t know what tactile is Mama, honest.
I don’t know what I did.”
Se we went to the dictionary, which we did a lot of, and flipped to the word “tactile.” … It says, to feel, to touch.
Mama says, “So what’s wrong with that?
That’s a-nice.
You gotta crazy teacher…”

....
What amuses me, is that now were finding out that scientifically touching does make a difference in our lives, physiologically and psychologically.
There is a Dr. Bresler at the UCLA pain clinic.
He isn’t writing regular prescriptions any more, he’s writing a prescription that says, “four hugs a day.”
People will say the man is crazy.
“Oh no, “ he says, “hug once in the morning, once at lunch, once in the evening and once before bed and you’ll get well.”
Dr. Harold Falk, senior psychiatrist at the Menninger Foundation, said this:
“Hugging can lift depression, enabling the body’s immunization system to become tuned up. Hugging breathes fresh life into tired bodies and makes you feel younger and more vibrant. In the home, hugging can strengthen relationships and significantly reduce tensions.”
Helen Colton in her book, Joy of Touching, said that the hemoglobin in the blood increases significantly when you are touched, and hugged. Hemoglobin is that part of the blood that carries the vital supplies of oxygen to the heart and to the brain - and she says that if you want to stay healthy, you must touch each other, you must love each other, you must hold each other.
One of the saddest things in our culture is that we stress the sexual aspect of a relationship way out of proportion.
What a pity, because in those things we are often missing the tenderness, the warmth. The kiss when it’s not expected, the touch on the shoulder when you really need it most - - - that is ’ ultimate heart gratification….”

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Rx rendered….use as needed….