Skin Hunger

We are social beings. Maintaining close relationships is essential for our wellbeing. But today we are supposed to forget all of that, all of 100.000 years’ worth of DNA encoded knowledge and instinct, and instead follow cultural pressure and the force of individualism.

We change classes in school; we move to new towns for college and we routinely change workplaces. We are constantly changing tribes in the modern world, and our nervous system suffers from it.

All of this makes us feel uprooted. But since everyone else is uprooted we don’t notice it. When did we forget this essential fact of life? Interconnectedness, as it is known in Buddhism. When did we start to celebrate Independence, loneliness, and self-sufficiency over Co-dependence and community?

When did we start to believe in the illusion of separation and independence?

If we look deeper, there is no such thing as a “self-made man” or woman. We can’t breathe without trees and plants. We can’t drink without the sun to evaporate the water from the oceans. We can’t be born without parents, or grow up without the care from them and other relatives.

I can’t eat without the co-operation of my own belly and hands. I can’t think without the co-operation of my brain and nervous system.

Despite all of this, we like to live our lives pretending that we can do everything by ourselves.

In my native country Sweden, we are experts at loneliness. In 2017, 40% of our entire population lived by themselves! Can you imagine every Chinese, Indian and Indonesian person living by themselves? The space required for that would be impossible to arrange here on Earth.

It is sometimes said that we are Stone Age monkeys living in a technological world and there is a hint of truth in it. Because even though our material standards have improved a thousandfold since we used our stone axes and lived in caves, our brains have not evolved at a similar pace. We still have a hard time keeping track of more than a hundred people in our close circle, and we still need our close tribe around us to thrive.

Not just around us, but we even need the touch of others for our well-being. The warm and affectionate touch is life-enabling. If newborn babies are not touched daily in a warm and loving way, they will die. Even if fed and given water and warm temperature, the young human body cannot grow and thrive without love.

Adults aren’t any different. If we do not get this warm and loving touch daily, our skins grow hungry. We get skin hunger, it’s a disease you probably have not heard of, even though it’s a pandemic, afflicting the entire industrialized world.

What are the symptoms of skin hunger then?

The most obvious ones are:

• Restlessness
• Anxiety
• A constant urge to do things, solve things, consume and produce.

When you get your skin hunger satisfied through hugs, massage from a friend or partner, dancing together, or other more intimate moments, you might have noticed that these symptoms will go away.

The reason this disease is called skin hunger is that it’s actually not a disease; it’s like hunger, a basic human need we need to satisfy on a daily basis in order to thrive. Just like we drink water and satisfy our thirst, we need to share touch with someone and satisfy our skin hunger.

Unfortunately, we have forgotten about this hunger. Because unlike our hunger for food, we can actually survive without loving touch. Survive, but never thrive. Survive for years and years in skin hunger, restless, in stress and anxiety feeling a constant lack of something which we don’t know.

While we are stuck in our minds, trying to satisfy this skin hunger by consuming stuff and entertainment, and doing everything but receiving the loving touch that we truly need, our bodies never get to calm down.

We only go from doing to doing and never gets to enjoy being.

And we will likely feel terribly lonely at times.

This loneliness is very much like an alarm clock. A wake-up call that tells us it’s time to seek out our friends. It’s time to find our tribe. Loneliness is a natural response that we don’t have to fight or try to get rid of. It’s the way of our hearts to tell us that we need not walk this path alone.

We don’t have to live this life alone. Life gets so much better when we share it together with our friends and loved ones.

Loneliness can also be a gift to look even deeper inwards. To follow the breath until that lonely voice inside comes to rest, and we find a connection with the natural living world around us. Because we are never truly alone, it’s impossible. There is always life around us; there is always a myriad of beings that we can connect with.

Loneliness is quite magical. In fact, if we try to share the feeling of loneliness of someone we trust and listens to us, it instantly disappears. Try it!

The feeling of loneliness can only exist in a separated mind. Alas, when we connect with the warmth of another human being, the cold numb feeling of loneliness evaporates. In that moment we remember again how we are all connected.

One way to connect deeper with our human relationships is to use the ancient yet extremely advanced technology known as a talking stick. This has been used by indigenous tribes all around the world, to support us in truly listening. If you haven’t tried it before, it’s a way of talking with each other with deep presence. This technology is both user-friendly and environmentally friendly! All you need is a stick, and someone to pass it to. The rules are simple, the person who holds the stick talks about what’s on their heart, and everyone else listens with their full attention.

So often we listen only with half of our attention. Simultaneously as we listen we can make up replies in our own head. Sitting in a circle with the talking stick passed around, we let all of that go.  We listen with our whole heart. That in itself is tremendously healing. And when it is our turn to speak we share only what’s on our hearts, the most pressing matter of our soul.

Manitonquat Medicine Story, a Native American who was spreading talking circles around the world would say that when we listen fully in the circle, we are remembering our Original Instructions, the instructions known in the deepest parts of our heart, instructions on how to live this human life in peace, in harmony and beauty in all our relationships.

Let’s cure that skin hunger one hug at a time, dear friends!

And let’s listen to each other in a way that truly heals