This post brings tears of recognition to my eyes...PROFOUND!! It brings back memories of an experiment (and I hate animal experiments) where they gave a tiny monkey two "mothers" one gave him only food, it was made of metal. The other was made of a very soft material. They would periodically SCARE the monkey by crazy sounds and lights, the monkey would always go to the soft mother to 'touch and be touched' when he was scared. The food mother was ignored. I cried and cried when I saw that...
Touch, especially a slow and gentle one says more than words ever could, to me! Just goes to show that empathy is a language that we all can speak. Inclusion, acceptance, closeness, attachment are very high up in the human needs list, we need them to thrive.
I am resteeming this. We don't need to be psychologists or expert listeners to help others heal...it can be so simple, as a gentle touch. Holding space...thank you so much Krnel.
Indeed, this is demonstrable in existence if we interact with others, human or non-human animals share much in common. We don't need experts to demonstrate it to some of us, but many people don't have this knowledge or have it recognized in reality. Animals have their own live and freedom, and should be free from our harm in all respects because we don't need to use, exploit, enslave, or kill them for us to live/survive anymore. We can evolve to more moral living and consciousness, to rise above a focus on survival mindsets and justifications. Survival never determines what is moral. Thanks for the feedback :)
This comment of yours was even more greater than the post itself. I remember the exp. in another exp, they built the soft mother ugly, and the rigid and metalic one so beatiful. the young monkey still prefered the soft one despite being ugly, setting aside considering no value to its food-giving-feature.
also, power of touch is soo strong and influencing as the power of looks are. when we look into someone's eyes, words get more powerful, love gets more deep, and emotions burst out. unfortunately chats and social medias are causing us to get used to "not touch" and "not look" at eachother and dedicate our emotions in some emojis and digital writings.
I don't like it at all.
I always said, I hate my thumbs, as they keep us apart...
thank you for this great post @lyndsaybowes
Ohh my! That’s a sad experiment 😕 but very interesting!