Areas › Your body › Touch and bodywork
End by pressing your palms together and staying there a moment. Each hand is giving and being given to at the same time.
It is a small thing that lands hard for people who only know how to be the one who helps. Notice the warmth and the pressure and notice that you cannot tell which hand is doing it. If you are someone who gives all day and finds being cared for uncomfortable, this is a way to practise receiving that asks nothing of anybody else.
Qur’an and Sunnah
Spouses are described in the Qur'an as garments: 'they are [close] as garments to you, as you are to them' (Quran 2:187). The sentence runs both ways on purpose, and so does this gesture.
أُحِلَّ لَكُمۡ لَيۡلَةَ ٱلصِّيَامِ ٱلرَّفَثُ إِلَىٰ نِسَآئِكُمۡۚ هُنَّ لِبَاسࣱ لَّكُمۡ وَأَنتُمۡ لِبَاسࣱ لَّهُنَّۗ عَلِمَ ٱللَّهُ أَنَّكُمۡ كُنتُمۡ تَخۡتَانُونَ أَنفُسَكُمۡ فَتَابَ عَلَيۡكُمۡ وَعَفَا عَنكُمۡۖ فَٱلۡـَٰٔنَ بَٰشِرُوهُنَّ وَٱبۡتَغُواْ مَا كَتَبَ ٱللَّهُ لَكُمۡۚ وَكُلُواْ وَٱشۡرَبُواْ حَتَّىٰ يَتَبَيَّنَ لَكُمُ ٱلۡخَيۡطُ ٱلۡأَبۡيَضُ مِنَ ٱلۡخَيۡطِ ٱلۡأَسۡوَدِ مِنَ ٱلۡفَجۡرِۖ ثُمَّ أَتِمُّواْ ٱلصِّيَامَ إِلَى ٱلَّيۡلِۚ وَلَا تُبَٰشِرُوهُنَّ وَأَنتُمۡ عَٰكِفُونَ فِي ٱلۡمَسَٰجِدِۗ تِلۡكَ حُدُودُ ٱللَّهِ فَلَا تَقۡرَبُوهَاۗ كَذَٰلِكَ يُبَيِّنُ ٱللَّهُ ءَايَٰتِهِۦ لِلنَّاسِ لَعَلَّهُمۡ يَتَّقُونَ
You [believers] are permitted to lie with your wives during the night of the fast: they are [close] as garments to you, as you are to them. God was aware that you were betraying yourselves, so He turned to you in mercy and pardoned you: now you can lie with them- seek what God has ordained for you- eat and drink until the white thread of dawn becomes distinct from the black. Then fast until nightfall. Do not lie with them during the nights of your devotional retreat in the mosques: these are the bounds set by God, so do not go near them. In this way God makes His messages clear to people, that they may guard themselves against doing wrong
Qur’an 2:187read it in the library
Translation: M.A.S. Abdel Haleem, The Qur'an, Oxford University Press, 2004.
What the research says
A theoretical model and review of affectionate touch argues that its benefits come mainly from what it signals: closeness, safety and someone available if needed. Mutual contact between people is what that literature is built on. Pressing your own palms together is a stand in for that, which is a step past what the review actually studied.
Jakubiak, B.; Feeney, B. (2016). Affectionate Touch to Promote Relational, Psychological, and Physical Well-Being in Adulthood: A Theoretical Model and Review of the Research. Personality and Social Psychology Review doi
Review of affectionate touch effects.
Strength of evidence: one line of research. A single study, or a theoretical account.
Why it works
Doing both at once, in your own hands, lets you feel what receiving is like before you have to accept it from a person.
This one is still a draft. It is waiting on a scholar and a clinician to read it before it is published.
Near this one
If pain is the thing you live with, start the session with the stroking sequence rather than the conversation. Arms, forehead, crown, cheeks, slowly.
There is a real difference between a practice you add to your treatment and one you use in place of it. Massage, breathing, acupressure and the rest belong in the first group.
Hands on your belly, breathe so that it moves, and listen. A gurgle down there is a real sign that you have stopped bracing.