Touch is such an incredible thing. It’s one of the first ways we communicate as humans, long before we have words. We are wired for touch - for connection, for safety, for belonging.
I love watching my kids, Rosie (8) and Bobby (6), roll around and wrestle. They're always laying on each other, one person's legs across the others, arm around each other. Just watch videos of puppies and cats, monkeys and horses. They snuggle, they cuddle, they play and wrestle. It's the most natural thing in the world... if we feel safe.
When Covid hit, I remember thinking, ‘No! Without touch we'll feel sicker—we need it now more than ever!" I do understand the idea behind quarantine, but in my line of work, I knew there would be repercussions from isolation, separation and overall fear.
As humans, a simple touch like a handshake or a hand on the shoulder can say, “I’m here. You’re safe. I care. I see you.” There's a palpable release and relief.
What Happens When We’re Touched?
Loving, caring, well-intentioned touch has a way of calming the nervous system through awakening a deep cellular memory of safety and connection. It helps release oxytocin (the “love hormone”), fostering connection and easing feelings of loneliness. Touch also lowers stress hormones that deplete our vitality like cortisol and recharges our battery bringing vital energy to all of our cells, tissues and organs.
When I’m working with someone in a bodywork session, I can literally feel their body soften into this ancient language we all share with all beings.
It's a language beyond words.
Not everyone has a positive association with touch. There is so much trauma and traumatic memories that keep the positive and life-giving benefits of touch cut off from those who learned not to trust and not to feel. Even still, touch can be a profound way to work through trauma when you're ready.
You can process deep grief and fear, and re-train your body to have a more upgraded experience of what it means to be close with someone in a really safe and loving way.
Deep down, we are wired for care and connection, we are wired for intimacy through the heart.
I'm not talking about sexual energy, "fix it" mentality or superficiality; I'm talking about intimacy. I'm talking about qualities of the heart - trust, care, safety, belonging.
If we can bring that memory back on-line in a safe and loving space with a safe and loving practitioner, there is an unbelievable amount of healing, order, harmony and interconnectedness that can be restored. Essentially we connect with the part of us that comes from wholeness.
And it doesn't have to be physical, either; the energetic side of touch can be just as impactful, sometimes more.
The Energetic Side of Touch
In the last blog post, The Art of Wholeness, I mentioned the heart's electromagnetic field that can be measured several feet away from the boundaries of our skin by sensitive magnetometers. Anything that has an electrical current creates a magnetic field and the heart produces the greatest electricity in the human body. So it makes sense that the heart creates the largest field.
Back in the 1800's, physicist and chemist Michael Faraday coined this electromagnetic field as the "field of influence." All fields carry information. The field created by the heart carries information. It’s like your personal energy field, your own energetic signature (just like you have your own unique handwriting signature), and it’s constantly broadcasting how you’re feeling, whether you are conscious of it or not.
When we’re in a state of love, care, or appreciation, that field becomes orderly and harmonious—it’s what we call “coherent.” Other people can actually feel that, even if you’re not touching them. Think about how comforting it feels to be near someone who’s calm and grounded, thankful and inspiring—it’s like their energy is giving you an invisible hug.
This is why I love HeartMath so much. Their research and programs have taught me how to intentionally cultivate these emotions and create that coherence in my own personal field - we talk about it in one of the HeartMath modules from the 6 week Coherence Course - "What are you feeding the field? It matters." Think about it. To in-form: bringing information into form or to shape matter. Energy gives life to matter, slowing its frequency until it becomes physical in form.
When your field is coherent, and you're broadcasting safety, it can help others regulate their state as well. Science demonstrates that coherence entrains incoherence.
In my opinion, it's one of the best ways we can serve others, locally and globally - to be mindful of what we are feeding our own personal energy field. Like a radio station, others can tune into the energy of what you're broadcasting and, if it's a coherent signature, then they can more easily adjust their own dial to join up with that same station.
They can learn to trust themselves again. When they can tune into their own heart's intelligence in the field environment of a safe person, they can touch their own heart and their own body without hate, fear, anger, shame. They can look into their own eyes and learn to love and connect with themselves, maybe for the first time.
How Touch Connects Us
Touch —whether physical or energetic—is about connection. When I’m serving through bodywork, coaching or training or even just listening to someone share what's going on for them, I'm practicing heart coherence. I'm practicing managing my field environment. It's going to be far more impactful than any advice I could give.
Maya Angelou said it so powerfully, "I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel."
People don't need help, they just need to feel heard and to feel worthy of love... we all just want to feel whole and free.
Try This for Yourself and Others this Christmas season:
• Physical Touch: take a little longer to wash your hands or brush your hair. Linger in self care a little longer to make that loving connection with yourself. Whether or not you have a partner or loving parent, try being that safe, loving, and caring presence in your own life.
• Energetic Touch: Practice sending someone love or care without saying a word. In HeartMath we call it the heart lock-in. We lock into coherence, radiate it to ourselves first (you can only give as much as you have yourself/your own oxygen mask) and then radiate that regenerative feeling to someone or something in your life. Imagine your heart’s energy reaching out to theirs. It’s amazing how this subtle intention can shift how both of you feel.
Watch the syncronicities unfold :)
• Be Present with Touch: Whether it’s a handshake, a hand on the shoulder, or just eye contact, bring your full presence to the moment. It’s less about the act and more about the care behind it, the information, the energetic signature of the field that's influencing the act.
Even still, research shows that we release way more oxytocin if we hold a hug longer than usual with a genuine feeling of care.
Touch, in all its forms, reminds us of what it means to be human. The heart is a bridge between body and spirit, self and other, seen and unseen. When we touch with intention—whether through our hands or our heart—we create connection. And connection is what brings us back to living life as an art (and a science) of wholeness.
Love,
Sarah
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