Meet Alexandria Friedlander
I started The Hug Movement a year ago when I was suffering heavily from a sudden bout of depression. I was allowing my circumstances to dictate the happiness I wasn’t allowing myself to create. I pushed away a lot of my family and friends, dove headfirst into work because it helped me feel like I had a purpose, and I lived lavishly because I thought money was the main goal. The pain of loneliness became great enough and I decided to do something about it.
I remember really craving a physical hug. I learned in Narcotics Anonymous the sufficiency, or rather the need, for hugs and why they mean so much to addicts. We hug because we fear that could be the last time we hug that person. Addicts make deathly mistakes; being in the program truly helped me appreciate the opportunity of what a hug offers, as well as the love and kindness it brings. I remember wanting one and thankfully, as this was before the current COVID pandemic, hugs were everywhere. I just felt people weren’t hugging enough, and I wanted to change that.
So, I started googling to see if any other people out there liked hugs as much as I did. I read on Reddit that people wished they could send a hug to their significant other that was far away at work, serving our country, or somewhere else. Another post from a girl said she wished she could send a hug to her sick mother in New York City. I got super excited because not only did I no longer feel like the only weirdo, but there was also a palpable need amongst so many people for hugs. Who would have thought? I grabbed a white tank top that I didn’t mind messing up and wrote on it, in big capital letters, “Free Hugs.” I put on the shirt and walked outside my apartment and went to a CVS where I stood outside, giving out flowers I had purchased at the store and asking people if they wanted hugs. After I got a lot of strange looks and a fair amount of no’s, people started to say yes. I have been hugging ever since. The purpose of The Hug Movement is to raise awareness and to encourage others to instill more compassion, empathy, and kindness into the world with the simplicity of a hug.
#thehugmovement
