It was a different kind of New Year’s eve this year. My daughter Leah had graduated from college and moved to Orlando, Florida and I was visiting during the holidays. She invited me to join her and some of her friends for a celebration to ring in the new year at one of the Orlando theme park entertainment areas. It was a great evening as I celebrated being in warm weather and they celebrated their youth. After midnight came and went, we started making our way out of a very busy exit path to the parking lot. All of a sudden we saw several people with “Free Hugs” T-Shirts on, being well wishers to those leaving, and of course giving free hugs. Leah received a hug and then we turned to continue on our way. After she had hugged, she said something I did not get as profound until later that week. She said “they gave out hugs and did not ask for anything, not even having to hear any message before just sharing a little love.”

I had been working on material for a book over several months prior to the Florida visit, and had been struggling with how to convey why I was writing the book. I had a lot of life experiences, training, and mentoring with others to get through my own life, and don’t know how many times I had said “I wish I had known that earlier in my life, or before I had to learn it to deal with a crisis”. Too many times I saw that key knowledge was only shared as part of recovery instead of prevention, or that critical information for us to live an enlightened, full life was embedded in books that had to be “unpacked” or interpreted, or people had to go down a very long road before the information could be deciphered. My goal would be to take key helpful information and convey it for all of those that did not have time or desire to take the long and winding road to knowledge. Some may disagree with this quick way to convey teachings, but if we are truly love our neighbors, why would we not share first so others can see the power of this knowledge and help guide them to a full life?

So this is where “Free Hugs” comes in. It simply says love and help others first. If they had asked people to read a book first, attend a meeting first, or listen to a message first, how many people would have taken the free hugs? It conveyed perfectly the approach I wanted to take in creating material that could be absorbed and used immediately without barriers. I am not saying others who get this information through counseling, their spirituality, or even their up-bringing are doing it wrong. I am just trying to convey it to a wider audience who otherwise may not have been exposed to it, where they are, in their language, in a way they can have easy access to it. When one of us becomes more whole or healthy we all do as a collective. If any of this helps just one person, it is worth it.