Self Discovery - the other benefit of cuddling

JohnR1972

I’ve seen several profiles from pros who list physical benefits of cuddling from oxytocin release to better sleep and lower blood pressure. There have been numerous threads about the accuracy of these claims and I do not want to rehash all of that. Instead, I want to focus on a different benefit I have experienced over the nearly 2 years I have been on this site - self discovery.

One of my college professors taught me long ago “we see by contrast” and if you only know 1 thing, you really don’t even know that because you don’t have anything to compare it against. For example, being born in the US, by the time I turned 40 I thought I knew about everything there was to know about the U.S. But over the next several years my work took me to 15 other countries across 5 continents and now I see the US very differently because I see how we compare and contrast with other countries.

Cuddling has given me an opportunity to meet, hold, and have meaningful conversations with people I would have probably never interacted with if it weren’t for cuddling. People with very different life experiences than I have had and who see the world through a different lens than my own. Seeing glimpses of other people’s lives has given me new insights about my own life and caused me to re-examine many of my own ideas about the world.

What have you discovered about yourself from cuddling?

CuddleDuncan

Seconded.

AllAboutSoul

Cuddling has helped me to learn how to quiet my brain, and mouth, more without having to go sleep. (I sleep 4 hours a day, so it was always rare for me to just relax.) I enjoy the serenity of just being more in tune with another person, almost conjoined breathing, heart rate and brainwaves. Those moments give me hope for humanity, that despite our differences in politics and lifestyles, cuddling brought us together.

MrAdmirer

I have learned nothing about me that I didn't already know

pmvines

Not so much anything I've learned about myself, however I've learned to share myself with others which I was not very good at before

SunsetSnuggles

Yep, integrating into the cuddle community has been a real eye-opener for my worldview and even expanded my personal identity. I don't necessarily think cuddling is directly responsible, but simply me finally coming out of my shell and getting to know people from all walks of life, through cuddling.

~ Sunset Snuggles

TheFunCartel

@pmvines I agree 💯. [....] sharing yourself is a hard thing for a lot of people to do because it is an act of giving a piece of you to someone else and men are especially stunted via social conditioning to do this.

Reported and reviewed. Removed first sentence. [Charlie_Bear]

lonelytauros

Some of the things I’ve discovered through cuddling is how much I miss and enjoy human touch and interaction.

I’ve also realized that I’m just as much of a giver as I am a receiver when it comes to cuddling and it all seems to come naturally to me I don’t have to think about it it just flows

pmvines

@BoomerSpooner it might seem otherwise because I am indeed assertive and confident and usually present myself as such, but that hasn't always been the case and there is plenty that I struggle with and don't like about myself. The space between your ears can be a real enemy of self. I can say that through some of the people I've met through here and interactions I've had it has been easier to be OK with not having to try so hard to hide the things I don't like because of the level of unconditional acceptance I've received from certain people I've met through here , and as an adult not seeking a life partner that kind of thing is really hard to find. It's hard to allow someone to love me for who I am when I don't necessarily always love who I am . But that part has gotten easier , and I do give credit in part to this site for that.

cuddlefaery

Cuddling has helped me learn how to assert and maintain my boundaries better.
It has helped me retrain my nervous system to some degree from being in a state of constant hypervigalence against touch to one that is more calm and adaptable.
I've learned and been able to practice self-soothing techniques for when my senses get overstimulated.
I've learned how to teach these skills to others, especially through co-regulation.
I've learned what NOT to do with new cuddle and intimate partners in order to avoid triggering past trauma responses.
I've learned how to communicate better about trauma in general, and how to communicate better with other trauma survivors.
I learned that what I was experiencing was in fact symptoms of past trauma, I was not "weird" for being that way, and that my trauma was valid even if it was "not that/as bad".

JohnR1972

@AllAboutSoul and @cuddlefaery - I love getting into that feeling of co-regulation / co-joined breathing & heart rate.

Most of my experiences here have helped me learn to trust others more than I used to. Not blind trust as I know there are still bad people out there but after meeting and getting to know someone - that mutual sharing of touch - I find it really accelerates building trust.

I am currently reading “Blind Spot” by Jon Clifton, the CEO of Gallup. He wrote about an experiment in which 17,000 wallets with fake IDs and cash were “dropped” in public locations across 142 countries. The goal was to determine the honesty level of each country by seeing what percentage of the wallets were returned. Gallup did surveys in each country asking people in that country, “what do you think the odds are of a stranger returning a wallet they find on the street”?

The % returned varied from about 10% to 80% depending on the country but an overwhelming majority of people significantly underestimated the percentage of wallets returned.