Apapachar: do you practice the art of caressing with your soul?

Hugs from the deepest part of our being... and their therapeutic power.

A few decades ago, one of the psychoanalysts who still took spirituality seriously, Carl Gustav Jung, said the phrase:

"Know all the theories. Master all the techniques. But, in touching a human soul be just another human soul."

Since Jung's death, the concept of soul has been discarded by most psychologists and psychoanalysts as something necessary to treat and study the soul. as something necessary to treat and study the human mind. However, beyond psychology there are some ideas deeply rooted in popular culture that, being related to spirituality rather than to scientific experiments and studies, offer proposals on how we can approach human relationships, affection and, in general, well-being.

In Latin America, specifically, there is an ancient word, of Amerindian origin, which serves to describe an action, but also a lifestyle that many people have adopted. This word is apapacharwhich means something like "to embrace with the soul".

An apapacho is much more than a hug.

The word "apapachar" was originally born as part of the Nahuatl language, a language more than a thousand years old, although at the beginning it was somewhat different and its pronunciation was more similar to "papatzoa". Today the term apapachar is used in countries like Mexico or Colombia with the meaning of "to give affection", but it is also frequently given a different meaning.but it is also often given a much deeper and spiritual reading.

In this way, an apapacho can be a hug, but also any action that can be but also any action with which it can be interpreted that a soul is undressing before another soul to give it affection. or a very intimate kind of support, not necessarily related to the sexual. Apapachar thus becomes the concept of caressing with one's own spirit, offering a token of love that does not depend either on the physical limitations that can keep two or more people apart or on the conventions of how affection should be expressed.

Long before the birth of the entertainment culture in which image is everything, Latin America already had the idea that tokens of love cannot be totally constrained by social norms. That is why apapachar came to mean an affective exchange that flees from labels and goes beyond the realization of a simple hug.

It all starts with caresses

Curiously, apapachar could originally be translated as "to knead with affection", a definition that has to do with a physical task. However, from this concept emerged the idea of apapacho as a caress made with the soul, something totally subjective, interpretable and, especially, intimate. But the relationship between spiritual caresses and the action of kneading is no mere coincidence..

Today we know that in our closest animal relatives, such as the large primates, almost all the emotional charge that has to do with the transmission of affection is embodied in caresses, hugs and, in general, actions that have to do with touch. Most primates rarely look each other in the eye, even in maternal-filial relationships. For this reason, we know that it is very likely that language we know that it is very likely that the affective language of our ancestors has been, for hundreds of thousands of years, the embrace, the kiss, the caress, and the caress..

But if we look beyond these actions, we will see that what is expressed in them is the will to show ourselves as we are and give the opportunity that another person can also do the same freely, without fear of being judged. The word apapachar captures this idea so that we can apply it in our daily lives and not lose sight of how important it is to free ourselves from unfounded insecurities, not to miss the opportunity to establish personal relationships based on authenticity, and to enjoy the affection of the people who love us without letting the banalities of everyday life keep us apart.

Apapachar is a vital principle

Of course, the term "cherishing" does not provide us with new knowledge about how we function, relate or feel. It has been around long before the emergence of psychology and neuroscience, and has nothing to do with groundbreaking scientific discoveries that will make the front pages of the news. Therein lies its value. As with the concept of Hoponopono, it is part of a practically timeless idea, which has been with us since time immemorial.It's not worth any excuse for not getting emotionally naked with the people we really care about.

Apapachar is, in short, such a simple idea that nowadays it is transgressive.. That is why it is very much appreciated by those people who love the strength of honest simplicity and naturalness over artificiality. Long live apapachos!