Apapachar: do you practice the art of stroking with the soul?
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 touching a human soul is just another human soul."Since Jung's death, the concept of the soul has been discarded by most psychologists and psychoanalysts 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 experiments and scientific studies, offer proposals on how we can focus on human relationships, affect and, in general, , welfare.
In Latin America, specifically, there is an ancient word, of Amerindian origin, that serves to describe an action, but also a lifestyle that many people have adopted. This word is apapachar, which means something like "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 with more than a thousand years old, although at first it was something different and its pronunciation was more like "papatzoa". Nowadays the term apapachar It is used in countries like Mexico or Colombia with the meaning of "give love" , but it is also frequent to give it a much deeper and spiritual reading.
In this way, an apapacho can be a hug, but also any action with which it can be interpreted that a soul is undressing before another to give him affection or a very intimate type of support, not necessarily related to the sexual. Apapachar thus becomes the concept of caressing with one's spirit, offering a sample of love that does not depend on the physical limitations that can keep two or more people separated or on the conventions of how affection should be expressed.
Long before the culture of the show was born in which the image is everything, in Latin America there was already the idea that the samples of love can not be totally constrained by social norms. That is why apapachar came to mean an emotional exchange that flees from labels and goes beyond the realization of a simple hug.
Everything is born with caresses
Curiously, in an origin apapachar could be translated as "amasar 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 not mere coincidence .
Today we know that in our closest animal relatives, like the great primates, almost all the emotional charge that has to do with the transmission of affection is expressed in caresses, hugs and, in general, actions that have to do with touch. Most primates rarely look into each other's eyes, even in mother-daughter relationships. Because we know that it is very probable that the affective language of our ancestors has been, for hundreds of thousands of years, the hug, the kiss, the caress .
But if we look beyond these actions, we will see that what is expressed in them is the willingness 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 catches this idea so that we can apply it in our day to day and we do not lose sight of the importance of getting rid of unfounded insecurities, not letting go the opportunity to establish personal relationships based on authenticity, and enjoy the affection of the people who love us without making the banalities of everyday life keep us apart.
Apapachar is a vital principle
Of course, the term apapachar does not give us new knowledge about how we function, relate or feel. It has been there since long before both psychology and neurosciences appeared, and it has nothing to do with breakthrough scientific discoveries that will occupy news headlines. There lies its value. As it happens with the Hoponopono concept, is part of a practically timeless idea, which has always accompanied us : there is no excuse for not getting emotionally undressed with the people that really matter to us.
Apapachar is, in short, an idea so simple that in our days it is transgressive . That is why it is very appreciated by those people who love the strength of honest simplicity and naturalness over the artificial. Long live the apapachos!
