Hugging is so underrated. Hugs help you become happy and relaxed almost instantly. Too often the people that we love become ordinary faces that we don’t spend enough time loving in basic human ways, like hugging.
In honor of National Hugging Day (yup, it’s today—look it up), a reminder of the importance of hugs from Elephant Journal’s list of “10 Things You Should Do Every Day.” We’ve said it before, but it bears repeating: hugs (especially really good hugs) rock our world.
This year, why not resolve to accept something about yourself that you will no longer try to change or improve? You may even decide that this is the year that you accept something about someone else and vow to no longer try to change him or her!

From Elephant Journal’s “The Yinside of New Year’s Resolutions.”

Resolving not to change something this year—cop-out, or brilliant idea? (Considering that we know you’re perfect just as you are, we’re gonna go with brilliant.)

Sex is not the answer. Sex is the question. ‘Yes’ is the answer.
Swami X, via Elephant Journal.
We deny our innate desire for lust and touch unless we’re making love. Does that make any sense? Maybe that’s what is making us closet addicts to our beloved orgasm. Sex, sensuality, touch and desire are all rationed or at best, suppressed.

From Elephant Journal’s “Mars & Venus in Conversation: Our Insatiable Hunger for the Meaning of Intimacy. {NSFW}”

What do you think—should lust and sensuality be better integrated into life outside the bedroom?

So no matter how your sex expresses itself these days—whether you humped three people this morning or haven’t kissed anyone in ten years—take the time to be thankful for your sexuality. You are alive, right now, a sexual being on this planet, and you have the unique opportunity to go on a rich and hilarious journey into the heart of your own desire.

—Elephant Journal’s Candice Holdorf in “‘I Just Had Sex!’ Cultivating Gratitude and Humor.”

We are thankful—very, very thankful.

‘Love means never having to say you’re sorry.’ ~ Erich Segal, Love Story

Really? No, love means saying you’re sorry often. Love means sometimes you say you’re sorry even if you are still mad and have a stinging ego and don’t feel sorry yet.

Speaking of love, we kind of love this “Love Quotes for Dummies” post by Kate Bartolotta for Elephant Journal.
We waste time looking for the perfect lover, instead of creating the perfect love.
Tom Robbins (thanks to Elephant Journal for including this great quote in their post on “Love Quotes for Dummies.”)
This part of the body is like the ears, it’s a part you cannot judge by prettiness and it doesn’t make sense to me to alter it. This type of surgery, if done just for looks, is a waste of money. Genetically we are coded to be turned on by a woman’s vagina pretty much however it looks.
Random 25-35-year-old guy on whether the size of the labia minora matters. Via Elephant Journal’s excellent post “Your Ugly Vagina Is Normal & Gorgeous. (Adult).”
Any man who can drive safely while kissing a pretty girl is simply not giving the kiss the attention it deserves.
Albert Einstein, thanks to Elephant Journal’s “Dating, Mating & Relating: 11 Inspirational Quotes to Start Your Day.”
Think about your relationships. Most especially, think about those that give you the most trouble, and it is guaranteed that the reason they give you that trouble is because they are imbued with either fear or anger, or both—small-scale or large, it doesn’t matter. Fear and anger are the two most destructive elements that can be present in any relationship: parental, friendship, employee/service, lovers, family—all relationships.

Braja Sorensen, from “Relationships: ‘Feel the Fear & Do It Anyway.’ (Yoga in the Gita Series)”, Elephant Journal.

No fear! (Easier said than done, we know—but it’s worth working on, don’t you think?)