Earlier this week, a client asked why we were wearing veils. “So men don’t fall in love with us,” I blurted out. “I don’t want them focused on us as people.” Which is true. But there’s much, much more [...]

A few weeks back, a video from a professional male cuddler came across my feed that prompted a ton of conversation. As always, the reactions were strong, and the comments illuminating – this is clearly something that touches a nerve (no [...]

This blog post comes to you courtesy of my dear friend Absinthia, who suffered an unexpected death of her partner in July. She's been blogging about her grieving and healing process, and I asked her to write about the [...]

Friday evening, I went with a friend to a kitten adoption event. It was outdoors in July in Texas (already a recipe for disaster when your guests of honor are wearing fur coats). Add a cup of car [...]

Allow me to rock out with my Inner David Letterman for a moment. The Top 10 Reasons to Engage in Nurturing Human Touch Are: Number 10: You are comforted: Most people feel scared and powerless about personal and collective struggles, [...]

A while back, I asked my Facebook friends how they would feel about dating someone with a chronic illness, or a person in a wheelchair. What about someone who is bipolar, an alcoholic or in treatment for cancer? The [...]

Like many entrepreneurs who are growing their businesses, I do rideshare driving to help pay the bills. It is a good fit for me: the hours and the money are flexible, I like taking care of people and listening [...]

(Photo by Eric Kilby) “What do you do?” is a common opening gambit when chatting with strangers. As you can imagine, “immersive touch therapy” is a response that garners lots of quizzical looks, curious questions, nervous laughter…and tons of [...]

Touch is one of our most basic needs. If we are fortunate, we begin our lives with a family who gives us nurturing, loving, compassionate touch. As we grow into adulthood, though, we are taught that the only way [...]

Even though it’s officially autumn, Austin is still summery hot at the end of September. Yesterday afternoon I walked a couple blocks to our corner store/gas station in 90-degree heat. This particular corner of East Austin has quite a [...]

Americans suffer from a silent epidemic. This epidemic is skin hunger, and it afflicts millions. It is slow and sneaky; people can sense that something is wrong, but they don’t know what, or how to heal it, until someone [...]

Even though I haven't birthed another human being, I mother adults. It's really amazing work (and especially cool to mother the mothers - they need it more than most people). If I worked every single hour of every single [...]

When we first started Karuna Sessions in 2013, we referred to ourselves as professional cuddlers. The concept of professional cuddling is a fairly recent one, but it has grown in popularity over the past couple of years, and [...]

Tuesday night was a learning experience on so many levels. We were invited to come and organize a sanctuary and offer compassionate touch to Amanda Palmer’s fans at her show at the Paramount in Austin. While this isn’t how we normally work, [...]

When we found out that Amanda Palmer was performing in Austin, we asked her to come try a Karuna Session. Karuna is the Sanskrit word for compassion, and a Karuna Session is designed to nurture body, mind and [...]