The Healing Touch: Epiphany Jordan on Transforming Lives Through Human Connection

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to the Living the Dream podcast with Curveball. If you believe, you can achieve. Welcome to the Live in the Dream with Curveball Podcast, a show where I interview guests that teach, motivate, and inspire. Today's guest is Epiphany Jordan, an expert and advocate for the transformational power of human touch. For 15 years, Epiphany has studied the power of touch and how it can heal and how it profoundly affects our emotional and physical well-being. From running a ritualized touch practice in Austin to authoring the book Somebody Hold Me and now studying public health regarding touch on a societal level. Epiphany is helping us rethink the most basic human need that we often overlook. So we're going to be talking to Epiphany about the power of touch and everything that she's up to and gonna be up to. So Epiphany, thank you for joining me.

SPEAKER_01 1:19

Thank you so much for having me. I'm looking forward to our conversation. Let's uh let's dig in.

SPEAKER_00 1:25

Yeah, why don't you start off by telling everybody a little bit about yourself?

SPEAKER_01 1:30

Uh let's see, my name's Epiphany Jordan, as uh as he said, and um I have been completely obsessed with this topic of human touch for the past 15 years. I've been practicing it, I've been researching it, I've been writing about it, I've been talking about it, I've been thinking about it. And uh as you said, I had a I had a ritualized touch business when I was in Austin, Texas. We we shut that down during the pandemic. Um, I wrote a book about for single people about how to get their touch needs met. And um that the year that the book came out, I also spoke at um the South by Southwest conference about solving loneliness with human touch. And then uh during the pandemic, I decided to go to grad school and get my master's in public health and look at this issue from a population level because um, you know, even though it's a very individual thing and it affects people differently, it's still something that's there's something that's going on society-wide that is uh keeping us from getting as much touch as we want, or in some cases of you know, getting unwanted touch. And um, you know, a lot of times people don't think about it or they take it for granted. And uh, I'm just kind of looking at how we could reimagine our society and our culture and communities and relationships if we had a different approach to touch.

SPEAKER_00 3:13

What talk about what first spot your fascination for human touch and why has it become your life work?

SPEAKER_01 3:21

I think the thing that uh that originally kind of got me into it was um in the mid-2000s, I was studying sacred sexuality with somebody in uh uh Atlanta, Georgia. And I went to a pagan festival with her, and she had this ritual that she did called Karuna Sessions, which was uh which we later turned into a business. And uh we had a woman come in and you know, she was like, I signed up for this, but I don't know if I should do it because you know, I don't know if I can leave my family, and you know, she she decided to stay, and it was it was all platonic touch, non-sexual touch, you know, where she was laying down and like I think three or four of us put our hands on her at the same time, and I was just really struck by her responses to it and how much she enjoyed it, and how much it helped her and refreshed her, and how relieved she seemed. And the experience really stuck with me, and probably about three or four years later, I started playing around with the format, and um, people were like, This is really great, you should turn it into a business. So we did, and um, it's just the a topic that keeps keeps me up at night. Um, you know, I'm I'm something I'm constantly thinking about and coming up with ideas for how to best disseminate the idea, and it just won't leave me alone, it keeps following me around. So I'm uh, you know, I can continue to to work on it and move forward with it and talking to people and touching people and you know, just trying to figure out, you know, how we can shift things to create a more just and peaceful society um through platonic touch.

SPEAKER_00 5:21

Well, you talk about how touch can both heal and home. So talk about how our experiences with touch can shape us long after the moment has pays.

SPEAKER_01 5:31

Yeah, I mean, you don't you don't have to look so far to see it. Um right before the pandemic started, um, the welcome collection, which is a uh British um organization that does a lot of different cultural research, and um they came out with this study or they started the study called the touch test, and they got responses from 40,000 people, over 40,000 people in a hundred different countries. And um one of the things almost half of the people said that we didn't have like our culture as a whole doesn't really support or encourage us having enough touch, and that one of the reasons for that was nonconsent. Um I mean, you if you look into the statistics, I think it's one in four girls and one in 20 boys um in the United States has um is a victim of childhood sexual abuse. Um, you know, there's high numbers of statistics around rape, and it doesn't even have to be that extreme. It could just be like somebody grabbing you, or I mean, but it could be stuff like your parents didn't touch you when you were a kid, or you know, that you associate touch with your big brother beating you up when you were five years old, or um, you know, there's there's lots of ways that we can have experiences that aren't good with touch. Um oh, let's see, this was probably about 25 or 30 years ago. There was a guy that I used to hang around in my friend's circle who was an alcoholic and he had a crush on me. And one afternoon he came and like threw me up against the wall and you know, started kissing me, and I pushed him away and he did it again. And you know, that was like I said, that was over 25 years ago. And you know, when I run into him now, I still avoid him. You know, it's like that that memory of that has kept happening. And I mean, when you think about um experiences of touch with touch that people have that are much, much worse than that, you know, there's or you know, it it doesn't even have to be that bad. You know, a lot of times I think it has to do with power differentials. You know, it's like um, you know, if you have a job and and your your boss is trying to, you know, touch you inappropriately, and it's like you can't quit your job because you need the money or what have you, and you can't go to HR or whatever, you know, it's like you're in a position where you're powerless. Um, it just it just doesn't feel good. And yeah, that kind of stuff really sticks with us. I don't know if you have had any experiences along those lines um yourself that um uh an incident of harmful touch that has stayed with you for a long time.

SPEAKER_00 8:41

No, I haven't had anything.

SPEAKER_01 8:45

Yeah, yeah, that's good. That's a that's a good thing. Um, but yeah, I mean there's there's we don't really talk about it or think about it as much, but it's definitely there. And you know, there's a there's a lot of people who are just like, you know, don't don't touch me at all because of that. You know, it's like we know what kind of touch we don't like, but we don't necessarily know what kind of touch we do like, you know, and it's like because there's so much unwanted touch, a lot of times I think we kind of throw all of it out with, you know, it's like, okay, we if there's so much unwanted touch, then we shouldn't have any touch at all. And um it it it makes us, I think it makes us feel more lonely and isolated, and it contributes to bad health and mental health and emotional and physical and yeah, and you know, people being grumpy and feeling apart from other human beings. I mean, as you know, humans are are hardwired to you know to to need other people to feel like we belong, like we matter, like we're seen. And um I think touch could be a really integral part of that for us.

SPEAKER_00 10:04

Speaking of that, you know, a lot of people might feel touch starved, but not even realize it. So what are some of the signs that uh a person might be lacking meaningful physical connection?

SPEAKER_01 10:19

Yeah, that's uh that's a really good question. Um, it can affect, it can make you feel depressed, it can make you feel anxious. Um, I see per people feeling paranoid a lot, um, distrusting of other people, not sleeping well, um, irritable. Um and I also I think a lot of times when people are not getting a lot of touch, you know, they they convince themselves that they don't need it, you know, oh, it's just for children, or you know, oh, I'm fine. And then you give them some some really good, really powerful touch, and all of a sudden they're in tears, you know, and and it doesn't even have to be a lot. But yeah, um, and I also find a lot of times people don't notice that it's missing until they get it. Um I remember like during during the beginning of the pandemic, I lived alone and I was working from home, and um, you know, it was we weren't we weren't supposed to see people, we weren't supposed to touch people. Um, and I had a workman come over to my house to to fix my AC, and he accidentally touched my hand. It had probably been about a month or six weeks into the pandemic in 2020, and I was just so shocked at this, you know, contact from another person. I mean, I I hear this from people all the time too. Um, I had a friend who was going through a divorce and she went to get a pedicure, and you know, she was like, she just burst into tears because she was like, nobody has, you know, touched me in a caring way in a really long time. So um, you know, it's it really is the kind of thing that a lot of times we don't really notice that it's missing until we get it and we're like, oh, oh yeah, okay, yeah, yeah, I actually I do like that, I do need that, I do want that. And um, you know, and and then the question becomes, how do you get it? Right.

SPEAKER_00 12:30

Well, why do you feel like churches has become such a complicated topic in modern society, even though it's such a basic human need?

SPEAKER_01 12:39

I think that's this is a really good question. I've uh deep dived into it a while uh for a while. Um I think that the way that we live has really changed in the past hundred years. I mean, uh, where are you based? Where do you live?

SPEAKER_00 12:58

I am in Wichita, Kansas right now.

SPEAKER_01 13:01

Okay. So uh it gets cold there and it snows during the winter.

SPEAKER_00 13:05

Yes, sometimes it does, although this bad winter we had a above average winter.

SPEAKER_01 13:11

I did. We did too. We had like one week of winter and then it was gone, and then it was spring, and then it snowed and um killed all my all my fruit trees, which was really upsetting. Um, okay, so Wichita, Kansas. Um if you had been living there a hundred or 125 years ago, you would have been sleeping in a bed with your whole family during the winter because there was no electricity and um you would have wanted to, you know, body heat, have body heat to keep you warm at night because fuel was expensive, it was expensive to heat a home and you know, wood was scarce and things like that. Um, so that's one thing that I think about a lot, the you know, that we didn't have electricity, you know, and now we do. Um, more people are living alone than for than ever. Um almost half of Americans are single. One of the primary ways that we get a lot of touch is through our romantic relationships, and that's not always good, or it's not always available that way. Um, people are getting married later, they're having fewer children. Um, we don't live in multi-generational homes. That was a way that um the elderly got a lot of their touch, you know, like my my mother was uh a widow, was widowed for about three or four years before her granddaughter was done, and she she had no interest in dating again. But, you know, she spent a lot of time um cuddling with this little girl. And so that was a very, you know, that was a way for her to get touch. But you know, we don't have that. People live really far away from their families. Um, there's uh I don't know if we have more mental health stuff than we did in the past, but um, you know, it's certainly prevalent now, addiction, depression, anxiety, trauma. You know, I think all those things were around before, but now there seems to be more of them. Um, you know, everybody has their face buried in their phones these days. Um, a lot of us have outsourced our uh intimacy needs to our pets. You know, people are um have our relationships with our pets have changed over the past 50 years. Um and we have, you know, for a lot of people, you know, they're like, oh, I'm just gonna cuddle with my dog instead of trying to find a human to cuddle with. Uh and what else? Um we have so much stuff. You know, people, people are, you know, we live in these big houses that are full of things, you know, and there's just so many distractions where we get so much information thrown at us every day through um advertising and being online and being on our phones and stuff. And yeah, it's like I think all of these things kind of add up to a place where um, you know, it keeps us separated from each other in a in a really big way.

SPEAKER_00 16:23

So if this is about your book, uh tell us uh why it's write it, which will take away from it, where we can uh make it up.

SPEAKER_01 16:34

Yes, definitely. Uh so the book is called Somebody Hold Me, The Single Person's Guide to Nurturing Human Touch, and it's a book that helps single people get their touch needs met. You know, as I mentioned before, almost half of Americans are single. And uh if romantic relationships are your primary way of getting touch and you don't have one, then you know you're kind of SOL. Um so the book goes into a lot of the framing around touch. Um the first section is a lot of like philosophical or um you know things, things that you would want or need to think about before you thought about uh doing it, uh, you know, trying to get more touch in your life, you know, kind of figure out, you know, am I happy with how much touch I get or you know, do I want more? Uh the second part of the book is around uh it's it's kind of like a DIY workshop. Um, it's designed, it's actually designed for people who have large groups of friends, um, you know, because it's like if you have groups of friends that you see on a regular basis, it's like you will see them and hug them hello or goodbye. But you know, we don't really think about sharing concentrated, focused touch. And uh that's really a shame, especially if you're single, because you know, it's like here's a source of touch that you know, because it's weird and awkward, we don't do it. But you know, at the same time, it's like here are people that you love and you trust and that you um care about, and you know, you you've got history with them and all these all these reasons why um you know it makes more sense to do that than you know, trying to go out and date because that can be really exhausting. Um, so it gives you, you know, a way to like approach your friends and how you set things up, and then you know, different exercises that you can do to get progressively closer to each other. And then the third part of the book is talking about like how to um, you know, different situations in your life where you know you might want to um consider using using touch as um you know, almost as a healing modality, you know, if if somebody's grieving or they're really stressed out or they're exhausted and burnt out because of doing a lot of caregiving or you know, even just uh a social activity to bring people closer together. And um it talks, there's a chapter in there about um how to get touch from strangers if you don't have a lot of friends, which is another situation that some people are in. And um, and last but not least, there's a chapter on if you're one of those people who doesn't like to be touched, you know, how how do you get less touch in your life?

SPEAKER_00 19:35

Well, talk about some practical healthy ways that people can invite more uh safe, nurturing touch into their life if that's what they want.

SPEAKER_01 19:46

Yeah. Um, so the first thing I often say to people, well, the first thing that people need to know is that um touch means something different to every person. So you can't just assume that because it's something that that you want more of that somebody else is, you know feels the same way. Um, and really the only way that you can ascertain that is to talk to them about it. Um when I do coaching, one of the assignments I like to give people is, you know, go around to like five different people or you know, ask in your friend circle, you know, it's like what does touch mean to you? And you're gonna get five different answers. Uh the second thing I would say is to go really slow and realize that if you haven't had a lot of touch in a long time, it's like a little touch goes a long way. Um, you know, it doesn't have to be as elaborate as like cuddling and snuggling. I mean, you you could do that. You could um ask somebody to cuddle up on the couch and watch a movie with you, but you know, that's that can be very daunting for a lot of people. So it could be as simple as, you know, like you're having dinner with a friend, and you know, you're you're talking about your mom being sick or something, and you know, you say, you know, this is something that I'm having a really hard time with. And um, would you mind holding my hand while we talk about it? So you're in a public place, so it doesn't seem super weird, or it can be as simple as you know, somebody putting their hand on your shoulder or sitting next to somebody on a couch with your shoulders touching, or um, you know, even it can be like you know, touching, touching your fingers together, you know, the tips of your fingers. It's like you'd be really surprised how much of that goes um a long way. Uh, you know, just that little bit, it's like, oh, okay, yeah, that that actually feels really good. And and then you can maybe get a little bit deeper into it. Um, whenever possible, I if if people can do it is um Having doing it in a social way or a social setting. You know, it's like we think about if if it's one person touching one other person and you're in a private space, that that's something that's going to lead to sex because our society really equates touch with sex, you know, that if you're touching somebody, it's a prelude to sex. So if you're doing it in a group of people, it changes that interpersonal dynamic and it feels a lot more like a bunch of kids like just kind of having fun and goofing off and being weird, um, you know, giggling a lot. Um expect that it's going to be weird and awkward. We don't have common social scripts for how to touch people, you know, this is it's kind of uncharted territory. Um, and you know, be be gracious if somebody says no. You know, it's like uh one of the things I like to say is that it's always okay to ask, and it's always okay for the other person to say no. So um, and you're probably not gonna be able to do it to get more touch in your life without um kind of putting yourself out of, you know, pulling yourself out of your comfort zone. Um again, it's something that's weird, that's awkward, that our our culture doesn't isn't necessarily comfortable with and doesn't understand. So, you know, it could be that you know you have a friend who's like, oh, okay, yeah, I you know, I would be willing to do this. And then you both sit there and go, are we gonna hold hands? I I don't I don't know if I can do that, you know, and it's like so it it can take a little bit of time uh to to be able to do to do that. Um and I will say as well, um, especially for people like who don't know a lot of people or who don't feel comfortable with asking their friends, um, you know, to consider some sort of touch with strangers. I mean, I know that massage is a really acceptable way to get touch, but it's also a very expensive. It can, it's more of a luxury than anything else. And um, but there's other things you can do. Um, you know, most cities or towns have a uh beauty school and you can go get services, you know, it's like you can get a pedicure for $10 or $15 or something, you know, because it's students who are learning, um, you know, or go to an aesthetician school where they're you know doing work on your skin, um, or you know, go to the beauty school and not you you can do it through getting a haircut, but you know, maybe they have people who need practice with shampooing hair. You know, it's like um you could take up a form of dance where there's a lot of um touching, you know, partner dance like um like I have a friend who's really big on swing dancing or um you know, like square dancing or something like that, where people are paired off and they're and they're touching each other. Um, you could join some sort of sports team where you know when you when you win, everybody's hugging each other. Um, so there's you know, there's a lot of ways to do it, and it's definitely not a one size fits all, you know, it's like some people may be like, oh, that's a great idea, and I want to do that, and then other people will, you know, gravitate towards something else. But um, yeah, those are those are some ways that I think are possible for people to do for sure.

SPEAKER_00 25:50

Well, on the flip side, how does someone recognize when they need less touch or when they need to uh set stronger boundaries around physical contact in their life?

SPEAKER_01 26:04

I think that people people know, you know, um, and I I think that those of us who do like to touch and who are really comfortable with it, um, I think it's a great, great practice, like if you're in a social setting, um, to say, you know, would you like a hug? And you know, to really honor when somebody says no. Um, I think that um for people like if you're in a culture where everybody's like hugging and touching each other like after church or or something, um you can when somebody goes in for a hug, you can like stick out your hand to shake their hand, um, which is can still be uncomfortable for people, but maybe not as much as being a hug. Um, you know, you can just put your put your hand out and say, you know, please don't touch me. Um you can always lie and say, I'm getting over a cold, you know, I don't want to give it to anybody else, um, which, you know, I don't necessarily recommend that. Um, but um, you know, and and it's unfortunate that the people who want less touch oftentimes have to kind of advocate for themselves as opposed to the people who do want touch, taking the responsibility to make sure that the person that they're trying to hug wants to be hugged or what have you. Um, but you know, it's like, you know, you can just say, I, you know, I don't, I don't, I'm not a hugger. You can say I'm not a hugger or what have you. Um, but and don't take it personally if somebody says no, like I have a very dear friend who lives in the Bay Area. I don't see her that much, but she hates to be touched. And I just it drives me bonkers because when I see her, you know, I'm super happy to see her and I want to give her a hug, but I know that she doesn't like that. So I have to, I have to say, okay, you know, this isn't, it's not about me. I'm not taking it personally, but she kind of feels that way with most people. You know, that's that's her her MO and her behavior. Um, so I think I think it's kind of a group effort, you know, it's like the person who doesn't want to be touched saying no, and then people who do want more touch asking, you know, before they do, you know, would you like a hug is a really simple uh a really simple sentence and then stopping and giving the person a chance to to say no. It really goes a long way. Go ahead.

SPEAKER_00 28:41

Absolutely. Tell us about your your public uh study on uh touch on a societal level, you you know, kind of kind of talk to Alyssa about that.

SPEAKER_01 28:52

Yeah. Um so the I I went back to school to get my master's in public health 35 years after I had graduated from my undergrad program. I didn't know anything about healthcare or medicine. Um, I had worked a little bit in the health and wellness, alternative health and wellness space, but not even a lot. Um and so the program that I was doing was kind of a hybrid of marketing and public health. And I said in my statement of purpose for graduate school that human touch has a branding problem because our culture thinks of it as touch equals sex, you know, it keeps people from getting it. And so my um faculty advisor was like, well, you keep saying that touch has a branding problem. Why don't you do um, you know, write a paper, do research on how you would rebrand it. So I researched a bunch of different branding frameworks and I settled on storytelling and brand archetype, and then I did qualitative research interviewing, which is kind of long form where I talked to people for about an hour, and my uh my target population was women in their 50s who were single and heterosexual who still wanted a relationship, and I read them three different stories about three different ways that um they could get touch in a different way than from a romantic partner, and they also found out about it in three different ways, and so I I told them these stories and then asked them questions about it, and I also asked them about the stories that we that like our current culture tells around touch, and so we came up with like touches three current brand archetypes and touches four we had four rebrand archetypes. So um a brand in in business is how you portray yourself, how your business portrays itself to the world, but it's also how people think about um a particular brand. You know, it's like like if you see somebody driving a Mercedes versus somebody who's driving a Subaru or a Volkswagen, for instance, it's like you're kind of like making up a story in your head about what kind of person that is or what they might do, um, you know, what their personality is like. And so touches three current brand archetypes that we see a lot are touches lover, that um you're gonna get all your touch from a romantic partner. Um the second is touches caregiver, which is um you know, touching children or infants or what have you as a way of raising them. Um, and then also there's there's a lot of caregiving professions that use touch, um, like a nurse's assistant, for instance, or child care or something like that. And then the third brand archetype was touch as a villain, which isn't really like a standard brand archetype, but it was there. You know, a lot of people mentioned having had bad experiences with touch in their life, and you know, like a lot of the portrayal you see in media of people touching each other, you know, a lot of TV shows are really violent. You know, it's like where people are touching each other by beating each other up, or you know, like uh sexual assault as a plot point, you know, during a war or whatever. And so after that, we came up with, or I did data analysis on these interviews, and the four rebrand archetypes were um touch as rebel or revolutionary, which is about um people rejecting the common narratives, the current narratives that we have around touch, and you know, just deciding to do something different. Um, like that's where this idea of touching your friends more comes in. You know, that's you know, that's saying, you know, I I don't, you know, society says I shouldn't do that, but you know, I think it's really okay. Um, the second one was touch as magician, um, which is really looking at and treating touch as something that's really sacred and transformational. Um we um uh the transformational was a word that came up a lot in my research, you know, where people were recounting um stories that, you know, of an experience that they had had around touch where you know they hadn't been touched for a long time and then they got some really great touch and they were just like, wow, oh my god, this is you know, turn me into a completely different person. Um the third one is touch as explorer, which is maybe for people who are going through a transition and they want to do something different, but they're not quite sure yet. So it allows them to um do a lot of research, you know, to like they can do a deep dive into the physical health benefits of touch and you know, kind of look at their their own lives, how they were raised, you know, what kind of messages they got from it. And then the final brand archetype was um it was touch as caregiver again, but in this certain scenario, caregivers are expected to be very um selfless. And in this scenario, it's about the caregivers receiving touch so that it nourishes them so that they can go out and then be better caregivers.

SPEAKER_00 34:35

Well, if if uh listeners walk away with one man's F about touch, what would you want that to be?

SPEAKER_01 34:45

One one thing about it, um it's it's one of the things that makes us human. Um, it's you know, again, humans have this really deep need to belong. And um and that it it's it's also so capable of creating a more harmonious society. I mean, um, after I'm done with you tonight, I'm gonna go do a workshop for people about touch. And, you know, it's like it can be stuff as simple as like holding hands or like we do an exercise where one person lies on the floor and um the rest of the people put their hands on them. And you know, when you're done, people are like, I feel blissful and peaceful and satisfied, and this was decadent. And can we do this again? And I feel so good. Um, the one word that I use most often to describe people who've been touched is relieved. And so I think it's really worth it to go through all the weirdness and awkwardness to get back to this essential part of being human and being able to rewrite the scripts that tell us that we shouldn't trust other people and get ourselves to a place where we can create a more peaceful and caring world.

SPEAKER_00 36:08

Tell us about any upcoming projects that you're working on and necessary to be aware of.

SPEAKER_01 36:14

Um, hopefully, I'm going to be doing more public speaking this year. I'm working on a presentation about the transformational power of touch. And um, I'm just starting to get my feet wet with working on a book about non-sexual touch for romantic couples because um, you know, even though we we think that if we have a romantic partner, we can get all the touch we want. Um, a lot of times it doesn't work that way. And um, you know, there's a lot of people who are married or in romantic relationships who feel touch starved. And um, you know, I'd like to give them a leg up on that as well.

SPEAKER_00 36:53

So whatever they do.

SPEAKER_01 36:58

Thank you. Um, the best way to find me is from my website, which is um nurturing human touch.com. It's a mouthful, I know, but uh that's what it is. And there's links from there to different socials and you know, a way to be able to uh pick up, um, you know, get on the mailing my mailing list and so forth, and um Instagram. Um thinking about starting a TikTok channel. I'm still thinking about that. I don't love to be on camera, but um that seems to be what all the cool kids are doing these days, so maybe you went to that's correct. Oh, that also has a link to um to buy the book. Um, it's available at um most uh e-retailers. You can get it either in paperback as an e-book or as an audiobook as well.

SPEAKER_00 37:58

All right, we'll close us out with some final thoughts. Maybe if that was something I forgot to talk about that you would like to touch on or any final thoughts you have for the listeners.

SPEAKER_01 38:06

I don't think so. You asked me amazingly good questions, and we got to talk about a lot of different stuff. And um I hope you have a wonderful evening and thank you so much for having me on your show.

SPEAKER_00 38:21

Yeah, you too, ladies and gentlemen, and uh to pick up Mel uh to pick up Epiphany's book and uh do some research on the power of touch visit nurturinghumantouch.com and also visit www.curveball337.com and share that website and this show to everybody that you know. Thank you for listening and supporting the show. And Epiphany, thank you for all that you're doing, and thank you for joining me.

SPEAKER_01 38:53

Thank you again so much for having me. It was really a pleasure talking to you this evening.

SPEAKER_00 38:58

For more information on the Living the Dream with Curveball podcast, visit www.curveball337.com. Until next time, keep living the dream.