09 | "Hug Somebody, Even Yourself" | Compassion & Self-Care

In this episode, Khalila sits down with Edie Weinstein — writer, speaker, interfaith minister, and the beloved “Hug‑Mobster.” Edie shares what surviving a heart attack at 55 taught her about slowing down, listening to her body, and choosing compassion. She also reminds us how powerful a simple, intentional hug can be.

If you’re needing encouragement, connection, or a reminder to care for yourself as you care for others, this conversation is for you.

If this episode resonates with you, please follow, rate, and share the show — it helps more people rise with us.

Connect with Edie:

Website: www.opti-mystical.com

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Transcript

Khalila McCoy 0:00

Hey, I'm Khalila McCoy, and you're listening to the show that celebrates the people who make the world a little brighter. This is where we ride. Hey everyone, thank you so much for tuning in. And as always, I love having you here with me, listening and learning from our amazing guests. This week, we're hearing from Edie Weinstein. The hug mobster. That's right. She's armed with love and she'll squeeze you tight. But only with your consent, of course. Before Edie shares the importance of a hug and how it can truly change you, she opens up about what she learned after suffering a heart attack at the age of 55. Now you might be thinking, hmm, this is an interesting combination of stories. But honestly, I think it makes Edie even more huggable. She's someone just like many of us who has faced setbacks, had to pivot, and still chooses to take time to make others feel seen and loved.

Edie Weinstein 1:06

Hi, welcome to the show. How are you today? Wonderful. Warming up after a deep freeze here in on the East Coast in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, about an hour outside of Philly. So thank you for bringing the sunshine today.

Khalila McCoy 1:21

You're bringing the sunshine. I've already been talking already with you a little bit, and the positivity and the glow that you have has been great. So I'm excited to get to know more about you and to dive into our conversation. Um we are going to be talking about the power of a hug today. But before you share that about the hugs, tell us about who you are.

Edie Weinstein 1:42

Hey, well, my name is Edie Weinstein, and I am a how would I call myself a renaissance woman, probably like you and a lot of your listeners. I am a licensed social worker, psychotherapist, interfaith minister, journalist, book author, speaker. I do some PR and marketing on the side, and I'm the founder of Hug Mobsters Armed with Love, which I'll tell you more about in a little bit.

Khalila McCoy 2:06

Yeah. Okay, so you stay really busy.

Edie Weinstein 2:09

Yes. When does this woman sleep?

Khalila McCoy 2:14

Have you figured that out yet? Have you figured it out?

Edie Weinstein 2:16

Yeah, I actually had to. Um, if you want to just dive right in how I learned sleep, I am a recovering type A plus workaholic. I would be at one point in my life sleeping maybe five or six hours a night, working 12 to 14 hour days in my job as a therapist in an outpatient drug and alcohol treatment program. So I was working with folks with addictions. And here I was addicted to work. Not just a solid work ethic, but I couldn't not work. I was worried about am I going to be able to support myself and who am I if I'm not serving? And you know, feeling like I had to be on all the time. Well, what that led to was a major health crisis. On June 12th, 2014, I was on the way home from the gym where I had gone maybe five or six times a week for a normal workout, about an hour, hour and 15 minutes. And I started having symptoms. I knew right away a heart attack.

Khalila McCoy 3:17

Wow.

Edie Weinstein 3:18

And this is really an important heads up for women because our symptoms are so different from men's symptoms. So imagine somebody grabbing your jaw and you couldn't let go, jaw pain and tightness, torrential sweats, searing heartburn pain front and back, like you just had the most spicy meal and it was coming back for a visit, um, palpitations, lightheadedness, dizziness. And remember, I was still behind the wheel of the car. I didn't pull over, I didn't call 911. Um, I was about 10 minutes from my home when that happened. Got out of the car when I got home, went inside, picked up the phone, and called my job saying, I'm not feeling very well. Can you cancel my clients? And after I hung up, I still didn't call 911. I got back in the car. Don't ever, ever, ever do that.

Khalila McCoy 4:05

How old were you?

Edie Weinstein 4:06

How old? I was 55. Old enough to know better, right? I'm 67 now. So I drove myself to Doylestown Hospital, which um was about 10 minutes from my home. And I stumbled into the OR, oh, excuse me, the OR. I was taken to the um to the cath lab, but stumbled into the ER saying, I think I'm having a heart attack. They whisked me up to the cardiac cath lab and they inserted a stent into a fully occluded LAD, you know, the the widowmaker artery and propped it back up because it was 100% blocked. And I think if I had gotten there 10 minutes later, I wouldn't have gotten there. That's the reality.

Khalila McCoy 4:46

So while you're having this heart attack, you like you said, you drove home, you called your job, you got back in the car. Did you were you feeling that intense like discomfort and pain the whole time? Did it lessen? Yep. Yep. Um what was going through your mind? You're just like, I'm just gonna go see what's going on.

Edie Weinstein 5:04

I can't afford an ambulance right now. I didn't have what did I have? What was my health insurance? Um, I think I had Obamacare at the time because I didn't have health insurance. And um I didn't have my health insurance through my job. And the copay for an ambulance would have been expensive, and I, you know, all that all this craziness is going through my head when I could have died. And driving, I could have killed somebody.

Khalila McCoy 5:29

Yeah. Were you stressed in any way? Or are you just like, it's okay, I'm gonna get to the hospital, it's fine.

Edie Weinstein 5:34

Yeah, just saying, okay, come on, come on, come on. And the the funny part, well bizarre, twisted part, was that there's an intersection in my area that's a no-turn on red, and I stopped and I said, Should I turn? Should I not turn? There were no cars coming. I waited. Uh internal red. And I called my cousin on the way. I said, Can you meet me at the hospital? What's wrong? Uh I think I'm having a heart attack. What are you doing driving? Pull over. And he said, I'm almost there. I was like, five minutes away, I'm almost there. And she said, All right, I'll meet you there. Um, so after the cat, the um the cardiac calf, and after the stent was inserted, the surgeon came into my room, and my first thought was, Oh my God, what did you do to yourself? And I knew that I had a hand in this. It wasn't accidental. I mean, some of it was genetic because my mother had died of congestive heart failure in 2010, and my sister had two heart attacks at that point. Um, so when the surgeon came in, he showed me a picture of what the artery looked like before the stent. It looked like a broken tree branch. So for those who can't see, I'm holding my hand like hanging down like a broken tree branch. And after the stent, it was popped back up. And it's still the stent's still working all these years later. So he said, Don't let this happen again. And I said, Well, how did it happen in the first place? He said, Well, first of all, your blood pressure and your cholesterol were through the roof. Tell me about your life. And I did. And he said, You can't do this. You you need to make a big life change. So friends had come to see me, Phil and Janet. Um, Phil has actually since died of his own cardiac condition. But she said, Um, I demand to speak with your social worker, knowing that I'm a social worker. She needs to know or he needs to know what your lifestyle is like. You cannot go back to work next week. You need to take at least two weeks off from work. Phil, who was from New York, leaned over my bed and says, You go back to work next week, I come over and break both your legs. Fortunately, my legs are still intact. My boss. Yeah, he was a very good friend. Um he uh so they were my, you know, my guardians. Um, my boss said, We're not gonna let you in the door for at least two weeks. We'll take care of your clients. Don't worry, it'll be okay. So my wonderful family and friends, my son, my sister, my niece all made sure that I didn't do this again. So I had to make a complete lifestyle change, change diet, change exercise routine. Believe it or not, exercised less than what I was doing. Because I was doing five or six days a week. And by the time I got home from work, I was at the gym at eight o'clock at night, which meant I couldn't fall asleep, and I was up till midnight and then got up at like six o'clock, six thirty, whatever, to go to work. So um it was it was a challenge. And the other thing I did was cardiac rehab, which was a blessing. I loved it, but they kept me under control. They kept me from over-exercising, overworking in the gym. And they used to, the therapist there used to tell me, stop talking and working out at the same time. I said, You don't understand. I talk for a living. I need to be able to walk and talk at the same time. They said, Well, at least give yourself a break. One of the things that they used to say to us is, Oh, that's awesome. You're doing awesome, like cheerleaders. And one day I saw a bumper sticker on somebody's car that said, It's not sweat, it's liquid awesome. And I was convinced in my head that I had to produce a whole bunch of liquid awesome, or it wasn't, I wasn't doing my my best.

Khalila McCoy 9:10

Right.

Edie Weinstein 9:11

And fortunately, insurance only covered three days a week. So I couldn't afford to do more. But I did walk. They encouraged me to walk. And so that was a big life change, huge life change.

Khalila McCoy 9:26

How else were you struggling during that time? Because you talked about like you're a workaholic, you're not allowed to work as much. You said it was a challenge. What type of challenge were you going through with that?

Edie Weinstein 9:36

Um, the nap thing, the sleep thing. I used to say that sleep was highly overrated. And then I realized naps are my friend. I love naps now. I take them whenever I can. And I found myself lying on my couch in the living room, watching the ceiling fans spin and being totally bored out of my mind. Not that I could, I mean, there were plenty of things I could do. I could read, I could write, I could talk to people. Um, and I was talking to a friend, Lou, who had had a heart attack, I think like eight months before me. And I said, What kept you home from work? He said, Susan, his wife. Um, she made me stay home. And then I was talking to somebody I knew professionally who was a coach for um a Fortune 500 CEO who had had a heart attack. And he said to the guy, Don't let your heart attack go to waste. And I said, That's gotta be my mantra. I'm not gonna let the heart attack go to waste. I'm gonna learn from it. So fortunately, at that time, um, I was offered a different job working from home, writing. I'm a journalist, as I mentioned, working for a company that owned drug and alcohol rehabs. And I was hired as part of their editorial team where I would write articles for their websites. And it was great. You know, I only was required to give them five articles a week and show up at a once-a-week phone meeting, Zoom meeting. That was it. Well, I think it was Skype back then. I don't think there was Zoom back then. Yeah. Um, and I thought, oh, this is great. I could do this forever. Boom, fell apart because a year and three months later they had massive layoffs. And then after that, they declared bankruptcy. But it was enough to get me over the hump to be able to chill for a couple of years, you know, for that year and three months. Right. And then I went to work as um a therapist in another practice, less stress, more money, better hours. So it worked out. Um now I am over 65, so I'm collecting Social Security. That's you can't live. I don't know how anybody can live on Social Security. I can't afford to retire right now. But the job I have now is even better in many ways than the job I had after the series of, you know, the heart attack and the writing job. Um it's a different kind of energy. Um, it's more laid back, it's very open, not that the other one wasn't an open, supportive to everybody practice, but this one just has a a better feel to it. So I've been at this job for about a year and I love it. Yeah.

Khalila McCoy 12:16

And to go back one more time to what you talked about, that bumper sticker, the liquid awesomeness. And you just talked about how you felt like you had to be doing a lot, you had to be having that liquid awesome, or you weren't doing your best. From your experience, is it something in your life that triggered it? Is it just the personality that you are? Like, why did you feel that you had to be producing this liquid awesomeness all the time? Right.

Edie Weinstein 12:40

Well, nature and nurture together. Okay. I think I was born um not just hyperactive, but you know, to beyond, I was a precocious child. I was, you know, five going on, 25. Um, I could have conversations with adults. Uh, grew up in a family where my father was a workaholic as well for the same reasons. Um, you've heard about the idea of um generational trauma and generational belief systems. Well, my great my grandparents, my paternal grandparents came here from Russia during the pogrom. Do you know that that word? Uh P-O-G-R-O-M. Did you ever see Fiddler on the Roof?

Khalila McCoy 13:21

Yes.

Edie Weinstein 13:22

You know what that is? Okay. Yeah. It's when the Jews were evicted from their towns in Russia. So my grandparents were, they fled Russia and started a new life here in you know in America. And it was hard scrabble life. They did what they needed to do. And they raised four children: my father, two brothers, and a sister, who all became productive American citizens. And they were American citizens because they were born here, but they became productive and raised their own children and did good work, provided service. So I also saw my parents setting an example of working hard at their jobs, but also raising my sister and me and volunteering in the community. Um, my dad was a volunteer firefighter despite having asthma. I have no idea how he he managed that. Um, my mother, they both volunteered at our synagogue. My mother volunteered at the hospital. Often she would work on Easter and Christmas so that other people who celebrated those holidays could have the day off. Um, she was a Girl Scout cookie mom. She was a gate guard at our pool. Um, what else did they do? My father did this amazing thing where he did what was called patterning, which I guess is a form of physical therapy for a little girl in our community that had either MS or muscular dystrophy muscular dystrophy, where he would help her exercise. Because my dad was also an athlete. So they did it all. And I thought I want to be like them. And at four, I was diagnosed with asthma, and I felt like I was a burden, even though my parents would never have said that. Right. I would wake up in the middle of the night, kind of like gasping for breath. And my mother would say, Okay, come on, we're going into the bathroom, turn on the shower, I breathe in the steam, and it helped. So I wanted to prove that I wasn't a weakling. They never thought that I was. They they insisted that I exercise. They, when I was 11, um, our family doctor recommended swimming to improve my lung capacity. So I swam from the time I was 11 till I was 18 on you know on swim teams. And then from 18, 19, 20, uh, those three summers, I was a lifeguard in our community and coached swimming. Um, so I, you know, my parents never told me I wasn't doing enough, but they also never told me to slow down.

Khalila McCoy 15:49

Yeah.

Edie Weinstein 15:51

So I just kept going because they were proud of me and I wanted them to stay proud of me, right? Um, some other background. My dad died in 2008, my mom died in 2010, and I was the social worker that interacted with hospice for them. They were living in Florida at the time. So I was being professional there. As I mentioned, I'm also an interfaith minister, so I officiated at both my parents' services because I didn't want a rabbi that didn't know them to officiate. So the grieving daughter was back in, you know, back in a back room somewhere. Um, I cried, I let myself grieve, but I felt like I had to be on as a professional to take care of the business. Because when when I'm also a bereaving counselor, when somebody dies, there's the emotional, spiritual, physical part, but there's also the business part.

Khalila McCoy 16:41

Yes.

Edie Weinstein 16:41

And I had to help take, I chose to, well, had to because my mother named me her her executor and power of attorney. I chose to take on the business part too.

Khalila McCoy 16:50

Right.

Edie Weinstein 16:51

So I think the heart attack caught up with me. There is a it is a gin um a genuine medical condition called broken heart syndrome. I don't know if you've ever heard that before.

Khalila McCoy 17:02

Yes, I have.

Edie Weinstein 17:03

Yeah, it's a Japanese term for it, and I can't remember it now. But when somebody's emotions are not handled after a loss, it it's heartbreaking. So I think that had something to do with it too. Okay. And I let myself grieve. I also struggled with the idea that, oh my God, I'm gonna be a cardiac patient forever. Ooh, I don't want to do that. Um, when I was in cardiac rehab, I met this wonderful woman who was in her 80s at the time. I'm hoping she's still alive. I don't know if she is, but she had had open heart surgery, not a heart attack, but open heart surgery years before that, and had written a book about it. And she said, You do realize you suffered a trauma. I said, What are you talking about, trauma? I didn't die, my heart didn't stop. I'm okay. No, you experience a trauma. You're a therapist, you know what trauma looks like. So trauma doesn't have to be, oh my God, you know, hiding and covering or you know, it can mean keeping on, keeping on, but under the surface, there's all this little damage going on here. And that's when it was that was a wake-up call, too. And I said, Yes, I am a cardiac patient. I'm still on cardiac meds. I still see my cardiologist once a year, and I'm his poster child client patient because I'm doing what it takes. Um so, and actually, I ran into him in the gym a few years ago, and I'm looking at this guy and I said, He looks familiar. Where do I know him from? And I said, Oh my god, Dr. Gager. And he looked at me and he recognized me. Um, and he said, It's good to see you exercising. And I said, It's good to see you exercising too. But he needed a healer. So it was also a message healer, heal thyself.

Khalila McCoy 18:41

Yes.

Edie Weinstein 18:42

I was being awfully hypocritical, where I would tell my clients, my family, my friends, you gotta take care of yourself. But I was Wonder Woman. I didn't need to take care of myself. I was invincible.

Khalila McCoy 18:53

Right.

Edie Weinstein 18:54

Until I found out that I wasn't.

Khalila McCoy 18:55

Well, I'm glad that you were able to come through. You know, some people find out and they aren't able to have that recovery that you have. So I'm definitely happy to hear that. Thank you. You listen to your body, you listen to those who are around you. I thought it was pretty neat too how you were talking about like other people who had gone through that, who had had um heart attacks, who could tell you, like, nope, you need to slow down, or you need to try this, or this is what I did, or this is what I realized along the way. It's like you're kind of forming a community and yes, kind of help healing each other through those conversations.

Edie Weinstein 19:29

Yeah, and um in cardiac rehab, I was in there's four three phases. One is inpatient when you're in the hallway walking, walking down the hall with your ID pole. Then phase two is also based at the hospital, but it's in a a gym in the hospital. Phase three is outside the hospital, but in a program supervised by the hospital. Um, both of the the inpatient or both the inpatient and outpatient um cardiac rehab, the directors' names were Dave. You know, so I called them, you know, Dave One and Dave Two. Dave Two had this motto where he would say, Don't, like three separate words, don't overdo it. And to this day, if I'm pushing, I'll say, okay, I'm channeling it, don't overdo it. I don't have, and that's the whole thing is I feel like I have less to prove. Um, I don't know the demographic of your listeners, but if they're I'm 67, um, I talk to my friends who are around the same age, you know, in our 60s, and we both realize that um we have already earned our chops. We've already done what we need to do to get to where we are. I'm much more conscientious of how I move my body because if I wake up in the morning, I could have like plantar fasciitis. Do you know what that is? Yeah, major foot pain, and I'm like, ah, you know, that happened this past week. And I said, How am I going to go to the gym? I could barely walk. Um, and I had to shovel, which I'm not supposed to do, but I live alone. I had to shovel. So one of my neighbors came over yelling at me, waving her shovel, saying, What are you doing? You know, helped me dig out. And then a couple hours that later that night, I tried to pull my car into the driveway and it wasn't shoveled out enough. So I ran into a snowbank and I started hacking away at the snow, trying to shovel out. And it's dark, and the car's sticking out in its street. I mean, I live in a suburban development, so it's not like a city street. And I called AAA and they weren't able to get there for like another two hours. And they said, I can't let my car sit there. I got it, you know. So other neighbors came over yelling. She's a nurse, and she said, What are you doing? Because I she knew my condition. What are you doing? She came over with her husband, partner, I don't know their marital status, and two teenage kids, and they they dug my driveway up. They said, Go back and then I'm gonna help, but you guys can do most of it. So I'm aware of what I can do and what I can't do. Yeah. Um, I'm really conscious of where I like if I'm stepping off a curb, if I'm Going up and down stairs and I'll repeat the word safe, safe, safe. Because if I say be careful, you know, then it's it's like I'm warning myself that oh you know, but I just remind myself that I'm safe. So not good. Everything, all the bones are intact.

Khalila McCoy 22:16

Yeah. So tell us how does this lead to you becoming the is it the hug mobster?

Edie Weinstein 22:23

Hug mobster. Well, hug mobster was born five months before the heart attack. Valentine's Day weekend, the day after Valentine's Day, 2014, I brought a group of friends to 30th Street Station, which is a big train station in Philly. Um, did you ever see the Harrison Ford movie called Witness? I don't know if you might you might be too young, but it was in the 80s or 90s, and he plays this Philly cop who um I don't know if he witnesses a murder, but it takes the murder takes place in 30th Street Stations. Beautiful architecture. So I brought a group of friends, there are 12 of us, um, for free hugs flash mob. So free hugs are where you stand with a sign offering people strangers hugs, and they can either say yes or no. And um, so we I wanted to do a flash mob. So at noon that day, uh, we unleashed ourselves on the station. One of our friends is a musician, so he walked around with his guitar singing the super tramp song, Give a Little Bit. Do you know that?

Khalila McCoy 23:26

Yes, a little bit, you know, over and over and over.

Edie Weinstein 23:29

I don't know how many I'll have to ask him how many times Ron played that song. And another friend videotaped us. And we estimate that between the 12 of us, in an hour's time, we hugged about 200 people. One of them was in a rock war vet who was the only survivor, he told us he approached us and said he was the only survivor of his platoon and he had survivors' guilt. And he thought about ending his life. He said, Until just now, when I met you people, you give me hope.

Khalila McCoy 23:58

Oh my goodness.

Edie Weinstein 24:00

So can I join you? And I said, Of course. We gave him the sign and he was off.

Khalila McCoy 24:03

Yeah.

Edie Weinstein 24:04

And my thought was, oh my God, hugs save lives. Friends started calling us hug mobsters. Hug mob, flash mob, you know. And I said, Mobsters, guns, drugs, you know. And I said, so I added the tagline, armed with love. And after cardiac rehab, well, after inpatient cardiac rehab, I would walk around Doylestown and I thought, why don't I combine the hugging with the walking? Because hugs are emotionally heart-friendly, but they're also cardiac friendly. There's research that says that when people get enough hugs, whatever that is for them, they feel healthier, their blood pressure goes down, their mood elevates, they're, you know, they're they feel a sense of connection. Because the oh my God, I can't remember his name. The um former surgeon general talked about an epidemic of loneliness in our country, in the world. So in my mind, hugging strangers with consent is one way to overcome loneliness. So sometimes friends would come with me. Sometimes I go by myself. I carry my little sign in the car with me. Um sometimes I would have this with me. You can see it, but it's a little a heart with hands and arms.

Khalila McCoy 25:19

Yeah, that's so cute.

Edie Weinstein 25:20

Friend got me years ago from IKEA. Um, and so for those that can't see it, a big red fluffy heart pillow with little arms. And um I estimate that since then, since 2014, I've hugged thousands of people in the United States, in Canada, and in Ireland. My trip of a lifetime, I turned 60 in 2018, and I took myself to Ireland and I took the sign with me. The Irish are very huggy people, very affectionate people. Um, so during the pandemic was that was part of um what kept me a little bit depressed. I thought, oh my God, what if we can never hug again?

Khalila McCoy 26:02

Right.

Edie Weinstein 26:02

And then I said, that can't be possible. Humans are hardwired for touch. How can we never hug again? So I had a dream where we could hug back to back or back to front like spooning. And so once I felt safe, I would go out in public with my mask and we would do virtual hugs where some we would stand the requisite six feet apart, I would hug myself, and the other person would hug themselves. And then after I got vaccinated, um, when people felt ready, we would hug, but we did the back-to-back hugs, we did the side, like we didn't breathe in each other's faces. Um, and now it's just like, you know, no mask hugs, and uh it it feels good. I was I was a little tentative at first because I have the respiratory condition as well. I have COPD. Um, I never smoked, but and this is another PSA. I worked for 14 years in environments where my patients smoked. I worked in an inpatient school and then the drug and alcohol program. Right. They would come into my office with smoke on their clothes eight hour days being exposed to third hand smoke. So the the raspy voice is from the r the um inhaler that I use. But I would rather breathe than than you know, not have a sultry voice.

Khalila McCoy 27:22

Yes. I like your voice.

Edie Weinstein 27:24

Thank you. And I it was funny, I listened to um a podcast that I did before I was diagnosed with COPD. Totally different voice.

Khalila McCoy 27:33

Really?

Edie Weinstein 27:34

A few higher octaves.

Khalila McCoy 27:35

Okay.

Edie Weinstein 27:36

A few octaves higher. Yeah. Not quite as as raspy, but you do. You know, people can still understand me.

Khalila McCoy 27:42

So yeah. And you don't no necessarily need a voice to give hugs. You can write and just open your arms up and voice hugs. Do you find when people come to give you a hug, that usually like a quick hug and then they're gone? Do you hug for a while?

Edie Weinstein 27:58

It depends. They make the rules. Um I let them be the first one to let go whenever they're ready. Yeah. So the rules of hugging when I, you know, when I do the hug strolls, um, always ask first, get a verbal yes, or if they open their arms, then I know they're a yes. And I only hug as long as they're comfortable. If they say no, I don't get offended. I'll just say, thank you, hug somebody, even yourself. If there are children there, I'll say to the adult that they're with, if it's okay with your child, if it's okay with you and your child, is it okay if I hug them? And if the grown-up says yes and the kid says no, he said, Oh, no hugs. It's okay. Can we do high fives, fist bumps, you know? And I want the the child to get the message and the adult that nobody hugs you without your permission.

Khalila McCoy 28:46

Yes.

Edie Weinstein 28:46

Um, in my family, I have two grandchildren who I adore. I don't know if you can see the mug. It says, Grandma, you brightened my world. It was one of my Christmas presents. Um so they, you know, the rules are they don't have to hug us, even their parents. And if I'm coming or going and they don't want to hug us, okay, see you later. And sometimes they'll come running over and you know, she's three and he just turns six. And they are very cuddly kids, but at their discretion.

Khalila McCoy 29:15

Right. That's very important. Yeah. I'm glad that you add that in there. Yep. Do you find that most people, like you talked about the war vet who shared his story with you? Do you get other stories along the way of people who are like, I really needed this today? Yep. Can you share a couple?

Edie Weinstein 29:32

Sure. A few years after that, I went to a Veterans Homeless Shelter in Kensington, which is um kind of a rough and tumble neighborhood in in Philly that's known for drugs. Okay. And um went there with a group of friends, and I did it, it was, I remember it was St. Patrick's Day. So there was a lot of, it was Irish music, but there was also uh Motown. They did a um a Motown um trivia contest. And then I did a mini hug workshop. And I remember this one vet, I could still envision him, very tall guy, um, approached me and he said, I haven't been touched in 20 years. Not even not hug, but not touch. And I said, Can I hug you? I hug I hugged him longer. I gave him lots of hugs that day. Another memorable one. I was on South Street in Philly, um, which is a fun neighborhood, and a friend of mine was following me. She's a videographer, um, videotaping the hug stroll. I think it was, I forget which cardioversary it was, because I that's what I call my annual second birthday. Um she was recording me, and there was this Muslim woman wearing hijab, and she said, Who wouldn't want a hug? Like shaking her head, who wouldn't want a hug? Um, everybody needs hugs. And I said, Well, some people are not comfortable. And she wags her finger at me. She's probably, I don't know how old, somewhere between your age and my age. And she says, even those that don't think they they want them, they need them. So I remember her. I don't remember, she never told me her name. Another was when I was visiting friends in Portland, Oregon. And as soon as I got out of the car uh to start doing the hug thing, this man runs up to me and he says, You have no idea how much I need this. Um, a friend of his had just died, and another, I don't know if another friend had died by suicide, and I don't know if it was the anniversary of somebody's death, but it was oof, yeah, he really needed that. Really needed that hug.

Khalila McCoy 31:40

Do you think there's something to the fact, too, that you're just a stranger on the street offering a hug? Mm-hmm.

Edie Weinstein 31:47

Yeah. Um, I tell people when when they ask me about the free hugs thing, I said, yeah, I'm this weird person standing on, you know, the street asking, oh, offering to hug strangers. Um, it depends on where it is, too. I do a lot of hugs at Pride Fests. There's several in my community. So the expectation is people most people are going to say yes to it. There is another group in Oklahoma called Free Mom Hugs. It was founded by Sarah Cunningham, whose son came out to her as a gay man. And she was, I believe, an evangelical, really hardcore Christian. And she thought, how can I choose between God and my son? And she had a dark night of the soul, and then she had an epiphany. I don't have to. So Parker had invited her to go to a Pride Fest in Oklahoma City, and she went and she made a bat, like a button that said free mom hugs. And she said, by the end of the experience, she was covered in tears and glitter. And she only went on her hands. So I'm also part of Free Mom Hugs. Um, they're also Free Dad hugs, too. So when I go to Pride events, I'll wear a free mom hugs t-shirt as well.

Khalila McCoy 33:04

I hadn't heard about that before.

Edie Weinstein 33:06

It's freemomhugs.org.

Khalila McCoy 33:08

Okay.

Edie Weinstein 33:09

Very cool. So there are people all over the world that are doing this because we need it. Humans, humans um fail to thrive, just like babies fail to thrive without nurturing touch. Suicidality, um, depression, anxiety, illness. Um, I wasn't lonely, loneliness didn't cause my heart attack. I was, I am a people person by nature. So that wasn't one of the contributing factors. Um, the other thing that happened in 2022, I didn't when I was before we got on the call, um, I was talking about going to Ohio to do my first TEDx talk um in Lima. Uh that's how it's pronounced right.

Khalila McCoy 33:51

Yes, yeah. It's not Lima Lake Peru, it's Lima. Yeah, Lima, Ohio.

Edie Weinstein 33:55

And the other, the other claim to fame that the name of the town has, it wasn't filmed there, was the TV show Glee. Yes.

Khalila McCoy 34:04

I love that show.

Edie Weinstein 34:05

Yeah. Um, so I did a TED TEDx talk, people can look it up, called Overcoming the Taboo of Touch.

Khalila McCoy 34:12

Yes.

Edie Weinstein 34:13

And it was uh the experience of a lifetime, um, a bucket list item, and one of the biggest challenges that I had because I'm a public speaker. I speak spontaneously, extemporaneously, but this had to be a memorized monologue. Although, I'm you know, calling them out on this. I have seen celebrities do a TED talk with notes. I'm really ticked at that because it's you know I could have used that. We weren't allowed to have notes, cue cards, or a teleprompter. It had to be all memorized.

Khalila McCoy 34:49

Wow, I didn't know that.

Edie Weinstein 34:50

So 17-minute monologue, mine was a 17-minute monologue. Um, and it was it was just extraordinary. And I thought, how am I gonna memorize the statistics, the everything? So I talked to friends who are actors, and they said, the I said, how do you remember your lines, your you know, the script? And they said, Well, you remember the first part, and then you link it to the next part and the next part and the next part. So it flows naturally. So I would rehearse um with friends, I would rehearse in the car, um, I'd rehearse in the shower. Um, but the most powerful one was I would rehearse in my sleep. I would start to say my talk, I would fall asleep, and then when I'd wake up, I was thinking the talk again.

Khalila McCoy 35:33

Yeah.

Edie Weinstein 35:34

So it was um from April of 2022 to October was the time I had to practice it. And it was extraordinary. I absolutely loved it.

Khalila McCoy 35:45

What are some of the highlights from your talk?

Edie Weinstein 35:48

Well, first of all, what you and I talked about about the importance of nurturing touch by consent, that it's it's got healing components to it, how it brings people together. I shared the hug mobster story, I shared the heart attack story, um, I shared the veterans stories that I mentioned. I think I shared the Portland, Oregon story. Um, I asked people at the beginning um how many people experience three hugs a day, have them raise their hands, how many eight hugs a day, how many 12 hugs a day. Virginia Satir, S-A-T-I-R, was a psychologist who posited that we need, I think, three hugs a day just to survive, eight hugs a day for maintenance and 12 maximum. Unless I'm with my grandchildren or um doing free hugs, I don't get three hugs a day. So I hug myself, you know, do a lot of that. And then at the very end, um, I sang and had the audience do a sing along. There's an amazing singer-songwriter in Massachusetts now. His name is Fred Small, and the song is called The Hug. People want to look it up. And it's a story of I think a psychologist or psychiatrist in a psych hospital who hugged his patients. He got in trouble for doing that because you're not supposed to, you know, back then, not supposed to. Um, so the chorus is I want to hug when we say hello, I want to hug when it's time to go, I want a hug because I want you to know I'm awfully fond of you. And it goes on and on like that. So we did the call and response, I want a hug. So that was how it ended. Um, in terms of hugging clients, my clients ask for hugs. They ask for hugs, I give them hugs. Um, I have an again, I'm an outpatient practice, and I don't know for sure how many of them have hugs in their daily lives. Um, I had an intake with somebody this week, never met her before, talked to her on the phone. She was in my office, and after an hour, we did our intake, and as she left, she says, Can I have a hug? So it you know, I said, Of course, absolutely. I think with consent, with good intention, particularly with people who are trauma survivors, and touch wasn't always kind and caring and nurturing.

Khalila McCoy 38:05

Right.

Edie Weinstein 38:05

I think it's okay. My boss thinks it's okay. I don't, you know, don't have a problem with that. Um, I won't hug anybody if they're if they don't ask. Um I'm a a person of small stature. I'm five, two and a half. I love it when tall people come down to my level. I've some very tall persons. Um, and I saw one of them yesterday. I said, Thank you for coming. He's like, I don't know, six, two, six, three. Oh yeah. You know, my son is six one. Um, he'll he'll bend down. My grandson at six years old is almost up to my like the middle of my chest.

Khalila McCoy 38:42

Uh-huh. Maybe a tall. So he'll have to bend down one day too to give grandma a hug.

Edie Weinstein 38:46

Yep. Yeah, absolutely.

Khalila McCoy 38:48

Do you have any suggestions of how to connect with people? Like say someone's not a hugger, but they need a connection or something like that, or you can see that in somebody, what would you suggest?

Edie Weinstein 39:00

Well, I'll ask them. Like you're talking about if I'm out in public or if I'm with clients. I mean, I'll I'll say what helps you feel close to people.

Khalila McCoy 39:08

Okay.

Edie Weinstein 39:09

You know, just sitting in their presence, just listening. Um, how do you take care of your touch needs? Because during the pandemic, we, you know, if you're touch deprived, it can create more depression. So I used to do um like Facebook Live kind of things during the pandemic, where I would encourage people to hug themselves. I would encourage them to wrap themselves in blankets, hug pillows, hug trees, hug animals. The first time I hugged a mammal during the pandemic was my my cousin's dog. Um I went to visit her and we were sitting in her backyard, like 20 feet apart. And I think with dogs, Maddie was running back and forth between us, and she was muddy. And when she jumped on my lap, I sobbed. Because so she was the first mammal that I hugged during the pandemic. What was also hard for me was my grandson was born January 21st, 2020. He was the best thing that happened in our family that year. So I was there just about every day to help take care of him and to make sure that my son and daughter-in-law got to eat, sleep, and do normal people things. The other grandparents were there too, my daughter-in-law's sister. Um, and then the pandemic happened, like the middle of March, bam. I didn't see Dean for 11 weeks after that. That was that was heartbreaking. I can imagine. Yeah. But we'd do daily um either FaceTime or videos or phone calls. Um, I would read to him or I would say nursery rhymes, I would sing to him. Now, this was before this voice. This is before I was diagnosed with COPD. Um, and that got me through. So the first time I got to see him was after I'd been home for you know that time. My son said, Look, you're working from home, you're not out in the world, you wear a mask. And I don't think we were there were vaccines at that point. And he said, Okay, you can come over and see him, but you gotta wear a mask, gotta wear, he didn't make me wear gloves because I I, you know, but he said you have to sanitize, like alcohol is a hand sanitizer, a blanket, and then I held him. But you know, we are a very huggy family. Um, I grew up in a very huggy family. My friends all know that, you know, that they can expect a hug. My kid, my son and daughter-in-law got me um a doormat, I'm putting over here because my front door is over there, a doormat that said um prepare to be hugged, something like that. Yeah. So people know that that's that's my branding, I guess.

Khalila McCoy 41:41

Yes. Yeah. What have you learned or how have you grown from giving hugs?

Edie Weinstein 41:51

Well, I've learned that something as simple as a hug can change somebody's life just like that, changed mine. Um I know that it brings people closer together. It crosses all divides, you know, religion, gender, presentation, sexuality. When I hug people, unless they tell me I don't know who they voted for, I'm hoping that that hugs um melt away the hardened edges around people's hearts, um, regardless of which side of the aisle you're on. Um I, you know, what else have I learned about hugs? They're healing. Hugs heal. And um I, you know, it it may when people do the free hug stuff with me, um, men usually are a little timid about it because they're most women would sooner hug a woman offering a hug than a man because of how we're enculturated. But the men that I've done the free hug stuff with have just, you know, they've been, you know, they've been welcomed by most of the women that that that you come across our, you know, our little gathering here. I'm not doing them as much as I did before because I still have because of the respiratory condition, I get winded very easily. So in the past, I would have gone out in this kind of weather. You know, it's been single digits here. I went we went out in a blizzard once. I can't risk that right now.

Khalila McCoy 43:19

No.

Edie Weinstein 43:20

Pneumonia, it's no fun. I don't want that. Um so I pretty much stick to warmer weather when I do the free hosting now.

Khalila McCoy 43:29

Yeah. So you'll be out back out probably in the spring, summer.

Edie Weinstein 43:33

Yep. Yeah. Um, there is an event. I don't know if it's May 6th, I don't know if it's World Hug Day. Um, but I'm out, you know, gonna be doing that. And I usually do it on my cardioversary. Um this year will be 30. Wait, this is 2026. So 12 years. This year it'll be 12 years.

Khalila McCoy 43:52

Well, congratulations, early. Thank you.

Edie Weinstein 43:55

So, you know, what I say about that is that the woman that I was died that day. Day, not literally died, to give birth to the one who's talking to you now. And she had to die because she was killing me.

Khalila McCoy 44:06

Yeah.

Edie Weinstein 44:07

Right. I, you know. Um, so I encourage any woman, go, you know, see a cardiologist, see your doc, get checkups, check, you know, watch your cholesterol, your blood pressure, um, get enough sleep. And I know that's hard when you're a parent. And fortunately, I didn't have young children at home. My son, he's 38 now. He was a grown-up at the time. He was out, you know, flown, grown and flown. Um, but I've known women who still have children at home who've had heart attacks. Um, it's it's a major health crisis for women. And February, actually, um, as we're recording this February 1st, it's something like go go red for women. That's what it was. Go red for women. Um, I think it's the American Red Cross. Um, so yeah, you matter. Your health matters. Because as women, we're taught our role is to take care of other people. Can't take care of anybody else. Like the the oxygen mass metaphor in an airplane. You can't help anybody else if you're pests out on the floor from oxygen deprivation. And you deserve it for you, too.

Khalila McCoy 45:11

Yes. I always ask our guests, we've heard your story. What would you like us to remember? How can we rise in our own lives?

Edie Weinstein 45:25

First of all, breathe. Because when we breathe, we think more clearly. When we're oxygen deprived, we can't make good decisions. Um, number two, realize that you are important. You are a person of value, whether or not you are on. That was a hard-earned lesson. Um, you matter to the people in your life. Connect if you're feeling lonely, volunteer, get involved in your community, find kindred spirits, do what you love to do, and you're going to attract people who love doing what you love to do. Um, if you're not comfortable hugging other people for whatever reason, hug yourself. Hug trees, hug animals. Um, but I encourage you to stretch your comfort zones a little bit and hug people that you trust. I have wonderful friends who are very huggy with me, but would never in a million years do what I do, go out into the world and do the free hugs thing. That's just not how they're wired. Fine. That's okay. You know. So um gratitude. Be grateful for what you for who you are and what you have in your life around, you know, I I do gratitude lists every day. Um bless the people in your life. I do, I say prayers every night, um, including for my clients. They know I, you know, I I don't, you know, I don't tell anybody what to believe spiritually. What I say is love is my religion and God's too big to fit into any box. So I ask my clients, is it okay if I include you in my prayers at night? Yep, absolutely. You know, I say prayers for my clients, past, present, and future. Love your life to the to the best of your ability and love the people in it.

Khalila McCoy 47:04

Yes. Thank you so much for that. And I want to thank you for who you are and what you have chosen to do. Like you said, you're going out, getting a little bit out of your comfort zone, hugging anybody who needs it and showing love to somebody, no matter, like you said, anything about them, their their race, their religion, how tall, how short they are, just loving people as they are as a human. And I think that's so important. And, you know, to our listeners, obviously, you don't have to give a hug, but just looking at somebody and thinking about them in a positive way with positive intent is really what we need in the world. So I'm very happy to have met you. I'm so excited for what you're doing. I wish we were in person, but I'm gonna hug myself and hug you because I feel like I'm missing out on an ED hug. But yeah, and I love the idea of just hug yourself too, because sometimes, you know, you're the only one there in that time. So yeah, thank you for all those reminders and those things to think about and ponder.

Edie Weinstein 48:06

My pleasure. Well, so people can reach me. Help people can reach me. Oh, yes, please. My website. Um, it's www.optiopti hyphen mystical, m-s-t-i-c-a-l.com. Where that came from is that several years ago, either in meditation or prayer, the words came to me. You're not just an optimist, you're an optimistic who sees the world through the eyes of possibility. So, cool story about that was a friend of mine took those words and made a meme. And it had an elephant, it had a bird, it had the elephant was wearing a top hat, um, and it made the world worldwide whirlwind tour. So on my birthday, I forget how many years ago, somebody messaged me and said, quick, Julian Lennon, John Lennon's son, put it on his Facebook page. Ah, you're kidding. No, no, no, look, look, look. So that's the claim to fame with the Leno. And other people have since taken the words, giving me credit, um, and had different imagery on it. So if you want to look it up, I'm not just an optimist, I'm an optimistic who sees the world through the eyes of possibility. So I encourage people to become optimistics too.

Khalila McCoy 49:16

Okay. Thank you. Yeah, I'll look for that. And I'll add all of that on our show notes as well. So people can reach out to you and follow you and hopefully one day see you in person or start their own hug group as well.

Edie Weinstein 49:30

Absolutely. Thank you.

Khalila McCoy 49:31

All right, thank you. Take care. Edie was so fun to talk to. Her takeaways were wonderful. I really encourage you to listen to those again and see how you can apply them in your own life. I wrote down so many things while she was talking that I want to make sure I remember. So let me ask you, what are you taking away from this conversation? For me, it's the reminder to take care of yourself. At the beginning of the episode, when I introduced Edie, I talked about her ability to pour love into others, but she can only do that because she takes time to love herself too. She gives herself a hug. She lets her body, mind, and spirit recover. She listened when the people around her and the professionals in her life told her to slow down and pay attention to what her body needed. I love how Edie talks about how she's a little bit older than me and potentially most of the listeners. But she has a wealth of knowledge that reminds us all we're not invincible. We need to rest. We need to slow down. And if we take what she said, we can learn from it, no matter what age we are. And like she said with the oxygen mask analogy, you can't help others if you don't take care of you. So as much as I love encouraging you to take care of the people around you, I want you to take time to reflect and act on your own needs as well. Maybe you're the one who needs a hug today. Go ask for one or give yourself one. And if you need it, I love hugs, so I'm sending you one right now. All right, y'all. That is our time for today. But as you move through the rest of your day, I hope you take a moment to listen a little louder to yourself, to the people you love, and to the things that connect us in ways we sometimes forget to notice. I'll meet you back here next time. See ya bye.