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Hug like you mean it: Life coach Lauree Ostrofsky goes on hug tour

Bethesda life coach Lauree Ostrofsky has been on tour since April, hugging friends and strangers everywhere she goes.

It started with author Maya Angelou. Ostrofsky was watching Angelou on Oprah's show "Master Class" and felt inspired by this challenge:

"Give what you can."

"I can hug. What if I gave that away?" Ostrofsky wrote on her blog.

"The inspiration is that I really want to help people love each other, and I think a hug is the easiest way to do that," she told 9NEWS NOW.

She starting announcing her daily route on Twitter, offering hugs to friends and followers as she went about her day. The hugs made her day and theirs.

"It's actually changed my life a lot. I realized people wanted this more than I knew. I knew going into it I might have to convince people to let me hug them and they are coming to me," she told 9NEWS NOW.

Her challenge to everyone is to start hugging intentionally. She isn't trying to start a hug-a-stranger movement. Instead, she wants those who love each other to learn to express it with a little physical affection.

"We each need to give and receive wholeheartedly. Let go of whatever it was that turned you into a tentative hugger, and hug like you mean it," Ostrofsky wrote.

Watch Ostrofsky deconstruct a hug here.