Hello again!
How have you been these past few days?
Remember that phrase,
“The eyes are the windows of the soul”?
We see this so clearly when our children are babies. In those early days they are constantly reaching out to us with their eyes, seeking for connection, excited to see and be seen. Remember that? (or perhaps you have a baby right now, so you don’t need to remember it, you see it every day!)
They are wanting to be seen, and are willing to be seen.
But as they grow, they often accumulate painful feelings on the top of that shiny soul, and at times they may avoid eye contact. You might have noticed that – a time when your baby would look all around the room rather than in your eyes, or when your toddler was running all around the room rather than look in your eyes, your 8 year old with their nose in a book rather than looking in your eyes, and your teenager looking at their iPad rather than your eyes.
And it can often be the same with us. We will often look our baby and toddler in the eyes, but may do that less when our children become older.
And how about with people other than your child/ren? Have you noticed that there are particular times, or with particular people, that you avoid looking in their eyes?
So, why do we avoid eye contact?
Because the eyes are the windows of our soul, we will often avoid it if we don’t want to be seen; but more often, it is that we don’t want to see within ourselves.
When we receive loving connection through the gaze of someone we love, we cannot avoid ourselves. We cannot help but be present with what is really going on for us.
Perhaps you might remember a time when you were really upset, and you were trying to stop the tears coming, and avoiding everyone’s gaze, and then someone you love came up to you, put their hand on your shoulder, inclined their head to look right in your eyes, and asked you how you were? Chances are, you couldn’t stop yourself from sinking into those tears.
The gaze of someone caring helps us be present with ourselves.
That’s also why you might avoid looking at particular people. You might avoid looking at your mother because when you do, you feel uncomfortable feelings related to what happened to you as a child. Perhaps fear, or sadness, or confusion, or anger, or grief.
And perhaps you avoid looking in the eyes of your partner when you are feeling hurt. You’re not wanting to open yourself up to your own feeling sitting inside of you.
And our children are the same. They have so many feelings, about so many things. They feel even the slightest disconnection. They feel overwhelm and fear and sadness and confusion and loss, as well as excitement and joy and wonder and ecstasy!
And because we live in a culture that is very uncomfortable with feelings, and didn’t grow up with parents who were 100% comfortable with every feeling, we learnt to be uncomfortable with certain feelings, and we pass on that discomfort to our babies and children.
I think I’ve shared this story with you before, but I remember being on a plane to Sydney to give workshops, and sitting behind a mum and dad of a very new baby – he looked to be only a few weeks old. And of course babies have big feelings on planes. They exquisitely feel the change in the air, the air pressure, the loud noises, the unfamiliarity, all the people and all the people’s feelings. And like every baby, he wanted to cry, to let out all those feelings and release them from his body. And every time he looked at his mum, he felt her loving presence he would cry.
And every time, she interpreted that he didn’t want to look at her, and kept turning him around to look out of the window, and he would stop crying and the moment. She kept telling him that he didn’t like looking at her.
My heart went out to her, wondering what it was like to think that her baby didn’t want to look at her. My interoperation was completely the opposite – that he felt so loved and safe when he saw her loving face, that he felt deeply seen and able to be completely present with himself, and could feel what was truly going on, to cry to clear his soul clean.
Cry to clear his soul clean.
That’s what we do – adults, babies, children.
When we are seen, we can cry to clear our soul clean.
So, when we all got off the plane, when we were walking along the tarmac, I wanted to offer this lovely mother a seed of a different belief, and said to her, “Isn’t it wonderful that every time he looked at you, he felt so loved by you that he could tell you how he was feeling.” She smiled.
What an amazing gift we give our babies and children, when we show them our everlasting love through our eyes, so that they can be seen and be present with exactly where they are, whether that is in joy or concentration or calmness or sadness.
And what a gift of healing we can give ourselves, to notice where we are avoiding eye contact, and take little (or big) steps to feel into the gaze a bit more, and see what feeling is waiting for us to hear.
So, what can you do?
1. Notice when you avoid eye contact with your baby or child, and take a few seconds to connect with them, and feel the feelings that are inside you. What are you feeling? What are you needing?
2. Notice when your baby, child or teen is avoiding eye contact with you. What can you do to gently, lovingly offer eye connection to them (hint – we need to be present ourselves to offer this!)
3. Notice when and with whom, you avoid eye contact. Take two minutes to gently look at them and feel what bubbles inside of you.
There’s a reason that we gaze into the eyes of our newborn baby, our beloved when we first ‘fall’ in love, and our guru. We are willing to be present with what is present. We are willing to see and be seen. We are willing to truly be with ourselves and be with them.
Are you willing to be present with yourself and the ones you love?
And if so, what one daily commitment could you make to help yourself do this?
As usual, I’d love to hear whether this resonates with you.
AND, I want to share something with you. I now have a mentor, and I had a three-hour session with her last week. It was powerful! In it I told her how uncomfortable I am with the idea of ‘selling’ what I do, and she totally reframed it for me, and told me to “Give more than anyone else gives.” I feel so excited about that, and have written it down on my plan for the year, which I can see every time I sit down at the computer.
So I’m writing a newsletter every day, and I spent the whole weekend (my children were away), from 6am to 10pm, and 3 hours yesterday, creating a free 5-day video and email series called the Love Life More Method for Mothers. I’ve included quick and doable ways to help you love your life more.
So, if you want to join the free series and get some quick but meaningful suggestions for loving your life more, come and sign up.
There’s a Facebook group to join to share our experiences too!
I would so love it if you would join in!
Marion xxx
January 2015