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A Practice is an activity that you do repeatedly to awaken and deepen some part of yourself. It’s also a great way to embody a skill or competency.
Interested in a simple, yet very powerful way to improve your intimacy and connection in all of your relationships?
Great! Let’s explore the practice of making good eye contact*. Now, maybe you already feel you do a good job in this area. Are you willing to find out? Are you willing to try something simple to see how it improves your relationship with yourself and others? It takes courage to take this practice on, but I KNOW you have the courage to do it!
This practice – like most – requires a willingness to EXPERIMENT and be playful. It’s about trying something new, intentionally, and seeing what happens. How fun! So, I invite you to try out the practice over the course of a week and just see what happens.
Let’s get started with a self-observation exercise to learn how you currently relate to others with eye contact.
Self-Observation / Observing Others Exercise
For the next two days, when you are having an in-person conversation, just notice if you tend to look them in the eyes or if you tend to avoid eye contact. If you avoid eye contact, where do your eyes go instead? If you do make eye contact, is it only for a short period of time and then you look away?
How do you feel when you are looking them in the eye? How is this different from when you look away while speaking with them? Do you tend to look some people in the eyes and not others? If you do, what might that be about?
Also, notice the other person. Do they look you in your eyes when they are speaking with you? Or do they look away? What might this mean about them? About you? What might this mean about your relationship with them?
What have you concluded from these observations? About yourself? About others? About the importance of eye contact?
The Practice
Now that you are familiar with your current way of relating to others with your eyes, let’s have you intentionally practice making eye contact with another when you are speaking with them.
Anytime that you are having an in-person conversation with another person, look them in the eyes while speaking with them. As you do this, notice the impact it has on your relationship with this person. How do you feel when you do this? How does it impact the other person? Does it enhance or hinder your ability to connect with this person? If it is an intimate relationship, does it actually improve your intimacy with this person?
Be patient with yourself! If you’re not use to good eye contact when speaking with someone, this may feel awkward for awhile. So, I invite you to do this practice for a good solid week with someone that you speak to on a regular basis and see what happens! It will take repetition to create powerful new results – so don’t do it only once and quit.
The objective of Relationship Fitness Online is to transform the health of your relationships. How has this practice helped your relationships to be healthier? You can share your experiences around this practice by submitting a comment below. I’d love to hear from you!
*NOTE: I recognize that making strong eye contact is not an acceptable practice in some cultures. If that is true in your culture, of course, please disregard this practice.
Filed under: Practices and Self-Observation Exercises
