Eye Contact - Day 143

I had a conversation with a student today about a small conflict between her and another student, although in the middle of the conversation I decided a better approach would be to address a behavior I have seen increasing in this student in recent weeks, which is her lack of eye contact with the people to whom she is talking. She does this when she is hurling insults at peers and also when talking to staff. She did not look at me once throughout the entire conversation, until I brought this up and directly asked her to look at me.

Basically I pointed out to her what I noticed (lack of eye contact) and asked her what she thought that meant. She answered that it shows that she is lying. I asked if that is what she believes or if it's what she's been told, and she answered that it's what she's been told. So I asked her what she believes about it. She shrugged and didn't know.

So then I shared with her my own experience with lack of eye contact, saying maybe she would relate, maybe not. I shared with her that sometimes when I am irritable with my mom, for example, I do not look at her. And that for me, this is my way avoiding seeing the other person as a person, thus a way to avoid seeing the impact or effect that I as my behavior or words is having on another person. Basically because I know I am being rude, disrespectful, and pretty much a brat, and I don't want to take responsibility for that, so I just look away. I asked if that made sense and if she related and she said yes. 

I asked her if she would try just looking at me. She did. I asked her how that felt, and to keep looking at me as she answered (she had started to look down again). She kept excellent eye contact and told me that it felt easier, more normal, more free. I was actually not expecting this answer -- I didn't really know what to expect. But it was a really cool answer because it is the same experience I have had when I have challenged myself to actually look at my mom. I'm not so caught up in my mind in my irritability and mood and my self-interest, but am here, present, and able to see that what I have to do in that moment (communicate with another person effectively) really isn't so difficult. 

I demonstrated how I could just look down and all around and be basically thinking the whole time, "god, I don't want to be here, when will this be over? I don't like this, this is stupid," etc., and so basically being in opposition to reality. I pointed out too that within this I know that I am ashamed of myself, that what I am saying or doing may not be entirely true (self-honest), and so I do not want to see myself. When I looked back at her she was still maintaining excellent eye contact, which I thought was really cool. This is the same student who is usually quite receptive when I am able to have these kinds of conversations with her, so it's cool to see that she is not "slipping away" so to speak as the weeks move forward and she becomes more engrossed in the culture of the students, even though her attitude has become much bigger and more oppositional. So when I looked back at her I said, "but reality is right here, you and me, talking right now." 

And even as I was having this conversation with her I saw myself breaking eye contact a lot, which is something I tend to do even when I am not upset / irritated with someone (usually look off in the distance to the right or left of their head, like as if I am thinking, but really a lot of the time it is an automatic effort for relief from the energy I create in eye contact). So then I shared too that sometimes when I am looking at other people, I feel really vulnerable, like they can see all of me. But actually they can always see all of me; I'm right here. It's me who doesn't want to see me; I'm the one who doesn't want to see myself. So I encouraged the student to not close her eyes to herself, that I'm here to support her but mostly to help her learn how to support herself, and that means seeing herself in her totality, all of her beauty and all of her ugliness -- things we all share in common. And I pointed out that she can do this by looking at others -- not necessarily as a mirror, I didn't really touch on that, but simply by not resisting interactions by looking away, thus resisting taking responsibility for who she is in those interactions. 

So I challenged her here. I dropped the original issue of the minor conflict with the other student, stating that moving forward they would just need to try to be cordial and be sure to keep me informed whenever something happened and we would go from there. But in the meantime for this week I asked if she would be willing to focus on her eye contact, and I would check in with her every day. And I especially wanted her to notice the difference that she felt when she looked people in the eye versus when she did not. 

Sometimes it is hard to tell with these students, especially given their prior experiences at this school / with authority to just say "yes sir" or "no sir," to tell if they really understand or are okay with what I am communicating. I'll ask them if they understand, if they have any other questions or anything else they want to share, and often the answer is yes and no respectively. I try to encourage them to be honest and say that it is okay if they do not understand or if they do not agree, so with their continued agreement I can only assume that it is making sense to them. This student seemed to understand what I was saying and seemed very receptive to the concept of seeing herself by literally looking at others. So it was really cool.

Overall today was a really cool day as I had the opportunity to check in again with the other mental health staff first thing this morning, worked on a relevant project with the school psychologist, and had multiple very positive and supportive interactions with multiple students. 

Tomorrow is a brand new day though, so now to move forward with the understanding that every moment is new and the stability and support that I was able to provide today does not just automatically carry over into tomorrow, so to breathe and be present in each moment to provide support for myself and the students. 

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to avoid eye contact with others as a way of avoiding seeing myself. 

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to avoid seeing the impact / effect that my words and actions as me have on another. 

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to basically know how my behavior / words are not self-honest and so to purposely avoid looking at the other person so that I can avoid the humanistic factor of my existence as life, so that I can avoid seeing myself and taking responsibility for myself. 

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to use lack of eye contact as a way to disrespect others and myself and life. 

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to use lack of eye contact as a way to maintain my participation within and as my mind as my reactions, emotions, back chat, and other energetic experiences. 

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to not want to face or see myself because I know that I will not like what I will see.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to know that I will not like what I see as who I am and then to perpetuate that behavior as my participation in / creation of it, also maintaining ignorance of it by not turning to look at it / myself / another. 

I forgive myself for not accepting or allowing myself to listen to myself when I realize that I do not like who I am, that who I am is not self-honest or self-responsible, that who I am is disrespectful, rude, or even bratty. 

I forgive myself for not accepting or allowing myself to take that realization as a cue to look at and change myself. 

I forgive myself for not accepting or allowing myself to use eye contact to support myself to co-exist in co-operation with the person with whom I am interacting. 

I forgive myself for not accepting or allowing myself to use eye contact with another as a way to assist and support myself in seeing myself.

I forgive myself for not accepting or allowing myself to use eye contact with another as a way to align myself within the principle of equality and oneness through self honesty and self responsibility.

I forgive myself for not accepting or allowing myself to use eye contact as a way to walk out of my mind and into reality, being present in reality as what I am doing within interaction with another person.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to use breaking eye contact as a way to relieve the tension that I create in my mind when I hide from myself and participate in my energetic experiences of negativity and opposition. 

I forgive myself for not accepting or allowing myself to use eye contact as a way to communicate with greater ease, which I have experienced as being the case when I allow myself to use eye contact.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to try to hide from others and thus myself by my lack of eye contact.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to feel vulnerable when I keep eye contact with another person. 

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to become anxious, nervous, and even panicked when I maintain eye contact for extended periods of time, because I feel vulnerable and become concerned that I will say something stupid or start to think about what the other person thinks of me.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to become anxious when I maintain eye contact with the thought/energy that "I don't want to be here" and "I want to hide" and "when will this be over? can this please just be over?"

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to create pressure in and on myself about who I am in interactions where when I maintain eye contact I feel that pressure to be a certain way, begin to second-guess myself even as I am acting/speaking, and thus doubt myself in the moment of self-direction through participation in my mind as an anxious reaction to eye contact.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to want to hide from others and hide from myself when I am interacting with another and maintaining eye contact, because I  become embarrassed and self-critical and doubt myself.

I forgive myself for not accepting or allowing myself to push through that self-created discomfort when I am maintaining eye contact and to continue to maintain eye contact to support myself to stay present in reality.

I forgive myself for not accepting or allowing myself to utilize my breath to support myself in maintaining eye contact even through energetic reactions / experiences. I forgive myself for not accepting or allowing myself to utilize my breath to bring myself back into my body to fully utilize my vision as eye contact as another connection to the here and now of reality. 

I forgive myself for not accepting or allowing myself to support myself to see others as a mirror / reflection of myself through the use of eye contact.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to block out / blind myself to the fact that other people are mirrors / reflections of me, that we are one and equal, through my lack of eye contact. 

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to hide from myself through my lack of eye contact.

I forgive myself for not accepting or allowing myself to see, realize, and understand that when I feel vulnerable in making eye contact with another, my fear is not really about the other, but about me, and fearing what I will see of myself by maintaining eye contact.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to fear the ease and freedom that comes with actually assisting and supporting myself and actually taking responsibility for myself, because within this there are no more limits, no more boundaries, no more excuses, but only me and who I am in each breath.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to fear taking responsibility for myself. 

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to fear being limitless.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to fear being boundless.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to fear being unconditional in my self support, self responsibility, self respect, self trust, and self love. 

When and as I see myself avoiding eye contact because of my mood, I stop and I breathe. I realize that here I am avoiding seeing myself in self-honesty because I already recognize that who I am in that moment is not who I should be if I were to take responsibility for myself. I commit myself to establish and maintain eye contact at that point, to see what I can see, to support myself to direct myself in physical reality as myself and another interacting, to support myself to align myself within and as the principle of equality and oneness, and to support my relationships through taking responsibility for who I am in reality. 

When and as I see myself avoiding eye contact because I feel vulnerable, anxious, or fearful, I stop and I breathe. I realize that here I am again avoiding seeing myself as who I am reflected by another, and I am avoiding the ease and freedom of expressing myself freely as who I am, I am avoiding the functionality of absolute self-support and self-responsibility. I realize that I am afraid of being accountable, and I am afraid of success because I am afraid of failure. I commit myself to establish and maintain eye contact at that point, to see what I can see, and support myself in walking through fear and vulnerability as merely self-created energetic experiences, not reality, and so to direct myself to maintain eye contact as a way to establish myself in reality in the physical experience of myself and another interacting with the realization that I am here one and equal to and as what I am doing and who I am with, and so to look away is to abdicate my responsibility, and to abdicate my responsibility is to automatically fail and also to imprison myself within my mind as my energetic experiences.