How many unfamiliar faces have you looked into in the last 24 hours and distinctly remember one in particular? Why that particular one? Can you describe the face-in detail? Let’s take a small test:

      What color were the eyes? Blue, green, brown, hazel? Did they express interest, happiness, patience, caring, anger, impatience, sadness, fear, uncertainly?

      A magnitude of emotions can be expressed in a person’s eyes when he is speaking, depending on what exposure he is/was confronted with and the emotions can easily be interpreted by an observant person. Yet, for some of us looking deep into another’s soul (their eyes) is extremely difficult. Why? For many of us we simply do not have the desire to delve into another person’s soul in that we might feel uncomfortable with the knowledge of what emotion(s) lie there. Our feelings may be as simple as ‘I don’t have the time or the interest’ or as complex as being unable to deal with another person’s emotional concerns at the particular time.

      Have you ever lightly touched another’s arm-indicating the desire to have them look at you—into your eyes for a face to face, eye to eye discussion, only to have the person divert their eyes and only later you probably wondered why their apparent lack of interest? Even among couples with long relationships eye to eye discussions appear to be a rare occurrence which can and does provide fertile ground for misunderstandings. We too often talk to the backs of others and wonder why we were not understood! Of course, maintaining eye contact without making the other person feel intimidated, regardless of the situation, is plain old common courtesy.

      The art of giving someone who is speaking to you the gift of your undivided attention is always the gift of looking into the speaker’s eyes with interest of what they are saying to you. The look contained therein will convey meaning for you long after the spoken words are forgotten. From a child, we have been admonished-"Look at me when I’m talking to you."

© 2006 Lesney Anderson All Rights reserved