Develop loving eyes

A colleague shared this quote with me recently.

It’s quite profound, however one thing I know is that when we are in a distressed relationship and we have cares and concerns that are not met with love it’s very difficult to offer from a place inside something our partner doesn’t see in us – or even if we do our partner doesn’t recognize it.

Never-the-less, here’s the quote.

It is a startling truth that how you see and what you see determine how and who you will be.  An interesting way of beginning to do some interior work is to explore your particular style of seeing.  Ask yourself, What way do I behold the world? [What way do I behold my spouse? Or myself?]  Through this question you will discover your specific patterns of seeing.

To the fearful eye, all is threatening.  When you look toward the world in a fearful way, all you see and concentrate on are things that can damage and threaten you.  The fearful eye is always besieged by threat.

To the greedy eye, everything can be possessed…. It is sad that a greedy person can never enjoy what they have because they are always haunted by that which they do not yet possess…. The motor and agenda of greed is always the same.  Joy is possession, but sadly possession is ever restless; it has an inner insatiable hunger.  Greed is poignant because it is always haunted and emptied by future possibility; it can never engage presence….

To the judgmental eye, everything is closed in definitive frames.  When the judgmental eye looks out, it sees things in terms of lines and squares.  It is always excluding and separating, and therefore it never sees in a compassionate or celebratory way.  To see is to judge.  Sadly, the judgmental eye is always equally harsh with itself.  It sees only the images of its tormented interiority projected outward from itself….

To the resentful eye, everything is begrudged.  People who have allowed the canker of resentment into their vision can never enjoy who they are or what they have.  They are always looking out toward others with resentment…. The resentful eye lives out of its poverty and forgets its own inner harvest.

To the indifferent eye, nothing calls or awakens…. It is said that indifference is necessary for power; to hold control one has to be successfully indifferent to the needs and vulnerabilities of those under control.  Thus indifference calls for a great commitment to nonvision.  To ignore things demands incredible mental energy.  Without even knowing it, indifference can place you beyond the frontiers of compassion, healing, and love.  When you become indifferent, you give all your power away.  Your imagination becomes fixated in the limbo of cynicism and despair.

To the inferior eye, everyone else is greater.  Others are more beautiful, brilliant, and gifted than you.  The inferior eye is always looking away from its own treasures.  It can never celebrate its own presence and potential.  The inferior eye is blind to its secret beauty.  The human eye was never designed to look up in a way that inflates the Other to superiority, nor to look down, reducing the Other to inferiority.  To look someone in the eye is a nice testament to truth, courage, and expectation.  Each one stands on common, but different, ground.

To the loving eye, everything is real.  This art of love is neither sentimental nor naive.  Such love is the greatest criterion of truth, celebration, and reality.  Kathleen Raine, a Scottish poet, says that unless you see a thing in the light of love, you do not see it at all.  Love is the light in which we see light.  Love is the light in which we see each thing in its true origin, nature, and destiny.  If we could look at the world in a loving way, then the world would rise up before us full of invitation, possibility, and depth.

The loving eye can even coax pain, hurt, and violence toward transfiguration and renewal.  The loving eye is bright because it is autonomous and free.  It can look lovingly upon anything.  The loving eye does not become entangled in the agenda of power, seduction, or complicity…. It rises above…blame and judgment, and engages experience at the level of its origin…. The loving eye sees through and beyond image and effects the deepest change…. To recognize how you see things can bring you self-knowledge and enable you to glimpse the wonderful treasures your life secretly holds.

— From “Anam Cara” by John O’Donohue © John O’Donohue. All rights reserved. For more information go to http://www.johnodonohue.com

What O’Donohue is missing is that we need a loving eye from our partners as much as our partner needs it from us. And, if we have eyes that are anything but loving, we have them for good reason.

In addition, we need to be able to not just see with love, but talk and experience love when we share hurts, to really connect at deep emotional levels.

We have to learn how to do these things – because we aren’t taught them in our families of origin. We aren’t taught it’s okay to need emotional acceptance, comfort and safety. Even if we know we need it, we don’t know how to communicate it in such a way that our partners can respond lovingly to us. We don’t know how to figure out where the reactivity and our  ’false self’ ends and where our ‘true self’ begins.

We all long to have our true self be present operating in our marriage. No one enjoys being worried, mad, walled off, or upset!

That’s what this blog and my Marriage Transformation Program is all about – learning how to share, what to share and how to see and be seen. It’s a systematic program, based on years of experience and work in helping couples heal and save their relationships. It’s a program I created for myself and my marriage, so I know it works. But, I digress…

So, more on that later, for now…what do you think of the quote?

Please leave you comment.