A Coaching Power Tool By Malindar Jit Kaur, Mindfulness and Wellbeing Coach, MALAYSIA
Judging Eyes vs. Loving Eyes Definition
Why Eyes?
People usually consider walking on water or in thin air a miracle. But I think the real miracle is not to walk either on water or in thin air, but to walk on earth. Every day we are engaged in a miracle which we don’t even recognize: a blue sky, white clouds, green leaves, the black, curious eyes of a child — our own two eyes. All is a miracle. – Thich Nhat Hanh
Wikipedia defines the human eye as a sense organ, part of the sensory nervous system, that reacts to visible light and allows us to use visual information for various purposes including seeing things, keeping our balance, and maintaining circadian rhythm. The eye can be considered a living optical device.
Whether it is the physical eyes or the inner eyes, the eyes are often the gateway for thoughts to travel to the physical body. The eyes act as the capturing mechanism, storing lasting impressions that give rise to choices that we make to react or respond.
The eyes have long been regarded as the mirror of our mental states. St. Augustine famously called the eyes “the windows to the soul”.
Eyes have power. Eyes filled with love, understanding, and acceptance are healing. We are also affected by eyes that radiate disapproval, scorn, or hatred.
What Are Judging Eyes?
When eyes don’t judge ear will listen and heart is kind you can find beauty in just about everything – Naked Mind Quotes
When we see with judging eyes, we enslave ourselves to our past thought patterns on that person who is either in front of us or the visualized version of that person or an incident that sometimes leads us to beat our own selves up.
When we are looking at ourselves with judging eyes, we are stuck with those walls of limitations and we keep complaining, thus resulting in us being surrounded by negativity which eventually affects our own wellbeing. People around us do not feel comfortable, the energy around us drops and negativity spreads easily.
With judging eyes, the impact is huge if we look at the universe. The energy is dark and there is a lot of “litter” if there is a seed of negative emotions like hurt, guilt, fear, embarrassment, despair, and doubt. We as the collective consciousness need to take responsibility for the energy that we bring and not burden Mother Earth with heaviness.
What Are Loving Eyes?
If we really look at our actions with eyes of love, we see that our lives can be more straightforward, simpler, less sculptured by regret and fear, more in alignment with our deepest values – Sharon Salzberg
Loving eyes is an emotion that encompasses a range of strong and positive emotional and mental states, from the most sublime virtue or good habit, the deepest interpersonal affection, to the simplest pleasure.
When we see with loving eyes there is excitement like a child. We live in the present moment, viewing things as new, like a canvass, totally unexplored, we remain curious with a lot of innocence, we experience with openness, filled with opportunities, looking for the beauty, seeing and feeling something different, welcoming possibilities and receiving with an open heart.
With loving eyes, we allow ourselves to grow, improve and learn the lessons easily. Once acceptance comes it is easy to change. Once we become the change that we want to see in the world, there is a domino effect whereby our positivity becomes contagious that it spreads like wildfire. We leave people around us in higher spirits as we share our positive vibes.
What we do at the end of the day has an impact on humanity. With loving eyes, the overall impact is that Mother Earth is clean, light, and full of golden light. We live in gratitude. If we are healthy in our behaviors then as the universe is an extension of us, the universe reciprocates and manifests health.
Judging Eyes vs. Loving Eyes
Close your eyes. Anchor your mind in a particular situation, time and place, and identify a judgment. Ask yourself a question “Is that judgment true?” In the name of love, don’t answer it but rather witness as you meditate on the answer that is shown to you – Byron Katie
There are 4 scenarios:
- The judging eyes see and the mouth reacts with ill words and subsequently either impacts the person in front of you, yourself, or humanity by virtue of diseases or behavioral health issues. Unless you are conscious and curb it at the mouth stage it doesn’t travel to other body parts nor develop into major health issues.
- The judging eyes pick it up but it does not get spoken or either get diffused in the mind via mindfulness practices
- Operate from the loving eyes. This is the ultimate destination where we are fully connected to our authentic self and it is second nature to always look from the loving eyes perspective.
- Keep a little bit of judgment in order to discern and act if something is really amiss
The process: Judging eyes -> forgiveness -> acceptance -> loving eyes
At the end of the day, honor both eyes as this is the opportunity for learning our lessons and changing for the better.
Research shows that our stress hormones soar, and the level of T-killer cells—the cells which destroy invading viruses and bacteria—plummet, within seconds of being criticized or yelled at, or judged.
Hawkins conducted a study on the levels of human consciousness and the energy fields connected to them. Specific energy fields were localized to a range of values that corresponded to sets of attitudes and emotions. Hawkins places the values on a scale of 1- 1000, with 1000 being the highest level of energy. Love is an emotion that emerges from the value of reverence and has a higher energy level, 500/1000. Judgment is not on the table however as it is a seed of many negative emotions, from the chart the energy levels are very low, lesser than 175/1000.
Case Study:
Other people’s actions are the result of their own pain and not the result of any intention to hurt you– Thich Nhat Hanh
Case Study 1:
(Name changed to protect client’s identity)
Sia is a journalist; she recently took a new position in a different organization. She was having difficulty adjusting to her new environment. She felt that her colleagues were looking at her through judging eyes, tracking her progress, and asking for her status updates, resulting in her not meeting her timelines and not performing to her best ability. She became anxious and suffered from some breathing difficulties. As she then continued to also look at herself through judging eyes, her health deteriorated further and she started having panic attacks.
When she came for her coaching session, the coach listened attentively, kept silent, gave empathy, and used a tool of Perceptive Positioning with her. Sia was feeling heavy as she spoke at the beginning. The coach asked Sia to mentally sit on the chair of her colleagues and speak from their perspective. She realized that the intentions of her colleagues were to help her as she was new to the organization. They have a very high team spirit and that’s their modus operandi to care for and guide their team member. When Sia was asked to shift her chair mentally to sit on the Observer chair, she realized how lucky she was to have people who were genuine and wanted to carry the burden with her.
Perceptual Positioning helped Sia to understand how her judging eyes had overshadowed her perception of her colleagues. Sia felt light and her breathing started to normalize as she saw her colleagues and the observers through loving eyes. She mentally sought forgiveness from her eyes, accepted her eyes unconditionally, and re-trained her eyes to see from the loving eyes’ perspective. Sia took some action steps to then be proactive to book her colleague’s time for her own growth and development.
Case Study 2:
(Name changed to protect client’s identity)
Suzy witnessed her elder brother who was educated and holding a high-ranking job, ridicules her younger brother who was less educated with no permanent job. Suzy stood for her younger brother as she felt he was the victim and looked at her older brother with judging eyes. There was an instance that she was so worked up about that lead her not to sleep the night one day as she was upset with her elder brother.
When she came for her coaching session, the coach took a trip down with her to the situation when she was looking at her elder brother with judging eyes. A lot of negativities spun from Suzy as she began reflecting, her tone of voice was fast, her breathing pattern was erratic and she emotionally looked drained. She felt she had to stand up and protect her younger brother. The coach sought permission from Suzy before introducing an exercise, getting Suzy to mentally wear the Loving spectacles in front of her. As she looked from the loving eyes spectacle, she saw her elder brother in a different light. She saw him as weak, unable to contain his emotions, full of ego and he had health issues. Immediately, she came to lightness as she now felt sorry for him. She also realized that her younger brother did not need any protection from her as he was not affected at all in this situation.
Suzy now feels compassionate towards her elder brother while she enjoys switching the spectacles whenever she needs a fresh perspective.
Case Study 3:
(Name changed to protect client’s identity)
Aly had a failed relationship before and just before the lockdown, she met her soul mate. She felt she could be herself with him, he cared and took the extra effort to understand her. Due to the lock-down, she felt she could not progress with the relationship and feared losing it.
When she came to the coaching session, she came with judging eyes, judging herself that she is going to fail again, judging her partner for wanting to walk away from her, and judging the covid situation that has created this hurdle for her.
During the coaching session, the coach connected her to her loving eyes and asked her questions:
- What are the opportunities for the covid situation?
- What are you missing out on?
- What is the additional time given you?
Aly realized that she did want to take this relationship slowly and that the lock-down was a blessing in disguise. She could take the opportunity to get to him more by playing love cards and spending time with him virtually like delivering a cake to him and eating it together via a Zoom date.
The shift to the loving eyes echoed with the powerful questioning helped Aly refocus her perspective, motivate and strengthen her relationship further with her partner.
Judging Eyes vs. Loving Eyes Perspective
Our own life has to be our message– Thich Nhat Hanh
It is so easy for us to look from the judging eyes’ perspective. I met my nephew after so many months due to the lockdown. He was shirtless, the first thing that I said was “Why are you overweight?”. I did not give it two thoughts and just blurted it from my mouth. He was polite and moved on to other topics while I was there for an hour.
The next morning when I sat for meditation, I had a clear vision of the situation, looking at him through judging eyes, now noticing that his facial expressions changed and he was embarrassed. From my eyes, the judgment moved to my mouth, saying judgmental words that impacted my nephew, he looked down as I stared at him through my inner eyes. All of a sudden, my stomach started churning. I noticed that my guilt had traveled down to my stomach. I quickly started connecting to my loving eyes, sent him a lot of love in my meditation, and thereafter wrote him a text, seeking forgiveness citing a promise to not let this happen again, and decided to buy him a shirt and to accept and love him the way he is.
He was so touched that he accepted my apology, got motivated to lose weight, and insisted on a coaching session instead to help him with his goal. He has lost 5 kg’s ever since and he wants to wait for the end of the year when he loses another 5 kgs and then I can buy him a shirt.
Loving eyes have the power to motivate others to become the best versions of themselves. Without my realization, I would have gone on to live with judging eyes and suffered from indigestion while my nephew might have avoided me in the future and continued feeling embarrassed of himself.
Reflections:
- How are you feeling now?
- What are the situations that made you look at judging eyes?
- What are your triggers for judging eyes?
- What if you could look at yourself with loving eyes, what would that be like?
Judging Eyes vs. Loving Eyes Coaching Techniques
The intention of the coach in a coaching session is vital. As coaches, it is important for us to work through our own judging eyes and train ourselves to look through loving eyes. Only then as coaches we can give unconditional positive regard to our clients by providing a non-judgmental space.
The preparation of the coach before the coaching session helps the coach to ground themselves, connect themselves, and set the right intention for the coaching session.
There are many techniques that a coach can use to help a client choose loving eyes over judging eyes.
- Understanding the deeper meaning of the client’s situation
- Shining a light on the client’s feelings, values, and perception of seeing things from the judging eye’s perspective
- Taking the client through a particular situation where they have practiced deep levels of judging eyes
- Taking the client through some mindfulness practices on loving eyes
- Working with the client to come up with their own mission statements
- Using tools of “Perceptual Positioning” by allowing the client to see the situation from different perspectives
- Using a diagram with words of loving eyes vs. judging eyes and asking the client to interpret and apply in the scenario
- Using powerful questioning
Reflections:
- As a coach, what intentions are you setting for the coaching session?
- As a coach, what are your pre-coaching session rituals?
- As a coach, what are your daily practices of loving eyes over judging eyes?
- As a coach, what is yourself-talk?
- What are some questions you could ask your client to shift their perspective from judging eyes to forgiveness to acceptance to loving eyes?
References
Wikipedia, Human Eyes
Loving Eyes, Hurtful Eyes, Miriam Adahan
The Look of Love, Aaron Ben-Zeev Ph.D
Wikipedia, Love
PubMed Central Table, Bayl Univ Med Cent, Jan 2005; (18.1): 84-86, Dr. David Hawkins MD Ph.D. - Power levels associated with states of consciousness and the corresponding key emotion
Your Body Speaks Your Mind, Debbie Shapiro