You’ve certainly heard the expression in many different contexts before, but if you ever have raised or are raising children – particularly teenagers -- it’s probably fresh on your lips: “Look me in the eyes and tell the truth.”
If you are trying to discover the truth, the eyes really don’t lie. Of course, the key is to be able to fairly and purely read another’s eyes, without bringing in your own preconceived notions.
If I have cleared a path past my desires and fears straight to my intuition, in other words, I am always able to read my teenaged son’s eyes and discover the truth … even the hardest truths.
But if my own concerns or hopes for him are racing around inside me -- if I let my fear that he is recklessly speeding when he drives cloud my ability to hear his answer to me in this regard, for example – I may only see that the motion inside me instead of discovering the truth his words and eyes hold.
Truth is always a two-way street. Truth can only be given when it is also ready to be received.
But the eyes themselves definitely help. More than any other means we have available to us, a pair of eyes gently set upon another pair of eyes can clear straight through both parties’ “rust and crust” – the self-sabotaging emotions and assumptions that build up over time – to both discover the truth and to allow that truth to be discovered.
Seeking honest answers to difficult questions?
The eyes have it.
This is so when the other pair of eyes belong to another, and it is so when the other pair of eyes you are gently staring into are your own.
If you are seeking to find honest answers to some difficult questions inside of you, therefore, the following simple experience is a remarkably effective and powerful a means to discover the truth – including the hardest truths that your “rust and crust” might otherwise be preventing you from facing.
Like all the most powerful experiences, it is simple. It will seem somewhat familiar, as we all have done it subconsciously to some extent. And it may even seem obvious … but of course it is the obvious we most often lose hold of, abandoning what really matters in the process.
So get your hardest questions ready – about the relationships in your life, about your career, about whatever difficult choices you are faced with making – and delve into this experience to discover the truth you are seeking:
1) Stand alone before a mirror, ideally where you can talk to yourself aloud and you don’t have to worry about anyone hearing you. It helps to be naked and not even wearing any make-up; this can subtly help you feel even freer of any false fronts and modified appearances to discover the truth all the more effectively.
2) Look yourself in the eyes. Be kind and gentle about it. Smile at yourself. Make funny faces for a bit to clear the air if you need to. Keep gazing at yourself and try not to let the kind and gentle stare into your own eyes go. At the same time, don’t worry about blinking if you need to blink – this is not a staring contest. Keep your eyes comfortable, blink as much as you need to, as they stare kindly into your eyes.
3) If you have any notion that this is strange or that it “won’t work,” try to let go of it. No one else ever has to know you are doing it if you so choose. And this experience will likely work in a big way – tell yourself as much aloud as you stare into your eyes, “This is going to work, I am finally going to discover the truth, even if it is a hard truth, inside of me.” The beauty of experiences is that they always guide you to something worthwhile inside you, even if it is a small thing, but this experience will work in a big way … tell yourself as much as you look kindly into your eyes. And even if you don’t fully believe it, don’t worry. Continue anyway.
4) Take three deep and intentional breaths, maintaining your gentle gaze at your own eyes in the mirror. When you exhale, feel the doubts and negativity leaving your body, and when you inhale feel the purity and joy flowing in.
5) After the third exhale, while staring gently into your eyes, ask yourself the difficult question (or the first of multiple difficult questions) that you have. For example:
“Are he and I truly meant to be together?”
or
“Why do I really feel so depressed?”
Keep gently staring into your eyes, that is the key, as you hear the responses to your question in your head. Try not to let your stare go, and if you do happen to look away always bring your eyes kindly back to your eyes.
6) Repeat the same question again while still, of course, staring into your eyes. Are you hearing the same answers when you ask again? Or different answers? Does it feel like the truth? Be patient and accepting. Your brain may get straight to the truth, or it may rattle around a while trying to skirt the issue. But your conversation with yourself while maintaining the gaze at your own eyes will draw the truth out. Feel free to discuss the issue, aloud and in more detail, with yourself. Ask other related questions and make related comments to keep the truth coming.
Keep holding your gentle stare as you discuss it. Don’t allow your eyes to divert, don’t allow them to take you into hiding. And if they momentarily succeed in looking away from you, quickly and gently bring them back and continue with your self-questioning.
Asking the questions, having the conversation, and staring gently into your eyes as you do so, you will know when the answers in your head are attempts to bypass the truth. And you will know when you finally discover the truth.
It may be a truth that fills you with joy or excitement, or with fear or sadness, but as long as you are holding your gaze even the hardest truths will come to you.
Try it. Commit to it. You will see it truly is that simple.
On the other hand, if the truths you discovered mean difficult actions must follow if you are to remain true to yourself, you may find that when you look away -- moments to minutes to hours to days after you stop staring into your eyes -- all sorts of self-delusions will try pushing their way back in instead. That part is not always so simple.
So when that occurs go back to the mirror. Go back to the six steps above. Go back to your eyes.
Keep doing so until your actions have had no choice but to follow through to the truth you have discovered.
Even as the rest of you resists, your eyes will never lie to you if you are open to them. Let them guide you.
