The Fire of Eye Contact: A Love Without Agenda

They say the eyes are the window to the soul, but so many people can’t bear to look. Real eye contact, not the social kind, not the glazed over kind—but rooted, present, spirit to spirit connection? It’s rare.

I’ve always yearned for it. As a teenager, I could fall into deep attraction from eye contact alone. It had nothing to do with someone’s physical body. It was about their presence. But these days, people avoid it. We look at screens, past each other, down, anywhere but into. And I didn’t realize how starved my body was for true eye contact until something happened that changed me.

It was during SXSW, at a loud bar-restaurant full of chatter, clatter, and chaos. A man asked me a question that pierced right through the noise. Something about my path, something that mirrored exactly what I was walking through. I told him I was on a healing journey—a spiritual awakening rooted in the deep truth that I am lovable. I shared that I’d long been the caregiver, the one who gave and gave and asked for nothing in return, driven by a buried wound that I wasn’t lovable.

He happened to be a consciousness coach, and gently asked if we could have a moment together—a brief session. I said yes.

Then he looked into my eyes.

And I mean looked.

He asked, “Can we give you love right now?”

I was stunned. Awestruck. Caught off guard in the most tender way.

I said yes. His gaze deepened—not in desire, but in devotion. It felt like he was looking not at me, but into me. Not my body, not my outfit, not my face. But the very core of who I am.

And immediately, the anxiety surged. My body remembered. The walls I had long mastered for protection began to rise. Get the walls up! Hurry up! Don’t fall for this again!

I thought of every time someone gave me loving eyes as a tool to manipulate, disarm, conquer. My heart raced. But he didn’t flinch. He stayed. He whispered gently—something like, “Be here now. Don’t go into the future.”

And then the bar went quiet.

I don’t mean literally, but the sound dropped out. Time softened. We were in a field of presence. I could feel the love in his gaze, and it wasn’t romantic, or performative. It was reverent. Curious. Grounded. Patient.

My nervous system was still bracing, but my intuition told me: This is the fire. Walk through it. So I stayed. I let him see me. The real me. And slowly, I felt my shoulders drop. My breath return. My body began to soften in a way I hadn’t known around men before.

And then he smiled. Not with conquest in his face. But with recognition. Like he saw my spirit and wanted nothing more than to honor it.

A man next to us, who had been in a totally separate conversation, suddenly turned to us and asked, “Is everything okay?”

I was taken aback. My voice was fragile. “Yes… why?”

He said, “I feel sadness from you.”

And he was right.

Because in that moment, I mourned how long I had gone without being seen in this way by a man. Without being looked at with reverence, not expectation. With presence, not performance. I thought about how many people may live their entire lives not having this kind of experience, as I was having it for the first time in my life. That level of depth, of unwavering contact for a prolonged period of time. Where time stood still, but also felt like an eternity simultaneously.

I excused myself, went to the restroom, walked into the stall, and just said “F*ck” over and over. My body needed to recalibrate. My heart had just experienced something profound. I had walked into the white flame and came out of it with a new knowing. And it has stayed with me.

Now I see how essential real eye contact is. How we hunger for it. How much we need to stop talking about connection and actually look at each other. Even for 30 seconds. To let the soul speak. So many people go unseen their entire lives. Not because they’re invisible. But because we’ve forgotten how to look.

Eye contact is presence. It is a medicine. It is a portal. And when we learn to hold each other with our eyes, we begin to heal the wound that says we are alone.

We need this. As a collective. Not as lovers, not as roles. But as humans remembering that love has no agenda—only presence.

And presence can change a life.

It changed mine.