MAKE POWERFUL EYE CONTACT

2. Energy Leads, Body Follows: Why is it so difficult to maintain eye contact? Why is this thing such a big mystery to some people? And why does it come so naturally to others? We've been taught for those who have tried to learn to maintain eye contact for a little bit. I've done my fair research. We have been taught that eye contact is about holding it and maintaining it. Before you don't wait, it becomes a staring contest. We try to do this thing where like we just make our eyeballs stay still. And we believe that it's about not moving the muscles of the eyes. Then like everything else, just like tenses, we try to hold it. But as we're holding it, the only thing that we can really think about is like holding the position of our eyes. Isn't this weird? So it starts to feel really awkward and it becomes the only thing that we're really thinking about. When we try to push ourselves to communicate and look at others before your body is relaxed and at ease. A lot of times your eyes are going to be for the first thing to give away how you really feel. It's going to tell people how shy you are, is going to tell people how intimidated you are. Going to tell people how uncomfortable you are, how shy, how afraid, how terrified you are, all these feelings that you don't want people to know. It's going to come through your eyes or it's going to come through the forcefulness of your eyes. What is it about? What is, what is it about eye contact really, then that makes it so natural for some people. The truth is when we become the conversation and when we are connected with our body. So when we are not disconnected with our body and we truly feel safe to be in our body, allowing ourselves to tap in and connect with the, with our energy and emotions first, our eyes or actions, or gestures or movements is going to follow. What actually has to set the, set the pace of the conversation is our energy, is our connection with our body, is the feeling of safety of like, Okay, I'm safe right now. I'm in this environment right now. I'm with this person right now. I'm having this conversation right now. This is how I feel. I am breathing, I'm feeling safe. I'm connected with my body, I'm connected with my emotions, I'm checked in. Then your body is going to follow. Instead of pushing your body out there and be like, No, you do it. Your body is going to feel this like flop. Okay. You just like forced me into doing it when I don't feel comfortable, I don't feel safe, I don't feel secure now he's just like forced me to look into the eyes of other people and you're telling me to speak or listen or to be present? No, I'm not ready for that. That is when your eye contact becomes really forceful, an awkward to practice groundedness in your body. First of all, what we want to do, and this is going to be your first practice. We're going to, we're going to ground ourselves now this is not about taking it slow. It's not about how many seconds or minutes have passed. It's not about counting thirty-seconds. It's about taking up all the space and time you need for your body to feel connected back with yourself. It's like a very different feeling. Instead of just telling yourself I've already counted ten seconds now, ten seconds have passed now, like I feel the pressure now I need to speak. It's not about that. It's not about the time. It's about feeling like okay. I feel I feel safe. I feel connected. I've taken a couple of breaths to myself. I know how I feel. I know why I'm doing this. I know why I'm saying this. Instead of rushing and pushing your body into doing something that it's not ready to do or it doesn't want to do. Allow yourself, allow your energy to speak for itself. Allow your energy to connect with your body first so that when you feel safe, then your eyes are going to relax and then your neck is going to relax. And then your body is going to follow. Instead of doing it the other way around, pushing your body, forcing your body to do into something that is only going to cause resistance. I look forward to hearing and reading your reflections in the commas as you integrate this practice, this is going to be very, very simple. First practice that you're going to do is to learn to ground yourself before anything. I look forward to hearing from you and seeing you. 3. Lead with Connection: The second most common reason why it's actually so hard to maintain eye contact is because we already prejudge that forcing eye contact is awkward, that we've already pre judged ourselves. And so all those time that we have tried to maintain eye contact, we've been consistently telling ourselves how awkward and how weird it is. Then as we judge ourselves, as we tell ourselves like, Oh, this is so awkward or what I'm doing is so awkward, maybe I feel really creepy. It's going to generate more of that feeling. What is it really about? It's about allowing those judgments to go. It's about dissolving those judgments. It's about knowing that you can actually be really natural in your presentation. You can be really natural and your connection, you can be really enthusiastic and engaged in what you have to say or what, or what other people have to say. That you're not actually thinking about eye contact, allowing yourself to release those judgments. It's like kind of like having a judgment detox and stop putting that label on yourself as creepy or weird because of your past and pleasant experiences around holding eye contact is going to allow you to really just stopped entertaining those feelings stuff, entertaining those dialogues that you have with yourself. And really allow yourself to immerse yourself, to be engaged in the story. Allow yourself to be immersed in what's really happening in the world of others. What's real? What is that person really telling you or what is it? What is it that you really care to communicate as you're talking and speaking and just allow yourself to be completely lost in the moment. It's like allow yourself to be in a state of flow when you stop entertaining those things that you feel like are confining you. And just be the conversation and become the conversation. This whole experience, It's about allowing yourself to communicate and connect deeper. And the more you allow yourself to communicate and connect deeper, the less you're paying attention to things that don't actually matter. The second piece of practice that we're going to do together, do, do another grounding for yourself before you go back out into the world and talk to people, or do your next presentation is ask yourself, can this be a moment of pure connection? As I am showing up in the world again, as I am having a conversation with a person, again with a parent, with my kids when my friends, with my colleagues and work. Can this be a moment? Not of formality, not of politeness. Not just work exchange, not an exchange of value. But ask yourself, can this be a moment of heart-to-heart, soul to soul, consciousness to consciousness, thought to thought. Do you feel the difference? Because a lot of times we feel like the conversation has to be transactional. It's like I have to give you something, I have to give you my attention. I have to give you something valuable. And then in return, you're in the conversation, you're replying something to me and then that's how our relationship is built. But if I make this moment, nothing else but a moment of connection. That's all there is. If you allow yourself to just take a moment of breath to yourself, a moment to ground yourself. Remind yourself that this is a moment of connection. Hard to heart, soul, the soul, nothing else. That's all there is. Let me know how this feels. As you finish this moment of grounding. And as you go back into the world and connect with other people, I would love to hear your feedback and your experience on this grounding, grounding practice. I will see you on the next video. 5. Letting People In Again: How are you guys so far? I want to check in a little bit and make sure that you guys are all following along. Because in this section, we're going to dive a little deeper. We're going to look into things that aren't exactly glamorous. Maybe are going to bring up some icky feelings for you if you have followed me this far. Congratulations. We have some more exciting work to do. This is where the real work is going to happen. If you're willing to sit with yourself and allow yourself to take yourself through this experience. This is going to be at, so eye-opening and heart-opening for you. You're ready. Okay. We've talked about being present with other people. We've talked about grounding ourselves, not rushing ourselves. We've talked about accepting the parts where we're afraid, accepting our insecurities, accepting all the parts of us that we don't want people to see. And so really just like dissolving those difficulties and allowing ourselves to meet other people with their compassion, with their understanding and where their love. And we've talked about this far. Now, we are going to learn to lead people in. Again. This is the hardest part of the past. We've all had experience of people shaming us. Guilt in us, making us feel bad, making us feel bad if our creative ideas telling, telling us that we didn't do good enough, telling us that aren't intentions are bad. Perhaps. It's really hurt us on the inside. And as a result of that, we have learnt to just like put on a shield and not let people in a physical setting. It would be easy to deny people access to, just shut the door or put on some headphones to shut people out, or to leave a place or to leave an environment. It would be really easy to do that in a physical setting where you can actually shut people out. But the way that we've shut people out when we have no other choice but to stand in front of people. When we are having a conversation with people who are making a presentation in front of a group is that we shut people out with our eyes. Either. If you're afraid, if you feel unsafe with other people, you think that there's gonna be a lot of judgment coming through. It's going to manifest in you always looking elsewhere, trying to find your thoughts. Or if I'm trying to find your words or as going to manifest in like blinking a lot because that's your way That's your your body's way of like your last line of defense is your body's way of protecting you. And it's totally understandable. It's totally okay. But today we're going to address that because if we don't look at other people or we avoid the eye contact, then people can't come in to our private space. People can't come into intimate space and hurt us with their judgments, with In thoughts, with their criticism, with the things that we hold against ourselves. This is our way of just protecting the most delicate part of us, which is our heart, our feelings or emotions. It's totally reasonable. Sometimes we even, sometimes we could even have thoughts like, why would people even want to connect with me? Like nobody, nobody wants to connect with me. I just want to show them the side that I want them to see, that it's all okay So that they cannot judge me. They cannot see past this. This cannot see password. I allow them to see. So what do we do about that? How exactly do we let people in? How exactly do we feel safe around that again, when we want to learn to trust other people, we first have to learn to trust ourselves. It is about learning to feel safe to have other people in your world. Because people, one thing that I want you to know is that people actually crave connection just as much as you crave it. This is the truth. People want to have connection with you just as much as you want to have connection with other people. It's just it become really good at denying it and not admitting it. Because what if I tell people that I want to connect with them? Wonderful, I tell people. What if I show people that I'm interested in them? Or what if I show people that I'm intrigued in their story and they're not intrigued in mind, then lo and behold, I'm going to be really hurt. My feelings are going to be hurt. So it would be really natural for me to just push them aside or put them at an arm's distance and not be interested at all so that I am protected. To open ourselves to other people Is is asking ourselves. I know that first of all, I know that this is a defense mechanism that I've held against the world to protect myself. I want to ask myself, can I safely like people in again? Is it possible asked your body that week for an answer. This is going to be your practice and your reflection for today. Can I safely let people in again? And if the answer is no, then you can use a lighter version. A lighter version that feels better for you, that feels easier for you, that feels more approachable for you. Can I learn or find the ways to learn to let people in again? If I'm not ready to open up yet, That's okay. Can I learn the means? Can I at least be curious enough to explore? If you receive the answer is yes from the inside. Then ask yourself, what part of the protector and the Guardian within me I willing to let go of or can I gently lower down? What part of my guard? Can I gently lower down? If you're receiving a no absolute DO and your body's like, I don't want to do that. I don't want to go where it's not safe. I'm not ready yet. That's okay. We can always come back to this later as you just follow along with a process and we can come back to this later and revisit this. As long as you are gentle to your body, as long as your gentle to yourself, as long as you're a kind, empathetic and loving to yourself, this is all that matters in this process. 6. You’ve Got Nothing To Prove: I want to ask you how many times have you received advice around looking more confident, improving yourself to be more confident and sounding more confident by maintaining eye contact. Now, here's where the tricky thing really happens is the proving part. And today we're going to talk about the proven culture. Why is it so important for us to prove? Who are we trying to prove? What are we even trying to prove? These are some of the questions I want to be asking you because a lot of times we feel like we need to show that we're confident are we need to prove that we're confident in order for people to believe in us. Now, there is some level of truth when we're confident about what we say. When we believe in what we say, then people are gonna be more likely convinced and people are going to be more likely listening, more attentive to us. But when it comes to this place of proving and showing and making ourselves do things or like maybe save maintaining eye contact, for example. When we really don't feel like it, then it's going to come from a place of like, I feel so bad about myself, but I cannot show it and I just have to look confidence. So I've got a force the eye contact, that's where it's really coming from. What do we do about that? Because we don't want to ever do it for the sake of proving that we're confident. We don't ever want to do it for the sake of showing acting and for ten days. Because this is not about pretending was just about sharing your connection with other people. It's just about being yourself. It's all about being comfortable in your own skin. It's all about using your truest voice, your body, without trying to prove anything to anyone, as long as you know that you and your story and your message is aligned with yourself. That's all. Nothing else. Nothing else. So how do we get out of this? Now, I'm going to share a practice with you. This is going to be my gosh, I'm so excited about this practice. By the way, this is a set of affirmations and I would love for you to print this out, stick this in somewhere like you can visibly see every day and practice. Now I want you to really feel into the power and the potency behind these words because they're not just words, you don't just murmur them. These are powerful affirmations and the more that you're able to feel it in your body, the more you feel your chest beating as you're saying these words, the more you feel the alignment with these words and more than disbelief is going to sink into your system. And it goes a little like, I am, the way I am. Got nothing to prove. This is how I show up. I love who I am being. I am fine being just me. Just as I am. You can put music, you can put rap music. You could put it like motivational music, like behind as you're reading, are repeating or reciting this to yourself and practicing this yourself, because this is where your energy gets redefined as you're saying these words to yourself when you find this new resonance into your body and feel the deliciousness of the power of u rising. That's all for today's video. I'm, I'm so excited to hear your feedback and your comments on how you feel about practicing this and what comes through for you, how you feel after you practice these affirmations. And I cannot wait to see you in the next video. 7. Command what people see: Welcome to this video. I am excited for this one because this is going to be ISO up leveling for you. One of the reasons why, and I feel like one of the biggest reasons why we avoid eye contact is because we have this assumption that the other person who are listening to us are more right than us, are more qualified than us. They're better than us there that are people than us. They're more experience than us. Like fill in the blank, whatever that measurement is for you. It's very individual but like, it's this feeling of like I'm less worthy than the other person on whatever scale that you put on yourself. And we assume that other people are already measuring US. It's like they're like gauging. How good is that person? This is like a huge part of the avoidance of looking into the eyes of other people. And today we're going to talk about realizing that our truth is our truth. And really like celebrating our worthiness because this is where the power really lies. This is where the magic really lies. This is where it's going to be really potent, is when we finally release, release the judgment, release this bar, this measurement, this gauge, this ruler that we use to measure ourselves. This is how we find our worth back. And when we actually feel filled up with our worthiness, we no longer avoid gazing into the eyes of other people because we are not more or less worthy. And then, what do we need to realize? That our truth is the truth, our truth is our truth. That the more we celebrate our worthiness In our truth, the more our power shines, the more people will celebrate with us. One thing that really comes to our attention is that we actually need to stop judging ourselves. We actually need to just release this judgment we have upon ourselves. How do we go about doing that? Because a lot of times this is going to happen very unconsciously. It's going to happen like, just like in the back of our minds. How do we actually stopped judging ourselves when we first have to acknowledge that there is this judgment in the first place, what do you judge yourself about? Are you aware? What is that judgment? Are you judging yourself for not working hard enough or you judging yourself or not having enough qualifications? Are you judging yourself for being a bad mom? Are you judging yourself or not giving enough time for your health or your family or your hobbies. What is that judgment? When you can identify that, then you go into place of asking yourself. By the way, I'm going to put all these in the document which you can download so you can revisit these questions with or without the video. Then you ask yourself, what's going to happen. If I stopped judging myself? I'm going to start accepting myself. Is it okay to accept myself? Is it okay? Is it safe to stop judging myself? If I start accepting myself, that I'm gonna start loving myself more of I started loving myself more than I'm actually going to think that I'm okay. If i think that I'm okay there, maybe I'm going to actually do the things that I want to do. You go through the process of asking what's going to happen is I stopped judging myself and then you find out what's the answer. What does your heart have to reveal for you? What can I stop judging myself for? What can I stop making myself feel bad for? Is it safe? And ask yourself, is it safe to stop judging yourself? These are the reflection questions. But I also want to help you anchor this in this piece of self celebration. Because there's self celebration is like, Oh my gosh, I'm gonna go into the world. It's so, I'm so amazing. I'm so amazing my connection with people, so amazing. I feel great about myself. I cannot wait to connect with other people and fuel amazing together. Like that is the whole point. So we're going to use two different practices here to help you anchor this end. The first one is to fill in the worksheet. Into this practice. We are going to we're going to have you fill in the blanks of this worksheet every time when you when you go through these affirmations, as you fill in the blank, you will feel more into your power and more. The cell, It's the self celebration is going to come more naturally to you. So this is how the ground and goes. This is how it sounds. I let go of the need to judge myself for fill in the blank. The blank is where you fill in. I let go of the need to make myself feel bad by fill in the blank. I let go of the need to diminish myself by convincing myself that I am. Fill in the blank. Today. I celebrate myself. I am worthy just because I'm more of the, I don't need to prove myself worthy. I just didn't like saying this just feels so good. I feel so amazing about fill in the blank. I'm going to celebrate me. And I'm going to celebrate the fact that I'm celebrating me. As you complete this exercise, you're going to fill in with whatever it is, whatever judgment is that you allow yourself to release, release from your world, release from our consciousness. It's like this is no longer serving me. I celebrate myself and this is going to give you a whole new surge of very pure, authentic confidence that actually comes from self love, not from a place of proving, but a place from self celebration. The second practice that you are going to do is now I'm going to have you write what you want people to see in your eyes. This is a final piece and this is going to be your command. It's like, it's almost like you're commanding the world of how they see you. And you're commanding what people will see through your eyes. So you're going to design this, you're going to write this and complete these affirmations. And you're going to practice this as well. And you're going to integrate this with all the affirmations and visualize that you're practicing. And you can always, always come back into this. What you're gonna do is fill in the blanks of what people see in your eyes. I'm going to give you two examples. When you look into my eyes. You see my courage. When you look into my eyes, you see my passion. Or when you look into my eyes, you see my history. When you look into my eyes, you see that I'm a strong fighter. You get what I'm saying. So if you have any questions around this exercise, particularly, you can let me know in the comments and we can work with, we can work out the details. What's really important about this exercise is that whatever it is that you command, other people will see through your eyes, is what you want them to see is what you want them to feel when you make eye contact with them. It doesn't need to be it doesn't mean to be aggressive. It doesn't need to be like that doesn't mean you don't need to feel superior than other people. It's the whole purpose of letting people know that this is how you will see me, this is how you will respect me. This is how I want to be seen. And you literally declaring to the world, you, you're radiating that energy into the world. But this, this is what people will experience when they look into your eyes and the gaze into your eyes, when they dive into your soul and when you share your heart with them, this is what they will see an experience. I hope you love these exercises. I hope you love this. All these tips, exercises and tackling of the false beliefs, let me know what you feel about this exercise and keep updating me on your journey. I'll see you in the next video. 8. Share your experience with us!: This is like the last and final video, and I don't want to say goodbye. But this class, this course has come to an end. And I hope you guys enjoyed it as much as I enjoyed creating it for you guys. I really hope that this has helped you so much. And I know that at whatever place you are in your communication, in your relationships, in your career, in your life. I know that this is going to change so much for you. And one thing that I do want to remind you is to be easy on yourself. Because a lot of times we're like, it can be so easy to expect us to change over night. But one of the biggest things that I've learned around like self-development and healing and becoming a more empowered version of yourself is like you've got to be empowering to yourself first. Like don't beat yourself up. Really like be your best cheerleader if you are the kind of person who is a little more laid back, you need to take a little more time. You needed to spend a little more time for healing and releasing, letting go. Like it's totally okay. If you're ready to go like hyper speed, you want to go fast than like, you know, take these resources and get some help or get some support. I congratulate you for having gone through every single one of these videos with bringing, having done the homework. Oh my gosh. Like the dedication, you guys, the dedication is good because I know that there's some of you who are like really, really serious about this, who are really passionate about just like deepening connections and better in yourself and just wanting to get the most out of your connections, your relationships in your life. I truly, deeply hurt. I celebrate you, super happy for you. If you guys want to connect outside of Skillshare, then I am at multiple platforms. I'm going to leave all my details down below. I have you to channel. I've Instagram and I am on Facebook. I also run a private Facebook group called one-in-a-million. It's like all of that self-expression. We cover like things that are also outside of maintaining eye contact and communication. It's all about like being a your most expressed self, which is really, really fun. I am also open for taking on private coaching clients. So if you are the kind of person who's like, Oh my gosh, like Yunus understands what I'm going through and I like her energy and I want to work with her then feel free to reach out to me. And we can talk about how this is going to work. That is all for you guys. I'm super, super excited to create more of these amazing content. If you guys have any suggestions, let me know in the comments in the class discussion. And I can be like creating more of these fascinating material for all of you. I cannot wait to see you in the next class. Thank you for following me. Thank you for being here. Thank you for deepening yourself and doing the work and making yourself in the world a better place. Thank you. I will talk to you.