How to Practice Seeing the Light in Others

"See the light in others, and treat them as if that's all you see." ~ Wayne Dyer

Easier said than done, right? I have been working on this one consciously for a long time, and it's probably one of the most challenging concepts to integrate into my daily experience with any significant consistency (I'm guessing many of you can relate). The context of human relationships, be them intimate, personal, professional or with strangers, tends to be amongst the trickiest to navigate sometimes, wouldn't you agree?

I remember seeing Neale Donald Walsch, the author of the Conversations with God books, speak at an event in my twenties, before I was a coach and before I joined the CwG Team, when I was so hungry for those practical ways to integrate and apply big concepts such as the one above, and he offered a simple practice to help one see and experience the divinity in others, as well as within ourselves.

He invited us, the audience, to simply practice making eye contact with others, even in passing, rather than looking down or looking away. He then took it a step further and asked us to smile at the person we were making eye contact with. THEN he challenged us to do the unthinkable - say hello to them.  The audience laughed, of course, because in theory, these shouldn't be difficult things to do regularly, yet we all knew damn well we didn't do them, at least not nearly enough.

I began practicing this immediately, thinking, "wow, what a great and easy way to do this! I am on it!" ....and quickly became discouraged and disheartened, because out of every person I made eye contact with, smiled and said hello to, about 5% returned the gesture. It seemed I was experiencing the opposite of my intention, I felt even more disconnected and even resentful of these rude humans. ;)

But I persisted, because I had come to trust this Neale fellow over the years and figured he had to be on to something, and it wasn't long before I realized an aspect of this exercise I had been completely ignoring or not even getting:

Making eye contact, smiling and saying hello wasn't about getting a certain response from the other person that would then cause me to see and experience the divinity in others. It was about my own self expression, my own declaration of divinity, that produced the state of being I desired to experience ~ in this case Oneness, Connection and Divinity. In other words, it didn't matter what the other person did in response; when I put the focus back on who I was being while I was doing what I was doing, I was better able to create and access the experience I desired!

These days my "return rate" on eye contact, smiling and saying hello is much higher, but more importantly, my joy in doing it is closer to 100% than ever before. 

And now it's my turn to challenge YOU to see the light in others, and to see it in yourself, by trying this very same exercise, but unlike me several years ago, do it as an expression of your own divinity, give that love and connection and acknowledgment away to others and you will experience the same for yourself instantly. And if you accept this challenge, please hit the reply button and share your experience with me! Or, if you have another way that you actively practice seeing the light in others, I'd love to hear that, too! 

P.S. I've got some awesome opportunities coming up for you to get more alignment, to experience more ease, joy, and flow in all aspects of your life. I'm working on a really good one at the moment that I'll unveil soon, but in the meantime check out my Events page to see what's on the agenda!