Looking / Gazing by周華欣

The first topic that fascinated me was the act of looking. I remember Mr. Nelles saying, when we look at people, we feel they are the passive objects being looked at. In fact, WE are the objects, not the subjects. What we believe to be innocent, unknowing objects send subliminal signals to us that demand a gaze. And we oblige.
For unknown reasons, I was very much drawn to the idea of “looking/gazing” (note: as to that “subliminal signals” sent by the object of our gaze, and the mutual relationships underlying the gaze, I can’t grasp it…), due largely to my personal experience. When I interact with people, I watch and withhold. I take in the subtle movement of the body, the elusive expression that flashes through the face. Then I size them up – their temperament, the level of intellect, sensitivity, etc.

Sometimes the act of looking (or observing, in the more practical situation) helps me a lot. For example, when I sit in the middle of a company meeting, I’m used to looking back and forth at my boss and other managers. Their silent gaze upon one another provides me with far more powerful, penetrating information that characterize their relationship than spoken words (I need that knowledge to survive!). But other times, gazing can be a rather meaningless distraction and only serves to satisfy my desire to feel superior to the object of gaze.
This habit of observing and standing back may have far more severe consequence than being judgmental and narcissist. It “de-humanizes” the person that I lay eyes upon. Instead of seeing the person as a human being, an equal of my own, I see him/her as an object to be studied, analyzed and taken apart. This cuts me off from humanity. And recognizing humanity - along with its limitations, I guess - is the first step towards acceptance.
It explains why I felt somehow related to what Mr. Nelles described to be Hellinger’s renunciation against the dehumanizing method taken by some therapists. During the workshop, Mr. Nelles also offered his advice to would-be constellation facilitators that they should engage their clients with love. Although I don’t plan to be a facilitator, Nelles’ remarks reminded me of the importance of involving and engaging people as a whole, with open-mindedness, humility and submission to what life has worked out in them.

I’m a woman, and I welcome the man in you.
The next thing that illuminated the significance of relationships – especially couple relationships - was the exercise of speaking to a workshop participant of the other sex: “I’m a woman/man – and I welcome the man/woman in you.”
After I did the exercise twice, I felt my lips were dry and my voice hesitant. I had to step aside because I couldn’t do it anymore
The girl deep inside me was resisting hard. But there was also a woman trying to have her presence felt.
Only until then did I realize what Mr. Nelles said about the acceptance of freedom and destruction of self image the previous day.
To me, clinging to the self image of a little girl is easy. Who can (or dare) reject a needy child’s demand for love? Yet, by choosing to neglect my responsibilities and reject my adulthood/womanhood, I was unable to live a life in its fullness.
As I looked around, the life force energy exuded from workshop participants was inviting. I saw the soft glow in the women’s face, and reassertion of strength in men’s gaze. Fascinated, I wanted to join them.
“It’s time to say goodbye, little girl. I have to let you go,” I said to myself.
Of course, the connection with one’s womanhood cannot happen in a moment. This didn’t go unnoticed by fellow participants. When I joined the group again, I still had difficulty making such a complete statement as “I am a woman”. I felt my male counterparts’ disbelief, then my own doubt.
“At least it’s a start. Just say it and see what comes out of it. Be brave,” I told myself.
I don’t know how long it will take for the woman inside me to gain strength, reach femininity and explore relationships with men with mature awareness. But at least, she has re-asserted her place. And I’ll never forget that little girl who has walked with me through the years.

Emotional love and love from the heart
“Next I will speak to you about love and awareness,” said Mr. Nelles.
The moment the word “love” was uttered, I was clinching the back of my left hand with desperation. By then I was already shaken by the uncomfortable confrontation with my inner child, and now what? My instinct told me Mr. Nelles would open a floodgate of entanglements that I’d had difficulty facing for a long time.
Mr. Nelles pointed to his underbelly and said, this is where emotional love comes from. He then raised his hand to his chest and started explaining how the emotional, personal love differs from the love from the heart, or the heart chakra.
Words kept flowing from Mr. Nelles’ lips and they penetrated into a very private realm of my soul. No room to escape. Tears ran down my cheeks, and I started to lose track of Nelles’ words. “Many, including myself, have been suffering from this emotional love,” I thought.
We see the final hour of love before the first moment comes. Sometimes we even force the end of it.
We anticipate disappointment, real or false.
A few years ago, the emotional love left a deep wound because the child in me was incapable to deal with it. As you may well know, a child doesn’t take the end of love easily.
But love from the heart is different. It lasts. Once it is given, it comes into a “being” that transcends everything – the consciousness of time and space, the fickleness of human heart, and the awareness of mortality.
I can recognize this unique love because it has been offered to me. But I have been fighting it because I wanted emotional love only. Love from the heart threatens me with annihilation of self. As Mr. Nelles put it, “in love, you cannot be miserable.” But I needed to feel miserable to assure that love does exist, or once existed.
(The love- from-the-heart discussion also reminded me of the last chapter of Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse, in which Siddhartha’s spiritual journey ends with his arrival at the River of Life, where a thousand faces meet and manifest themselves, in their unity of human fate. I remember crying when I first read this. Then a very confused teenager, I felt something touched me but I couldn’t name it.
Mr. Nelles’ remarks have helped me reconstruct that scene and put it in perspective. I think this love from the heart acts as a soulful process by which we experience and bridge our historical existence, our temporal engagement with this world and the hereafter....)
Mr. Nelles’ eyes turned and rested on me. When I saw his eyes, I realized that after all, it was all understood. In an inexplicable way, he worked a constellation on me, though I didn’t ask for it.