Have you tried looking into another person's eyes for a long period?

[Farnaby]

Hi!

I recently tried looking into my girlfriend's eyes for 10 minutes straight and the experience was quite interesting. My monkey mind was through the roof: "If someone saw us, they would think we're crazy", "What is she possibly feeling/thinking", "Oh, a fly just flew by", "Is this healthy if I'm getting anxious", "Should I try to make an effort to not look away or is that self loathing?", "Are all these thoughts normal because this is not a natural thing to do in today's society or is it my ego that's resisting?"

These were just some of the thoughts that constantly appeared in my mind. There were also short moments of no monkey mind and kind of forgetting where "I" was, followed by resistance to let go. 

Have you ever tried this? Do you think it's useful even if it creates resistance and anxiety? Maybe it's the kind of thing that has benefits if I work through the resistance, I don't know. 

 

Edited September 23, 2019 by Farnaby

[MuddyBoots]

I did something like this years ago with co-counselling, although one person would be speaking and the other just looking into their eyes. It was powerful stuff, that caring attention was enough to bring up buried feelings.

[loub]

I think it is a great exercise for building up intimacy. If you are into that kind of stuff, here's a checklist for intimacy taken from the book radical honesty.

1. tell each other your entire life story taking about three hours each.
2. tell each other your complete sexual history including how many people you had  sex with, what gender they were and the details of what you did with them
3. masturbate to orgasm in front of each other with no assistance from each other
4. tell each other of any affairs, near-affairs, necking, day dream, arousal, or flirtation you have been engaged in since you've known each other
5. take turns in a half hour monologues in which one of you agrees to be silent while the other speaks.tell your partner everything you resent them for and everything you appreciate them for. After you have both taken your turn talk about the monologues for at least thirty minutes.

Whichever one of the above you haven't done that you least want to do, do first. With one exception: the last recommendation. Taking turns at monologues should be done after the others are complete.  *end of quote*

Perhaps you will react against some of  these quite strongly. That's when you should consider doing them even more. If you should decide to do some, or even all of these I would love to hear from you about how it went.

Hope to have been of help, best regards.

 

[CreamCat]

If you do that, your girl friend might get horny.