The Power of Eye Contact

It’s something you take for granted every day. Connecting with people during a conversation, meeting their eyes, and feeling seen.

Before you can even begin to address homelessness as an issue, you have to become comfortable with literally addressing homeless people. The reason this I am writing out this message is because this isn't some foreign, extra-terrestrial species that just lurk among our streets. These are your neighbors who hit bad times and now we are ignoring them. It’s amazing how far a simple acknowledgment of another person’s presence can go toward helping that person feel seen rather than invisible and preventing dehumanization. The only cure for ignorance is experience. Experience is what breeds understanding, and if you want to fight homelessness in an effective way, you first need understanding.While homelessness is a complex issue and each person’s experience with it is unique, the first spark of understanding comes during that initial experience. Before friendship, before conversation, before anything else, the very first step on the road to understanding is eye contact.Allowing the other person to be seen and allowing yourself to truly see them is where it all starts. I can visibly see their whole mood change when i smile at a stranger that is homeless, they go from feeling like a ghost to We need to stop treating people experiencing homelessness as if they are “less then.” We strip these people of their humanity and look at them as if they are less important to this world simply because they don’t have a place to call their own.

Treat others how you would wanted to be treated. Put yourself in their shoes, think about the challenges they struggle with every single day. A lot of us are fortunate enough to have a roof over our head, a warm bed, family members and friends that love us, food on our tables, a transportation vehicle that we have access to, and plenty of money to spend on unnecessary items. Not everybody lives like this, we are in this society that is sickening. We strive to be better than, more popular, giving off the impression that we are wealthy and successful through our possessions. We post on social media the highlights of our life, often used to mask the pain we feel. We aren't real, a lot of us don't show up honestly, and vulnerable. When we constantly present to others that we are doing fine, it causes us more within harm. Vulnerability is one of the basics for connection, as it allows us to connect on deeper levels. To fully feel the love and connection we all yearn for, vulnerability is required. Many of us go day by day waiting for the time our lives will fill up the hole that has been deprived of peace, and the richness of life. We die without accomplishing this because we are conformed to society and the way that it "demands" us to act, be, do, say, feel, etc. To be vulnerable allows us to connect and show up as human beings that are alive. “Before we can understand the richness and the beauty of fulfillment, mind must free itself from the background of tradition, habit, and prejudice. For example, if you belong to a particular political party, you naturally regard all your political considerations from the narrow, limited point of view of that party. If you have been brought up, nursed, conditioned in a certain religion, you look at life through its veil of prejudice and darkness. That background of tradition prevents the complete understanding of life, and so causes confusion and suffering.” We must be open to each other. All of us hit bad times and experience challenges that we looked at through someone else thinking that this would never happen to "me". Homelessness can happen to any of us. People experiencing homelessness have been given the seeds of life, just like all other human beings. We don't have control of what our lives have in plan for us, none of us do. So, what makes you think that it is okay to look down on people, avoid them, judge them, and so on?