exercise · all tools
Prolonged Eye Contact
Two circles of chairs facing each other; sit, and hold eye contact in silence for anywhere from thirty seconds to five minutes, then share. The manual suggests keeping it short with a new group, and offers a guided version that adds an instruction each minute — show vulnerability, show compassion, look at them as they would like to be looked at. As old as looking into each other's eyes.
- The manual's own caution: keep the time short to start with unless the community is already comfortable, or unless you mean to push people
Practical
- Time
- 5-15 min
- Group
- 2–∞ · pairs, large-group
- Settings
- in-person
- Mechanisms
- attention-training, dialogic-encounter, stillness-silence
- Change scope
- state → skill · repeatable
Instructions
- Where
- authrev.org/ar-games-manual — Authentic Relating Games Manual, paid
- Availability
- In the source document — the instructions live inside the material linked, on its terms
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 4.0 (Authentic Relating Games Manual)
Source link checked 31 Aug 2026 — unchanged since we recorded it on 29 Aug 2026
This directory describes and points home; the instructions stay with the people who made them.
Origin
Not attributed; eye-gazing practices are, the manual says, as old as looking into each other's eyes — Eye-gazing practice, many lineages; carried into Authentic Relating (Authentic Relating Games Manual, 2025 edition)
In this directory via Authentic Relating Games Manual
Variation in the manual: Guided Eye Contact.
status: checked · added 2026-08-31