“We looked into each other’s eyes and made a connection”

“We had a special connection, it’s like we knew each other”

“I've never felt anything like this with anyone else”

“He/she is like nobody I have ever met”

These are some o the words many of my clients use to describe the relationship they had with their ex — and I believe them wholeheartedly. It is possible to have such a strong connection with someone on a level that is beyond words. Many of us have experienced it, not just with one person but with several people. This connection can come in many different ways – a look, a tone of voice, words spoken, etc.

But why, after a few months or years does that “special” connection begin to fade or disappears completely?

Many people I talk to say “lack/poor communication” and they are probably right. Verbal communication, especially in Western culture is a big thing. But as someone coming from a non-western culture, my take is that we lose that powerful almost soul-like connection when we stop “seeing each other” or when one person “hides” him/herself from the other.

For those of you who have been to East Africa, you’ve probably heard some African “tribes” greet each other with “I see you” and the other replies, “I am here’” or when people are saying good byes and one person says “I’ll see you” and the other responds “when I see you.”

What this way of greeting and saying goodbye means is that until you “see” the other person, they basically do not exist. It’s only by “seeing” him or her that you bring him/her into existence. To put it in a way that many of us are familiar with, “we create our own reality”, even the people in our reality are “created” by us.

You can easily dismiss someone from your reality by refusing to “see” them or “blocking” them from “seeing” you. They’ll see your physically being but not your soul-being.

Some of my North American friends have been offended when they get an angry or rude “don’t try to be familiar with me” or “you don’t know me like that” when they try to make “eye-contact”; something we in the West insist on because it shows you are “friendly” or “honest”, but in the African context is considered “invasion of privacy”. Eye contact in the African context is offered as a “gift’; permission to look into one’s soul.

What has this got to do with your relationship or even your ex?

When we first meet someone, look into their eyes and have that “special” connection, we not only see the beauty in their eyes, we actually “see” their soul. The “I am here” of who they really ARE. A connection at this soul level is very powerful so much that some people have a physical reaction — like a jolt when someone nudges you out of a nap.

But over time, as the relationship matures, many of us stop “seeing” each other and many more are physically present in their relationships but are not present as in “I AM HERE”.  We get into the whirlwind of romance forgetting to nurture what connected us to the other person in the first place. This is when a “disconnect” in the relationship begins. At this point, many of us say we are having “communication problems” and employ all the positive communications skills (listening, validating, affirming etc) and also the non-positive ones (nagging, complaining, yelling, silent treatment etc).

But nothing works… why? Because you stopped “seeing” each other.

Sadly enough, when trying to get their ex back, many people still think it’s a “communication problem” that’s stopping them from recapturing that “special connection” they once had with their ex. I’ve seen hundreds of clients work on their “communication skills” (being polite, calm and even submissive) but still get no where and don’t understand why.

“Seeing” each other is simply being present and connecting at a soul level. It’s postponing one’s “agenda” and being with the other person, in that moment — open and vulnerable. Sometimes this can be hard with your ex because they either have been hurt before or are scared of getting hurt, so they “block” you from “seeing” them. But if you calmly, humbly and persistently “seek” their “permission” to “see” them again, they may give it to you. This is not something you can force them to do, convince them to do or manipulate them to do — the soul being in us sees through those kind of “superficial” maneuvers. We experience it as “just a feeling” because there are no words to explain soul experiences.

The risk is that you could get hurt. Your ex many not like the person they “see”, especially if that person is desperate, angry, guarded, conniving, exploitative, selfish etc. No great listening, validating, affirming etc skills or calm soothing tone of voice will make him or her want to come back. He or she “sees” who you really ARE!