An Ancestral Technique for Seeing Clearly and Getting Unstuck

At an animal tracking workshop I took a few years ago, the guide was preparing us for our walk through the woods and told us that one of the foundational skills of tracking is to widen one’s perspective. He went on to say that most modern humans go on a hike and are very focused, walking with our heads down or directly in front of us, primarily tapped into our sense of sight and not much else. This way of moving through a wild area makes it very hard to notice animal signs and contextual clues that can help us track the creature(s) we’re looking for.

I find that this narrow perspective extends to the seeking we undertake in our spiritual and vocational lives as well. We can become fixated on “solving the problem” of our so-called misalignment and lose touch with our other senses as well as the larger ecosystem that we’re part of. 

Our animal tracking guide encouraged us to widen our perspective - to notice the imagery just on our periphery, to become more receptive with our senses, and to feel into all 360 degrees of our environment, not just what’s right in front of us. 

As I’ve worked with this approach, I’ve come to know it as taking a soft gaze.

Taking a soft gaze in our lives is a skill that takes practice; most of us are so used to forging ahead on our own narrow path, and we have to remember what our ancestors knew how to do - slow down and receive the world through our senses. 

It’s so understandable that many of us lose touch with the softness and ease of a wide gaze. If we are desperately hungry, tracking an animal becomes an urgent question of survival, and the adrenaline that surges alongside our need constricts our focus so that all of our energy is devoted to the single aim of procuring food. 

But tracking something as mysterious and ephemeral as Spirit - the messages, insights, and callings that speak to our soul - requires that we feel the adrenaline and the focus when it’s there but choose to slow down and soften into a wider perspective so that we can see all that’s here, clearly.

To take a soft gaze at our lives means to loosen the grip on our awareness and let it wander into the thickets and off the path so that we can see the whole, true story of where we are and what we’re looking for. It’s the difference between following a path in the woods looking only for bear scat and stopping for long enough to notice the patch of berries over there that the bear enjoyed, or noticing an unusual movement on the periphery of your vision. Taking a wider perspective and slowing down enough to utilize all of your senses may seem like it makes things take longer, but it’s actually much more efficient: you use less of your energy and benefit from the regenerative feelings that come with attuning to your inner and outer environments.

You can start using this practice right now.

Notice how your eyes feel and what it’s like to focus on reading these words.

After reading these instructions, look away from the screen and soften the muscles in your eyes, settling into a more receptive type of vision. Notice what’s on your periphery. What lies in the farthest corners of your visual perception? 

Many of us move through life with our vision so strained, our eyes nearly bulging out of our skulls as we seek the next reward, or problem, or clue. There are times when a message from Spirit will cross our paths so obviously that we can’t help but step in it or actually encounter the creature we’ve been tracking. However, many of the messages and clues we need come with the subtlety of a doe’s delicate foray through the brush. The insights you seek may be the unusual way that an area of grass bends, or the almost imperceptible hoof-print that she left on her way to get water a week ago. 

Softening your gaze enables you to see what ails or perplexes you with wiser, older eyes. It allows you to see that you are not wholly lost, that you are capable of noticing the patterns that can help you keep moving in your own right and expansive way. 

I encourage you to literally soften your gaze this week, and to also play around with the notion of softening your grip on solving or capturing whatever it is that you’re tracking. Spirit and soul often elude us - we catch glimpses of them leaping over the stream but are otherwise left to simply feel into their omnipresence. The answers you seek are here, always, but they are mysterious creatures who often want to be seen through a curious and whimsical glance rather than the piercing gaze of a hungry predator. Taking a break from seeking or problem-solving, playfully pretending that everything is a message for us, and noticing which parts of our lives are going well are all ways to shift into a softer gaze.