Are the eyes really windows to the soul?

            Today while looking into the mirror, I looked deep into my own eyes and thought about the old proverb that says, “Eyes are the window to the soul” which happened to be traced back to somewhere between 58 and 68 AD. This very saying has been said a million times or more for many different reasons, even in most of my prior counseling sessions this phrase was mentioned. As I stood there looking deep into my own eyes, the only thing I was able to see was darkness without any emotions. That is when I began to wonder, how do others view me when they look into my eyes.

This actually got into thinking what do people really see, and how is it that I can attract people who at some point in their lives have been abused and find it very comfortable to talk to me. Of course a lot of these are triggers into my own abuse however in some way speaking with them made these triggers a bit different which I can’t explain. It was at this point that I remembered how I wear a mask to hide my past from the world, could it be that they are able to see through my mask and see who I truly am? Could it be that the other perpetrators had the same ability to see beyond the mask I was wearing and see that I was an abused child? This bothered me as I have always said I wore a sticker on my forehead that read “VICTIM”. While I know this is not true, the fact that I had my family abusing me, two other people were able to take advantage of me so something in these two statements had to be true or there was something else at play. What I was able to find was a proverb that covered everything that I was questioning. What do people see when they look into my eyes, and do see behind this mask that I wear every day of my life? What I found was someone named Cicero (106-43 B.C.) is quoted as saying, 'Ut imago est animi voltus sic indices oculi' (The face is a picture of the mind as the eyes are its interpreter)**.

            I read this and was struck by the way this proverb was written and just what it meant to me. The face is a picture of the mind, so no matter what mask I am wearing there really is no hiding from the world and since the eyes are the interpreter to what is on my mind it trully could be seen just by looking into my eyes. Think about that for a moment, what ever you are feeling your mind is projecting the image onto your face. This phrase does makes a lot of sense now in so many ways. I looked into my own eyes and saw darkness because as the saying goes, “you are your own worst critic” and because I feel so down and depressed that is what I was going to see. Yet when I speak to my counselor or the receptionist they will sometimes tell me that I look good or don’t look as depressed today. No, my mask, is not broken, it is just that my mind is painting an image of my own inner feelings. When I am depressed my face becomes droopy, there is no smile, I get tired so my eyes just sort of sag which basically means I am not really showing any real emotion. However, if I get into a good mood I smile, my face is more alert, they tell me I have more color in my face and I don’t look as tired. I have more color in my face, another thing to think about, can't you adjust the colors of a painting by making them brighter or dimmer? My mask at the time is a painting of my minds reaction to my own feelings or thoughts that I possess at that very moment.

            So the question is, why do they say that it is the eyes are a window to the soul? Think about that for a moment, reactions to the soul are played out in the mind and thus a picture is painted on our face. So as a survivor of Child Sexual Abuse (CSA) the very soul that was touched is portrayed on your face and if someone crosses that boundary or enters your space where you become uncomfortable to the point your heart is racing, and you have that empty butterfly feeling deep in the pit of your soul, then the mind is going to react to the uneasiness or the building fear and project this onto your face painting or what we can call a facial reaction. When someone is in this, they will start looking for an easy escape, a route to safety or they will not look at the person because they are afraid that they will see the fear that has built up.

            My own feelings and thoughts about this are that perpetrators don’t have the ability to see past any mask but they do have the ability to read eyes. If a child is willing to look at them and shows no fear, then they have found a target to prey upon, and if they find a child that immediately reacts with fear, they may probe a little to see what the reason they are in fear and knowing how to relax a child could very well take advantage of this child again. For the child that looks away, does not speak, runs or walks away pretending not to notice the person, then the perpetrator will most likely move onto another target. It is only the real hard core criminals who will choose a child where it is easy to grab them and most likely this will be the child that will end up never being found alive or even found at all.

            So the next time that I start to think about how I wore this sticker on my forehead or somehow attracted pedophiles to me I really know now that it truly was a myth. It is the way that my body and mind were conditioned to react to different situations and that someone is able to see me for how I was. No, it is not my fault that it happened once and now I fully know that in no way was it my fault that it happen again or by more then one person, it was just that the other people were already a perpetrators and knew what to look for. Something that I had no idea that I was giving off, let alone showing my past through my eyes, my mind or my soul. Until Next Time….

**From "Random House Dictionary of Popular Proverbs and Sayings" by Gregory Y. Titelman (Random House, New York, 1996).