Contributed by Nancy Oelklaus

Because of a hereditary condition, my hearing is impaired. I especially have difficulty with soft voices. To compensate, I listen intently. I watch people’s lips. In a group, I sit at the front.

These coping strategies worked well—until I had to wear reading glasses. One day, during a board meeting, I was looking down at the agenda. Suddenly, I realized that the room was quiet. One board member was a man with a very soft voice, and I felt he must have spoken to me. I looked up from the agenda quickly, jerking off my glasses, with these words: “Will you please repeat what you said? I can’t hear you with my glasses on.” Of course, everyone laughed. But I was dead serious.

Many years later, as I worked through personal crisis, a friend and advisor gave me this wisdom: “What you see is not what you’re looking at, but what you’re looking with. Learn to see with eyes of love.”

Then I realized that all of us “hear” people with our “glasses” on, and we choose which “glasses” we wear. So, think for just a moment, about someone who is irritating you. What “glasses” are you looking with? Is it what someone else has told you about that person? Is it your own past experience defining the current moment?

Now, put on your eyes of love. What do you love about this person?

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If you can’t think of anything, ask that person to tell you a story about something they loved—a pet, a friend, a relative, a story. Just listen. You’ll find something to love. Make a habit of looking at that person through those eyes. Stand back and marvel while the relationship changes, effortlessly.

Nancy Oelklaus, Ed.D, is an executive coach and author of Journey from Head to Heart: Living and Working Authentically and Alphabet Meditations for Teachers: Everyday Wisdom for Educators. She is an educator, an entrepreneur, a speaker and workshop leader. She lives on the rim of a canyon in Austin, TX, with her husband, Harlan, and Feathers, a curly white lap dog.