See With Your Heart

by Victoria Rosso

I once heard someone say, “We depend on our eyes too much… use your heart to enjoy life.”

This reminds me of a trust exercise I once did at a training program where everyone was paired off and told to take turns being blindfolded while the other partner leads. The partners were not allowed to speak to each other and the leader was told to give the blindfolded a variety of unique experiences as they explored around the city of Shenzhen.

During this exercise I was able to connect with my partner as “face”, as Philosopher Emmanuel Levinas would say. My partner and I could not relate using sight or words, only an utter trust and responsibility to one another. Once the blindfolds went on, physical appearance, nationality, age, gender, first impressions and initial judgments didn’t matter anymore. Context became insignificant and only the pure experience of one another became of value.

When I was blindfolded, my partner was the only thing guiding me. I had no control over anything that happened. Not only was I forced to give my partner complete trust as he led me around the city center, I was also forced to relate to every experience using my senses of touch, smell, and hearing. Without being able to use my eyes to understand what was going on around me, I was forced to reflect deeper in my thoughts and in my heart about what I was experiencing externally. I also had nothing to distract me from reflecting about what I was experiencing within me as well. I remember my fears and anxieties shifting to serenity when I understood that worrying about me did not help my partner lead me.

When it was my turn to lead, it was my responsibility and utmost priority to make sure my partner didn’t walk into anything or stumble and fall while blindfolded. It was also my responsibility to give him a rich experience of life while blindfolded. I didn’t once focus on my own needs, what I wanted to do, or on how others were looking at me and wondering why these crazy people were walking around the city blindfolded. I was in tune to when my partner was feeling anxious and tried to give him a sense of security. My responsibility was entirely for “The Other”.

I am so grateful for my sight, but I wish I could live each day as if I were blindfolded and forced to rely on my heart to experience and understand the world around me. I wish I could relate to everyone I encounter as if they were blindfolded and silently crying out to me for assistance.

Levinas’ philosophy states that we relate to The Other as “face” when we start to accept The Other in their humanity, and extend ourselves to these people not based on pretense. This relation to The Other can be practiced through pure attention and generosity, like how I was able to attend to the needs of my blindfolded partner simply by noticing his discomfort. We have to be in relation to others even when nothing is being explicitly said. The reward of this in the

exercise was a pure, mutual trusting relationship with my partner that lasted until the end of the training program. The Other has the capacity to impact us with a meaning apart from the one we gave them. It was my partners care for me when I was blindfolded that created an impact. My partner was able to invite, inspire, and draw me out of my fears and anxieties about being blindfolded through the experiences he shared with me during the exercise. Reflecting on the relationship we built through this simple exercise has shown me the importance of trust and responsibility in any relationship.


When we look at others only with our eyes we cannot fully experience their emotions, which motivate us to extend ourselves in order to care for their needs and desires. Depending on our heart allows us to perceive experiences and others on a deeper level, while the eyes can only perceive the external. Seeing with the heart penetrates through our initial judgments, and draws us out to be more than we ever thought we could be. We should depend less on our eyes and more on our hearts, and life and relationships will be that much more rich, meaningful and enjoyable in the most profound way.