T usually looked at me when speaking to me; it's communications as one who is speaking can gauge how well someone is hearing/understanding? So, knowing T looks at me and trusting that it's a "good" thing, I practiced looking at her, especially when she or I spoke to let her know I was listening/heard and to experience her listening to me better. I found it very helpful for our connection and for my feeling heard and understood and for practice with understanding how others understand me or me, them.

My favorite looking though is when it looked like T did not "believe" what I was saying and I really wanted her to (when I'd promised something or asserted a belief of mine, NOT when I was telling my story, there was no look of disbelief at that time) so I would do like all the textbooks say and deliberately look her in the eyes and look my most honest and upstanding, LOL. Because it was a "unique" situation, whatever I was asserting would "stick" with me so I'd have to back it up with behavior from then on; it would be like a promise I'd made and because the situation was different from usual, it was very helpful to me, moving me forward.