I regularly Skype with my clients and coaches, and also use my desktop for Google Hangouts. My image is transferred to them by a web camera sitting above my display screen. Lately a few people have told me my image looks blurry, and though I’ve increased my internet speed and gotten a new modem, this hasn’t seemed to help the blur.
All I’ve ever done related to the camera is open and shut the eyelid-like cover over the lens, and check the video settings in Skype, making sure I’m in the center of the screen and there’s enough light on me before I start a session. I thought my picture was OK, not super-clear like it is when I use my partner’s iPad, but good enough. (I assumed the greater clarity on the iPad was due to the higher pixel density.)
This morning I asked my tech-y partner about the clarity of my Skype image, since 2 people mentioned it to me this week. It turns out there’s an outer ring on the camera which can be rotated to adjust the focus! Wow — I never knew this. So it’s clearer now. Problem solved!
This is too close to looking and seeing without blur for me not to investigate it for some deeper meaning. What is this telling me about my own human vision? Trying to fix the image for Skype, I wasted some time playing with lighting, opening and closing a nearby curtain, turning off a light to the side and turning on one straight overhead. All this did was give me a more well-lit blurry image!
Yesterday I participated in a webinar with my EFT (Emotional Freedom Technique or “tapping”) teacher Carol Look. As I tapped I was looking at my eye chart, seeing the letters get clearer as I relaxed. I made a promise to myself to do more eye chart work more regularly, to nudge my “good enough” vision to a clearer state.
If I was accustomed to seeing most things clearly most of the time, rather than accepting my 20/40-ish (or 20/50-ish on a bad day) vision, I’d have investigated the Skype clarity issue sooner. I think I’ve hit a bit of a plateau — growing up with thick glasses and straining to see all the time, I’m thrilled I can do everything I need to do now with no correction. But I’m realizing I’m making do with less than optimal vision, and this webcam experience underscores that fact.
As soon as I started vision improvement years ago, I realized I had a screaming need for relaxation — you don’t get to -10 if you’re tranquil! So that’s where my attention has been. I’ve palmed and stretched and done the Long Swing and meditated, relaxing my body and my mind. Yet I’ve been so intent on the need to relax, I’ve been neglecting to practice focusing, in a relaxed way, too.
Whenever I see greater clarity on the eye chart, or blacker letters, or the slight bounce of the Universal Swing, I feel like my visual system is saying a silent “thank you!” to me. It’s getting lighter and brighter outside every day, and it would be easy to “coast”, to decide the vision I have is good enough and to put my energies elsewhere.
No, I think I’ll move away from this visual plateau to the next set of up-rising stairs. I’ve improved my vision this far — why stop now? And is there an area in your life, with your vision or somewhere else, where you too have been settling for “good enough”? You deserve the very best — we all do.
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I wore strong glasses, then contact lenses, from age 5 into my 40s. While making many mistakes, eventually l learned how to improve the way I use my eyes and to see in a more relaxed, healthy manner. It is my pleasure to coach others to do the same. Visit me at https://NancyLNeff.com.