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+--- Thread: Beginning to restore vision. (/showthread.php?tid=1063)
Beginning to restore vision. - Aaron - 01-20-2009
I am grateful for this forum and the stories that are being shared. It has been a rather lonely start to my path to recovery and it is encouraging to hear the experiences that others are having. I was inspired by the entries by sorrisiblue and appreciate the sharing of so much detail. After reading that post, I have decided to rise to a new level of commitment to my own recovery and have also embraced a more scientific method to measure my progress.
I was amazed two days ago when I woke up and found that I could read down to the 20/100 line of the chart. The night before, I was only able to read to the 20/160 line. I used the method suggested by sorrisiblue to gently sway as I looked at the chart and focus on my relaxed breathing. I was overjoyed as all the letters seemed to emerge from the blur and I could read more lines on the chart. I admit that they were not razor sharp, but I could read them with perfect accuracy. After spending 12 hours yesterday in my glasses without resting (deadline at work), I was only able to read to the 20/200 line last night. I am dumbfounded that I have such difficulty getting into a relaxed state of mind. I realize it will be a slow process to unlearn the many bad habits I have picked up over the last 20 years of wearing "corrective" lenses, but I have now totally eliminated that doubt that it can be done. Thank you for the much needed encouragement!
Re: Beginning to restore vision. - clarknight - 01-20-2009
I get many e-mails asking for vision improvement help.
When I get people that need encouragement, espicially getting into weaker and weaker eyeglass lenses and eventually no glasses; I refer them to sorrisiblue's posts on this site and her blog.
Many people are lied to by their eye doctors, the doctors try to discourage them so they will give up on the Bates method and keep buying eyeglasses, surgery...
The information this site helps others realize the truth and their own power to obtain clear vision.
Re: Beginning to restore vision. - sorrisiblue - 01-21-2009
Hi Aaron,
I'm so glad to hear that you are experiencing clearer vision! Don't be discouraged by having worse sight in the evenings after wearing glasses all day. My vision fluctuates a lot and it is quite normal for my eyes to have half the accuity as they do in the morning if I wear my glasses at work. I find the best thing is to just relax and do something enjoyable before sleeping, palming for 30 minutes while lying in bed before falling asleep helps a lot. In the morning my eyes will usually return to their better level of visual accuity. If they don't, then don't worry about it, a fluctuation in accuity over time is natural.
When I first started being able to clear the 20/50 line last spring, I was really frustrated at first because 1 day I would see it and then for the next 2 weeks I wouldn't be able to. It went like that for quite some time until now 20/50 is my average and sometimes I am now experiencing short moments of even better visual accuity. In the evenings it still takes an hour or so for me to leave my work day behind me and let my eyes relax. I find persistence and positive thinking key. Sometimes when I read the Snellen chart in the morning and I have a lower visual accuity, I'll just go on with my day and at some point may experience my best visual accuity yet! I learned to use the Snellen chart as a tool, not a test. My fiance (perfect eyes) told me once, 'Stop straining to see the chart, your vision is what it is and it will get better slowly.' That is an example of a lesson I've had to learn many times from others with better sight: patience.
Be good to yourself and your eyes will love you for it!
Cheers,
Sorrisi
Re: Beginning to restore vision. - Aaron - 01-21-2009
Hi Sorrisi,
Thank you. I think you are so right about being good and taking it easy on yourself. Once I start placing demands or expectations upon how well I "should" be seeing, I immediately sense that I am losing the harmonic state of mind that I must have to see. I experience this directly while experimenting in front of the chart. It would seem that there is a correlation between effort and strain (at least at my current level). My goal for the coming weeks is to try not to judge what I see as "incorrect" or inferior simply because it is different from my vision while wearing lenses. I am finding that on my walks during lunch, I find much beauty in what I see. I feel much more at peace while on my walks. Thanks again for your words of encouragement and for sharing that wisdom regarding patience! I will consider this well.
Courage,
Aaron
Re: Beginning to restore vision. - FlowerPower - 01-21-2009
Hi,
I just wanted to add another encouragemnt to keep going. I am also very grateful for this forum and all the good things and advices I can find here. I also had a lonely start as you call it, I mean couldn't find anyone around me that did it and most of my environment was negative to this type of approach to vision. I am today in 3 months of training, and still didn't get to clear vision, but have progress. But am reading Dr. Bates' book just in last two weeks, because I coudn't understand his writing before, and it looked pretty boring. In last month I discovered plaming&swinging is helping, but am having problems with imagination. I have black for a few seconds and then it becomes gray/white or shiny strings floating... Although, while having palms on my eyes I feel relaxation around the eyes, and bumbing and pulsing, wormens and fresjness, but: First when I open my eyes there is that blank nothing, then I can't stand the light, then clear flashes and then back to blur. Funny....
And as I am now in those chapters of the book about imagination and relaxed eyes I am definitively sure, to add to this discussion, that I need to find a way to relax my mind. Until the mind is in strain the eyes would be, at least with all us guys that somehow habitualy learned to pass the mind's strain to eyes/vision. And I am going back to a spiritual teaching that I learnt just a year ago, (Eckhart Tolle, I heard about from OPRAH show) and he is also teaching how to live in present moment and how we are habitually resisting to what is happening which causes strong suffering. SO, accept your blur, don't resist it. And that may relax you and improve vision.
Night vision is bad for me as well.
I wear glasses only for driving and that is for about 20 mins every evening to pick up kids from childcare, and feel worse vision after that.
So, you see we all have pretty similar things happening to us. So, acceptance of what is and realizing not to strain eyes as it is not helping.
Good luck and keep us informed of your progress. I also want to know if the final cure is happening just suddenly "ONE DAY I SEE EVRYTHING" or gradually. For me it is very slow and gradual process. (I am mypoic -2 and astigmatic -2.5. so I see big astigmatic blur, and waht is happening for me is of one picture inititally I was seeing 1000, then 950, the 700 pictures, etc...so not so quick)
I also read that possible reason our mind is not relaxed is of too much wishing to see clear and the mind strains and that producec blur, I beleive is the case with me. But I think I have some other emotional issues from childhood, like "everyone one can do it just I can't" so I need to work on this, don't know how yet, but may go back to Eckhart's spritual teachings, I had a lot of a-ha moments with his books.
Al the best!
Re: Beginning to restore vision. - Aaron - 01-22-2009
I am glad that you bring up Eckhart Tolle who is also a recent influence in my life. By an extraordinary cooincidence, I was introduced to natural vision improvement by stumbling (literally) onto a book by Jacob Liberman, "Take Your Glasses Off and See". I was actually looking for a totally unrelated subject!! I picked it up and was amazing by his description of "present awareness", which is also what Tolle is all about (along with many, many others). This is key. We must relieve ourselves of the stress of not being in the "now". This is, of course, not an "intellectual" goal, but a matter of Being.
Re: Beginning to restore vision. - FlowerPower - 01-29-2009
Oh, that's great Aaron! I am so happy to hear you got to know about Eckhart Tolle and his teachings as there is noone else in my environment. It looks I am kicking off to these new realms. Just keep going. I haven't done much practice with what Eckhart is recommending, just tried lightly to follow simple meditaitons he explains in his book A new earth about how to get into present moment. But am now planning to try it more as it looks to me it can relieve my eye strain. I just found out my palming is wrong. When I remove my hands first I see nothing, then blur, then vision that is a bit clearer. I also noticed I am pulling my eyes up, and I can't stop it. Maybe present moment meditation can help here?
Re: Beginning to restore vision. - Aaron - 01-30-2009
Good luck, I am happy to hear that you are now getting results!
There is definitely something powerful to these ideas. I think that it is necessary to allow ourselves to be comfortable with the moment- without anticipating something that is a few steps beyond into the future- or worse, replaying in our minds events of the past. So often I find myself always planning ahead to what I am to do tomorrow- or in the next hour - that I lose my sense of being right where I am. To be aware of this, and to be completely comfortable with that state- is a place of great peace. I believe that this can allow us to release the strain and tension that we may be holding in our minds (and therefore also in our bodies). I understand this now, but I am not there yet. I need to practice more. I am finding that I have to consciously reserve time for this quiet, or else I just don't do it.
Aaron
Re: Beginning to restore vision. - FlowerPower - 02-08-2009
Aaron,
that is exactly what was/is my biggest issue. Live bit by bit what is now, don't run in future. And that is with seeing as well, see perfectly bit by bit the point you a focusing NOW, don't try to see whole a lot at once. I am so glad Dr. Bates has discoverd this. I think I can remember I was trying this: to see more around the point I am looking at. I think this is exactly excentric fixation as a cause of my astigmatism. I also read explanations on emotional level for astigmatism, constantly trying to be what you are not. And that's the same back to Eckhart, be what is NOW. Just be, releave from to much wishing and planning for future, releave from the past, what was and and hasn't been. I also need more practising with this, but by practising Dr. Bates' central fixation, I am somehow able to sqeeze moments of this trhu my working day, the practising of present moment is happening. Because, I have ego working against me while doing any of these eye exercises, ego is telling me it's stupid, imposible, I have more important work to do. .. And the blur is returning me to the present "I have blur and this is tool to remove it" I also started having present moment thaughts == which is imagination in Dr. Bates' words == I CAN SEE CLEARLY == I am trying to imagine clear chart in front of me, a few blinks and I can, and then I loose it, etc... it is a proces for me. But is definitively problem of too much wanting which brings strain. Not having patience to relax and let it be - bit by bit as it is - perfectly clear.
And it happens as some of Dr. Bates' patients is stating this: what hapens is central fixation of the MIND!
Whishing you Aaron and everyone on this journey, clear vision and back to the NOW where it's all relaxed and clear!
Re: Beginning to restore vision. - clarknight - 02-09-2009
Good blog flower power!
Re: Beginning to restore vision. - FlowerPower - 02-09-2009
Thanks, ClarkNight. Encouragement is very much welcome in this phase of my trainig. great job you are doing with your web site and all the information available. I tried some exercises and then moved to this forum. it's a great thing to be part of similar. I think I am changing and everything around just don't fit.(This must be a middle life crisis) That's why I am even more happy for exsistance of you all here and the solutions on eyesight, i always felt as a second class citizen, for 33 years, but most of you know what I am talking about. I just can't express myself good enough. Thank you, thank you all! And I really want to say the world this is possible, and want to leave written record on this. I thik we should gather all the experiences and push them out, to get at least an option to be offered to all people with bad sight. Cheers!