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Re: Tsukiomi's Vision Journal - Tsukiomi - 11-11-2012
day 34
Not much more to add. Today I have been contemplating vision improvement and what I have been doing to improve. I wondering if I have been "trying to hard" certainly it was not difficult to see as a child and it shouldn't be a large ordeal. I think perhaps a re-framing of my attitude towards the process is in order. I know I have the capability and the tolls to figure out the answer to this question, but I am so emotionally involved that I actively squelch myself 10 times for each 1 step I make forward. My focus will be on stopping this from happening and critically thinking about the process so I can resume my recovery.
Re: Tsukiomi's Vision Journal - Tsukiomi - 11-12-2012
Day 35
I now understand firsthand that emotions really affect the vision. I have been thinking about how I am going to be busy the next few weeks of school and have noticed that since I am less relaxed and thinking about so many things, its harder to get clear flashes as I get less patient when many things are on my mind. I will be working towards staying calm and composed once again, it has been quite awhile but now I have a pretty good understanding of it. It is a conscious activity that requires patience, investigation and elaboration in a mental sense. This usually helps calm me down.
Re: Tsukiomi's Vision Journal - Tsukiomi - 11-13-2012
Day 36
Back on track! got some progress to report, I was able to put in words what I did that helped and finally understand exactly what "strain" is and feels like and what it feels out to "relax" it.
Strain is a state of mind- particularly that which is trying to force something to occur rather than guide your faculties to help you. With eyesight problems, you consciously manifest this straining in the eye muscles constantly and the vision blurs. Relaxing strain starts with awareness of the problem, then what is left is find out which mental actions bring you relief (I list what works for me later in the post). I know this seems obvious, but for me what helped is realizing that you cannot force you "try" to relax, you need to have the proper awareness and feel things through and let it go- I don't yet know any better way of doing so.
notes
"Be aware of the eyes only to figure out where the tension is so you can act to avoid it by shifting the central vision mentally,feeling the opposite movements, central retina awareness which leads to central fixation.
-Remember that perfect vision does not hurt or pull on the eyes but is relaxed and flowing.
-Wide breathing (imagining your body expanding which in haling and retracting when exhaling) helps to relax.
"When the eyes relax, the outside and especially back eye muscles feel like they shift backwards and I become very aware of not only much of my eye but also a particular small part at the back and front of my eyes."
"It feels like the eyes are more firm and set in the sockets when relaxed"
"Because you can;t strain the distance if you putt strain on the eyes by pushing the muscles or forcing muscular action which will change the eye shape and stretch in in the wrong way. it should be at home on the inside of the socket w/o tons of pressure."
Note: tears will come and it will be uncomfortable but simply keep being conscientious of and avoid the strain or tension and the eyes won't warp anymore.
Note2: Shifting with central fixation, allowing movement,opposable movement noticing and eye awareness and breathing all help lessen the muscular tension (strain) that is there. Letting the process be felt mentally and not putting that strain physically on the eyes is key. Mentally moving the visual point of attention helps to if you get stuck. Also, do not force the muscles to stay in place!
I also noticed today that there is quite a lot of tension in the muscles behind the eye as well.
If I were to explain what strain is it would be as follow, hold your hand into a fist and squeeze- feel that in your muscles? that is muscular strain.
When you start vision improvement you will notice that you can feel tension like this that is in your eyes ALL the time! The aim is to change things so your eyes aren't like that and the muscles can be loose enough to set the eye properly so light can enter the eyes in a natural and clear way.
More later or tomorrow, now that I understand what the issue is I can figure out ways to remove the problem.
Re: Tsukiomi's Vision Journal - Tsukiomi - 11-17-2012
Days 37-39
Its been a few days, I don't think it will be exactly daily at times- especially since I am in sort of a stretch right now. I can read off the 20/40 line quite well, but it isn't as equally clear with the higher lines. When I relax and do practice, I can get to the point where I can read the 20/20 line which will be a bit fuzzy and not as black as the above lines. Most of my clear flashes however seem to be in the 20/30 range. So I would put my vision right now around 20/45 when I am not straining. So I am relatively close to my first goal of 20/40, but I know if I learn how to do it right, I will jump to 20/30-20/25 which is the area of my flashes. In bates terms my optimism without flashes is 20/45, my pessimism is 20/70.
Here are some excerpts from my notes, I was very strained over the last few days but I got some interesting insights but have been unable as of yet to replicate them all day long. I am consistently re-defining what exactly my practice should entail, it is somewhat frustrating- I know I am over-complicating things, but much of the literature out there by following it only gets me temporary flashes and teared up eyes. The permanent increases are very slow at this point, although my discoveries get more numerous and subtle I need to put it all together and tackle this thing. Fortunately I have a much better idea of what to be doing/not doing now and it is a matter of nailing the important pieces of information and replicating it dynamically. One thing that is sort of a surprise to me is that it seems harder to recover those last bits of errors in refraction than it is to get from lower levels as you are dealing with increasingly subtle things that a chronically tensed person will have trouble seeing quickly.
Some of these notes I got from davids and arocartys posts which I found very helpful
-Refocus your mind on what you want, not your current situation. Remember that relaxation is a result of not straining or tensing. Tension release do not require any type of straining or tensing effort, but rather a change to a more healthy type of thinking.
-Remember, to simply drop all things but the thing you are doing at the time, shifting easily
to different parts, aspects,thoughts,feelings,"sense" or perspectives. This is the proper way to use attention and is very relaxing when you let it be this way.
Q1: What is actually happening moment to moment? become aware of this.
Q2: After Identifying the pattern, how may I change it?
Answer: awareness of what is, then conscious change of thinking repeatedly while you honestly mean it- meaning guiding your thoughts to have the same positive "sense" and keep it going. Well phrased affirmation help towards this end, for example: "I see clearly", "Look at how much I can see", etc.
-Having this more positive "sense" requires original awareness of the habitual negative "sense" or impulses that cause you to tense up or strain/do a million or rather try to take on a million things at once.
-Some affirmations that helped me- "I effortlessly see small details in sharp clarity"
Keep in mind that the point of the affirmations is to bring out the other, more positive relaxed type of feeling. Eventually, you can bring this out or keep it w/o the affirmations as it is the feeling that matters.
More notes- "think and keep in mind the sense and mental process/feeling of certain actions or frames of mind. Follow the "sense" of seeing and let it express itself fully, to smaller and smaller degrees.
I think at this point, I am getting close enough that if I could talk to someone who has successfully recovered for awhile, I could figure this out completely.
The first goal is 20/40 or better, then 20/20 if I haven't got there by then. After I get to 20/20, I want to consolidate my notes and describe what exactly worked for me and the differences in how I see. Then I am going to organize it into a page or so of "how to get back 20/20" so people can get firsthand information from someone who has recovered that is specific enough for people to use when they practice "like with Davids blog, only shorter." When I recover I would like to pool information together with other people who have recovered, and try to find common things that may not be mentioned in the vision improvement literature yet. Of course, after I get back 20/20 I will keep going, my big goal is 20/10 or seeing the same details twice as far as someone with 20/20 or possibly better. I want to see what the limits are of the visual system as feel it hasn't truly been tested yet. I have looked around for info on people with 20/10 or better, but there is surprisingly little information about them.
Those were some things I have been thinking about, take care everybody and don't overwhelm yourselves!
Re: Tsukiomi's Vision Journal - Omni - 11-17-2012
Tsukiomi Wrote:Days 37-39
Answer: awareness of what is, then conscious change of thinking repeatedly while you honestly mean it- meaning guiding your thoughts to have the same positive "sense" and keep it going. Well phrased affirmation help towards this end, for example: "I see clearly", "Look at how much I can see", etc.
I believe awareness of the problem, is a big part of it as well. Thing is when your making the 'conscious change of thinking repeatedly' ; that in itself is the exercise. Like with dodging for example, look at something and 'consciously' reject in on our minds. That is an exercise. With vision improvement, exercise can be a very helpful 'training'. For me, it's sort of like 'building a muscle memory' so for next time when I recognize the strain, I subconsciously avoid it.
Re: Tsukiomi's Vision Journal - Tsukiomi - 11-23-2012
Days 40-47
Interesting week. It had some definite high points and some abysmal low points. I have continued taking plenty of notes and have been refining and simplifying my practice to get to the heart of the matter. Whenever I get improved vision I marvel at how simple it is, and its interesting how the fear/freeze response that I am so used to comes back and knocks the system out of whack again. I have started to reassess my experiences and have been comparing them to the available vision literature. I am convince that at this point I need to find a good point between trying too hard and not doing enough.
Some friends visited and I tested their vision. All of them were 20/20 or better (interestingly enough, one of them was myopic at one time, but only wore glasses for less than a month and never wore them after that. When I tested him he could read the 20/20 line and get most of the 20/15 line correct). I kept noticing how frequent their eyes shifted, and how easily they moved and glided from place to place without discomfort. One of my friends read 20/15 accurately, and the following day read the 20/13 line and 2 letters off the 20/10 line. This showed me that even people with great vision have it fluctuate at certain levels, for example- the friend in question with 20/13 vision said the worse his vision would get would be 20/20. One interesting thing about him, when I pointed to a letter to see if he could see it, he got very uncomfortable, he didn't seem to want someone point at something stationary. This interested me because it must certainly require a good level of unconscious shifting to produce higher levels of vision, and thus they can be disrupted momentarily and quickly at times. It was very educational for me.
Has anyone else noticed this? I have noticed that people with perfect vision tend to have brighter, healthier and more pleasant looking eyes than those who do not.
I still waver around 20/45ish, but I have been able to consolidate my notes and practice to the point where I can start doing it in a much more simple and efficient manner, with less room for strain, confusion and frustration- which occur when one does not know exactly what they are doing.
Sometime tomorrow I will post a consolidation of my notes and explain how I will go about my practice over the next week or longer.
Re: Tsukiomi's Vision Journal - Tsukiomi - 12-01-2012
Days 48-55
Was a long week vision-wise, I have been able to frame the issue in a way that has helped me understand it better and have started to get higher quality temporary improvements again. Soon afterwards however I hit another wall, thus I am going to compile what I thought are my most important notes that I have accumulated over the last to week to see if I have been going in the right direction and consolidate my practice again.
A good amount of my notes seem to be constant reiteration of what I have figured out previously, so I will try to write out the new stuff and will evaluate it to see if I have been going about this in the right way or not (it is still possible that I have been giving out too much of the wrong kinds of effort).
Notes
! Strain is Resistance. Become aware of this resistance in the eye muscles and be especially aware of the point at its most tense/painful and let it express itself (or feel it until it subsists). The trick is to be able to this this such that you don;t bring forth and effort and make it worse (which I have a ton of trouble doing). Sometimes when I do this it relaxes on its own, but I will lose it after a few seconds.
-It becomes very easy to detect this resistance when you are physically moving your body while outside, another way to do this is tilt your head from side to side. Its amazing how much tension/pain is there, its so sensitive that it is very disconcerting.
-When you become aware of resistance and allow yourself to feel the various aspects of it, do not freeze in one place, allow movement to occur. I find that when used when you are looking at stuff, this can bring clearer positive gains vision-wise (it gets me around 20/20 flashes).
-Take your time to feel the smaller and larger resistances while you look at stuff (don't make it an isolated exercise, because I find that when I do that I don't get anywhere).
-Have the sense and feeling of the whole entire object in your mind, but pay attention only to a small point. If I don;t keep the entire object in mind, I find it to be a great strain.
-Emotionally I find this to be the best stance about it that I have done so far. Take responsibility for the strain you cause, rather than fighting or complaining mentally about it. It's a hard thing to do, but I found that when I did that I had a really good 30 minutes or so of vision practice. Even if the strain that is there is very painful, I kept feeling it rather than avoiding it.
-I also find that I strain the most because I force myself to try to see things or understand things quickly without actually thinking it through.
-Being worried about how you do it or are doing right,etc. seem to contribute to the problem.
-Don't fight the improvements or start having second thoughts or questions about the improvements. IN my expereince this makes them go away faster.
Basically, because of physical and mental resistance I don't allow myself to see clearly. I need to figure out how to not create new resistance and feel through or think in such a way as the old chronic tension goes away. Stop resisting the change, when you can do this it comes a long way.
Q: where doe this resistance come from? And what actions or thoughts cause it? How may I be rid of this resistance? How can I resolve this issue? are the type of questions I have been asking.
Q:What beliefs do I have that distort my view and prevent me from learning/discovering more about this subject?
I realize that much of my notes sound like advice, that is because I am try to write down advice that I can follow. At this point I am not sure how effective this has been. As still, when I get clear flashes I really tear up, and haven't had any permanent increases. At this point I really need to figure out a set of simple guidelines that I can follow to improve, as the more notes I take the more overwhelming the whole process is. I am starting to get frustrated with the process, I have never put so much time and effort into anything as much as I have with this. I feel a bit annoyed that I keep making this harder for myself, after-all my error of refraction is so small compared to others, yet it seems I have equal if not more difficulty doing something that is supposed to be very simple. Certainly when the improvements come, it is very simple- but the the habits assert themselves and screw things up.
At this point I am going to write out as much as I know about vision improvement and problem solve on many questions that I have generated over this month and a half. I still feel like I am missing something huge that is preventing me from success. I am going to simplify my practice as much as possible over the next week again and will report my results.
Do you think I am going in the right direction? Honestly at this point I have a great deal of confusion and am meeting an epic level of resistance in the eyes and mind- which makes it incredibly difficult to solve this problem.
Re: Tsukiomi's Vision Journal - Tsukiomi - 12-08-2012
Days 56-62
End of month 2
2 months already, its been quite the struggling journey but this week I started taking a new direction in my vision practice. With some advice from arocarty I started changing the way I approached vision improvement. In the past, mostly what I have done is try to change how I am looking with my eyes or become highly aware of the strain, this would help at times temporarily, but later would increase the strain. Arocarty talked about it wasn't until he started to learn how to let go and not try really hard on many different exercises after much time of trial and error that he started getting better improvement (which I feel is similar to my situation right now).
this quote really sums up what I am doing now
"When you know what's wrong with you, or what you are doing wrong, it is then, and only then really possible to find permanent improvement. When you don't really know what you are doing wrong... makes the whole process different. Now I know why Bates spent so much time and put so much effort into demonstrating the wrong ways of doing things, and getting people to realize when they are straining, THEN worked on vision."
So I have been spending time figuring out what causes my eyes to tense and spending time learning how to relax by doing nothing. Interestingly enough I still get clear flashes at a similar rate, and am still noticing all my strains very well (if anything, what I got from the last 2 months of practice was learning where the strain is, when it comes up,etc)
Notes
so far, the main causes of my strains seem to stem from
-nervousness of looking at things (in bates language 'straining to see something')
-Trying to do too many things to say, there are so many numerous tiny things I do nervously when seeing.
some of these things are, forcing my gaze around, forcing my gaze to smaller points, forcing myself to see larger areas and forcing to feel into my strain (sometimes this causes clear flashes, but I advise against it in the long run, unless your aim is to do this and then move out and relax by doing nothing- which I what I do on occasion of greater strain)
So far, several things have been successful in making me relax.
-Sitting and while looking at things, not trying to see or pushing the eyes (similar to the way you use the eyes during swings).
-Using the imagination to slowly and in a way that I don't feel tension in the eyes move the attention to the smaller details while minding the big picture as well.
-A few seconds of palming- when I palm I simply let go of the eyes and thinking about them as much as I can, and letting whatever I see in the whole field of vision come at me without trying to narrow it.
In many ways, learning to relax to me is similar to learning to be patient, just an interesting thought.
Over this next week, I am going to do some problem solving on what I can take from my previous practices, and learn ways of completely letting go- which leads to relaxation.
One last note: Does anyone notice that in the morning its easier to get improvements in vision and you actually see slightly better than you do at night? In the morning its incredibly easy to clear the 20/40 and I actually see about that well often. But in the evening even the 20/50 lines and above would be less black. Does anyone else get this phenomenon?
Re: Tsukiomi's Vision Journal - lou_deg - 12-08-2012
Tsukiomi Wrote:Does anyone notice that in the morning its easier to get improvements in vision and you actually see slightly better than you do at night?I remember David writing that we see best just after waking up. If we slept well at night, our eyes should be at its most relaxed state when waking up in the morning. I notice that I see well when I wake up but it feels like my eye muscles are strained and it's because I just woke up. But perhaps that state of the eye muscles is the relaxed state that we need to have. After a long day of using the eyes then our eyes are probably too stressed to see well at night.
Re: Tsukiomi's Vision Journal - Tsukiomi - 12-18-2012
Day 63-73
I have been getting closer and closer to the answer in larger strides each week. These last 10 days have produced too large of an amount of notes to put down here, so I will merely summarize and explain where my lines of thinking have gone to on the subject.
Central fixation- What is actually there right now, especially that which has the most impact.
Imagination- the actual impression of an object or memory represented by the mind.
I feel that getting into the habit of dealing with what is actually there, rather than wishing or straining to make it something different is one of the key issues that needs to be addressed here.I feel like my myopia didn't occur until I consciously tried to avoid moment to moment stimuli. When I pay attention to these stimuli and the feedback from my eyes and mind, the vision improves and my eyes tear up (presumably to deal with the stress that is there). I feel like it would be impossible to see or do much of anything unless you accepted something for what it was first before proceeding. Gaining acute interest in what you are doing/feeling is a massive help in the process and makes it less painful to deal with.
More and more I find myself noticing how myopia starts off as a state of mind. It is very self defeating, stubbornly goal driven without attention to deal and is forceful. Simply dealing with what is there would be many times easier and that is the mental direction I want to move to. It would be hard to secure rest if you weren't attentive to the moment at hand now would it?
I am also starting to beat around the bush less and am moving towards the center of each issue mentally and feel close to tackling this problem.
At this point I have officially filled up an entire notebook with my vision notes, in the future I hope to come out with more and more useful ones.
More next week
Re: Tsukiomi's Vision Journal - Tsukiomi - 12-25-2012
Day 74-80
Merry Christmas everybody! Besides the in-depth write down all I know about vision and improvement note taking session last week and simplifying my practice to lower stress related to it I have mostly been simply relaxing for the holiday season. When I am mindful of it I can still get temporary improvement of around 20/40-20/25 or so. I am away from my eye-chart until this weekend so I'll get back to that as soon as possible.
At this point my research has led me to a particular interesting topic that relates to vision recovery quite specifically. I am referring to the limbic system and how through experiences and our choices, either consciously of unconsciously we make decisions which define new equilibrium's about different subjects and phenomena. In the case of eyesight, a new myopic or otherwise equilibrium is created by either repeated stressors on the act of vision or some traumatic event occurs- thus changing the eyesight. The important thing to take from this is that if you correct the brains definition of equilibrium in this case you correct the vision, because the new established equilibrium would be that of "normal" vision.
The articles that got my thinking on this route- <!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.winwenger.com/limbic1.htm">http://www.winwenger.com/limbic1.htm</a><!-- m -->.
My road to vision improvement is highly connected to various self-improvement and problem-solving drives and techniques and thus my studies are all geared towards those areas in all fields I delve into.
As for the eyesight improvement, the goal is to set a new stage of equilibrium, that of the vision standard I had as a child (20/15).
In the coming days and weeks I am going to do a targeted approach using visualizations and some problem solving techniques to see if I can identify where the break in equilibrium was (I am positive it occurred during the manifestation of that horrible twitch when I was 11) and see if I can address and handle that issue and thus reset the eyes to their healthy mode of operation for good. I think it is about time I get into the personal aspects of this and use the skills I have learned in order to go straight into the heart of the matter, rather than dabble around the edges.
Re: Tsukiomi's Vision Journal - Tsukiomi - 01-14-2013
Days 81-107
Hello again, just wanted to let you guys that I am still in the game and am making great progress. I am literally on the verge to figuring this problem out. Yeesh, over a hundred days now- I have gone through so many different types of practice, but as I learn more and more the basics of the practice are very close in my experience to what Bates was talking about. I realize that over time, my newest notes tend to be more accurate and now I am able to produce clear flashes without tons of tearing up. It is quite interesting and frustrating to realize how simple this all is, the natural reaction to vision improvement is to try and put all sorts of effort and strain into vision improvement. But this is entirely counter intuitive, that tension that you feel or pain/headaches or whatever is actually the strain itself manifesting. It is possible to get clear flashes much easier without all of that. Below I will describe something that worked for me, and my plan to conquering this problem once and for all.
At this point I view vision problems like this: Imperfect sight is the brain filtering out the complete experience of vision due to mental and physical strain. This keeps you at an artificially squelched visual-equilibrium of lower acuity. All vision practice done properly disturbs this equilibrium and permanent gains won't happen until the disturbance is sufficient enough to create a new, higher visual acuity equilibrium.
Here are the most important notes I have- which I took this week.
Thing to keep in mind is Strain=Force of effort. Basically myopes pay attention or do things in such a way that its like we force our attention to do more things that it should or force the act of vision so hard that it lowers chronically. Strain is not something hard to spot, its the uncomfortable tension or pain you feel in the nerves near and in the eyes- that's it. I never remember feeling that as a child, not until my vision lowered. Therefore its safe to say that is what strain is.
1. This is very important, if I knew exactly what strain was and how I was doing it I wouldn't have been taking so long to recover. DO NOT strain when doing any of the vision exercises, it might help a little bit, but your eyes will tear up and your attention will inevitably due to habit move to the strain, and usually also to the eyes. I think this is why doctor bates talked about dodging often, you need to dodge the strain or forget about it for long enough to make better habits and keep improvements. Even if you keep doing bates exercises, if you do not get this down- it seems like you will never make more than temporary practice like I have up to this point.
2. For me, strain seems to manifest in a certain part of my brain, and strain is such that I can literally feel it every time it comes up. I know it sounds like a broken record to be almost parroting what Bates said but it is true that I feel this whenever I make a concentrated effort. I have conditioned myself since age 11 to try to "push" things along while concentrating or straining in an attempt to make them happen faster or better, etc. It almost like a conscious perfectionism combined with impatience. For me this seems to be how strain is produced. Its so pervasive that it is very hard for me do do Anything at all without straining like this, even during vision practice.
3. The sight seems to be highly correlated to how a person uses their awareness. I always feel different and am aware of many more things when I have improvements in vision. Looking into spatial awareness may be very beneficial.
"To do the impossible is a strain"- Dr.Bates
Notes
-Let go of muscular pressure around the eyes, then imagine. Be sure to distance the attention from the eyes when you imagine. While imagining, let the object move on their own, don't force them to be of better quality, let images pop up at you and be moving, picking details out along the way.
-It could be said like this: Distance-Relax-Imagine. In that order.
The exercise itself: Imagine something. Then imagine that it is moving, rapidly and constantly from side to side (but don't control where it moves just sort of provoke movement and follow it along). Also, be aware of the entire space AROUND the object, and how it moves (this seems to be a very important part). Pick out points of better color distinction, etc while imagining. Always let yourself feel the constant movement.
After I opened my eyes, I went about becoming aware of this movement I felt while imagining everywhere. The feeling that I was aware of all of space, and how it interacted with the object I looked out, really minimized the strained feeling and instead I felt easy,relaxed and joyful. Without any tearing up, my vision improved often to what I estimate to be 20/25 or so. This happened much faster and without any strain like most clear flashes in the past. For the rest of that day, remembering that movement and feeling it all around me and interacting with everything I looked at really helped the vision improve again and again.
I haven't replicated this, because I need to find a reliable way I can get away from strain while doing vision exercises, it requires great patience and relaxation- which I hard for me.
Plans for recovery
This is actually quite simple. It is to practice the bates fundamentals exactly as written. So far, I have pretty much been doing my own thing based on my own interpretation of what bates said. Clearly although my understanding has greatly increased over the last 3 months, it is not quite there yet. So I am going to do the exercises the way they are intended, using my past experimentation and understandings to help me steer away from many pitfalls I have encountered.
In addition I am going to do a lot of dedicated note-taking and will use some problem solving techniques I have learned to help me further my understanding quicker. I feel like I am really close to finding an easy and reliable way to improve my vision without additional strain. Once I find that recovery will be right in front of me so to speak.
Take care everybody, hope this helps. Half a month to go, I think Ill make the deadline this time!
Re: Tsukiomi's Vision Journal - ted - 01-14-2013
Quote:It almost like a conscious perfectionism combined with impatience
That's a good description, one that I can identify with.
While reading fine print right up to my nose I was able to really feel this kind of impatience, almost as if I was over-controlling my breathing in a fear of somehow starting a panic attack. I realized that I don't have to force or "help" my inhalation, it does it on it's own, and that I can relax with the exhale. It was quite a memorable moment.
Have you done much work with fine print? That's what I've been experimenting with lately.
Re: Tsukiomi's Vision Journal - Tsukiomi - 01-19-2013
Something just dawned on me. If it is truly strain that is causing eye-problems, wouldn't it be necessary to not strain BEFORE you do whatever exercises you are doing? I know that for some people bates exercises promote not straining but I think one of the reasons people fail the bates method so often is that they are busy doing the exercises so much and when they fail they get very frustrated. At this point in time, I have had literally over 500 hundred clear flashes varying from 20/40 to 20/15, but they are never ever more than flashes. Something deep has to change fundamentally before permanent change can happen, and to make that change a person needs to find a way somehow to discontinue strain for long enough for it to happen.
Obviously, you need to identify what the strain is first (usually a headache, pain near the eye muscles or other tension, uncomfortable feeling in parts of your brain or stomach, it can even be frustration). But once you have identified the strain, that is I think when you do exercises- but only if they don't introduce more strain.
The unfortunate part is that I find doing exercises a la bates method very often simply adds to the problem, or that the temporary increases brings forth a panicked reaction from the brain, or doesn't last long enough, goes away when you blink,etc.
Its like the brain will do anything necessary to you to resist change, which makes it incredibly difficult to do something that people explain to be so simple. It is incredibly frustrating when you realize that strain is such a dominant state of mind, that you do it basically all day, all the time, in most things that you do. How are you supposed to deal with that?
Bates literature has so much to be desired in my mind, its like bates left several important things unsaid, or at least what he wrote were simply guidelines to people who DO understand. Clearly, health in general of the populace is a contributing factor and makes it harder for recovery in general, but that still doesn't account for the fact that people commonly got over their eye problems within a few weeks or several months, maybe a year at most. But excluding a few people, that no longer seems to be the case and all the people who supposedly know what they are talking about are either very vague, charge for their services or both. Even if I eventually learn a lot about this and gain enough experience to charge for it, I think writing out what worked for you and being very detailed about it would help everyone. That's what I intend to do.
Its hard to stand the thought that other people get as frustrated as I do with this, its supposedly such a simple thing- but its literally drive people nuts. I can't help but think that there MUST be a better way, or at least a better way of phrasing it to avoid confusion. Rest assured that when I figure this out, I am going to write myself up a storm and read every single book of natural vision improvement out there, take notes on them and find the common denominators and what works best. This is exactly what needs to happen before people start using it on a wider scale, and before it get more scientific, backed up by data,etc.
Sorry for the large rant, but I felt it was necessary to get it out- because I think I can't be the only one who feels this way.
Re: Tsukiomi's Vision Journal - Nancy - 01-19-2013
Two points: you are end-gaining in a big way. Not that that's a disaster, just wanted you to be aware of it. It works better for me to welcome the clear sight and be grateful for it, not be angry at the blur.
Second, I was so used to strain for most of my life my body thought it wasn't safe to NOT strain! I'm going after this with all my energy medicine tools like EFT, and can feel the increasing level of ease in my body over time, the deeper sleep. Just pointing this out in case it's your case too. If not, ignore it.