I was wondering if pain is good or bad? I mean that if this is about releasing the tension of facial muscles, then maybe one should not give up and make it as painful as possible to make the adaptation happen.
Or lets look this another way, maybe it is painful because we are not relaxed enough and that's why when we work on the chart it becomes painful. The muscles simply resist the adaptation. I was just thinking if one has gained relaxation through palming would suffer such a pain.
I don't really know what should we do about the pain. I think that most of you know what pain I mean. The itching feeling in the eyes, the sensations on the face and etc.
Somebody please help.
I find this topic funny, because when I first started on the Bates method I was concerned about the same thing and have been reading people's same concerns ever since. Back then I emailed Dave along with the optometrist Ray Gottlieb (that Dave puts reference to on the iBlindness.org site) asking for advice.
Basically, and I have come to agree, it may or may not be bad for you but fundamentally the pain is coming from something not being right. I ended up avoiding it because I didn't like the pain, and now I've developed enough control over my eyes that I can cause it anytime I desire, which is never. Plus, I started developing multiple ways of clearing my vision and in the end only one way is correct - relaxation!
I think the issue is that you (and all of us who have gone through it!) hold on to anything that might make our vision better. It could be a learning experience, but patience is a productive virtue!
The reason for creating this topic is that I am experiencing extreme pain when doing the exercises. I got confused a bit, because it is very very painful, I see better, but, sometimes I think that my eye is breaking a part! or maybe it may pop out of its place! This made me concerned a lot.
I think that there is a struggle between not being relaxed and the relaxed state somehow, which leads my muscles to get confused. But not sure anyway.
What type of pain are we talking about here? Is it kind of a hot, strained, worked-out feeling? Because that isn't good - that's exactly what strain is.
Or is it like sharp mystery pains? That can be very good. It can mean your body is adjusting. When I first started letting my shoulders drop (relaxing my trapeziums), my shoulders were unused to the weight of my arms, and it took time before it stopped hurting.
Generally speaking, I've had all kinds of aches and pains, in my back, neck, shoulders, lower legs, knees, feet... and they all do go away as the adjustment that the pain indicates is made. It isn't just because I'm relatively young (25), it's because I pay attention to these things and do something about them when necessary to stop them from turning into something worse.
But there's also the example of a pain I was getting in my calves, a strained feeling, after jogging. Once I could hardly walk around my apartment for a while. It got to the point when every time I started jogging it would flare up worse again. But after many times, I noticed that a couple minutes into jogging I didn't notice it anymore, and then I began noticing that it didn't really feel worse after jogging anymore. One day it was feeling pretty bad, and I went jogging, and it disappeared, and hasn't come back to any really noticeable degree since then. In terms of a muscle strain it makes very little sense, and I didn't change shoes. I did have the idea that it had to do with wearing socks that were too tight at the top, above my ankles (my lower cavles), and I started wearing a looser brand. It may have helped, I don't know. When it was getting pretty bad, I had no insight beyond the socks and just had to give up any sense of immediate control over it, and just gave the problem to God - that's the spiritual solution, anyway. Maybe it was just an adjustment that had to happen. I still don't know.
Dave
Site Administrator
"Half of our funny, heathen lives, we are bent double to gather things we have tossed away." - George Meredith
I've wondered about that too. I've had a lot of pain from NVI but I figure that as long as I was seeing better it was probably a beneficial adjustment my body was making. I'm also willing to endure considerable discomfort if I feel it's for a good reason though.
Elias Wrote:Hello everyone,
I was wondering if pain is good or bad? I mean that if this is about releasing the tension of facial muscles, then maybe one should not give up and make it as painful as possible to make the adaptation happen.
Or lets look this another way, maybe it is painful because we are not relaxed enough and that's why when we work on the chart it becomes painful. The muscles simply resist the adaptation. I was just thinking if one has gained relaxation through palming would suffer such a pain.
I don't really know what should we do about the pain. I think that most of you know what pain I mean. The itching feeling in the eyes, the sensations on the face and etc.
Somebody please help.
I'm not sure I know what you guys are talking about, but I can tell you two kinds of pain that I've experienced in the short time I've been doing this. One type is the type I get when I'm typing on the computer or coding that I know is strain. If I want to feel it all I have to do is expand my programing window to the full height of the monitor so that my mind subconsciously tries to see more than one line at once. As a matter of fact, just typing this much text as I have so far I have already started feeling it.
The next type of pain happens if I've been swinging for about five minutes or so. My eyes sort of don't like to do this after awhile and they "want" to stop. I see better after I do this though so I hope it's a good sign.
Let me see if I can give a better explanation. When I feel strain I want to close my eyes and rest them. When I feel this "Swing" pain I don't necessarily want to close my eyes and rest them, I just want to stop jumping back and forth again and again and again.
When I'm done swinging the letters that I see as very black still jump around on the page like water on a hot griddle. Or I should say the black that I see on the letters jumps around. I'm gaining control of where I spot this black slowly, but it's not under my control yet. Though when I'm swinging the black appears on the portion of the letter I'm looking at -- most of the time.
I get some pain in my eye, feels like the lens/pupil, when i do my gliding. Do believe this is good, but if anyone knows different then let me know. Would prefer not do damage my eyes, feels like this some times. Maybe this pain is essential for the eyes to improve?
I apologise, I presumed you were talking about a stinging sensation on the cornea. Perhaps you are, but it appears people are experiencing all sorts of different pains. This is a good topic to bring up, because I think people might be apprehensive about mentioning any pain they're feeling.
bjsilva Wrote:Perhaps you are, but it appears people are experiencing all sorts of different pains.
I think people experience all sorts of things. I've had pain in different parts of my eyes and head as well as nausea but some of the worst is the emotional trauma that can re-surface.
