For me letting go of strain my mind is slightly spacey and my face being pushed back. Also my eyes being lifted up due to muscles around the forehead lifting. I'm starting to think it comes down to a mental control thing. A slight mental shift to allow myself to just let go.
This is a very subjective area, because everyone is going to feel and interpret things somewhat differently. Yet there is a lot of commonality among those who experience it, and I think you are spot on that it boils down to a type of mental control. It requires no effort to let go of, or relax abnormal tension. It cannot be compelled or forced. It takes more of a decision, once one is more conscious of, and familiar with it's presence. And for those who have sustained it, chronically, for so long, that can be quite a challenge in itself. That's why Bates kept pounding it into his patients, to demonstrate, demonstrate, demonstrate the different ways people lowered their vision. "Rubbing it in," he called it. Some of his appointments were anything but relaxing - some were downright painful and uncomfortable. It was sometimes the only way to get the point across, for people to learn what they were doing to themselves.
It usually doesn't manifest itself UNTIL the moment something changes. Then it'll slip back under the radar until the conditions are right again. It can feel like something is deflating, decompressing, a grip unclenching, melting, weightless, free-falling, an expanding (I've had sensations of all this at one time or another). As it lets go, there is nothing you can do - except let it happen. Just ride it, and keep riding it. I can see how you might feel slightly spacy, because something feels missing, an emptiness of sort, from something that has parked itself there for a long time. Something that didn't belong there in the first place, but you got conditioned to it being there. Whatever slight mental shift you found, keep seeking it and encouraging it. Allow your body to let go.
I agree with everything Andrew said. Some of the reason it's different for different people may be that not everyone strains in the same way, but there do seem to be some universal patterns. I learn most about this by observing myself and my own habits, and by hearing about other's experience with it, which may or may not be like mine. As Andrew said, the dominant feeling for me is expansion, taking up more space and feeling safe to do so, my chest and heart area opening up, my shoulders relaxing. It feels like exhaling when I hadn't realized I was holding my breath, it was so "normal" for me. Around my face and eyes there is also a feeling of opening up, again like removing a squinting pattern I didn't realize I had. For me there is a particular increase in relaxation or softness below the outer corners of my eyes, and along my jawline, when I hadn't been aware of any "holding" there before. I'm using this awareness to help me know more when I'm straining, so I can let go of it.
I like that a decision. Could it be a decision to keep the mind in the moment? I notice that my mind likes to wander and perhaps I'm steering my attention back to the moment? I do notice a bit of clarity when doing this.
woblaud Wrote:I like that a decision. Could it be a decision to keep the mind in the moment? I notice that my mind likes to wander and perhaps I'm steering my attention back to the moment? I do notice a bit of clarity when doing this.
Yes, being "in the moment" is a wonderful idea. However, analyzing past, present, and potential future scenarios is something our brains need to do, and often daydreaming is a means by which that gets done. If sorting your thoughts is something you do frequently, I would personally recommend doing it somewhere peaceful and quiet with your eyes closed (maybe even while palming) and spend the rest of your time in the present.
arocarty Wrote:It usually doesn't manifest itself UNTIL the moment something changes. Then it'll slip back under the radar until the conditions are right again. It can feel like something is deflating, decompressing, a grip unclenching, melting, weightless, free-falling, an expanding (I've had sensations of all this at one time or another). As it lets go, there is nothing you can do - except let it happen. Just ride it, and keep riding it. I can see how you might feel slightly spacy, because something feels missing, an emptiness of sort, from something that has parked itself there for a long time. Something that didn't belong there in the first place, but you got conditioned to it being there. Whatever slight mental shift you found, keep seeking it and encouraging it. Allow your body to let go.
This is exactly what its like for me except the right conditions seem to always be under tension. I feel the tension coming on thats when I am able to release it. I am doing absolutely nothing, it seems to run on auto-pilot - as soon as the tension comes my body knows to release and I ride that feeling of deflating.
I'm just unsure how to go about encouraging it all the time.
Ok I think I'm starting to understand it better. I am reprogramming bad habits to good ones? Mental control, replacing wrong thoughts with ones that relax, reprogramming they are one of the same?
I, at least for now, can't tell if I feel strain or not. I just don't see the difference...
Perhaps, strain is so "natural" for me (+/- 15 years of wearing glasses or contact lenses), that is quite hard to distinguish strain from relaxed state.
Versatile Wrote:I, at least for now, can't tell if I feel strain or not. I just don't see the difference...
Perhaps, strain is so "natural" for me (+/- 15 years of wearing glasses or contact lenses), that is quite hard to distinguish strain from relaxed state.
It should only be a matter of time before you can feel the difference. Some of us (like Nancy) have worn glasses for decades, and they are now getting improvements, so there is hope yet for you.
Versatile, Fiat is right. Note, however, that one "downside" (not really!) of feeling the strain is that it will bother you so much, you will want to stop it! It will be very difficult to keep doing what you were doing -- your visual system will beg you to change your habits.
