Last weekend I started a natural vision educators' course which will go on until July 2015. One of the assignments for the duration of the course is to keep a diary and document the experiences, changes, highs and lows. I decided to do it online - this way I can get encouraged by anyone who is interested in cheering me on while I am on this journey. Also, perhaps there is anyone else out there that will be encouraged by my thoughts.
The weekend was quite intense, especially Saturday, for a number of reasons. First of all, the whole course is in Spanish and although I can carry a conversation and understand it quite well, learning new information in a foreign language is tiring. There were moments when my head felt quite overwhelmed. Of course, there was also the newness of the whole group and professors and socialising - which was lovely but also a bit tiring. I had to get up quite early to travel into the city centre and that left hardly any time for simply relaxing and resting. Finally, we were asked to take off glasses and remove contacts for the entire weekend, and that is exhausting if you are not used to it. I went through a few months last year when I didn't wear glasses or contacts for a while but recently it has not been the case. My prescription in the beginning of this year was -6.0 in right eye and -5.5 in the left. Technically, this borders on medium-strong myopia, so not wearing anything is a challenge.
One of the most interesting experiences over the weekend was interacting with others who have the same vision challenge as me - i.e. shortsightedness. It was fascinating to see how similar they were to me, in their style of interaction, in their body language, in their eagerness to ask questions, their feverish desire for knowledge and just general intensiveness. These kind of people normally don't read one book at a time. They are also the ones that are either present and tense or relaxed but 'out there'. The state of relaxed presence is not in their personality. Nor is it in mine.
Over the last couple of days I have been quite diligent with my homework and all the little things that we have to do in order to work on our own sight. I find the material and the whole topic just absolutely fascinating. I am really really excited about it - because I think it will be a great way to learn to teach something that I actually need for myself. They say that this is what we teach best. There are still a number of practices that are not part of my routine, and I am aware of the multitude of really bad habits that my eyes have developed over the years.
I have two favourite practices already. One of them is a relaxing meditation which requires imagining a room that only has the coziest couch in the world on one side and 2 widows with closed curtains in front of the couch. On the couch there is a little person who has the laziest attitude towards everything and all she wants to do is relax, rest and yawn. Once we can fully feel how the little person is feeling, the widow curtains should open (at the same time as we open our eyes) and the aim of the whole exercise is to maintain the same attitude of lazy relaxation (and staying on the couch) while looking at the world in front of the windows (eyes). I really like this because it made me aware of how much of a contrast this is from the impulse I feel to jump to the front of the room and stick my head through the window - i.e. to bring tension and intensity to the front of my eyes and start staring. I love having brief moments of when it is actually possible for me to experience relaxed gazing, even if the sharpness and the details are not quite there yet.
The second one is an imagination exercise. It requires first having a look at something that is not particularly clear - like some letters written somewhere in front. The next step is to close the eyes and imagine something that has a lot of details - a little bug, or a leaf with all its veins and hairs - spend a good minute observing all the details. The magic of this is that the brain allows you to see better upon opening the eyes whatever appeared blurry before. My favourite part about this is that the thing I imagine when I close my eyes is the black tip of my dog's nose. It makes me relaxed and giggly just thinking about it.
The main challenge at this point is that I feel like I have a lot on and I need to fit it all without feeling tense, as that just goes against all good vision habits. Unlike before when I was just tense and unaware of it, now multiple times during the day I become mindful of stress around my eyes, in my forehead, my neck, shoulders - and can make small adjustments to release it. I also need to become braver and spend more time in front of the eye chart - they can be incredible tools for vision improvements and also haunt the nightmares of most shortsighted people. Sleep is important for eyesight so better go rest!
