Blurry life

I was feeling a little down in the last few days. Our puppy was feeling unwell, and it made me very worried.

Some interesting shadow aspects came up a couple of nights ago about close people in my life being unwell and "threatening" leaving from my life. Thank goodness, for Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT) to dive into and out of nights like these.

I continue with some of the practices although I keep feeling that I should do more. It is a fine balance for my perfectionist self to be diligent and do the necessary work but also to not stress over things not being perfect. Sometimes it feels like I can already see changes and then this whole idea appears to be so effortless and simple. But then all it takes is evening light and some unfamiliar text or faces on the street, and everything feels like a mammoth and impossible task!

Not seeing faces is the biggest challenge and the saddest part about blurry vision. I don´t mind missing a few hundreds of ads on the streets but not seeing faces makes me feel very lonely and disconnected. I have no way of knowing that passing me by is someone I might know, nor be able to catch a friendly stranger´s smile in the metro. The world just feels murky and closed off to possibilities of accidental meaningful glances or small treasures that can be found on the ground. It seems that the best vision "happens" when I get to the limit of frustration and give up trying to do anything. Thankfully, I have the course this weekend again with the whole group. I hope it will be a motivating and inspiring end to the year.

Tension relieved

Over the last few days I have been doing various little exercises and continuing without glasses (only with pin-hole ones). I feel so much more aware of all the tension in my body related to blurry vision and my posture - it's unbelievable! Luckily, yesterday evening I had an appointment with a chiropractor which is about a year overdue. It is difficult to describe in words the flood of relief that I felt after a 5 minute adjustment - I literally left with tears of joy in my eyes and kept giggling the rest of the evening. It felt like years of tension and pressure in my neck and shoulders simply vanished, and I look forward to continuing with these appointments over the next few weeks. This is a profession for which I feel immense gratitude and could not recommend it more to everyone!

Generally speaking, there are moments when I feel a bit frustrated, especially, with eye charts. It is considered one of the most powerful tools in natural vision improvement, and although I understand the theory behind it, I am struggling to connect with it. It brings back memories from early childhood and having to stare at them in various eye doctors 'offices, always feeling guilty, ashamed and inadequate for not being able to see them with clarity. It makes me feel similarly now - uneasy, uncomfortable, impatient and un-able.  I look forward to transforming this challenge over the next months to come.

One of my favourite parts of my new routine is reading micro-letters (i.e. font size 2 and smaller). I printed one of my most loved books of all times George MacDonald's Phantastes A Faerie Romance for Men and Women and it makes me so happy to be reading it again. It's a nice feeling to know that reading micro fonts is something that my eyes can do exceptionally well. The idea is that the same feeling of relaxation and enjoyment should be learnt when looking into the distance (as opposed to immediately tensing up). I am absolutely loving the fact that I am doing this course!

“Yet I know that good is coming to me—that good is always coming; though few have at all times the simplicity and the courage to believe it.. ” — George MacDonald, Phantastes

The beginning

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!