Challenging times

I have not written in a little while. At first, there were Christmas holidays, and then the busy-ness of the new year started. And I simply did not feel like writing.

I really appreciate that I am not doing this process on my own, and that I have the monthly group meetings to look forward to. Usually the last week before each class is the most difficult one. I seem to completely lose motivation and honestly feel like giving it all up. Meeting everyone again and learning all the new and fascinating things about eyesight inspires me again for a few weeks each time. I really think this is the reason why I stopped the routines last time I tried to learn all of this on my own - finding people that believe in what you are trying to achieve and can cheer you up along the way is important in most challenges, and it really applies to eyesight improvement. Especially, as it seems to be one of those subjects that everyone around needs to be persuaded about - that it works, that it is possible - and it is not an easy task when one is trying to keep themselves motivated.

The last weekend with the group, however, was quite tricky. I had had a very busy week at work, so by the time the weekend came, I felt a lot of tension in my eyes, neck and entire back. It has not been easy for me to take the glasses off and try to manage multiple complex spreadsheets without feeling tense. There are days when I can use pinhole glasses and enjoy slowing down and taking lots of breaks, but sometimes it just doesn't work - like when I have to do lots and need to do it quickly. In any case, I talked to our course supervisor about it. I was not prepared for my reaction to her gentleness and compassion about this. All of a sudden during our little private conversation I had tears filling up my eyes. She simply explained that the WHOLE POINT of natural eyesight improvement is relaxing the eyes, therefore, that needs to be a priority no matter what, even if that means a few days during the week with reduced strength glasses or contact lens. It's hard to explain but it felt like one of those moments of having my experience and feelings completely validated, as if someone was giving me a complete permission slip to feel relaxed and OK about all of it. It is so beautiful when other people somehow allow us to do something that we are unwilling to allow ourselves.

And that has made all of the difference. Everything feels more balanced somehow. There are moments in the day when I am perfectly happy to enjoy more blurry view and accept what is, but then I also have days when I use my reduced strength contacts and feel so happy and enjoy the clarity - like seeing all the beauty of Hobbit in cinema, or our dog's hair while cleaning the house. The journey continues on.

Holiday rest

I had a wonderful break over the festive season. It was so incredible to not travel for holidays for what felt like the first time in years, I had forgotten how nice it is to just be at home. On average, I would say I slept extra 3 hours per day which was so restful and relaxing. The rest of the days were spent eating delicious foods, going for walks, and playing board games with my family.

Compared to my usual working week, I hardly spent any time in front of the computer, and despite not following any intense eye routines, my eyesight felt more rested and relaxed. My small practices during the day are to do some palming, sunning, long swings, a few minutes of shifting, and upon noticing that my eyes are tired, trying to relax the face and the gaze. I also wear pinhole glasses when I use computer or watch TV,

The relaxation I felt over the last couple of weeks is slowly waning now that I am back to work since the beginning of this week. Today when we went for a walk in evening light, I had a sort of 'down' moment thinking that perhaps the whole challenge is too big for my eyesight. I have no problem believing that others can do it or that in theory this is possible and works, but somehow today I was having doubts as to whether I can achieve this. There was nearly a moment of resigning that perhaps in my case and with my lifestyle and job that requires a lot of tension in front of the screen, the changes will be smaller and just enough that I can sort of feel comfortable navigating the world mostly without glasses. It felt difficult to imagine seeing it all with perfect clarity and focus naturally, when this is not something that I have any memories of.

One of the things that is difficult to balance for me is having different eye routines without them becoming laws or strict to-do-list because I know that such tension will not bring relaxation to my eyes. I am also still struggling to engage with the eye chart. Despite our professors saying that it is one of the most important tools for eyesight improvement and relaxation, I am not feeling any draw towards it, and don't really spend significant amounts of time with it (I have a few copies of them plastered in areas where I pass by and can occasionally glance towards).

I know that I don't always feel like that. There genuinely are sunny beautiful days when it seems I am so close to 'mastering it', as everything looks so vivid and clear. I am grateful that every time I feel a little down with the process, I have an opportunity to connect with all my fellow students and professors face to face. It is always such a great support and a boost to my motivation to continue with all these new habits even when it feels like the challenge is too big. Let's see what happens at the course this weekend!

Not fun!

Last week wasn’t exactly full of positive highlights in terms of my vision. I was travelling a lot and found moving between airports and train stations without glasses quite stressful. As I am using reduced glasses, putting them on even for brief moments did not really make me feel that much more relaxed.

Things were also quite hectic at work because everyone wanted to finish everything in time for Christmas, so faffing around without glasses or with pinhole glasses just wasn’t really an option the way it is when I work from home. I found the week stressful at times and did not enjoy my vision in the slightest – with or without glasses. Not having them on made me stressed because I couldn’t see things, having the glasses on felt physically straining and left me with red burning eyes at the end of each day.

Not being at home also made me lose track of some of the routines and practices that I would generally follow while at home. I travelled in places with much less sunshine, which meant I stopped doing the sunning exercise and also felt that my vision was less effective in dim light.

Finally, I visited a close friend of mine who recently had a baby, and seeing her caringly watch and observe his tiny scrunched up face made me feel quite resentful and fearful of the imaginary future in which I might not be able to do the same without glasses when we have a baby.

All in all not a great week vision-wise, but I look forward to having more space and time to relax and feel more positive about this over the Christmas break.

Shifting with joy

Last weekend was amazing. It's very inspiring and uplifting to not do this alone, and having the opportunity to meet with all the coursemates really helps. My favourite part, however, was Sunday morning outside, near the Palacio Royal. It was very cold but sunny, and we started the morning by doing the sunning exercise. What followed was my favourite activity so far - shifting. It involved slowly walking in couples and one acting as a guide while the other had all the time to enjoy gentle tracing with the eyes, nose and head every object that would catch the eye, without any need to constantly look down (which is something that people with eye problems tend to do too much of).

I absolutely loved it because for the first time in as long as I can remember I actually experienced a complete joy in seeing exactly just how I can see without any desire for anything to look different or be clearer. First of all it creates a feeling of ease - while trying to see with clarity causes tension, tracing objects (big and small, far and near, familiar and not) is simple. Therefore, it immediately creates an 'I can do this' attitude. It also makes me aware of just how many things there are that I can see - some of which might be blurry, but colourful, of a certain shape and size, and all very very interesting. I also like how that attitude of being interested in something actually makes me want to look for the next interesting object as well as become more aware of potentially interesting objects in my vision field. The movement of the head and nose as they follow the eyes creates a certain looseness in my neck and shoulders. The eyes and gaze feel soft, and it becomes very easy to have the attitude of a lazy person sitting in the back of the room and looking into the world through the windows. I noticed that since Sunday I hardly ever look to the ground which used to be my default staring position - instead now I seem to be always surrounded by interesting things to look at above and around me. And just as a side affect it appears that the vision temporarily becomes sharper as well. Let's keep shifting! 

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!