So after spending the week doing various exercises, I have been somewhat stuck on my vision improvement. My eyes do get flashes of clear vision, but there has been no permanent improvement. As a result I feel I should seek out a vision improvement teacher. This seems to be the most appropriate route and will help me utilise the techniques I have learnt much better than I am doing so at the moment.

I am also waiting on my eyebody book to learn more of how I can aid improvement of my eyes.

This is not to say the techniques have not been useful – my centralisation is a lot better for practising it, I can relax my eyes if I get stressed and generally I feel a lot better, but that is as far as I have progressed. Although I potentially have a lot of strain and emotional tension to let go of, and don’t expect it to happen in a few weeks, I feel an natural vision teacher will help me move a further step along.

My journey so far has been somewhat slow. I have been mostly reading and after reading Sassi’s Blog recently I decided to purchase the eyebody book to learn more. Sassi has had great results with this approach (for more information visit Eye Body) and I now want to know more!

I have been quite unorganised on the exercises but I do still incorporate blinking, moving and centralization into my day. I have found that if I am looking at my bub I am actually centralizing! It seems whenever I look else where I have more trouble doing so and have to just imagine that I am or convince myself.

My eyesight is much clearer than it was 6 weeks ago and my eyes have become less sensitive to sunlight. I used to go out and really have a hard time even slightly having my eyes open, but now I have them fully open. There is still some sensitivity but it is so much better than before. My breathing has still remained how I have wanted. I really need to work on blinking, moving and centralizing a bit more aggressively now and I feel I am ready to start a proper practise and have the time to do so! Also today we had a sunny day, which hopefully means no more cold rainy days. This means I can go do thenning technique with palming which I have wanted to do but haven’t really had the opportunity to in this weather. I know some people use an artificial light for sunning, but I have read several times you should only use sunlight.

So tomorrow I shall be starting and this is what I shall do in the morning and before bed:

• From the natural vision improvement kit I will follow the relaxation part. Releasing tension of my muscles through exercises (I will be starting this after a morning run so that should help too)

• 2 sets of 50 long swings (this requires swaying body left to right, allowing your head and nose to swing softly around the room).

• 50 infinity swings (this is a variation of the long swing but you put your fingers in front of you and follow one hand to right and the other to left in a figure of 8 )

• centralization using 2 pencils.

• Palming again for 10 minutes (in the morning this will be done with sunning so for a little bit longer).

I don’t think this is too much to do on a daily basis and so I should be able to easily stick to it. By next Sunday I should hopefully be able to see some improvement or what these exercises give to me. Before I do this though, I will be working out actually how decent my eyesight is, using the eyesight chart I have, so I can see if there is an improvement in this in a week. I will still also be incorporating throughout the day blinking and moving as much as possible. I seem to struggle now and then with the blinking and lately have been spacing out (I have a lot on my mind!). I catch myself and rectify it though and if I can’t then I usually shut my eyes. I also think my diet is going to help me stay more focused as well. It has given me a surge of energy I have needed and I seem to procrastinate less on tasks.

This evening my sister asked me to give her a lift somewhere. I reluctantly said I would, but this meant putting on my glasses of which I haven’t for over 4 weeks now. I decided to quickly try them before I set out and they were too strong. Even looking through them for a second made me feel sick and dizzy. It was horrible and I wasn’t sure how I would manage to keep them on for half an hour. I started to look for old pairs, but I only found a scratched pair, so had no choice but to use my, now, too strong pair. On top of having to deal with my glasses again, I had to drive in the dark. Not exactly the best combination, but I had to (well I didn’t have to but my problem is I can never say no or I dislike immensely letting people down).

The journey was awful. My eyes kept going in and out of focus. I felt sick, dizzy and could not concentrate on the task at hand; which made me drive a little bit dangerously at times. It was horrible. Trying to fight against the strength of the glasses at the same time as trying to continue my good vision habits of blinking, shifting and centralizing was almost impossible. I did persevere but it was extremely hard, not to mention trying to concentrate on where I was going. I was relieved to get the darn things off my face.

I did notice though that my eyes quickly adjusted back to how they had been for the past 4 weeks (although they are still a little sore from the strain). To me this is a sign that I have been exceeding in good eye practice and that I have made the right choice.

That experience has reinforced my notion never to wear glasses ever again. If that means I can’t drive a car again – so be it. It was awful and I guess having had my glasses off for so long showed me how bad it really is. I now know that I will definitely get my vision back and that I shall be free of this horrible burden to my eyes forever.

So to anyone skeptical of this natural vision improvement malark, I challenge you to take your glasses off for a few weeks, and then put them back on. If you think the only solution is to put up with that strain and stress on your eyes, then you are nuts! You don’t need perfect vision – you can manage in life without it (of course until you improve enough to meet standards ).

I don’t care that my vision isn’t exactly clear right now, but when I put those glasses back on, I realized how very wrong I was seeing through them. Even though my vision is blurred, I know I am seeing properly – more so than through glasses and thus lies my determination in staying this way.

If you are reading this and debating what to do about yours eyes – please take a few weeks off from your glasses. It isn’t hard to adapt to and you will feel a lot better for doing so. It will be the first step to a beautiful journey in recovering your eyes.

Day 1
I started off going through the exercises on the cd for natural vision improvement (there are two cds in the pack, one for computers users, which I should really get around to looking at too being a computer user to quite a large extent). The cd gives you exercises (it also comes with cards so you can refer to them and the book goes into more detail) which help to relieve tension in the shoulders and neck, where a lot of tension is usually stored in the person with blurred vision. I know my shoulders and neck are very tense, and these exercises really relieved some of the built up tension. You have to relieve some of this tension in order to do the palming exercise. Palming is done with slow deep breathing, relaxed shoulders, and completely relaxed hands. The relaxation that one gets from palming amplifies the effects of all the other exercises, but if you aren’t relaxed you can’t reap the full benefits (if any) of it. I have done palming before but I must admit I have never felt so relaxed. I guess I must have been doing it very wrong before, and this cd is definitely an excellent guide to doing it properly.

Palming isn’t the only exercise – there is blinking, sunning, shifting and many others. I went through them all which took about an hour and a half. After doing the exercises I felt very relaxed and refreshed. I don’t know how it affected my vision, but the blinking exercise and eye massage accompanied by it, really helped me relax my eyes and not squint which is such a hard habit to remove.

I also found the exercises to relieve the tension in my shoulders, left them a little sore afterwards. As I was doing them, I could feel my muscles softening up and in my left shoulder I felt a trapped nerve, like it was finally being released. The exercises definitely made me realise how tense I am and it was good to relieve the tension, even if it didn’t last long after finishing the sequence.

Day 2
I realised that in order to do the exercises efficiently and to make a difference I really need to get the tension out of my shoulders. It is all very well relieving the tension through the exercises given, and I guess with time using the techniques automatically will prevent me getting tense in the first place, but I do feel that my tension isn’t just about my eyes. I guess I have a lot of emotional baggage to offload off my shoulders and I need to relax and get as much tension out as possible each day, as well as do the exercises – otherwise I am going to end up getting no where. Running again should help this, and I think I shall start my Ashtanga yoga again (I have lost so much flexibility from being pregnant though!).

Day 3
My book by Thomas Quackenbush, Relearning to See arrived in the post! I am glad it came quickly because I have been eager to delve into it seeing as it is the book recommended everywhere for natural vision improvement. I can see why just from scanning the chapters! I read quite a lot (I did the exercises on the cd like the other two days but not all of them – I stuck to palming, blinking and the massages). I looked at the section of the two sides to health and healing and it gives other therapies you can use to help speed up your natural vision improvement/healing. It includes homeopathy, massage, herbs, iridology etc. I think that now I shall opt to get a deep tissue massage to help relieve a lot of the tension in my neck and shoulders for good.

Day 4-7
Well I went out for a walk and discovered I could see a lot more than I used to be able to. I also have felt everyday no sore eyes at the end of the day. This is partially from palming, blinking and breathing which has helped my eyes stay relaxed (well as relaxed as they can be for blurry eyes!) and not tense whenever I look at something. However, the Relearning to See book has been an immense help. I have been reading it a lot and discovering new things. I have started reading the section on 3 principles of natural vision and the first one being movement. Since this I haven’t allowed my eyes to stare or stay still! I have spent everyday with relaxed eyes – my eyes haven’t gotten sore by the time I go to bed, and a few evenings I have often felt energised and really happy, more than I have done in a very long while.

Yes my shoulder and neck tension is still there (not as bad or as extreme as it used to be but it is still quite bad) but I feel a lot better. I saw a friend Saturday whom told me I looked more comfortable in my own skin, that I looked much more relaxed and chilled out. I feel this is as a result of taking off my glasses 3 weeks ago and am so glad I have. I have NO intention putting them back on, ever again.

The natural vision improvement kit alone isn’t enough for me. It has good guidance for exercises and for someone who doesn’t want to know the science behind it or know more than just the basic information given in the kit, then it is fine on its own. But for me, Thomas Quackenbush’s book is what, I feel, is going to get me properly going with vision improvement. I enjoy reading and knowing not just the techniques, but the science behind it, the facts really. The vision kit gives you a short summary, but this book is extremely detailed. I like the idea of using other services such as homeopathy and massage in relation to.

I don’t feel blurred vision is just about bad vision techniques either. Stress plays such a huge role in our lives, and not everyone gets to have a stable environment as a child. I feel that the Relearning to See, will enable me to heal the whole of me and not just my vision and I also think it will allow me to grow as a person. I am still going to continue to use the vision kit because I love listening to the cd but this book is definitely going to be the key to my success visually!

Two of the main exercises in vision improvement

Palming – To palm is to cover your closed eyes with your hands in such a way that there is no pressure on your eyes. You do this by applying pressure on your forehead and leaving your hands free around your eyes. Your fingers are partly interlaced and your hands cup over your eyes. There should be as little as light as possible. The eyes are supposed to be fully relaxed when they see complete blackness. As someone who wears glasses or has blurred you vision, you may notice that it is quite hard to see complete blackness at first. When you become more relaxed and breathe abdominally (properly) it will become easier. Imagining complete blackness, in reference to something you are familiar may also help.

Sunning – This is looking at the sun with your eyes closed, moving your head side to side. Sunning helps us accept the light of day, something a lot of us have lost since being indoors all the time. Do you go outside squinting? Sunlight stimulates maculas which are the light sensitive cells in the eye and also allows the eye to be more flexible as it contracts and expands. Sunlight also stimulates the melanin layer of the retina which darkens the appearance of sunlight and protects us naturally from it. This process is like sunglasses – but sunglasses act like a crutch to our eyes and thus our pupils are prevented from adjusting naturally.