Choices lead to improvement

I noticed a key principle of good vision while being a passenger in a car today.  As we were driving this morning, the sun kept shining into my eyes from different directions and angles.  My first reaction to this annoyance would be to close my eyelids and scrunch up my face in order to block out the light.  However, the reaction that I chose instead was to lightly close my eyes and try to relax more.  The first reaction is pushed by the myopic part of me, and the latter is urged by the new part of me that wants to reduce mental and physical strain.

While my myopic aspect thinks that scrunching up my face and tightly closing my eyes will be the most effective action to make the bright light less annoying, I know that this reaction would only add more strain to the initial stress I had from being aggravated by the sunlight.  The more relaxed response where I closed my eyes and later opened them reduced the strain that the sunlight had previously caused.  When I used the second reaction this morning, the sunlight bothered me about 90% less than before.  I was still a little sensitive to the sunlight as I do not currently have perfect mental relaxation.  However, the more relaxed state noticeably reduced the amount of irritation that the light caused.

The two choices I faced in this story are present throughout every day in my vision improvement journey.  I always have the choice to strain more in reaction to something I want to see better or to relax more in order to let the object become clear.  This constant choice is the part of the vision improvement process that must be applied at all times.  One’s vision will become improved once more of these choices are made toward the relaxed response.

I know that I am not choosing the relaxed reaction enough, but I am definitely using this reaction more than I used to.  Even if I have been using the stressful reaction for much of the day, my vision quickly becomes clearer once I make the other choice and let my mind and eyes relax.  In order to regain perfect sight, I need to answer all my daily vision decisions with the relaxed response instead of the strained response.

Making my knowledge into habits

At this point in my vision improvement journey, I’ve learned all the basic principles of reaching and maintaining clear vision.  This does not mean that I will stop educating myself about the topic, as I can still learn helpful techniques and read motivating stories.  However, the basic principles of perfect sight will remain pretty much the same regardless of which new techniques I learn.

Therefore, the best thing I can do now for my vision is to put my knowledge of the principles and techniques into daily practice.  I have been wearing glasses or contacts for about a decade, so it seems reasonable to me that it will just take some time for my visual system to heal back to its previous clear state.  I’ve already improved my vision a good deal from its worst point, but it will take some time to reach the level of mostly 20/10 visual acuity.  I know this process would be quicker if I had a Bates teacher to guide and motivate me, but right now I just have myself and the online vision improvement community to support my efforts.  I would like in the future to attend a vision seminar or take a lesson from a vision teacher since I am so interested in the topic; this would be true even if I had already regained clear vision.

What I’ll be working on daily now is three main things:  1. Wear my glasses as little as possible.  2. Try to be relaxed mentally and physically all day long.  3.  Learn and practice new/known techniques either with the Snellen chart or objects in order to provide extra relief of mental strain.

I want to wish everyone good luck in the vision improvement community!  You’re all in my thoughts and prayers. 🙂