March 2022 Newsletter

Hello, and a magnificent March to you!
Welcome, or welcome back, to my newsletter. Today's issue is about learning by doing it wrong first. Enjoy!

Whatever you find difficult, it probably makes you feel worse if it comes easily to someone else. Maybe you consider yourself a klutz, looking at the friend who is a natural athlete with admiration and some jealousy. Or you are overwhelmed by anything to do with numbers, and can't understand those you know who just "get it", seemingly possessing some kind of sixth sense about math.

If you don't consider yourself artistic, do you think the person pictured above is making a mess? Maybe they just feel free to be creative, in their own way. I was good with words and numbers in school, but my eyesight was the worst of anyone I knew. When I started learning about natural vision improvement, it made sense logically. However when attempting to implement the practices, I became very frustrated, feeling like the stupidest student ever. The more I tried, the blurrier my vision became.

Since I had always excelled in the classroom, my apparent incompetence at improving my eyesight was particularly upsetting. Why was this so easy for everyone else, and so difficult for me? It took me an embarrassingly long time to discover I was just trying too hard. I had been attempting to force my vision to get better, metaphorically beating it with a stick rather than enticing it with the carrot of clarity. I needed to learn to relax, to proceed more slowly, and to discern whether my visual system needed rest or stimulation right now.

Dr. Bates, the founder of natural vision improvement, taught students to "do it wrong" first, for example trying to see all of a letter on the eye chart equally well at once. When they realized how painful this was and how it did not give them clearer sight, quite the opposite, they were more open to seeing a small area at a time, which is how human vision is designed to work. When I was seeing with so much strain, pushing myself hard hoping to force the image to be clearer, I didn't realize I had been doing it the wrong way myself.

When we can look and see with ease and even wonder, relaxed eyes (and brow, and shoulders, and neck) feel so much better than peering and squinting through strong lenses! Yet proceeding this way was entirely outside of my comfort zone. It took me a long time to embrace these new habits. I was a snail, designed to move forward slowly, yet I was trying to make myself run. No wonder my progress was so unsatisfying.

Without all those years of stress inflicted on my visual system, it's unlikely I would have been as open to learning to do without thick glasses or hard contacts, and to learning to see more naturally. Nor would I have enjoyed the delights my eyes bring to me every day, vibrant colors and rich depth and subtle movement, if I was still trapped in that glass or plastic prison. Maya Angelou said "When we know better, we do better". Take a few minutes to be grateful for your own growth and learning, and what you can do more effectively now than in your past. We are all evolving, helping humanity move forward, in our own way.

For a personal story about my way of seeing being perceived as "wrong", click here.

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Please send me your questions and comments
Let me know what you've wondered about concerning energy medicine or vision or dreams. I'll be glad to write a short article addressing that topic. Thank you to those who have sent me questions, or see a question you asked me in a private session written about here. You're helping many other people! Enjoy the start of this magical month of March. I'll write again in a few weeks. Take care!