February 2025 Newsletter

Hello, and a free-flowing February to you!
Welcome, or welcome back, to my newsletter. Today's issue is about how seeing is supposed to be easy. Enjoy!

When we want to hear something more distinctly, we turn our attention to it and listen, to better receive the sounds so we can interpret them. When we want to feel the texture of a fabric, or of a pet's fur, we give our attention to our fingers, then touch the surface, receiving the sensations. Why isn't this natural process as easy for so many of us with our vision?

Dr. Bates, the founder of natural vision improvement, said over 100 years ago that straining to see is at the root of most (if not all) eyesight problems. If you're squinting, or peering, or in some other way trying hard to see better, you're not helping yourself, or your vision. Most of us have been taught that trying hard and putting forth a great deal of effort is how you achieve results. Unfortunately however, this doesn't work for the visual system. We want to easily welcome and receive the images in front of us, rather than struggling to force them into clarity.

When I was a child I enjoyed reading books, although I know now my vision was constantly straining behind my distance glasses, which I never removed. This led to progressive myopia, which I've also heard called "galloping myopia", and stronger distance corrections once or twice a year. The result was even more strain for my hard-working eyes. I can't go back and redo my childhood, though I wish someone had known back then that to do simple activities without my glasses would not "ruin my eyes" as I was so often told. On the contrary, it would have given them some breathing room from perpetual strain, and taught them that there were many things they could see fine on their own.

My parents were not punishing me by putting me in strong glasses. It was all they knew to "fix" my strained eyesight. This was especially true of my myopic mother, who had her own painful teenage memories of sitting behind a tall boy in class and not being able to see the board, then getting glasses herself. As an obedient daughter, I absorbed the belief that the only solution to inadequate eyesight was glasses, paying little attention to my visual system's negative reaction to these heavy restrictive devices on my face.

It took me a while to learn to regularly notice my body's feedback as a source of guidance, I was so disconnected from my feelings. Was I too obedient, depending on parents and teachers and bosses to set the path I followed? Looking back, I think I was just more focused on pleasing the authorities (my parents when I was a child) than I was on pleasing myself, to keep peace in the environment. My priorities are different now, and I have a better idea of what I need to thrive than I did then. Better yet, it's under my control to get that for myself.

The eagle is in his element, floating along on the air currents and updrafts, scanning the ground below for prey. "Eagle-eyed" is a metaphor for highly precise eyesight, like a sniper needs. The eagle can spot small creatures at a far distance below so he can eat; clear sight is essential for him. I'd like to expand the eagle-eyed metaphor to include flight. The eagle doesn't look like he's trying to fly, he's just flying, immersing himself in the activity without effort. Clear relaxed human seeing should be like this too, equally effortless. Can you imagine yourself as an eagle, gliding along through your day, seeing what you need to see without any strain or struggle? Let it be easy.

For an article on how clear seeing is meant to be effortless, 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 fine month of February. I'll write again in a few weeks. Take care!