In every moment you have a choice in what you do with your eyes. In every moment you can be aware of what you’re doing, and change it, or you can let yourself go on and do what you’ve always done to see blur. When you look at something and don’t see it clearly, what do you do? I’m not asking you what you think you should do, but what you actually do. In order to change how you see, you have to be aware of the things you’re doing that are sabotaging your vision. Don’t get too abstract with this; I’m talking about what you’re physically doing with your eyes each time you don’t see something. With each thing you find that you do, take a look at it and consider whether it is something that is supporting your vision or not. Are you blinking too hard, trying to clear it up right away? Are you looking far away from it? Are you trying to force it to appear to move, as sometimes people interpret Bates as suggesting?
The change you have to make is so much more subtle than you probably think. It is such a small adjustment, that to you appears to be almost nothing at all, with no effect at all, but in that small adjustment you are establishing how your are approaching using your eyes, and as you continue doing it, you get better at it, and it becomes, gradually, a larger adjustment. But you have to start at the beginning by being willing to do something with no results at first. It’s not about whether you’re doing it perfectly from the get-go. You’ll figure it out. It’s about standing up for yourself and demonstrating that you believe in yourself by simply doing the best you can.
It’s not that a change has to be practiced every minute of the day for it to work. The issue of consistency, and doing things right all the time, is about what you’re telling yourself with your actions. Will you stand with the stability and conviction of using your eyes without strain? Will you do it, whenever you remember, no matter what? If not, why do it at all? Do you really want to? There’s no reason to sometimes do it and sometimes not.
I founded iblindness.org in 2002 as I began reading books on the Bates Method and became interested in vision improvement. I believe that everyone who is motivated can identify the roots of their vision problems and apply behavioral changes to solve them.