While I keep caring about my eyes, every Bates technique I do gets perverted and becomes its opposite. Let's take shifting for example. To move my eyes all the time is the WRONG way. The right way is to DO NOTHING with my eyes, step aside and wait. What's going to happen is that I will become bored in a second and my interest will go to another point, and my eyes will want to shift as well. Bingo! What I should do is just to not interfere with this natural desire. Feel the difference: the INTEREST comes first and the motor impulse comes last. Such shift always produces swing as well. This is very unlike the anxiety to keep moving the eyes all the time at all costs, which is even more strain.
Monday, February 11, 2008
The Biggest Dilemma of the Bates Method
The biggest dilemma of the Bates method is that you want to change the way you use your eyes, yet you need to completely divert your attention away from your eyes. This may seem contradictory at first glance, but it means simply that you're still sticking to the wrong idea that the problem is in your eyes, while it is truly in your mind. The desire to influence your eyes is simply a wrong goal. Replace the wrong idea of doing something to your eyes with the right idea of leaving them alone and instead playing with your memory and imagination, and the situation will change dramatically. This replacement must happen not only in your rational belief, but also in the emotional attitude, and it always takes time. You should become sincerely MORE interested in imagination and memory than the eyes and current acuity of vision.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
3 comments:
Hey, that is a good post. You make a lot of sense there. I'm going to try your principle. :)
Thank you so much, it's the most effective thing I've learned so far about the Bates method. Can you direct me to a reading material about playing with my mind and my imagination?
If I were writing this post today, I would keep the part about "do nothing with your eyes", but dropped the part about the "shifting interest", as it appeared somewhat misleading. The working way to obtain relaxation is to draw your attention away from your eyes entirely using the imagination of swing and memory of black period.
The reading material is as always the original book by Dr. Bates http://www.central-fixation.com/perfect-sight-without-glasses/, in particular the chapters 10-15 about strain, memory, imagination, shifting and swinging, and central fixation. Also BEMs (Better Eyesight Magazine) are a great source of inspiration and additional details.
Post a Comment