There is so much involved in the ability to see clearly that when we break it down its quite amazing any of us can see at all. And it goes way beyond the physical shape of the eyeball. Let’s take a look at what elements are in the flow of clear eyesight.

First the eyes must be in reasonable physical condition, and this is affected by our overall health and wellbeing, as often the lens of the eye can be used as a dumping ground for toxins.

The eyes and brain need lots of energy to operate well, so the other organs and systems in the body should be in fairly good working order so as not to divert too much of the body’s resources. (In our last newsletter, we mentioned that we support this most vital of senses with ¼ of the body’s nutrition, and ⅓ of the body’s oxygen intake.)

Then there is the condition of the various parts of the eye. The lens must be able to flex, the muscles must be relaxed and mobile, the retinal cells to receive and respond to light, the optic nerve to transfer the information. All of this can be    worked with through the physical vision improvement activities.

Then we come to the most important component of eyesight of them all…the brain.

The physical ability to process the light information in the brain cells is just the start of the brain’s influences on visual acuity.  The brain also tells the eyes whether or not it’s OK to move, to flex, to take in and send along lots of information or only a little.

Even if everything else is working great, and lots of messages full of clear light information are coming along, the brain will decide what to do with it, whether to process it into a clear image or a blurry one, whether to fuse the images of the two eyes together into a fantastic 3-D panorama, or not to do this.

And what makes the brain decide these things?  Other factors may play a part at times but the most overwhelming effect comes from the fundamental cause of refractive error: emotional stress.

What else has such a profound effect as to cause a person with perfect eyesight to quite suddenly develop visual blur, even though there has been no damage or other alteration to the still structurally normal eyeball?

Yes, physical stresses such as excessive hours of study can play a role. But not everyone experiencing those physical stresses develops the same symptoms. (And not everyone experiencing emotional stresses develops the same symptoms, but may instead develop issues in other areas of the body.)

However, in every vision student I have worked with there have been identifiable and unresolved emotional stresses that correspond to our guidelines of which refractive errors correlate to which emotions, and to which eye the blur is in. And the primary of these stresses have generally occurred in the 6 to 12 months prior to the person first being diagnosed with myopia, hyperopia or astigmatism.

Additionally, students can get fantastic results doing the physical activities, but especially for those with high prescriptions, they often will reach a stage where the physical improvement will not progress further until some emotional work is done. Why is this the case?

Based on the principles I was trained in and my 16 years of teaching experience it is because these unresolved emotional stresses create physical tension in the body and visual system that preclude the flexibility and relaxation necessary for fast saccadic motion and good visual accommodation. But not just that.

The emotional set-up also incorporates the blur (and the glasses themselves) as a form of protection.  Until the emotional tensions are addressed, there is a physical, mental and emotional habit that says ‘It’s not OK to see’, and this is what the brain acts on.

This means that the student will also have blocks to changing the physical habits that create and retain tension and blur in the visual system. The simplest example of this is breathing. The eyes and brain need lots of oxygen to work well, yet many people tend to breathe shallowly, with tension and frequent unconscious breath-holding. This is a strongly identified habit in those with refractive error.

Our eyesight is like a finely tuned instrument, and our visual system is like a microcosm of our whole self. This sensitive array of processes functions in accordance with our physical wellbeing, mental clarity and emotional state. In order to change our eyesight we generally must also work with the underlying patterns in our brains about how we use our eyes.

Alwin den Biesen, a Personal Eyesight Training Kit student wrote to me yesterday that “It’s silly that we all our lives care about our body, except…..our eyes. We shower, clean our fingernails, do our hair, (and do exercise and massage and a plethora of other types of maintenance) but for our eyes we just clean our glasses.”

Until now perhaps……..?

Next Month:

The Many Layers of Us….I will discuss why we can’t change – and how to change that.

And in April:

Staying on a new path….We look at how to maintain our intended thinking and feeling habits.

Carina

P.S. After a 3 year break we will be again offering a rare opportunity to participate in LIVE seminars with Carina Goodrich this coming May 2012. 

Due to many requests from our valued customers and subscribers we will be offering both an International Telephone Class Series and a Weekend Seminar at Cooroy on the beautiful Sunshine Coast Hinterland (Queensland, Australia).  Stay tuned for further details.

Whether it’s breaking out a new calendar or just the idea in our minds, the coming of the new year is a great marker for starting something new, or coming back to something old that needs revisiting in a new way. My goal is to get you to give a little of this year’s attention to your eyesight, that most precious of our senses.

It helps when we remember that 90% of the sensory information we live by comes in through our eyes. It’s motivating to think that we support this most vital of senses with ¼ of the body’s nutrition, and ⅓ of the body’s oxygen intake.

A few simple ways you can recharge your vision and body care this month include:

• Recharge your nutrition and energy levels by boosting the amount of raw and unprocessed foods in your diet, and drop out some of the packaged foods that may have become habitual over the holidays. The latest interesting nutritional food boost is Chia seeds. Very high in antioxidents, they are appearing everywhere these days, even in some dishes in our local health food restaurant. I love these little black & white seeds. They are delicious sprinkled on salad or porridge, and in baked goods, but for best use they should be soaked in water. They absorb many times their weight in liquid and therefore in dry form can be dehydrating if you don’t drink enough water separately. However when wet they bring fluid into the body. I love to drink the gel they form with the addition of a little warm milk (nut or cow), honey and vanilla, it’s my healthy substitute for beloved custard, and the kids love it! Try lemon and honey for a non-fat version.
• Deflect the stress by getting enough rest, whether it’s sleep or just downtime doing something relaxing and enjoyable. If you are having trouble sleeping, train your brain with a routine visualization before bed. Try imagining 10 steps down into a cozy sleeping place. As you imagine yourself moving down each step, visualize either a stress you are releasing on that step or imagine a positive you want to happen. Over time you should find that by step ten you are out like a light!
• Care for your eyesight by introducing or reinstating fun and relaxing vision activities, for yourself and the whole family! Remember that many whole body activities are good for the eyes. For those who are having warm weather, create an obstacle course in the back yard that involves balancing, crawling, jumping, then throwing and catching a ball while circling it with your Magic Nose Pencil. For those in cold climates this time of year is great for snuggling up and telling vividly described stories while Palming.

Start up or re-inspire your vision improvement with our book, which is getting rave reviews around the world. USA vision instructor Gene Younger writes:

“Carina, like her mother, has written a great book. She has taken the natural vision improvement field a step forward with this wonderful manual. I love the way Carina has organized the material and presented it with clear illustrations and explanations. Nothing is left out of this book!

This book will stand alone as a complete guide to self-healing of one’s vision and eyesight correction. It is elegantly simple and yet complete in its scope and application. This will be the very first book which I will be recommending to my clients here and around the world.

As a vision educator myself, I suggest that you read this book with an open mind, practice it’s exercises and activities and allow your vision to get better. When you do this I will guarantee you positive results for your vision, eyesight and Life!”

Gene Younger, Certified Vision Educator
Yoga For Better Eyesight Instructor
Portland, Oregon www.clearvisionnaturally.com

You can access this wealth of information about caring for your precious visual system, and even start your programme right away with a pair of pinhole glasses. When you order the Practical Guide to Natural Vision Improvement book we offer pinhole glasses for $13 off the normal price – and no additional postage.

http://www.janetgoodrichmethod.com/NVIbook

Happy New Year and best wishes for 2012
from Carina Goodrich & Dan Sheehan

Whether you are a beginning vision improvement student or have been practicing for a while, maintaining the good body habits and skills that come with the basic vision activities is very important.  Like a martial artist who practices all the forms from white belt to black, vision students benefit from reviewing the foundation activities to ensure they haven’t dropped off some of the important basic principles.

• Remember that regaining faster saccadic movement is vital to clear eyesight.  The faster your saccadic movement, the more light falls onto the retina.  The more light information coming in, the better your eyesight can be.
• The habits of steady breathing and blinking while using our eyes is crucial
• Keeping the body relaxed, especially the neck, shoulders and facial muscles, is also important.
• Checking in with your visualizing skills must be emphasized. These train the brain to better visual processing and assist the connection between the eyes and brain.

Finally, a picture is worth a thousand words, so we have created these Magic Nose Pencil videos so you can clearly see all these important aspects of this simple yet vital activity. Abilities learned by practicing the Magic Nose Pencil activity form the skill base for many of the more advanced specific vision games.

For the introduction to the Magic Nose Pencil, including what to remember when practicing, start with video 1 (5 minutes):

If you would like to skip ahead to our video guide to practicing the activity, go to video 2 (5 minutes):

We hope these help you to keep up your motivation and excitement for nurturing your visual system all year round.

P.S. Remember the amazing special offer of 30% off our wonderful eyesight training kits is available until December 31, 2011!

Receive $44 off and throw away your reading glasses with the Read Clearly Naturally Kit:

“The RCN Kit is a really fantastic package! In a short time (5 days) I can definitely feel how improvement will take place, and it’s already helping to change my habits for the better.

I was thinking I was powerless about my eyesight, and just the knowledge that I can take control over the situation is really important to me. It’s so simple and straight-forward, yet informative and life-changing.  And you can do it anywhere, anytime.”
Lorelle Fisher, Qld Australia

Get more in-depth training and receive up to $74 off the kit that gets reviews like this one:

“(The Personal Eyesight Training Kit) is an incredibly well put together programme with huge insight into the characteristics that make up the myopic personality.”
Sue Ferguson, Qld Australia

Remember – to receive your discount when ordering the Personal Eyesight Training Kit or Read Clearly Naturally Kit use coupon code: EYEGIFT 30 (valid until December 31, 2011.)

For more information on these kits visit our products page:

http://www.janetgoodrichmethod.com/vision-improvement-products/

Below is a letter written by Patricia Carrington Ph.D. of the Robert Wood Johnson Medical School Piscataway, NJ. It lays out some interesting concepts about the way we have been taught to think about our eyes and eyesight.

In a book written many years ago, the then Director of the General Electric Company’s Lighting Research Laboratory, Dr. Matthew Luckiesh, asked his readers to imagine what would happen if “crippled” eyes “could be transformed into crippled legs.” His comments were: “If this (transformation) happened, what a heartrending parade we would witness on a busy street! Nearly every other person would go limping by. Many would be on crutches and some in wheelchairs.” He was at that time referring to the widespread use of eyeglasses (now we would add to this the even more widespread use of contact lenses) on a PERMANENT basis, as usually being the sole treatment for eyesight problems. Many years later, that is still, regrettably, the case.

If it is legs that are crippled, however, doctors typically refuse to let their patients rely just on crutches. They regard the use of crutches as a necessary temporary strategy, and while paying attention to external conditions, they do their best to improve the internal conditions of the defective limbs, so that nature is allowed to do its work of healing.

If respect for the power of natural healing is applied to our limbs, why is a similar respect for the recuperative powers of the human body not applied to defective eyesight? This question is not generally asked by the medical establishment which, until now, has simply taken it for granted that defective eyesight is incurable and inevitable with age, and this is in spite of the eye’s demonstrably close relationship with the mind and the emotions. It is not generally assumed that eyesight can return to normalcy through improvement within the mind-body sphere, and you yourself may unwittingly have adopted this point of view, as do most people.

This book therefore presents a radically new approach to defective vision and for this reason requires somewhat of a leap of faith. To change one’s eyesight by behavioral means (i.e. EFT in this case) seems impossible in terms of what we have been told countless times. Yet the fact is that psychological experiments have determined that the act of seeing involves consciousness and that in fact our perceptions and our emotions are intrinsically linked.

Patricia Carrington Ph.D.
Associate Clinical Professor
UMDNJ-Robert Wood Johnson Medical School
Piscataway, NJ

This letter introduces the EFT (Emotional Freedom Technique) for vision improvement programme by Carol Look that we brought to your attention this month. This is one of the techniques that we can use to overcome the inner tension that hinders good eyesight.

To check out the EFT programme for vision improvement click here.

Every obstacle in your progress (in any endeavour) is a message from your body (and eyes) asking for attention to a particular process that it needs you to go through, a particular blockage it needs you to learn about and let go of. Each time you do this you will move to a new level of emotional and physical well-being. But like an onion there are many layers to us, and we have to explore ourselves in many ways and from different angles to really get there.

I seem to have found that to individually develop, and improve our relationships and our lives, we are asked to do the things that are most difficult to us personally, no matter that another person might find the same task easy.

This idea can actually give us encouragement….if we can find someone who has an easy time with something we find really hard, we can learn about their perspective on it and perhaps find ways to adopt some of those ways of looking at it – making our own process go a little bit easier.

What is your area of resistance? Is it the act of doing the physical vision activities and actually letting yourself relax into it, the processes of going through the various strength transition glasses, or the need to give some attention to your emotions? For everyone there will be the easy parts and the parts we resist when making changes in our lives and our eyesight. This is another reason why it’s good to explore a variety of techniques to find those that suit you.

When looking at our emotions it’s sometimes good just to do what we can to relieve the pressure, without having to explore the origins in depth and detail. EFT is very useful for this.

Other times it may be necessary to look at our lives and our past to discover the source of our tensions and fears. To become consciously aware of our emotional and mental coping mechanisms and how they may be holding us back, in order to be able to fully choose to let them go. This type of work is discussed in our Personal Eyesight Training Kit. (Look out for the digital version coming soon!)

Changing the way we see does involve changing some of the ways we think and experience our emotions, and this is a big job. Seeing well involves not just our consciousness, but also becoming more conscious, about our physical and mental habits, about what effect our emotions are having on a daily basis, about how we perceive many things. When you are embarking on your vision improvement programme, do keep finding many different ways of supporting and nurturing yourself through this courageous undertaking!

This activity is done while Palming, an ancient technique for promoting healing in the eyes. Palming combines sending healing energy through the palms of your hands into the eyes and visual system, and resting the retinal cells in the soothing darkness. While Palming you can use the power of your mind to achieve a variety of different effects on both your inner world and physical body. (For more details on Palming, refer to our previous post: Palming and Imaginative Seeing + a Special Gift)

A good Palming position

Deliberately going back into our memories can be a powerful tool for self-understanding, helping to acknowledge and release feelings we are holding from the past. Understanding the events and relationships that have formed our perspective on life can be vital in making choices free of restrictive emotional patterns. And revisiting the times and places where we felt loved and at home can bolster our emotional foundations.

One of the most powerful memory stimulators is our sense of smell. Specific smells will bring out both memory pictures, and recapture the feelings of that memory.

This activity works best with a helper, who can hold objects under your nose for you. We begin with Palming, sitting or lying down comfortably and cupping the palms over the closed eyes. Breathe deeply and relax your whole body for a few moments.

1) Have ready a selection of pre-prepared objects, or tissues dabbed with your chosen scents. Suggestions include fresh grass, tree bark or leaves, vanilla and other essences, cinnamon and other spices, foods, flowers, soap, just about anything!

Have your helper hold or waft a single object or scented tissue under your nose for a few seconds and ask ‘what does this smell remind you of’? Keep yourself relaxed, breathing deeply, and allow the scent to evoke memories and feelings for a few minutes.

You can describe the images out loud if you wish, even having your helper make a note of what each smell awakens within you for an ongoing self-awareness journal.

2) Choose a particular meaningful smell for a personal memory journey. It might be a familiar smell from your childhood or a relative’s perfume. If the memories evoke tears, allow them to flow and the feelings to be released from your body.

If the memories evoke feelings of love and nurturing, then allow yourself to feel these emotions fully and in your whole body, to take them with your back into your daily life.

3) You might like to have a soothing scent ready to help return yourself to a state of peacefulness after any emotional release.

4) Use scents to tell a story. Gather a selection of smells as above and take the Palming person on a adventure using the scents to connect to the places and events in the story. Take turns to gather the smells in secret and guide each other on a surprising journey. This can be very absorbing, fun and relaxing….do with with all ages!

Remember that long-term memory is in the right-brain, so the feelings we hold from the long ago past can affect other right-brain functions including our whole body, and distance vision. The effects go both ways, so keep stimulating your right-brain with positive actions to obtain the benefits of its functionality in relaxation, distance clarity, peacefulness, vivid imagining and forming good body habits.

When teaching vision improvement I have the intriguing job of impressing upon students the need for enjoyment in their endeavour.  Myopes like to do things perfectly and correctly at all times, so they often take some convincing that doing their vision activities with strict adherence to a schedule and a rigid style of compliance is not the process we are looking for.

The same applies to parents teaching their own children Natural Vision Improvement, where the parents are there to do a job (which is important and often emotionally laden for them). This style of working can quickly become boring, stressful and creates resistance in the child.

Why is fun important in vision improvement?

While doing vision activities regularly is important to ongoing eyesight improvement, how the games are done is almost more important than when they are done.

In Playcamps I teach the parents that the vision games will not be as effective as they can be unless the child (and parent) is enjoying themselves. One reason for this is because the entire purpose is to achieve not strength, but relaxation in the eye muscles and visual system.  In myopia, hyperopia and astigmatism, the eyes are not weak, they are tight.  So you see that our attitude towards the child and vision games cannot be one of pressure, performance and strict regularity over enjoyment, or we achieve more stress and tension rather than less.

The same applies to adults, especially since grown-ups with these types of refractive error will almost always have developed it during childhood, and therefore are in fact still in some ways working with that child within.  Or better yet….playing with that child within J.

Activate the ‘Right Brain’.

Many people have become familiar with the discovery that our human brain has two high-functioning hemispheres, each responsible for opposite and complimentary abilities. It has become common knowledge that each hemisphere controls the opposite side of the body.  But there are many more qualities divided into these two sides of our brain.

Left and Right Brain qualities in pictures.*

The left hemisphere is our logical, thinking, language and numbers brain, aware of time, in charge of the small details, close vision and activating action in our muscles.

The left-brain seems to be the popular one these days, with lots of status given to its abilities and functions. Yet using mostly only one side gives us an unbalanced life that becomes a strain and burden to sustain over time. It also limits our physical, mental and emotional abilities and our opportunities to enjoy life to the full.

When you look at a list of brain hemisphere qualities (see below), it is easy to see how living mostly in one side or the other can affect our visual function as well as personality and behaviour!

Most myopes and presbyopes (over-40s reading blur) have left-brain action in plenty yet are not as strong in using their right brain as they may have been when young. Hyperopes are the opposite, and may find they want a bit more left-brain action in their lives.

When we need to relax our muscles, to let go of tension in our mind and hearts and bodies, to balance the driven and sometimes stress laden lifestyle of being predominantly in the left brain, we need to bring the right hemisphere and its abilities into action.

Left and right brain qualities in words.

Right-Brain Qualities

The right-brain is where the messages regarding muscle relaxation come from, the balancing action of the left-brain’s activation of muscle tension. It is also in charge of distance vision, making the activation of the right-brain very important in the goal of regaining good far eyesight.

To activate the right-brain we do the Cross-Crawl activity, a whole body movement that brings in both sides of the brain. We also make use of the other qualities of the right-brain that we can intentionally choose, helping to ‘turn-on’ that side of the brain, and making all its features more available.

These qualities include; deep breathing, images rather than words, the timelessness of a relaxed meditative state, music, whole body movement, the childlike sense of wonder at the amazingness of everything, rather than the precise focus on the minutiae of daily life. When we give our attention to these things more often in general and specifically when doing vision

games, it helps us to relax and achieve the state of seeing rather than staring that we are ‘looking’ for.

Deep breathing (all the way down to the belly)
activates the right side of the brain, helping us relax.

When improving vision we also want to let go of old stressful habits and learn good vision habits, in how we use our eyes all the time.  Since long term memory is in the right brain along with whole body movement, music and visualizing, the most effective way to learn new habits that become effortless is to do it with our body, learn it with music and imagine ourselves doing it.

So to get the most benefit from vision games, whether as an adult or a child, we must find a way to enjoy ourselves and have fun with it.  Use interesting toys, pleasant venues, and keep the programme flexible to the feeling of the day.  When doing vision games for your child join in yourself with the games (your eyes will benefit too!) and show her that you can be silly and do funny things and so she can too.

For myopes one of the most effective self-awareness techniques and habit changes for good vision comes from letting go of the left-brain’s “Trying and straining to see“, and bringing in the right-brain’s “Letting everything come“. Do your best to use this principle each time you find yourself squinting, leaning forward and straining, and you may be surprised at how effective it is!

Remember from the last article that the more you do this, the more you train your brain to make it an effortless and ongoing new habit.

*Image from ‘Help Your Child to Perfect Eyesight Without Glasses’ by Janet Goodrich

In these logic and language oriented times we often leave behind the benefits and powers that our ‘right-brain’ and its ability to imagine can bring us.  In recent times sports coaches have been using the power of imagination to increase the skills and abilities of athletes.  These same techniques can benefit us in many ways in our lives.

The brain doesn’t know the difference between an event that is real and one that is vividly imagined. This can be used to train the brain and affect the body.  In fact it is happening all the time without us really being aware of it.  Let’s start to use this feature of our brain/body connection for our own good.

The brain likes full featured ‘inner movies’. Bring all your senses into your imaginings to increase their effectiveness. This includes your physical senses, imagining the smells, sounds, textures and even tastes of your visualization.  But also it includes the sensory features of our inner world, our feelings.  Ensure that you imagine the good feelings that you want to go along with the skill or event you are creating in your mind’s eye.

Brain events follow pathways.  The more you think or feel about something, the more ingrained that particular pathway in the brain becomes.  Get skilled at new habits and new ways of thinking by moving out of old ‘thought pathways’ and creating new ones that fit the life and feelings you want to have.  Deliberately wear a groove in your new desirable pathways with regular visits.

1) Vision games – tell the eyes and brain what you want

Most vision improvement activities include a portion where the eyes are closed and we ask the vision student to vividly imagine the object of their attention. This gives the cells of the retina a chance to clear and refresh themselves. Most importantly, imagining the object with clarity, bright colour and detail tells the brain where we want it to go in its function.

It’s after the eyes closed part of vision activities that students notice the most difference in their acuity and/or get ‘clear flashes’! Make sure you are giving full time and attention to the eyes closed and visualizing parts of your eyesight activities.

Take in the visual information (here we are using the Magic Nose Feather).

Close your eyes and vividly imagine the objects, bringing in all your senses. Make everything 3-D and alive!

Open your eyes and notice the increased clarity, colour and detail!

2) Decreasing the stress of events – use the brain to train the body

We often allow ourselves to imagine the things that can go wrong, with the subsequent physical stress reactions this brings.  Our hearts start to pound, our stomach to hurt, muscles tense up.  And it’s not surprising that in this state things can easily go wrong or overwhelm us with stress. Let’s reverse this process by intentionally imaging things going well.

When doing martial arts drills or kicks I now take a few seconds to clearly imagine what my body is going to do.  If I don’t do this I have often made mistakes.  Every time I vividly imagine what I am going to do, it happens easily and I don’t get caught by ‘thinking too much’ while my body is moving.

Thinking about an upcoming plane trip has had me tensing up all over!  After sitting myself down and clearly imagining the whole trip in detail, with everything going smoothly, I can now think ahead to my travel without feeling my mind and body going into stress overload.  I know that when the time comes to get on the plane my body and brain will remember the feeling that ‘it’s all ok and going smoothly’ and I will stay reasonably relaxed as the events happen.

3) All senses are go! – use the powers that you have

When we create an image in our mind, the more complete it is the more effective it will be.  Our inner world is comprised of the information we receive and how we respond to that.  Even though the vast majority of sensory input in humans comes in through the eyes, our other senses still have a dramatic effect on our subconscious.

Use this to fully inform your visualizations and make them as powerful as they can be.  You can use real objects to inform your senses then take this information with you. When you want to improve your reading ability, you imagine white to increase the contrast with black print. Find pictures of white objects and landscapes to inform your conscious mind, then bring those images back in your visualizations.

Imagining white helps to improve reading clarity!

Bring in the smell of snow, the warmth of a white rabbit’s fur, the softness of cotton balls, the taste of vanilla ice-cream.

4) Train the brain

We often think that we are helpless in the face of our brain function. But the brain is an amazingly changeable and flexible device that will receive training gladly. While there are commonalities in what the brain does in different parts of its anatomy, modern medicine has begun to realize that brain function is not fixed and can be changed. This is illustrated by specific functions being learned in wholly different areas of the brain after the original area of that function is damaged.

The really astonishing thing is that we can have input into what our brain does. One of the inherent tools we have for this is deliberate visualization, and deliberate thinking and feeling.  If you feel sad much of the time, this means there are sad pathways grooved into your brain function.  Electrical signals are sucked into those pathways and flow along them to their predetermined end, and the process starts all over again.

Try this experiment; whenever you have a recurring feeling you don’t enjoy, such as fear, immediately stop and notice the feeling of being in a rut (give attention to this only the first few times).  Then imagine a new pathway and vividly visualize a feeling of happiness and lightness, with images and full sensory input. It might be sitting on the grass with the warm sun and a feeling of being loved and safe. Imagine it fully for 30 seconds.

Deliberately take yourself to a place of comfort and happiness.

Do this every time the feeling of fear comes up, whether as tension in your tummy or anxiety about an event or person. Notice that as you do this over and over again, it becomes easier. Notice how it starts to become automatic and you are no longer trapped in the old fear pathway, but instead easily flow along the pathway of support and reassurance!

A vision improvement student attending a class in Toowoomba once commented that for her personally one of the most significant things she learned from the class was to regain her regular blinking.  Sometimes the smallest thing is the key – in using our eyes or changing our habits.

Setting up your personal programme can seem like an intricate process.  Especially for myopes who want to be sure that they are doing it exactly right! Generally I am reluctant to give a precise and military timetable (it only encourages striving for perfection and stressfully strict adherence). Also, I feel it’s important for you to use setting up your personal programme as part of the process of developing your self-awareness around your eyes.  The goal is to set up a personal programme that is what you need, and is flexible to the changing state of your visual system, both daily and long-term.

This may sound complex but it can be quite simple, and in the Kits I take things step-by-step so that the development of the personal programme usually evolves quite easily.  If you feel at all confused about your personal programme, do remember to go back to the beginning of your Kit or book and review the lessons, as this helps to establish what you learned the first time around and bring in any details that you may not have integrated so far. Often students doing a ‘refresher’ course tell me that there was so much information the first time around that they really gained a great deal from doing a review.

Below are some questions and answers that students have asked in the course of doing their vision improvement programme, and you may find just the little thing that you needed to know for your own progress! As you read, remember that the Magic Nose Pencil is the deceptively simple activity that sets up your body and visual system for the best results with the other vision activities.  My suggestion is to keep asking yourself this question: -

Can I:

• Blink
• Breathe
• Keep my neck and shoulders relaxed
• Use my eyes in this way (as instructed in the MNP activity)

All at the same time?

This is one of the main skills that lead back to clear eyesight.

***

Question: I am a little unsure how long to practice things for. For instance, shall I do the Magic Nose Pencil drawing for a while before moving on to the next new activity? And do you recommend that I always do the shoulder, neck massage and cross crawl before doing Nose Pencil drawing? I think you say that somewhere but just wanting to check. I understand that it is done in order to have everything switched on and the eyes and shoulders relaxed, so I have answered my own question, haven’t I.  I’m just thinking that to do all the exercises could take quite a while. Do you have a comment on that?

Answer: Yes, I suggest doing just the prep activities and Magic Nose Pencil for some weeks before moving on to the other activities. You need to achieve a certain feeling with it – a sense that you are relaxing and allowing your eyes to move and your vision to happen – then take this feeling to the further activities.

Yes, I suggest doing the Self- Massage and Cross Crawl before the other activities – where time is short even just a minute or two of each.  This activates the response that you have trained into your body with longer sessions, of relaxing the neck and shoulders and switching on the brain, and reminds the body how to be during the further vision activities.

Question: I wanted to touch base about the Magic Nose Pencil.  I’m aware of my extreme resistance to doing it.  I’m forcing myself to do it, but I dread it, for several reasons.  1) I find I’m concentrating so hard in doing the outline, and the insight came that your suggestion of doing it with big sloppy movements is totally opposite of my personality and how I live my life in general.  I’m a very neat and tidy person, a perfectionist.  So this sloppy thing is very uncomfortable.  A good awareness to work with.  And 2) I notice that I feel utterly frustrated during the closed eye memory part, as I can barely recall anything.  I’m trying to lower my expectations on myself, as well as deciding that I need to start with really simple pictures so that I can begin to have a feeling of “success” remembering the image when I close my eyes.

Answer: I definitely agree with using simple pictures with beautiful colours, images that you like, or use a favourite object rather than an image (in fact I would recommend this).  Feel the object in your hand as well as look at it.  Take it in with all your senses. Start where it is easy, whether this is up close or more distant. Put some music on (soothing, with no words), and take things step by step.

Start with your eyes closed and just breathe and relax your body. Then open your eyes and blink and gaze gently around, stay relaxed as you bring your gaze to the image or object, draw it slowly, take in one visual element, then close your eyes and keep moving your head as you draw this in your mind’s eye.  Then eyes open again, then move to a different element.  When you start to tense up, go back to the beginning of eyes closed and just breathing.  If thoughts and feelings are pestering you write them down and then use them in the Melting Beachballs process.

This could be an important balance to find in life, to let some things be loose! One of the qualities of myopic tension is perfectionism and accompanying anxiety.  Relaxing and letting go of total control would be very useful here, and is certainly a habit change process.

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For more student interaction visit our ‘student Q & A’ page.

Remember if you are a Personal Eyesight Training Kit student, in your member’s area you have the recordings of support conferences with other PET students to listen to that you may find very helpful!

We are here to help you maintain your vision improvement progress. Don’t let anything stop you. Any obstacle is an opportunity to learn more about yourself, and can be resolved.  Let us know if you have questions or successes to share!

That’s right, a copy of The Practical Guide to Natural Vision Improvement with any order over $100. Plus we’ll cover the additional shipping cost for the book.

The book usually sells for $35 plus shipping ($14-$17) – you get all this for no extra cost with your order of $100 or more for this month only.

All you need to do is put through your order between now and the 31st of July 2011 and we’ll include a copy of the book with your shipped order.

To check out the products that are right for you and your vision visit:
http://www.janetgoodrichmethod.com/vision-improvement-products/

If you have any questions about which vision improvement kit is right for you or the offer above please don’t hesitate to contact us.

P.S. We know how effective our method is but don’t just take our word for it – lawyer Kevin Foley has this to say:

I am 71 years of age next month and thanks to this Method still do not wear glasses.

I am a lawyer and still in practice. My work involves long hours of reading and drafting documents emails etc I have been practicing the Janet Goodrich Method for quite a number of years.

Many of my clients express amazement that I read documents etc in conferences and without glasses. I tell them about the JGM.

Keep up your great work.

Regards
Kevin Foley

We hope you’ll find it easy to navigate and even more informative than before. It’s more user friendly now with clearer tabs and menus, taking you to helpful pages like;

• Detailed information about your vision type,
• Inspiring testimonials from students and product customers,
• Frequently asked questions and student questions and answers,
• Information about pinhole glasses, transition glasses, teachers and international publications,
• Easy guide to our ongoing articles blog, including free audio and video lessons on a variety of vision related topics,
• Detailed information on our vision improvement book and kits including sample audio, so that you can experience for yourself how various aspects of our eyesight training are presented – and how effective they are!

Let us know what you think by leaving a comment below and sharing this blog post with your friends.

Your June audio gift – Guided Visualization

Regular relaxation of body and mind is vital to ongoing vision improvement and general wellbeing. It’s a wonder what a few deep breaths and the deliberate intention to be calm and cool can do in moments of stress in your daily life.  Even more effective is taking the time here and there to deeply relax and visualize yourself free of stress and tension in your body. It can be hard to keep our attention focused when doing a process like this, so this month we have included a complimentary audio to help you relax and cleanse your ‘mental space’.  Whether you are taking a quick moment between other tasks at your desk, or closing your door and lying down undisturbed for a little ‘me time’, you will find this audio helpful on a regular basis to help keep you both mellow and ready for anything!

Note for Parents: The kind of clearing and relaxing process offered in this audio gift is also very good for children.  Take them through it at the end of a difficult day or anytime you want to help them learn that they are in charge of how they feel inside.

We hope you enjoy it!

Download the mp3 with background music
Download the mp3 without background music

We love your feedback, so please remember to leave a comment below about the new website and what you think of the audio session.