How much clarity do YOU need?

Let your eyes relax and details will appear as you move your eyes from leaf to leaf

That is a question that I have started to ask my clients because clarity is not felt the same by everybody and that the level of clarity somebody needs is very individual. Some people have 20/20 or close to 20/20 vision and still wear glasses because they feel they need the 20/10 clarity of an eagle or fighter pilot. Even when I tell them that all you need for driving is 20/40 vision (in most states), they want the best clarity the optometrists chart has to offer, even if it had felt clear before it was measured.

I wonder if that has to do with control and competition. And if letting go of the concepts of control/power over others (and your life in general) and having to be better than others is the prerequisite of letting go of strain which is the only way vision and therefore clarity can improve? Which means accepting that a little less clarity is the only gateway to more?

It’s possible to achieve 20/10 vision naturally. But before you start doing some useless mechanical eye exercises, ask yourself: which level of clarity is fine for me to start this process? Am I OK to see less clear, at least for sometime during the day? Would I actually prefer not to wear glasses because they restrict my field of vision, distort colors and proportions and weaken my visual acuity eventually?

If you answer YES, the next question is: Am I ok with 20/40 or 20/70 or even less vision in most circumstances in the beginning? Can I let go of the need to control everything and just trust that my vision will be good enough to carry me through whatever I am doing (obviously not driving or operating heavy machinery when vision is very poor)? If you can answer this with YES, you can improve your vision naturally.

Beautiful blossoms: You don't need 20/20 vision for most activities during your day — or to enjoy nature.
You don’t need 20/20 vision for most activities during your day — or to enjoy nature.

There are other people who only wear their glasses when absolutely necessary. Not because they want to improve their vision, but because they intuitively know that glasses are not good for them, and create a barrier between them and others.

Most people I meet that feel this way are nearsighted and work with other people, be it in a therapeutic or other situation such as a retail experience. They don’t like the way glasses feel and the disconnection it creates. But, they have also gotten very comfortable with the lack of clarity and like to almost hide in that blurriness that “protects” from seeing all the things that are out there. They literally don’t want that clarity. And there is the reason why they became myopic in the first place.

If you feel this describes you, you need to get peel off the layers of this “love of blurriness” before any major vision improvement will happen for most of you. Good vision habits will help to improve your vision initially like they do for everybody, but for major change you need to investigate why you don’t feel you should have clarity.

Exactly like the control lovers who want pilot fighter clarity no matter how need to figure out why they are so afraid of a loss of clarity (=control). And when you get down to that level, clarity will come naturally, especially when you learn how to relax your eyes with the Bates Method. Because the relaxation of the mind AND the eyes is needed to let go of the things that keep you from the clarity you want.