by Leo Anghart
3. Compare the two experiences and check each sensory modality for image quality, color, position in space and so on. What about sounds and feelings? Find the one possible element that makes the difference between the two experiences.
4. The final step is to check whether you have found the key difference. Do this by thinking about something in your life which you would like to have accomplished but you have not yet brought to fruition. For example, it could be something you would like to own but is not yet in your grasp. It could also be a skill you would like to possess. Modify the way you think about it and reproduce the configuration your mind uses when it thinks about something that is real. The result should be that you begin to have doubts as to whether the thing you desire is actually real or not. If you get to this stage – well done, you have found your reality strategy. Write it down here:
Knowing your personal reality strategy is an important element to achieve if you want to take advantage of the powerful technique of mental rehearsal. It can help you discover the difference between a so-so experience and something that is truly exceptional.
Your belief strategy
How do you decide that something is believable? What does it take to get you to believe that something is true? Are you 100 percent convinced to the point of knowing something to be an absolute fact? Your beliefs are a continuum between something being completely unbelievable to believing with great certainty. Obviously knowing just how much you believe something can be immensely valuable to you. Here is how you can work out your own belief strategy.
1. In your mind’s eye, visualize something that you know for certain – something there is absolutely no doubt about. For example, do you believe that the sun will rise tomorrow and there will be another day? Do you believe that the earth is round? There might be people who have doubts about these things, but you get the idea.
Again, make an internal inventory of how you experience this. The image quality and position of the image are often key elements in a belief strategy. Check image qualities such as colors, motion and distance. In some cases a belief can also be experienced as a feeling in a specific part of your body. For instance, you might experience certainty as a particular feeling just below the ribs. Otherwise it might be a sense of feeling firmly grounded. Think about how you experience something that is absolutely certain to you. Note it down:
2. Next think about something about which there is a degree of uncertainty – something that you believe might possibly happen, but you don’t know for sure. For instance, do you believe that the U.S. currency will go up in relation to the Euro? Do you believe that you will get a salary increase this year?
Now check out how you experience this. Notice the differences and similarities to the feeling of absolute certainty in the last exercise. Does the position of the image change? Is the feeling the same? Note it here:
3. Finally, think about something you absolutely do not believe in – something you think is totally false. For example, do you believe in beating children to make them learn a lesson? (I hope not!) When you think of something along these lines, notice how you experience it. Whereabouts in space is the image? Is the feeling different from before? Write down the details:
You probably already have an idea about how your beliefs are coded. It is likely that there is one modality that changes in proportion to how certain you are about something. This is your belief strategy. Use a few words to write it down:
4. Now we come to the final discovery. For some people something has to be perceived as real before they can believe it. Others start with the beliefs and things start to become real afterwards. Check for yourself how your system works. Think of something you would like to have as a reality in your life. First clothe it in your reality strategy modalities and then move it into the spatial position that you now know means that you believe something with absolute certainty. Notice how this feels. Does it make the experience more powerful?
Then reverse the sequence and check whether it is more powerful for you if you believe something with absolute certainty before you move the experience into your mind’s configuration for something that is real.
Now you have one of the most important tools for getting your mind to work for you and help change limiting beliefs. This is equivalent to a master’s degree in visualization.
The belief change cycle
We are constantly changing and updating our beliefs. For example, as a 4-year-old child you believed that it was dangerous to cross the street without an adult holding your hand. At one point you probably also believed in Santa Claus – I still do!
NLP developer Robert Dilts found that beliefs go through several stages as they update and change. The first stage of a belief change is a feeling of uncertainty. You don’t believe your belief quite as much anymore. The belief has moved down the certainty scale. If you are open to doubt, then you are open to belief. The new belief seems more attractive. It is moving up the certainty scale. At one point you can simply let go of the old belief. Dilts suggests that you place it in your “museum of old beliefs.” This is an ingenious way of keeping the old belief in such a way that it no longer influences you. It is something you used to believe that is no longer relevant. Finally, the new belief becomes a certainty. Take your old beliefs about your ability to regain your eyesight through these stages and empower yourself. Remember – seeing is believing.
Old belief
↓
Open to believe
↓
Museum of old beliefs
↓
Wanting to believe
↓
New belief
9. Exercise Your Ability to See
Apart from believing it is possible to change ones eyesight we also need to recognize the importance of physical and mental exercise. When your glasses do most of the focusing for you, your eye muscles begin to lose their tone due to lack of use. It is common knowledge that regular exercise leads to better health. In this book I have outlined a number of specific exercises for particular vision problems. In general there are just two or three exercises you need to do in order to experience an improvement. Depending on how severe your myopia is you may need to go through several sets of exercises before you begin to regain your natural eyesight.
The visual system is closely connected with memory. This makes practical sense since such a huge amount of information can be stored visually. You may experience this in words or concepts. Your memory is employed in figuring out the pattern that the individual letters make in the formation of a word. You have probably had the experience of looking at something but not being quite sure at first what it was. Your internal visual database was flipping through several possibilities until you finally realized that you were looking at a part of a car, for example. Your mind had successfully connected the visual shape, color and so on to that object. This is experienced as a knowing. The same is taking place at a much faster pace as you are reading these words. Your eyes are taking in the patterns that are formed by the letters, whilst your inner database comes up with the meanings of the words and phrases. The internal visual experience is as important as the external. In fact most of your visual experience actually happens in the brain.
You also have inner vision. I find it very interesting to note that many people with myopia also tend to have smaller internal images in their mind’s eye. It seems that the minus lens reduces the size of the world to fit their internal perception – a smaller image. Often eyesight improves if we take steps to adjust this imbalance.
How to discover your internal vision
The properties of your inner vision have great influence on how you perceive the world. For example, if everything you saw was in black and white, what would that mean in terms of how you experience your reality? How would it feel? Let’s play around a little with this.
Recall a memory of something very pleasant. Look at this memory as if through your own eyes and as if you are present experiencing the experience right now, so
that you are associated into the experience. Feel the feelings. Now, change it around so that you are looking from the outside in at yourself in that situation having that experience. What has happened to the feelings? Did you become less involved and more detached from the feelings?
In the field of neuro-linguistic programming we call these shifts submodalities. Any change you make to the quality of any aspect of a submodality has an impact on how you perceive the world. For example, things that are close-up and large usually have more impact than things that are far away and small. Colorful images are more attractive than black and white. Images that move are more interesting than still pictures and so on.
Find your dominant eye
You can work out whether the left or right eye is the dominant one, but this can change over time, so this is only valid at the time of testing.
1. Look at something that you can easily remember – perhaps a flag or a letter on the eye-chart. Place both hands together and create a small gap which you can peer through. Look at the object you have chosen to work with. Look with both eyes at the object through the opening between your hands. Slowly begin to move your hands towards your eyes and keep looking through the gap with both eyes. When your hands touch your face you will find that you will be looking through them with your dominant eye. This may come as a surprise to you. Many people discover that their dominant eye is actually the one they had considered to be their bad eye. Make a note of which eye was the dominant one.
2. Look at the object, and then open and close your eyes a few times until you get a good image of it in your memory.
3. Close your eyes and look at the memory image. Notice which eye you are using.
4. Now look at the memory image with the other eye. Is there a difference in the quality of the image?
5. Take the image that appears to be the clearest and use your imagination to make the other image the same. In some cases the images may be of different sizes or in different locations. If this is the case, then mentally move the images so they inhabit the same space. Make it so the image that appears to be the clearest is on top as if you had two slides of the same image and had laid one on top of the other, as if making a sandwich.
6. When you have a nice sharp internal image then slowly open your eyes and look at the original physical image. Notice if there is any difference between the inner image and the physical image. If so, then make the image appear to be the same size internally as well as externally. The object is to find the configuration that produces the clearest image.
I have noticed that many people with myopia discover that their internal images are smaller than the related physical images. This is interesting because minus lenses, used to correct myopia, are actually shrinking the images so they become smaller. The reverse is also the case. Many people with presbyopia discover that their inner pictures appear to be larger than the physical images – plus lenses magnify the world.
Balancing your imaginary and physical vision
The purpose of this exercise is to discover exactly how your brain processes visual information. For instance, you may be amazed to find that you actually see better if you imagine your eyes to be at the back of your head, or perhaps if you visualize your imaginary eyes to be 5 cm out in front of your physical eyes. In my case I get better contrast if I imagine my eyes are at the back of my head. It is like turning up the contrast on the TV. When I imagine my eyes to be out in front of my actual eyes then I get one more line on the eye-chart, or 5 percent better visual acuity. This exercise requires a good level of dexterity with the imagination so it may not be suitable for everyone. In any case I suggest you have fun experimenting and finding out what works for you.
This exercise is done with your eyes open. We want you to find out the optimum configuration that will enable your eyes to get better.
1. Look at an eye-chart or something which is detailed enough for you to find out if your vision is improving. Imagine that your eyes are mounted on wheels so that they can roll to the back of your head. This may be easier to do if you move your hands back at the same rate as your imaginary eyes move. Notice what happens. Does your vision appear to get better?
2. Next move your imaginary image to the middle of your head. What happens to your vision?
3. Move your eyes back to their normal position.
4. What happens if you move your imaginary eyes 5 cm out in front of your physical eyes? Does your vision get better? Move your eyes back to their normal position.
5. This time move your imaginary eyes 10 cm further apart. What happens to your vision? This is useful for trainers because you can suddenly see the whole room. What happens to your vision?
Move your eyes back to their normal position.
6. Next, discover what happens if you move your imaginary eyes upwards so that you see the world from above. One of my participants in Brussels suddenly realized that she had been reading through the eyes of her childhood. Moving her eyes upwards enabled her to immediately begin reading through her adult eyes.
7. Finally, move your eyes downwards. Does this make your vision better? One participant in Berlin discovered that her sight became much better with the imaginary eyes located somewhere near the outer corners of her lips.
This exercise takes advantage of the fact that vision is mostly a mind activity. By giving your brain new and unusual instructions, you discover new and possibly better ways of using your eyes. Since you are only moving your imaginary eyes nobody will notice that you briefly moved your eyes to the back of your head to read a street sign.
Are you avoiding what you don’t want to see?
The relationship between mind and body is becoming increasingly accepted. For this reason, Vision Training incorporates exercises that are designed to shift long-standing psychological and mental patterns. Playing about with what works will eventually become the natural way of being. Psychological and emotional aspects of our reality have enormous influence on eyesight. In 1962 Charles R. Kelly researched this issue and found that what we should not, must not or would rather not see can be blurred or blanked out by the mind. In my work with vision problems over the last ten years a pattern has emerged. A typical belief is that if people believe there is something in their immediate experience that they do not like they are helpless to do anything about the situation. If this dynamic goes on for a long time the mind will simply dim one’s vision so the problem is no longer visible.
A typical example illustrating this dynamic is a lawyer friend of mine. She attended a Vision Training workshop given by Janet Goodrich years before I started my project of regaining my eyesight. We shared information about techniques that worked. However, her vision did not improve significantly. I suggested that we explore this one-on-one.
During this exploration of what might be the root cause she told me that during her childhood her father had a relationship with a cousin. She felt bad about this and did not want to see it. Over the years she had talked about how lawyers in the office had affairs with each other and with clients. My friend was practicing family law where infidelity is a common reason for seeing a lawyer. I pointed out to her that as far as her subconscious was concerned the pattern that caused her eyesight to deteriorate in the first place was still going on in her immediate environment.
My friend had a very stable relationship with her husband, so I suggested to her that she need not take responsibility for other people’s conduct. Apparently her subconscious mind agreed because a few days later she called me and very excitedly told me about the amazing progress she had made in just a few days.
Without rediscovering whatever decision you made in the past that keeps your eyesight below par, you will see flashes of clarity, but they probably will not last. One woman in Ireland had studied the Bates Method for three years. She came to my class because she had never been able to go past flashes of clear vision. When I told her there probably was something in her past that needed to be processed before her subconscious mind could permit clea
r eyesight, she said, “Yes, I think I know what it is.”
At the subconscious level there is no time and space – only now. So if something happened to you as an 8-year-old, that inner child is still with you. The emotional imprint is still active even if you have consciously forgotten all about the event. In my workshop I do a short regression exercise which creates a context in which your subconscious can help you discover what might be the inner reasons for keeping your vision dimmed.
People usually discover innocent associations made by the mind of a child. For example, one man told me that he realized he had made a connection between wearing glasses and wisdom. As an 11-year-old he wanted very much to be like his dad – who wore glasses. A woman told me that her twin sister was fitted with glasses, so she faked the test. She wanted to be like her sister.
One exceptional case that dramatically illustrates this dynamic involved a 7-year-old girl in London whose vision went from normal to -4 diopters in just ten days. After some investigation her mother discovered that this little girl had been bullied in school and had concluded that absolutely nothing could be done to improve her situation. She could not stop the bullying herself and did not believe that her parents or teachers could help her either. Consequently, her mind dimmed her vision.
