In his audio CD Miracle Eyesight Method: The Natural Way to Heal and Improve Your Vision, Meir Schneider from Israel talks about how the eyes work and about his own journey towards healing. He then guides his listeners through various vision exercises.
Meir Schneider is the best possible role model for this as he was born almost blind and healed himself to see. His teachings are based on the Bates Method. I find the Bates Method and Meir Schneider‘s way of teaching to be closely related to natural breath work, for example, a session always begins by becoming aware of and releasing tension in the body before doing any further exercise. Breathing is gentle and happens only in and out of the nose. Meir Schneider explains that eye problems arise from tension patterns in the mind and body, as do breathing problems. It‘s only by adopting a caring attitude to oneself, to one‘s body and to life in general that one can learn to relax and from a state of relaxation to address one‘s symptoms.
Meir Schneider‘s warm, friendly and personal manner inspires me to listen to his explanations and to do the excercises. Here is an example of breathing during the exercise of palming in which the hands gently cover the closed eyes. To do the excercise I recommend this video with Meir Schneider.
„You breathe deeply and you imagine the whole world is black.
Breathe deeply in and out through your nose and sense how the abdomen, the waist and the lower back are expanding as you inhale and shrinking as you exhale. Make no effort. Breathe deeply in and out and feel the ribs and chest as well as the lower back are expanding as you inhale and shrinking as you exhale and they‘re all black. And feel that your shoulders and arms are also expanding as you inhale and shrinking as you exhale. Feel that your neck is also expanding as you inhale and shrinking as you exhale. And your head is expanding as you inhale and shrinking as you exhale.Feel that your thighs, knees, calves and feet are all expanding as you inhale and are all shrinking as you exhale. Even if you can‘t feel them you can imagine it. There are more and more people that are claiming that the skull is moving when you breathe. Just try to have a sense of it. No doubt you can feel the abdomen, the chest and ribs and the back expanding as you inhale and are all shrinking as you exhale, but you have to imagine that the skull is moving and of course you have to imagine that the legs are moving. And breathe deeply, stay with the thought of expansion and contraction. Just like stars expand and shrink, so do we, every minute of our life.“
Please note that when Meir Schneider says „breathe deeply“, he also says „make no effort“. I would interpret that as: „let the breath flow freely in your body.“
Source: Meir Schneider, Miracle Eyesight Method: The Natural Way to Heal and Improve Your Vision, Sounds True inc., 2005