Obstruction glasses (described in Step 8)*
Red and green glasses*
Red pencil or pen (use a red felt tip pen if vision loss is extreme)
Plain white copy paper
Small flash light with red bulb or red tape over lens
Red and green playing cards (optional)*
Ten-foot and twenty-foot eye charts (charts included in this book)*
Flashing lights (when working with severe vision loss)*
Glow in the dark ball*
Beads on a string*
Pinhole glasses (optional)*
* These items can often be made at home from materials found locally, but you can also order them from the School for Self-Healing (www.self-healing.org). Email the School for Self-Healing at officemanager@self-healing.org to order or if you have any questions.
Introduction
At one time, this book was to be entitled From Blindness to Vision, because I was born blind but, through years of effort and exploration, have taught myself to see. Today, because of this miracle, I can read, write, and drive a car.
The idea behind the original title was that my seemingly miraculous progression from blindness to sight would signal to readers that within this book are the resources anyone can use to improve their vision, regardless of their current situation.
In reality, I believe the great majority of this book’s readers will not be those who are declared, as I was, legally blind. Rather, they will be people from all different points on the continuum of vision, including some with “perfect” vision who want to keep it or even build upon it. As dramatic as the first title sounded, I wanted to make certain that readers would not mistake this for a handbook only for the blind or severely impaired. So I gave up my attention-grabbing idea and looked for another title.
My unrestricted California driver’s license.
Nonetheless, my personal experience in overcoming blindness remains at the core of this work. To anyone who doubts that improving his or her vision is possible, my story is a true testament to hope. Therefore, it was important to describe briefly just how this transformation happened. A detailed account of my life can be found in my earlier book, Movement for Self-Healing, which chronologically addresses the physical challenges I faced, as well as the long series of steps, discoveries, and exercises I underwent to overcome them.
Now I wish to summarize this same process with more emphasis on the psychological aspect. These emotional and spiritual challenges were central to the process of my learning to see.
The key obstacles that you, the reader, will face—whether you’re legally blind or have the eagle eyes of an Air Force fighter pilot—will be similar to mine, even though the circumstances of our lives probably differ dramatically. The central challenge is for you to make a commitment to invest the necessary time to improve your vision and to expand your world.
It was difficult enough for me to do this in the 1970s in Israel, even with the burning, intrinsic motivation to rid myself of my blindness. For modern readers to make this kind of dedication of time in our hectic, hyper era, may seem impossible. Yet a commitment to doing it can pay off in two extraordinary ways: you will improve your vision while opening up your life.
Free yourself from the grip of a stressful routine. The amount of time and dedication I have devoted to improving my vision was extreme compared to what most people need, but that is exactly the point. Dedicate as much time as possible to these exercises, and remember that although your life may seem busy, making your vision a central priority is of the utmost importance.
Chapter 1
Healing Myself of Blindness
I was born in the Stalinist Soviet Union under difficult circumstances. My father was involved in an illegal business, taking and printing photographs for churches. This work could have resulted in his being sent to Siberia for twenty years. Furthermore, both my parents were deaf.
My grandparents on my father’s side were opposed to another child coming into the family. At first, it was my paternal grandfather who had noticed that something was wrong with my eyes. After an examination by doctors, it was revealed that I had been born with cataracts. And although many people develop cataracts later in life, very few are born with them. I was, for all practical purposes, born blind.
In search of a better life for all of us, my family decided to flee the Soviet Union and to relocate to the new country of Israel. During this time of transition for my family, five surgeries were performed on my eyes. The first, done in Poland on our way to Western Europe, was unsuccessful. The other four surgeries—all performed in Israel—had scarred my lenses to the point that 99 percent of them was scar tissue, effectively preventing light from getting through. As a result, I was issued a blind certificate by the state of Israel, and most people in my life had resigned themselves to the idea that I would never be able to see.
Figure 1.1. My father, Abraham, mother, Eda, and me, age five, looking and seeing next to nothing.
I was raised reading Braille, although I attended a standard school with normal-sighted children. I experienced much loneliness and isolation because of this situation. What do you do when you are blind, surrounded by normal-sighted people, and your parents communicate mostly with sign language that you cannot see?
Figure 1.2. Blind certificate declaring me permanently blind by the state of Israel.
My father, who was very interested in current events, often wanted me to listen to the radio and to explain to him what was happening around the world. He would have me listen to the news and repeat it to him, which confused me at first. I didn’t understand why he had always lifted my head up when I tried to tell him what I had heard. I later realized it was because he had wanted to read my lips. But how would I know that reading lips was so important when I couldn’t even see lips moving? This tragic comedy more or less captures the early days of my life. I was surrounded by confusion, frustration, and struggle. But I was also learning that there are many ways to overcome the challenges people face due to the circumstances of their lives.
It was obvious to me that my parents loved me. Still, our life was marked by fear and insecurity, having escaped the repressions of the Soviet Union, only to move to the young state of Israel, which was ravaged with war. Because of their deafness, my parents could not study Hebrew, which was so different from the Russian they had spoken before. Additionally, my maternal grandparents lost all the money they had brought with them from the Soviet Union on bad investments in Israel. Yet through it all, my grandmother steadfastly believed in me and was able to find ways to help me. She stayed with me in hospital beds after surgeries, when I was traumatized and feeling insecure from hearing many other kids crying.
Other members of my family believed that I should depend on social services. Although I didn’t mind asking for money from my family, somehow I did not want to take it from the government. It was a deep instinct, the origin of which I understood later on as I matured. It is easy for a person who receives help from the government, as many with disabilities do, to develop a poor self-image as being needy or pitiful; it comes automatically, like it or not. But when you do not rely on that help, the image you have of yourself becomes stronger, and you are forced to become self-sufficient.
I was determined not to have the stigma of being a blind person. That basic resolve was the beginning of my transition and change, without which I would not have gotten to where I am today. As a response to the lack of security and uncertainty that filled my early life, I developed a sense of commitment. Kids often did not want to play with me. Girls would not dance with me at parties. I sometimes became lonely. But I understood the choice was with me to be depressed or to be happy.