What I Realized At The Vision Conference Last Weekend

Wow, it’s been 13 years! The last Association of Vision Educators (AVE) conference was held in 2002.

Finally. We had a wonderful gathering last weekend in L.A., May 1-3. Natural Vision Improvement folks from all over the US and several other countries got together for three days. Many thanks to Esther van der Werf (VisionsOfJoy.org) who led the charge of making it happen.

AVE members are a wonderful eclectic mix of Natural Vision Improvement practitioners, even including a handful of renegade optometrists. Attendees included a number of Natural Vision Coaches who graduated from our program. :-) Approaches represented at the conference vary widely, but we all share a common ground of appreciation and practice of the Bates Method of eyesight improvement.

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Old and new friendships deepened, and we had an amazing time together. Presentations, meals, yoga, walks, games, and more. I gave a talk about the use of EFT “tapping” and visualizations with eye diseases. (Not as a replacement for medical treatment, but rather as a way to harness the mind and heart for sometimes-amazing results.) Every presentation was great! Several others also highlighted the new “energy medicine” paradigm, which includes EFT and many other fast healing techniques that have emerged in recent years.

In conversations several of us acknowledged that Dr. William H. Bates surely sensed some of these energy medicine possibilities a hundred years ago. For example I remember when it hit me, that EMDR enlists the same natural principles as the Bates “swing”. Dr. Bates often said that the centerpiece of his approach was imagination. Today I think that would be called “Law of Attraction” or power of the mind, or the power of prayer.

>> Here is what I came to realize during the AVE Conference: Dr. Bates often said that he envisioned better techniques that would make natural eyesight improvement happen much faster. It seems that all of us (quite properly) have immersed ourselves in his original techniques. But now it’s time to absorb, imagine, and create something new. Something that would make Dr. Bate smile!

In present day lingo, I think we are ready for a quantum leap in Natural Vision Improvement. I sensed a magical shift at the conference, and feel sure that a new breakthrough is germinating, right now.

All of us at the conference wanted to make sure we keep leaning in to the magical time we shared last weekend. We agreed to meet again in 2016 in Colorado. There is some work to do, but I am very happy we are hosting it here!