It is nearly three months now since I started practicing peripheral vision intensively. Well, I am not looking back (pun intended)! This practice not only relaxes my vision of myself and the world, it is also the most powerful technique that I have found until now to help me attain a state of profound calm, an extremely enjoyable state of fearless energy.
It makes sense. By quitting "tunnel vision", where the sympathetic nervous system is predominant, one reaches a state of balance of the autonomic nervous system where the sympathetic and parasympathetic systems work hand in hand, with neither of them dominating the other.
But also, a relaxed upper face means that the vagus nerve, the main nerve of the parasympathetic nervous system, is not impaired by surrounding tense muscles. The vagus nerve is responsible for the movements of two muscles of the soft palate, the palatoglossus muscle and the levator palatini muscle, placed directly behind the eyes. Logically, a relaxed upper face allows the vagus nerve to function at its best. And in turn, it also favours better breathing: the passage for the air behind the nose is free, an overall bonus for well-being.
As I had already realised as soon as I started practicing peripheral vision at the beginning of August, my vision is becoming benevolent. I can now see the whole picture instead of concentrating on flaws. I mentioned good and bad days in my first post: I am now experiencing only good days. I do not fear my appearance anymore. I do not perceive the elements of my face departing from beauty norms (some irregularity of my features, my drooping eyes, my slightly crooked nose and the weird bulging area under my lower lip) as menacing. I am on the way to accepting what I look like, something that I never imagined I could ever attain, something that even seemed to me to be the apex of resignation and giving up, something that I always thought about with dread each time somebody mentioned its possibility.
And there is an added bonus: the relaxation of the face that the practice of peripheral vision induces has changed my appearance for the better. I realise now that my most hated flaw, the weird shape under the lower lip that I just mentioned, is mostly due to tension in the face. Now that I relax the eyes, a slight smile forms itself, and the flaw nearly disappears. It can be a permanent state, it is what my face looks like when it is relaxed (and it is what happened, I now realise, on the few photos of myself that I like). And the other flaws, which I still see, do not disturb me so much now. The same, curiously enough, for the signs of ageing.
I am now able to look at myself in "foreign" and ungrateful mirrors and I see, with a friendly and warm feeling, a friendly lady who is pleasant enough. And who cares if she is not a beauty? (Can it be me writing this? I was so upset only some months ago at not being admired for my beauty!) I even started doing what I dread the most, looking at myself on my computer screen. I still do it with a small image which I am planning to gradually enlarge, but I already recognise the same lady as in mirrors, with the same nice feeling, and I can even make faces at myself for a laugh!
This amazing change has led me to think a lot about the therapy I am following. As I said in my first post, I became frustrated, after a few months, by its intellectuality. And I often reflected on the wonderful therapy success that I had in my twenties for bulimia: it involved a close connection with my physical feelings of hunger and satisfaction. With the practice of peripheral vision, I also experience deep physical sensations: relaxation of the eyes and the soft palate, deep breathing, and relaxation in the pelvic floor. This strong physical hold gives me hope that the changes shall be permanent and that I shall not experience a relapse. For bulimia, the healing was complete.
I still wonder at the profound and positive changes on my mental state that these physical feelings have brought in such a quick time. It makes me reflect in particular on subjects like the physiology of benevolence, the physiology of self-love, of acceptance, etc. And I am now using peripheral vision for a number of other problems: for example, if I start to ruminate on a past negative experience, I assume that it is automatically creating tunnel vision, and I try to counter it by relaxing my eyes (easy now, I just have to close the eyes and smile to attain that state). The same for anxiety for future situations.
To finish for now, another "discovery", which explains to me at last why some of the exercises for balancing the autonomic nervous system which I use in my practice as a vocal coach are similar to those for Thoracic Outlet Syndrome. I use one of them regularly for BDD alongside peripheral vision: with the hands placed together at the small of the back, I thrust my chest out and up 5 or 6 times. I was very happy to read this article by Chris Centeno, MD, "The Vagus Nerve, Neck Pain, Anxiety, Headaches, and Depression". It gives precise diagrams of the path followed by the vagus nerve on its way from the head to the chest. Like the brachial plexus nerves, the vagus nerve can get impaired at certain points on its path: by the sternocleidomastoid and the scalene muscles, in the region of the collarbone and the first rib, but also at its exit at the base of the skull, near the first cervical vertebra, the atlas. You can find here some exercises for treating Thoracic Outlet Syndrome.
