Eye Love Brainspotting

Optical illusions are seen a lot in Brainspotting. Read Dr Thomas comments as to possible reasons why.

NOTHING IS MOVING

A beautiful visual reminding us that we have right and left hemispheres, visual fields and eyes that can all work together for healing. This will be a main topic in my Vision Training Fall 2023. Comment if you would like an invite 💙.

Alzheimer's first signs may appear in your eyes, study finds | CNN

We can see potential mental changes in the back of the eyes. Since you are staring at your clients’ eyes anyway, I hope this is interesting!

Alzheimer's first signs may appear in your eyes, study finds | CNN Finding early signs of dementia in the back of the eye may be a way to catch the disease early and start preventive treatment, a study says.

Allowing your mind’s eye and actual eyes to lead you to peace (as in this picture) is free-ing.

I received an interesting visual question from Cecilia in Singapore (with an incorrect email) so hoping she might be in our group or the topic is interesting to others. Functional optometrists cannot clear cataracts or visual loss from glaucoma however Brainspotters can integrate central and peripheral vision and reduce distress from a visual diagnosis or surgery. Let me know if you have specific questions to discuss here, just make sure you’re respecting PHI for clients.😀

Anyone keeping an 👁️ out for signs of Emily, I am doing well after my 2nd stem cell transplant for Myeloma and plan to be back in clinic in early April. A medical sabbatical can still be so refreshing for clearing the mind’s eye of fog and burnout. I am psyched to share new ideas and training with you this year!

Heightening my senses, join me at our next Vision & International Brainspotting Conference playdate. You don’t need to have attended, only post your desired day and time/zone to learn for free, and I will make it happen!

Curiosity is the place where awe is born, and it starts with heightening our senses. We may suspect life holds many mysteries, but only by paying attention can we access the grandeur and subtleties that make each person different and each encounter something fresh. By using our senses and paying a different kind of attention to the world around us, we may see that people we took for granted are more complex than we think they are. If we are able to open the mind to investigate, we may also discover some people are much simpler than the story we had constructed around them. Curiosity brings us the unexpected. It is the antidote to those times when we find ourselves in a rut, unable to take in anything new because we just can’t risk disrupting the dreary order of the day to day. With that frame of mind, curiosity looks like it would take too much energy. What, on top of everything else, you want me to question my reality? Honestly, I haven’t got the time for awe or wonder.

Instead of gripping tightly to a fixed idea of how things are and how they should be, we can train our mind to hold those notions lightly and begin each day ready to explore. We do not need to face the world demanding that it prove us right. Instead, we can say to it: Surprise me. We can become excited by the possibility that if we keep our eyes open, we open our hearts to something new. to have the kind of openness that cultivates awe does not mean we have to be credulous and sentimental, but the ironic stance—to act unimpressed because we fear looking foolish—has us experiencing our own lives at a distance. If, instead, we open our hearts to real love, we allow ourselves to feel the wonder of life, which research says is vital to sustaining our connection to the world and to one another.

Brainspotting & Vision Playdate

Vision tips & demos for Brainspotting-trained and interested folks (I find them interesting!)

Brainspotting & Vision Playdate How Vision is used Brainspotting Study Group from the Denver 2021 International Conference. Demos with colleagues were done w their permission. Msg me to joi...

Friday 10/7 at 2pm CST, I will be doing a complementary Brainspotting session for a client in my private practice setting. Join us and ask your burning questions! 🤩https://www.pacifictraumacenter.com/_files/ugd/6ac30a_550d88473319433cb5db7340896796d0.pdfW

Send a message to learn more

Great use of color and Figure/Ground visual perception. Your eye may go to the stunning creature & details and yet there is a lot of surrounding light and blur that has subcortical info for Brainspotting.

The blue glowing Coconut Octopus, Philippines. 🐙

by

Eyes can open the door. No eye contact is needed, however 👋😊

Eye know, it’s a bit much but fascinating all the same…I mean different.

Visualizations like this help activate more parts of your brain, including all senses for Brainspotting breakthroughs 💙

Registration is open. Join me to see and seek answers to your burning questions! 💙

Lots of vision and clarity quotes lately. I notice that the text color is blurry because our focusing system likes strong contrast but that’s me looking outside 😉

Through our heart we awaken our true self…

This is an interesting perspective on vision and mood & alertness. Let me know what y’all think! 💙

This is eye opening. Our visual fields are also concentric circles that expand and contract with time and trauma. Nature reflected in what and how we see 💙

Pretty eye opening! 👀

The colors and depth are your eyes way of telling your heart, it’s all going to be okay.

A good laugh from Mercedes Samudio, thank you!!

Hahaha!

Ok, even eye find this creepy! 😉🤣

I am excited to be offering Functional movement disorder & focal dystopia Brainspotting this summer after great results with a few referrals this past spring. Distraction and CBT as past treatment is being updated to interoception and BSP, following neurobiology understanding. Ruth Chiles book & videos have been invaluable! Post here about these and eye topics you would like answers in a Vision workshop in Fall 2022. 💙🤩

Why Do Our Eyes Move When We Think?

Good clarification from our New Zealand friends!!

Why Do Our Eyes Move When We Think? You might have heard the myth that you can tell when someone is lying based on how their eyes move. While that is not exactly true, there has been plenty of science that looks into where and how we look when we think.

New 👀 info about eye movement, color perception and figure-ground visual processing for you and your clients to better understand Brainspotting…this Friday! Hope to see you 💙

There's only a few days left to register for our next RMBI Brown Bag on "Wavespotting", this Friday April 29th.

Free for RMBI members; $25 for non-members. Access to the seminar recording will be made available for those registered.

Register now at: https://rockymountainbrainspottinginstitute.com/trainings-workshops/brown-bag-seminars

Looking forward to seeing you there!

Cataract Surgery May Reduce Your Dementia Risk

"The only trait that had a bigger impact on dementia risk than cataract surgery was not carrying [a] gene that is linked to increased risk of Alzheimer’s disease." Yay for eyes & mental wellness connections! Cortical visual processing is more associated with cataract visual improvements but may strengthen ambient, subcortical brain processing too (just my hypothesis!) https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/24/well/mind/cataract-surgery-dementia.html?referringSource=articleSharehttps://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/24/well/mind/cataract-surgery-dementia.html?referringSource=articleSharehttps://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/24/well/mind/cataract-surgery-dementia.html?referringSource=articleShare

Cataract Surgery May Reduce Your Dementia Risk Older adults who had cataract removal to restore their vision had a lower risk of Alzheimer’s disease and other forms of dementia.

Whether I am researching personally or professionally, all roads come back to Self compassion as the remedy for PTSD, anxiety and depression. Stay tuned for a 3rd visual system, Koniocellular cells that integrate what we see with how we feel…seeing ourselves more compassionately is how therapy works. Doctor heal thyself! 🥰

Let’s start off this week on a good note, and release the human tendency to speak harshly to ourselves and about ourselves 🙌

You may not be where you want yet, and you may being seeing old patterns repeating themselves. You won’t get past that by beating yourself up.

You may not be where you want, you may even see old patterns repeating themselves. But you still deserve kindness 💗

Self-Compassion Says: created by the amazing

In 'Rise,' Lindsey Vonn details serendipitous meeting in retirement

If talk therapy is the leaves on trees, Brainspotting is the roots!

In 'Rise,' Lindsey Vonn details serendipitous meeting in retirement In her memoir, "Rise," Lindsey Vonn shares her journey from a small hill in Minnesota to becoming the greatest female ski racer in World Cup history.

How Bottom-Up Treatment Can Address Trauma

Colorful and true!!

How Bottom-Up Treatment Can Address Trauma Strategies to help the adult brain engage with past trauma.

Breathe like vision can be a great healer.

We love this illustration created by , highlighting the power of the breath. Often the most self- compassionate thing that you can do regularly throughout your day is pause, notice your breath pattern and if needed - take a few deep breaths to return to a place of feeling centered and in tune with your body, mind, spirit 🙏🏽

Our breath is our lifeline. It’s the one thing we ceaselessly do that keeps us alive, but also brings us self-awareness.

When you’re anxious? The breath gets short.

Scared? You may hold your breath

Happy? The breath is long but quick.

Luckily it does all this without us needing to pay much attention to it, giving us mental space to go about days and do wondrous things.

But when life seems a bit much, and you begin to feel out of control, take a moment and notice your breath. It has so much insight to offer that we too often pass right over, but ultimately we ARE in control over it.

So take a moment and focus on your breath, snd if it is short, try lengthening it, and see how different your mind and body feel 💗

I am looking for a BIPOC therapist to consult as I develop Inclusive Vision & Brainspotting research & training. Anywhere in 🌎 is fine

The more research I do on eyes, trauma, Brainspotting...it all comes back to Loving Kindness (likely related to koniocellular visual pathway that integrates our light regulated circadian rhythms). May we all "notice that" 😊

Happily gave two talks this month on Vision & Brainspotting... Cynthia Schwartzberg and RMBI Brown Bag lunch...building to an inclusive training on how we see, how our brains lead us to have blindspots and how to use eyes to attune deeper with clients. Leave a comment to have your curiosities included!

One of the visual reasons nature & horizons feel so good is how they fill your whole retina w color & contrast in the visual cortex, and also midbrain. Go big for big healing, expand your visual field with Brainspotting

The course of love cannot be altered...

ci4.googleusercontent.com

A beautiful VISUAL to breathe in and out on. Using the visual wiring of our brain to calm your nervous system...the theme of my Brainspotting Research talk in July. (It's a safe link to a gif)

ci4.googleusercontent.com

Please share our Eye on Brainspotting page with your BSP groups. It is a caring community page for Eye/vision questions and tips to make Brainspotting processing results more visual and rewarding to see (pun intended!) 👀

Calm

However you achieve daily calm is an essential part of pandemic healing. Calm has great visuals and videos to get your Eyes on board. https://app.www.calm.com/meditate/?utm_medium=email&utm_source=lifecycle&utm_campaign=shawn-camilla-paids05202021

Calm

www.ovpjournal.org

Can Brainspotting help reading/dyslexia/visual info processing disorders? As a Neuro Optometrist and Brainspotter, I say yes! We are working the edge of central/peripheral vision (fancy neuro name: dorsal stream/magnocellular function) that aids almost every developmental/behavioral vision diagnosis. They are listed on pp 5,6,9 in this article,https://www.ovpjournal.org/uploads/2/3/8/9/23898265/ovp3-3_article_shayler_web.pdf

I will be explaining it in more clearly (pun intended!) at the International Conference in July. Keep your eyes out for more by following me on this page, thank you! 🤓

www.ovpjournal.org

Look who’s talking under Neurobiology & Research 😉

Christine Runyan — What’s Happening in Our Nervous Systems? | The On Being Project

Oh...that's what's happening! 💙 https://onbeing.org/programs/christine-runyan-whats-happening-in-our-nervous-systems/?fbclid=IwAR3CO0yGmppoaw8TivFsd4qygaLO2z9g-KLv4lcDAiumc23vaXyvvpaacpE

Christine Runyan — What’s Happening in Our Nervous Systems? | The On Being Project Pandemic brain and “skin hunger.” How our bodies have been trying to care for us. Strategies for bringing our conscious selves back online.

late stage of pandemic impact

https://austinmentalwellness.com/2021/03/18/late-stage-of-pandemic-impact/

late stage of pandemic impact I am in awe of how our perceptions give way to such raw and exhausted feelings in the tail of this pandemic. It has been post-traumatic stress to the nth degree. We can not even call it “post…