Relaxing The Eyes - Feldenkrais - Whispered

I have been enjoying ASMR videos to settle down and fall asleep so much that I decided to make some on my favourite subject. Awareness through Movement. This is a lesson from the Feldenkrais Method about the eyes and how to find relaxation through softening the musculature around the eyes.

Enjoy!

Transcript

Hello,

Can you hear me?

As we begin this lesson,

Do take a bit of time to find comfort,

To lie on your back,

Covering your eyes with a sleep mask or a piece of cloth.

As you lie now,

Take notice of what it is you're seeing behind your closed lids.

Can you pay attention to what you're seeing?

The residual images in your optic nerve.

Are there shapes and colors swirling in and out?

Until the optic nerve begins to rest and quiet down.

Can you see patches of darkness all around these shapes that appear?

And can you look around and find which are the places where you can see the darkest spots?

The places where the black is blackest.

Now,

Can you think of very gently sliding your eyes to the left and then back to center?

And as you slide,

Can you feel which eye do you pay attention more to?

Which eye do you feel is leading the movement?

You slide to the left and then back to center.

And can you feel where the center is?

What is this place you were looking before straight up towards the ceiling behind your closed eyelids?

And as you slide,

Can you feel now the quality of the movement?

Which are the places where you feel your eyes sliding easily?

And which are those parts of the movement where you feel your eyes jumping from one place to the other?

And what is happening to your breath?

And what is happening to the rest of your face?

Are you clenching your jaw to turn your eyes?

Do you feel tension in the ridge of your nose or in your eyebrow?

Could you make the movement only with your eyes so that the rest of yourself stays quiet?

And as you slide your eyes to the left and come back to center,

Can you feel if maybe one eye is leading and one eye is following?

Which eye do you feel actively controlling to turn your gaze to the side?

Is your attention spreading on both eyes or can you feel one more clearly as it turns?

And can you slide your eyes by imagining that you're leading with your left eye?

And then for a few times you imagine that you're sliding to the left,

Leading with your right eye.

You slide to the left and you come back.

Sensing the musculature around your eyes.

The cheekbones and lips.

Can you do the movement easy and soft?

And can you think now of jumping your gaze to the left so from the center you skip all the sliding and you jump to the left,

The far left.

As if you were trying to look at your left ear.

And then you come back to center,

Jumping again from one point to the other end.

And as your eyes jump now around,

Can you feel the musculature of your face?

And your breath.

Can your eyes skip like this and still have a soft face and a quiet breath?

Just a few times.

And as your eyes jump to the side,

Which eye do you feel leading the movement?

And is the direction where you're looking at exactly the same as the one you were sliding towards?

Or is it a bit different?

Could you think of jumping to the left with your gaze,

But this time look a centimeter above the point you were looking before?

As if you wanted to look above your left ear.

And then for a few times,

Could you do the opposite?

Could you jump your gaze a bit down as if you were trying to see the lobe of your ear?

And how is this jumping around for your gaze?

How is it impacting your breath?

How is it impacting your face?

Could you do it even softer?

And let it go.

Have a rest.

And as you rest,

Can you look into the darkness in front of you?

Is the black getting a bit blacker?

Deeper?

Smoother?

As the eyes begin to get used to the darkness,

There is this velvety quality in the blackness in front of you.

This deeper and deeper darkness.

And for a few breaths,

Just rest your eyes and rest your attention.

You don't want to be straining.

Now,

Let's see what happens when we slide our eyes to the right.

As you are pointing your gaze towards the ceiling now,

Behind closed eyelids,

Could you think of sliding your gaze all the way to the right and back to centre?

And you slide to the right as if you wanted to look towards your right ear.

Take your time with your sliding.

Because you really want to have a clear sensation of the places the sliding feels smoother and those it becomes more abrupt.

Which are the parts you can clearly feel your gaze gliding to the right?

As you slide your gaze to the right,

Can you think of something else now?

Can you think about where you are focusing?

How are you gliding your eyes?

What are you imagining?

Following a dot?

Following a line?

Following a moving object?

And as you turn your eyes to the right and back to centre,

Could you think that you could do this movement?

Imagining that you are following the movement of an object far away?

And feel the musculature around your eyes and your face as you do this movement now.

Looking at a little boat far away in the horizon.

How is the sliding when you are imagining that you are looking at something moving far away in the horizon?

How does the movement change?

And then for a few breaths,

Could you think of following something that is right in front of your face?

Could you bring the focus of this object close to yourself,

So that you are sliding your gaze following a flying insect that is right in front of you?

How does this feel for your eyebrows and your cheekbones and your temples?

And could you play with this distance,

So that every time that you slide,

You slide your gaze focused somewhere in between that little insect in front of your face and that little boat far away in the horizon?

And see if you can experiment with this simple,

Soft movement of sliding the gaze to the right and back to centre.

And then can you think of skipping your gaze so that from the centre your gaze jumps to the right and then it jumps back to centre?

Can you do that keeping this quality of ease in your eyes?

Can you do this without effort?

And as you jump to the right and back to centre,

Sense now,

Could you make the movement faster but without hurrying?

How fast can you make the movement and let it continue to be light and effortless and without tension around your eyes?

And could you do the same thing but as you jump to the side,

You jump a bit upwards,

So that your direction is now a bit upwards towards the top of your right ear?

And see if you can do this movement as easy and as fast as before?

And could you allow your gaze to jump a bit downwards?

And you can let that go and have a rest.

Can you pay attention now to the darkness in front of you and around you?

What are you seeing now with closed eyes?

Are there places that are darker than the rest?

Could you imagine them widening so that the whole vision field now is getting darker and darker still?

And now begin to slide your gaze to the left ear,

Passing through the centre and slide it all the way towards your right,

So that now you're sliding from one side to the other.

Take your time with this movement because again what we're looking for is to clarify in this trip your eyes are taking.

What are the spaces where you can feel the gaze move smoothly and which are those places where you feel the movement becoming more abrupt?

You can slow down even more in those little spaces and really pay attention to what is happening to your eye muscles and to your face and how you could go about softening and sliding more.

And as you turn your eyes from side to side,

Are you paying attention to what you're visualising in order to turn your eyes or are you paying attention to the sensation of the sliding eyeball inside the socket?

Can you feel the muscles of your eye?

How does looking to the left feel?

Which eye feels like it's trying more as you turn to the left and which eye feels like it's trying more in order to follow you as you slide to the right?

And could you make the movement even bigger so as you turn you go past your ear as if you wanted to look towards the floor now?

And in our imagination we can do anything.

So can you imagine sliding your eyes and your gaze goes past your ear and goes somewhere behind your head?

How far back can you look on the left side?

And how far back can you look on the right side?

Which one slides more with the same soft easy movement?

And let your eyes come back to centre.

And without moving your eyeballs,

Could you now imagine that you're turning your eyes to the left past your ears?

You're looking to the back of your head and then you come out the other side,

Looking towards your right ear and back to centre,

Looking towards the ceiling again.

And don't move your eyes.

Just imagine how it would be to do that movement,

For your gaze to turn in every direction.

Imagine sliding softly so that your gaze is now like the light of the lighthouse gleaming around and around.

And then can you imagine your gaze turning the other direction so you slide your gaze with your imaginary eyes?

You turn your gaze towards your right ear and then to the back of your head so you're looking right in the back of your skull on the floor.

And you turn to look to the left ear.

And as you turn your gaze,

Can you keep a soft face,

Soft eyes as you imagine your eyes going round and round?

And let that go.

And have a breath for a few moments.

Can you enjoy the darkness?

What do you do when you're resting?

Are you paying attention to the rest of yourself?

Are you allowing your attention to roam completely free?

Stay here for a few more moments.

Sense your breath,

Your pulse,

All the rhythms of your body.

How do you feel now that your vision field has quieted down?

And you can stay like this for as long as you like.

Enjoying the darkness.

Enjoying the darkness.

Enjoying the darkness.

Enjoying the darkness.

Enjoying the darkness.

Enjoying the darkness.

Enjoying the darkness.

Enjoying the darkness.

Enjoying the darkness.

Enjoying the darkness.

Enjoying the darkness.

Enjoying the darkness.

Enjoying the darkness.

Enjoying the darkness.

Enjoying the darkness.

Enjoying the darkness.

Enjoying the darkness.

Reviews

Very interesting. Thank you. I’m new to Feldenkrais and am loving it.

Excellent relaxation exercises for the eyes. I love how it is presented in a whispered voice. It encourages me to keep going. 🙏💕😻

Interesting!

A very cool practice of eye movements in the darkness, behind closed lids. Loved this!

Will definitely do this again

This is incredible. I felt so calm afterwards.

Loved everything about this! Thank you❤️

Wonderful ideas here but the eye movement was going to give me a headache. Still 5 stars

Thamk you. That brought relief to very sore, dry eyes.

Love this little exercise, so calming for the eyes... ♡♡♡

Very relaxing and different, to be taking care of my eyes and my vision. I will do this practice again.

Really different different way of meditating. I enjoyed the awareness it gave me. Thank you!

It was great. The whispering was unique.