Healing Our Sight
Healing Our Sight podcast opens a dialogue between patients where we share our experiences with improving our eyesight. Topics include but are not limited to amblyopia, strabismus, convergence insufficiency, traumatic brain injury, and ocular stroke. The podcast also includes discussions with doctors and other professionals where we talk candidly in layman's terms about the treatments available for creating our best vision.
Healing Our Sight
Becoming the Vision with Dr. Angela Peddle
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In the first episode since returning from China, Denise discusses vision healing with Dr. Angela Peddle. Dr. Peddle's book, Becoming the Vision: The Transformational Power of Vision to Heal, Awaken, and Become Who You Were Meant to Be, was published just last month, on June 27, 2025. This is a must read! Although Dr. Peddle primarily teaches optometrists and vision therapists, the insights of her new framework are applicable to everyone. The invitation is to remember, and to reclaim our vision.
Dr. Peddle includes a link to the book on her website, along with the complete quiz mentioned in the podcast. This quiz helps us analyze where we can improve in the different fields of vision.
Here's a link to her website: https://www.visiontherapyconsulting.com/becoming-the-vision
Connect with Denise Allen:
Website: https://healingmysight.com
Healing our Sight Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100063570817348
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Denise: Welcome to the Healing Our Sight podcast. I'm your host Denise Allen and today I have as my guest, Dr. Angela Peddle. I'm so excited for today's episode. I know you're all going to love it. Let me introduce her a little bit. She is an internationally recognized neuro-optometrist, educator and the creator of the Neuro-integrative Vision Model--a groundbreaking framework that weaves together neuroscience, developmental vision therapy, subconscious processing and emotional regulation.
Her work helps individuals of all ages move beyond traditional notions of 20/20, guiding them to access the deeper intelligence of their visual system where clarity, embodiment and healing intersect. As the co founder of the elite Vision Therapy Center In Toronto, Ontario, Dr. Peddle has led thousands of patients ranging from children with developmental challenges to adults recovering from trauma through life changing care. Her innovative lens and light based protocols have redefined what's possible in vision rehabilitation.
Inspired not only by science, but also by her lifelong love for music and art, Angela brings a deep creative lens to her work. She has spent years bridging the intuitive and the analytical, piecing together her passion for meaning, harmony and depth with her clinical mastery.
Through her global education platform, Neuro Vision Consultants, she mentors and trains optometrists and therapists around the world, helping professionals expand both their clinical precision and intuitive insight.
In Becoming the Vision. (This is the name of her book). Dr. Peddle brings decades of expertise into a powerful offering that is both scientific and sacred. She invites readers to reimagine vision not as a score, but as a living system, one that carries memory, emotion, identity and the possibility for profound transformation. Because the way we see isn't just what we look at, it's how we know ourselves. Welcome, Angela.
Dr. Angela: Wow. Thank you so much. That intro was wonderful. It's always awkward to listen to that, but very true. Especially that last sentence that you mentioned.
Denise: Yeah. No, I just love this book. I could not believe how many times I was brought to tears as I was reading it. It just was so profoundly moving to me.
Dr. Angela: It's so nice to hear that from a patient perspective because I didn't set out to write a book at all. But when I did start writing, I really wanted my. My stories, my case stories to come through and resonate with people. And even when I go back and was proofreading and looking at those stories, I picture that child, I picture that woman who can walk. And I also am moved to tears by the stories because that's what it's all about. It's like once we feel hope and empathy for Others. That's where the healing starts. Exactly. Thank you for saying that.
Denise: Yeah. No, it just, I, and I kept thinking, oh, I need to highlight this part. And I, and I was, and I was reading it as an ebook, which was a mistake because I couldn't go through and put little tags in the spots that I wanted to paper and get back to, so.
Dr. Angela: Oh, I love this.
Denise: Yeah, it's a problem. But I, I'm going to rectify it because I'm going to buy the physical book and read it.
Dr. Angela: I just, I need to feel and be the book.
Denise: Yeah, well. And part of my thing was that I had scheduled our meeting and I thought, okay, I, well, no, I was reading it already when I scheduled it, but I wanted to read it immediately and it was going to take too long to get there.
Dr. Angela: Get me now.
Denise: And I want my listeners to know too. This is the first episode. I'm back in the United States recording. So setting up my system again and getting going again has been a little bit of a challenge and I'm excited to be back and on the same time zone as more of my guests.
Dr. Angela: Well, welcome back.
Denise: It's going to be nice to not have that time zone problem and the hopefully not the Internet problem that I had when I was in China. Yeah. So tell us a little bit about how the book came to be. You said you didn't set out to write a book and here it is in print.
Dr. Angela: I find all these stories so fascinating is when did you need to tell your story. So, to backtrack a little bit. I have been taking one of my mentors seminar series for years now because the seminar, it's a Dr. Robert Sanet's seminar and it's a five part series that goes through the year, so multiple weekends a year. And the content to me is the content. You know, I could do this in my sleep. But what gets together is a new group every year and a new experience and new learnings from their breakthroughs in the course that it's almost like a drug. You want to go back, you know, what's this next group going to teach me and what am I going to see and how am I going to see my professionals, you know, have these breakthroughs? So, I've been taking this course for years and Dr. Bob Sanet retired from giving that seminar series last November and gifted the course to Dr. Pilar Vergara, who then asked me to co teach it with her. And so, we have this great honor of taking over the Sanet seminar series and revamping it, you know, he's wonderful, but we are not little Bobs. You know, we have our own experiences in our whole history, but we do have his slides, right?
So, she lives in Spain, and I live in Canada. And we're doing a lot of zoom meetings and getting everything, you know, making new backgrounds and putting new ideas because I teach a neuro-prescribing course for lenses and prisms for our patients. And she has her own courses. So, we're bringing something fresh and new right to this content and making it more workshop style. I want everyone to experience seeing 3D and experience something that they haven't in these courses. So, we're going wild with changing it up. And it so happens that the first seminar series is about models of vision. And so, Dr. Sanet does a beautiful job of going into the past. And I kind of talk about this in early chapters in my book about the old models of vision. And he had his model, and it was always, ah, the model. And it was so resonated so deeply with me with where he brought in some new neural pathways and new cognitive approaches. So, I have his old slides because how can you change old models? So, I'm prepping a week before for this conference and I just wasn't feeling it. I said, I love these models, but something is missing. This is literally five days before I have people online signed up. I have a classroom full of people signed up and I just make this leap and I delete 400 slides.
Now they're probably out there in the cloud somewhere. So, it wasn't such a moment. But you know, you're sitting there a few days before and I'm like, delete. And I'm like, something in me is calling. Something needs to be born from this. And I just started writing some new slides about my model of vision. And I added in how I practice more intuitively, more emotion based, a lot more color-based, and field-based. And I weaved it into my didactic regular training. But more as a whole, how do I see this person as a full soul? It's not two eyeballs sitting in my chair. And I know the neuro cascade that'll happen if I give somebody hope. I could teach you what happens when you instill hope on somebody. And that's sort of been always my method.. A lot of how I treat is through language, even if it's body language or just these micro expressions. If the patient feels comfortable, We're already in a space for healing and I really wanted to purvey that to the new course seminar. So, I just on a limb, they've already signed up for the course, so they're going to be locked in the room for three days with me. And I gave my new model approach. I had. I had given it to Pilar literally the day before. I said, Pilar, I love ya. I changed everything. And I had all of Friday and she was giving her thing on Saturday. She luckily, blind faith and trust. We knew each other. And she was moved to tears with it. I had people in the classroom crying with the new model. Cause it just resonated so deeply. And so, after that super successful first seminar weekend, I sat, and I started writing. I knew I needed to get it out. And that's how the book started, with me deleting 400 slides.
Denise: How long ago was that?
Dr. Angela: Very soon. It was not too long ago at all. So, we're July now and that was March.
Denise: Okay.
Dr. Angela: So, I. I wrote the. I came home on the Monday morning from. We taught the course in Miami, and I had a draft within two weeks. Send it to a publisher.
Denise: That is phenomenal.
Dr. Angela: My husband was saying, usually I get home from work and I detach from work. And he said you would go to the computer and type away like Linus on the piano, whatever that Charlie Brown thing is, all night. And you've never seen me like that. So, it just needed to come out.
Denise: Wow, that's crazy. I mean, I just had her on my podcast not that long ago.
Dr. Angela: Oh my gosh. I saw that she had spoken with you. She's a riot.
Denise: It was. It was amazing. Yeah, I loved it. So, it definitely had to come out right now. Yeah. Yeah.
Dr. Angela: The timing was perfect because it was timed so much. That seminar series number two. I could instill my fields that you read about in the book through the next content and now through the third one, which was strabismus and amblyopia. I put strabismus and amblyopia through my fields. So really shifted everyone's perspective on how we approach these patients. And the feedback I'm getting in from the attendees has been phenomenal. It just adds a layer of emotion and logic. You know, what are we missing when we're trying to treat these patients? Why are they behaving the way they're they are? It's not. Is this genetic because this baby has an eye turn? No. Why does baby feel they needed to turn their eye? So, if we can sort of flip the lens and understand it's all for safety and self-preservation at that age, then we can Flip the lens on how we're going to treat it.
Denise: Okay. Yeah. So, are you seeing with the babies that they're more likely to have that problem because they had maybe a difficult birth or a difficult pregnancy happened for their mom or those kinds of things?
Dr. Angela: Well, there's so many important motor factors in here. Yes. A healthy birth was the mother on bed rest, you know, and was unable to move because the vestibular system is fully my. The only fully myelinated system at birth. The visual system is not fully myelinated at birth. So, in utero, mom moving and dancing or extra movements is stimulating the vestibular system, which is so tightly linked neurologically to the visual system. That's vision therapy in the womb. So, under closed lids, fused eyelids in utero, with mother's movement, the eyes are moving and tracking. And so even, not even bed rest can affect our visual system even before we're born. And we know, of course, any trauma during birth, vaginal delivery versus C section delivery, different likelihood of having some primitive reflexes still be retained. So absolutely, that's a factor. But if I'm thinking of, let's say a baby with infantile esotropia, so an eye that crosses inward, we've looked at it before as. And even in ophthalmology, we never think about how was their birth trauma or maybe prematurity. Yes, it's linked to that. But they never really go deeper into the whole system. But if there is delayed milestones for whatever reason, if you can imagine, we're born with googly eyes like Cookie monster eyes up, down, inside out. And it's cute. Four to six months is when the motor system. So, the movement system should be starting to link with the sensory or the visual system and they should be getting some glimpses of stereo vision or binocular vision.
Denise: Right.
Dr. Angela: What happens if the motor system is not timed with the sensory system for whatever reason they had hip dysplasia and they were casted or they were premature, or they're a bucket baby and they're carried from seat, car seat to table to, you know, table whatever, from car seat to car seat and they don't get an experience, a motor experience, then their visual system is still has the cells to be built for binocularity. But that would be scary if sometimes I'm getting some depth, but my motor system doesn't coordinate or my muscles in my eyes aren't coordinating. Sometimes the world might be confusing, sometimes it might be double, sometimes things might look flat and then all of a sudden something has depth. And that could be scary for someone trying to make sense of the world. Because remember, these primitive brains just want safety and making sense, preservation of self. So, I think the brain does a beautiful thing when it turns the eye in. It says, I'm not safe here. So, I can do a few things to feel safe. I can increase the refractive error. So, make one eye farsighted. For example, I could turn the eye in towards the nose, whatever it does to make world safe and sound. And that's a protective mechanism. So, if we think about it as they're doing this for a reason, their motor system and their sensory system didn't line up for whatever reason. And I had to turn this eye to whatever degree to make me feel safe. So, it's another reason in my mind that I'm not a big fan of strabismus surgery all the time. Because if you can imagine the baby turn their eye to feel safe in the world and grounded and their body, then all of a sudden, it's shock therapy to straighten their eyes because they did it for a reason. So, what do you think that little brain's going to do? It's going to turn that eye bite back in, or if it can, out, depending on the motor, the tone of the muscle. But the brain's going to do the same thing. It's going to suppress and say, no, no, I'm not safe. And I'm still not safe. So, I'm going to go right back into my pattern. The reason that vision therapy works so well is because it safely opens the door for binocularity. It's never a shock therapy or a push in the right direction is. Do you feel safe at this area? Okay, can we move deeper? Is this a new and novel and meaningful experience for you? Okay, let's go deeper. And that's why vision therapy works so well.
Denise: Yeah, well. And I think there are a lot of parents that wonder what they should do when the baby is so little that they're not old enough for vision therapy.
Dr. Angela: Ah. The beautiful thing is vision therapy can be in lenses and color and prisms, bi-nasal occlusion, movements. There's so much. Babies are so fun. We love it when there's a baby in our office. Because let's move them, let's spin them. Let's add some bi-nasal occlusion to stop this cross fixating that the babies like to do. Let's play with some prisms. How can we stimulate them in a novel, fun, and meaningful way? How can we stimulate those channels from the right and the left eye? So, it doesn't have to be, you know, weekly 45 minutes with sitting down at a table with my vision therapist. You gotta make it fun because when the fun when. Well, we know when there's fun happening, then we have serotonin, oxytocin, dopamine in our mind, in our brain. And that fosters healing and neuroplasticity.
Denise: Yes, yes. I think there's probably a lot of misunderstanding about what is done with babies and young children in the vision office. So.
Dr. Angela: Yes. Flippers and reading letters. Yeah. Yes, exactly.
Denise: Yeah, yeah. That's awesome. So, are you putting colored lenses on babies quite often then?
Dr. Angela: I'm not necessarily. I use light therapy. So, they're looking at lights. If I need to stimulate or depress the nervous system, more likely a child or an adult, I'm putting some tints in glasses, depending on the needs. But with babies, it's more looking at the colors than applying it to their glasses.
Denise: Okay, that's interesting. I was trying to picture how that works and explain a little bit what the binasal occlusion means for people who don't have any idea what that is.
Dr. Angela: So, all binasal occlusion is, is putting thin tapes on the nasal so that the side of the glass is close to the nose to block a little bit of the visual field for babies. Because we would do it differently for a concussion patient. What you're trying to prevent what we call cross fixation. So, if you picture a cross-eyed baby, the right eye is looking to the left and the left eye is looking to the right. And what we want is them for both be looking straight ahead. So, if the baby's eye crosses in, it'll cross into that tape and it'll be a natural reason for him to want to abduct the eye or turn out the eye. It stops that right eye looking left and left eye looking right phenomenon. It also helps, we call abduction or getting better movements outward and allowing safe binocular vision straight ahead. It works quite quickly because it stops the cross fixation.
Denise: Okay, so in a baby, you would put the baby in a pair of glasses.
Dr. Angela: That helps. With no prescription. Okay, yeah.
Denise: That just has the tape there. Yeah. Because we did a little bit of that in my own vision therapy.
Dr. Angela: Yes.
Denise: And moved it around and whatever and did a bunch of stuff. It ended up that I had surgery. I mean, those who've heard my story know that we did try all of that stuff first. And I always felt like a failure, you know, because it hadn't made my eyes go straight again, you know, and I. And so I kind of think, well, maybe if it had been done when I was way younger.
Dr. Angela: So. Absolutely. That's when I find binasals work. Get it. When they're just figuring out and the turn is more consistent, you add a binasal and you give them something new and experience it now X years later. As a teen or as an adult, we have lots of compensations and we've suppressed a lot more. So, the binasals will be less effective the older you are.
Denise: Yeah. So as a, as a 48, 50-year-old person, it's not the best.
Dr. Angela: It would not be my first line of defense.
Denise: Well, we were trying everything.
Dr. Angela: I would too. Yes, yes.
Denise: Do you want to go into a little bit about how your model came into being? You know, because you talk about that in the book, the. What the classical model was and how most doctors think about it versus how you have adapted and changed your approach over the years to get the kinds of results that you're getting.
Dr. Angela: Yes, I kind of follow the models through my education system. So, I went to Pennsylvania College of Optometry, and I would call that classical vision therapy. I was taught by like world renowned optometrist Dr. Mitchell Scheiman, who wrote the book on convergence insufficiency and its treatment trials. And to me, a very classical approach to therapy. You know, I measured a convergence insufficiency. I need to get this amount of convergence to reduce the convergence insufficiency. And it's very numbers based and a model that's accommodative and convergence based. So, we're looking at the numbers less so on the feeling or the result or any internal changes. We're being good little optometrists and looking for the numbers to improve. And it works well. It doesn't necessarily always address all of the issues, but if they came back to the office after doing 10 weeks of convergence training, they could converge to their nose. We would call that a success.
Denise: Okay.
Dr. Angela: And then I went to residency at SUNY and I learned more of a behavioral approach and more where the body is involved. Primitive reflexes and gross. We didn't actually call it primitive reflexes at the time. We call it gross motor techniques. But it's all the same about how it is not just two eyeballs. We have to look at the whole body. If you have a strabismus or an eye turn, you're strabismic from head to toe. And so you can even see that in people's posture and how they walk. And where their feet are positioned. So I got an even bigger lens to understand. Ok, now we're not just looking at, can I get this person to converge to the nose or diverge to infinity? It's what's their body doing, what's the posture and how can I affect the whole system? And I found this to be a fascinating deep level and I ran with it. I loved this level of it. Yes. We had people crawling on the floor and doing angels in the snow because we know that there's likely some missed milestones in there in our patients with vision issues.
Denise: I have a question about that and I tend to ask this almost every time someone brings this topic up in an episode, because I was born pigeon toed, like extremely pigeon toed.
Dr. Angela: Surprising. Yes.
Denise: Yeah. And, and then they put, back in the day when they treated it, they would put the child in casts, you know, so they cast my feet for a while and then they did the, the bar with the brace and the feeder turning out and all that stuff. Right?
Dr. Angela: Yes.
Denise: And, and my strabismus didn't manifest until I was almost three, so it wasn't coinciding. Right. But it's all there in the body and there's never any discussion about the fact that that's happening in a person. Right. I haven't seen anyone make that connection, but I feel like it should happen. I feel like that should, that connection should have happened somewhere along the line.
Dr. Angela: Yes.
Denise: Or doctors in general. You know, it's just not even there.
Dr. Angela: Well, if you think of esotropia sort of as an inward escape, I want to go in. I don't necessarily feel safe outwardly. Then we can move our eyes in, or we can move our feet in, or we could somehow go in our shoulders, our posture to say, hey, I'm most safe here. I'm not comfortable out here yet. For whatever reason.
Denise: Right.
Dr. Angela: And so your feet did it first and we fixed your feet. So, guess what? We didn't solve the root problem. And your eyes. So I, it's all connected. The body, the, like the book. The body keeps the score.
Denise: Yes.
Dr. Angela: So, whatever the root issue is, that needs to be addressed or you're going to find another compensation.
Denise: Yeah. And why do you think that there's never any discussion about any of that?
Dr. Angela: So, this is the great question, because this is why I felt the pull to talk about emotions and trauma and how we feel and how our, what we say and how we look and what we do is an internal reflection of our perspective and our experiences. Collectively. So, the micro expressions, or me and you can look at a movie, the same scene of the movie, and have two totally different ideas of what just happened. Based on our past experiences. You could say that guy looks scary. And I could say actually that guy looks, you know, calm, whatever it is, based on our experience, maybe not that dramatic, but based on our experiences and what we expect to happen. And that's why the old saying, the eyes are the window to the soul. I really believe that I can look at the posture of someone's visual system, their actual posture, and understand why they're projecting the way they are. So, if we can get to that level, I think we would take healing to a whole different stratosphere.
Denise: Yeah. And there aren't very many practitioners that will look at the whole body that way.
Dr. Angela: No, no, unfortunately. So, this is why I, I broke the book into these fields. So, they're not like silos, but it's how everything works together. Like the ocean, one drop in the ocean. How it works together. So that we can sort of check in and say, hey, what's off today? Is it my body field? Is it my field of expression? Where am I collapsed? And where can I bring this out? And that's why this book is great for the public, because we can do a little self-check in.
Denise: Yeah.
Dr. Angela: What's collapsed today? What's the meaning of that? And then go deeper.
Denise: Yeah, yeah, I love that. And the other thing I loved was that at the end of every chapter you have a little invitation to micro healing. How did you decide to do that at the end of each chapter like that?
Dr. Angela: Because I didn't want it to be a textbook and just something you read. I really wanted accountability. Like I want this book to help people. Yes, there's avenues afterwards because we can, you know, go through the fields together. But I wanted people to feel really good reading the book and check in, you know. Oh my gosh. That's why I hold myself this way. Oh. That's why I took this meaning from this and why I act so erratic in this situation. And so as they're journeying through it, through the fields, and they can do little micro check ins and see how they can heal even instantly. Because it's energy. Right. It doesn't have to take years as long as we recognize and put meaning to it.
Denise: Yeah. Do you think that maybe we could share some of that? Something that might be helpful for the listeners right now?
Dr. Angela: Actually, I have wrote a little quiz. So, Denise, would you volunteer? And I have a quiz. But maybe I ask You a few questions on each field so we can get an idea which field is dominant and which field is less embodied. And then we can get an idea how we can help ourselves. Would you be willing to play?
Denise: I am willing to play, yes.
Dr. Angela: Okay. Okay. So, for those of you who have not read the book, there's five fields of vision that I outlined. The first one is called body vision. And that is really your grounded presence, your physical stability, you and your soma and your body, your proprioception, your balance. Second one is called the field of focus. The field of focus is for clarity and attention. Executive vision, not necessarily focus as in accommodation for the optometrist listening there. But what do I focus on? What's the intent and what can I let go of? That's the field of focus. And then we have the field of meaning. One of my favorite chapters. Once I can see it and I get clarity, what does it mean to me? You know, what's the symbolic understanding? What's the emotional integration? What does this scene, this story, this book mean? The fourth field is the field of expression. This is one that most of us, when I did these quizzes on some of my attendees, is the most collapsed. And this is relational vision. It's gaze, it's eye contact, it's communication, communication with ourselves. What do we tell ourselves, but also can we express visually and verbally outward our truths? This is the most difficult one, even for me. And the fifth one is the field of inner vision. This is the stuff we don't want to talk about. Intuition, gut feelings, blind sight, imagination. All of this stuff where you say, I just knew that would work out or I have a gut feeling this, that's using your inner vision. And if all of those five fields are healthy and robust, we should be grounded and in the present moment in our most intuitive and expressive self and get meaning out of the world. And that's the goal of the book that we have are in our all of our fields all the time. That's a lofty goal. You know, if I'm late for work today, I might have a very different field of expression than I did on a Sunday morning. But the goal is to see how full you can get them ideally. So, to convey that I made this little quiz. It's. I'm going to read one category for each for you, but it runs deeper and I'll put it on my website so people can understand where they are in their neuro integrative model. Okay, but let's play so scale of one to five, one Being never true. Five. Being always true. We're going to do the question for body vision first, so let's do this one. When I'm overwhelmed, I can ground myself through movement or breath. One to five.
Denise: I'm wavering between three and four.
Dr. Angela: Okay. I gave you a three.
Denise: Okay.
Dr. Angela: Round down.
Denise: I thought you might do that.
Dr. Angela: So, field of focus. I feel comfortable shifting between details and the bigger picture.
Denise: Four.
Dr. Angela: Four. Field of meaning. I notice when something feels off, even if I can't explain it logically.
Denise: Yeah. I don't always trust that. Yeah. So probably three. Three.
Dr. Angela: Field of expression. I can express my thoughts and emotions visually or verbally. 4. And inner vision. I regularly see images or ideas in my mind's eye.
Denise: I have a hard time with that, actually.
Dr. Angela: Step.
Denise: Yeah, I would say probably two.
Dr. Angela: Yeah.
Denise: And when I, when I was in Lynn Hellerstein's class at the COVD conference, and I think it was in Toronto, that hit me. It was like, okay, no, I don't see pictures necessarily. Yes, I want to see, I want to see pictures, but I don't really see pictures. I, I feel things, but I don't. It's not like this picture in my brain.
Dr. Angela: Yes. It's not like, picture a red apple with a worm in it and then turn it to red stripes and that kind of visualization, that inner.
Denise: And then I can't remember what doctor it was that was talking about that later, but also said they don't visualize either. Like, it's just like you can or you can't kind of a thing.
Dr. Angela: Maybe, maybe, maybe. Right word there, but yes.
Denise: Yeah, that's why I say maybe, because I don't want that to be true. I want it to be different than that. And so, I don't want to. Oh, I don't do that and have it be like this black and white thing.
Dr. Angela: Right, right.
Denise: I, I feel like we all can grow.
Dr. Angela: You're using your intuition right there.
Denise: Okay. Yeah. I mean, I, I, it just makes sense to me that we all can have the ability to grow and learn. And I think too often we pigeonhole ourselves.
Dr. Angela: Yes.
Denise: Or we believe someone who said that's not possible because it's generally believed to not be possible. I mean, my own case of gaining 3D is generally believed to not be possible. Yeah.
Dr. Angela: Yeah.
Denise: And I've proved that's not true. You know, so did Sue Berry. So did a lot of other people. And, you know, not all of us have written about it or spoken about it. But it doesn't mean it's not true.
Dr. Angela: Happens in our chairs all the time in the vision therapy clinics.
Denise: Right.
Dr. Angela: So, looking at your fields, your strongest two fields are the field of expression and the field of focus. So, field of focus being attention and clarity. Where do I put my intention? What can I let go of is really strong as well as expression, which is great because you're a podcast host right now and you're expressing beautifully vision communication internally and externally. So those are your dominant two fields. You’re one that needs more embodiment and more healing as we just attuned to is the inner vision. So, if we could connect and grow the inner vision piece with some tools, then you're in your five fields. And sometimes, like I said, this day might be different than the other, but it's a really good self-check in to say, hey, no, no, I need to work on my creativity, my opening up my imagination. Because we think just artists are creative. But what would we have been found doing when we were 6-years-old? Probably something creative. Dancing, singing, drawing, building, cooking, baking with mom. Like whatever it was, we're supposed to be creative. We are created to be creative. And so, if you open up that field and sometimes it just takes work in the one area and everything falls into place and everything expands and that's the point of the book, is that we can sort of self-check in.
Denise: Okay, well, and I'm anxious to see that whole quiz.
Dr. Angela: Yes, I'll send it to you. I'll send it on my website too.
Denise: Can we put a link to it in the podcast notes?
Dr. Angela: Perfect. Yes, I'll do that.
Denise: Okay. Because I think that then everyone can say, oh, I want to do that too. And they'll just go right to that link and head over to your website. That's perfect.
Dr. Angela: Yeah, great.
Denise: I love that if someone wanted to find a practitioner who's like you, because obviously everyone is not going to be able to go to Toronto, Canada and see you in your practice. Where would they look? What should they look for?
Dr. Angela: That's a great question. Because I find when I teach and when I, well now write, people come out of the woodworks and say, hey, I've also been doing this, but I didn't, you know, there's rules and regulations and we're taught to be linear and logical and evidence based. And people have this relief. These practitioners come to me and say, I've also been using my intuition and it's slam dunk. I've also been using microprisms the way you have and it's slam dunk. So, I would look for a practitioner who's done more than just a residency or more than just some training in vision therapy that if you can find they've done deeper work. And whether that's personal deeper work, I don't know how you'd necessarily find that or it's just, hey, I've taken a new lens prescribing course. I've taken Bob Sanet's seminars and I've taken COVD applied concept courses. I've taken OEP, whatever it is, and there's a drive for deeper knowledge. Then I think you're in the right place. So having the credentials next to your name is nice. But if they were able to call a local clinic and say, hey, do they take deeper dives? That's the kind of person I would want because you know that they're looking and searching for more to help their patients on a deeper level.
Denise: Yeah, I. When I'm on the support groups, I notice a lot of people talking about prisms. And I don't think people understand how prisms work and what the usual prescription looks like versus what you're doing in your practice with a microprism, you know, that's kind of a new word for a lot of people, I think. Do you want to go into that a little bit?
Dr. Angela: Yeah. So, prisms have been given a bad name and people will say, who practice classically, you'll eat up the prism. So, prism is just a crutch. And then you're going to need more and more and more like a myopic or a nearsighted prescription. And when applied properly, they can be training tools so that you don't need prisms anymore. But if so, all the prisms do optically is shift space so I can shift space up, down, inside out and move the world. And we used to use them to bring the image to where the eye is. So, if the eye is turned, let me use optics to bring the image to that eye so they can work together with the other eye. Now, if you think about why we turned the eye, we're not safe, we feel scared, then I'm going to chase away from that prism too, and I'm going to go in deeper and deeper and deeper because we didn't solve the problem. Now microprisms are completely or spatial or low prisms are completely different than that. We're not correcting for an eye turn or bringing the image to where the eye is. We're shifting space on the retina so the retina has these cells in the back called intrinsically photosensitive retinal ganglion cells. Now, these are about 10 to 15% of the retinal cells that go from the retina to the autonomic nervous system. The rest of them go to the visual cortex. They do take a pit stop in the thalamus, the brainstem, but then they go to the visual cortex so you can see. But that small subsect the IPRGC cells, those ones I just mentioned, go to the brain stem and they connect us, our eyes, to the rest of our body. So, if someone was to bust in that door behind you right now, your pupils would go big, your eyes would diverge, and you'd get ready for your fight or flight. So, we're stimulating that autonomic reflexive involuntary pathway. And when you shift light ever so slightly, we can get into a parasympathetic or a sympathetic reaction, but you're allowing it to do it via light and via safely. So, if I wanted you to diverge, I might shift light. So, I get you into the parasympathetic, whether that's with a color or a prism or whatever it is, or a low plus lens, it's just gently working in your nervous system. Them it's not to compensate for an eye turn. And this is where we get that battle of, you're going to eat it up. No, you're not going to eat up shifts on the retina that are micro. You're going to allow your limbic brain and your amygdala and all those threat responses to be calmed down. And this here is also where the power of syntonics lies. It's balancing the nervous system.
Denise: Right? Yeah. I did an episode on syntonics also.
Dr. Angela: Yeah. So that's that pathway. Same with practice.
Denise: Okay, so all of these are just tools to get people feeling safe and their system working more effectively so that the vision will improve.
Dr. Angela: Yep, exactly. Because I if you think it's not going to work, it's not going to work. And you're going to be in a bit of a fight or flight, a bit of a standstill, because whatever reason we turn, the eye is still saying, no, no, I don't want to do that again. That was scary. And so, I'm going to become the person that's not going to be able to see 3D. But if we can teach them to have some balance and some coherence in the nervous system, then that least sets a foundation for us to build the trust and the safety.
Denise: Okay. I have heard people say that once they got 3D that it was too scary. And then they, some of them do just go the opposite way and say, no, I don't want that, because it's a scary world out there. In 3D.
Dr. Angela: Yes. And we call that in therapy, putting the brakes on. So, the therapist will come to me, like, we got so far, so far, so far, and they have put the brakes on. They're a breakthrough. And then we have to sit back and say, hey, okay, how check the field. How's the body system? How's the internal? How's the field of expression? They're pulling back. We're not safe yet. And maybe we get 90% there, and then we're okay to stay there, or maybe we can slowly balance the nervous system. So, they do feel that that's not a scary thing and that's a magical thing, but there is, it's all emotional and mindset at that point.
Denise: Right. Well. And I think that enters in at the very beginning for a lot of people, too, when they say, oh, I see this all the time. Oh, I tried vision therapy and it didn't work for me. And I'm like, what, what do you mean by trying vision therapy? And how long did you do it? And what was your mindset going into it? And how, what was your practitioner like? Like, there's so many questions that come up at that point.
Dr. Angela: Yeah. And mindset is massive here. Growth, mindset. I can do this. It's going to work. I will put the work in. And determination, grit, or is it a fixed mindset? This is probably not going to work. It didn't work in the past. I tried all the things. Because whether you think you can or you think you can't, you're right.
Denise: Exactly. And people really like to be right.
Dr. Angela: Yes, exactly right.
Denise: Yeah. I love that. I recently read that book, too. Carol Dweck's book.
Dr. Angela: Yes. Such a great book.
Denise: Yeah. And so, I totally hear what you're saying with that as well. It's so true. And it's hard to get across to people. It feels hard to get across to people. It shouldn't be hard. But.
Dr. Angela: The language starts when they're kids. Determination and grit and can-do attitude. It's the words, the language that we use around our kids. And it starts young.
Denise: Right. I love the part in the book where you talked about what you learned from your son.
Dr. Angela: Oh, my gosh.
Denise: Do you want to do a little bit of about that?
Dr. Angela: Yes. Yes. So I talk about Leo, my littlest Boy, if that's the story you're talking about, because I talk about both boys in there, that really helped me with my field of expression. Because I. My first son was always quiet and self-contained, very inner vision, introspective to a fault, you know, very hard on himself. If he makes a mistake, fix my set. And then I had my little guy, Leo, and was just loud and expressive and totally looking back, full of energy and full of him, his amazingness. I am always very quiet and, you know, like things in a certain way and don't speak up and the things that I'm not, you know. And the lesson that I learned from him was it wasn't on him to, you know, can you be a little quieter? Inside voice, sweetheart, you know, take it down a notch. You know, there's a public place. It was my projection on him. No, express. Be yourself, have fun. Run around in your underwear. You know, be you, be funny. Amazing you. And I had to really flip the lens to be like, why do I keep telling my son to be quiet? It's not actually being rude. We're not in the theater. And even in our own house, I would say, like, you know, keep it down. And so, it was such an opening for my field of expression to say, okay, where in my life was I shut down? Or where in my life did I feel I had to be smaller than I was? And that moment really opened up my field of expression, my communication to myself and then allowing my truth to come out and express. So, Leo's little gift to me was that field of expression and to. To express and be and love and have laughter and. No, don't quiet your voice. Tell me what you need to say. So that's Leo's story.
Denise: Yeah. I love that so much. And I. I think that plays into why that connected so much with me, because I. I think I saw it in myself. Right. That I wasn't allowed to be who I was for a long time. And changing how I see the world literally changes everything.
Dr. Angela: That is. You couldn't have said it any, any differently. It's beautiful sight. It's perception. And you change your whole perception by awakening a field of expression. Because now everything's in alignment and you can be. You can see, you have clarity at all the levels.
Denise: Yeah. And the people closest to me are the ones that have the hardest time with.
Dr. Angela: Yes.
Denise: Like, what happened to her there? She. Oh, I love that. I think they. They still don't get it, you know, why are you a podcast host again?
Dr. Angela: Give them the quiz get them to check in.
Denise: Well, I've said this before on the show, but I have five brothers, and four of them also have binocular vision issues, and none of them want to take a look at it.
Dr. Angela: Ah. I mean, there's a story in itself. Right.
Denise: Yeah. And. And, Denise, why don't you get a real job? You know, that's what I get all the time, you know?
Dr. Angela: Yeah. And for you to even be able to express that now, it's you. Right. Whether their perception of binocularity versus what is there, that's their story. That's their journey, what they need to hold on to. But for you to break open those barriers is. Is phenomenal for you.
Denise: Yeah, it's been amazing. And that's what I want to invite everyone that's listening to be able to be open to really, you know, and there are so many different ways of looking at it.
Dr. Angela: Yes. Yes. And it starts in the body, in us.
Denise: Right, Right. So I just. I just want to encourage everyone to get your book and read it and take your quizzes and take advantage of all the great information that you're putting out there in the world. I really.
Dr. Angela: Well, thank you. If I can help a few people with this book, then it's done. So we all have the power to transform ourselves.
Denise: Yeah. And I love that it's not a hard read. It's not a long read. It's very clear. I wanted to quote it all through. You know, I'm like, oh, and I could share this quote and this quote and this quote, and this makes my heart sing.
Dr. Angela: Thank you.
Denise: Maybe we'll have to do that so we can share all the quotes. Maybe. Maybe I'll do some posts where I share the quotes.
Dr. Angela: Oh, I would love that. Yes. Tell me, what's the most meaningful to you?
Denise: Huh? I'm gonna get the physical book. I'm gonna find the quotes again. I'm gonna do that.
Dr. Angela: Get your highlighter. So, I would do it.
Denise: That'll be what we do. Yeah. No, but just because of the. A lot of the statements were just so beautifully worded that I was like, oh, and I love that. And I love that. So.
Dr. Angela: Oh, thank you. Yeah, it's great.
Denise: Do you have some final words of wisdom that you would like to share as we end our time together today?
Dr. Angela: I think just the idea that it's all within us, all of our struggles are actually gifts. And if we can look at the learning behind it and understand why we were gifted this problem, this trauma, and rewire and look at it from another perspective. It's going to turn into our greatest strength. So, whether you're looking through the five fields, whether you're trying to get rid of amblyopia or strabismus, if we look at the why behind it and look at things as a gift, then we're already on our way to healing and that. And if, if we get that from the book, then I think that I've done my job.
Denise: Awesome well. And I, I love that, that there's hope for all different problems, too. You know, I think that's one of the other strong things with the different case studies that you share.
Dr. Angela: Right.
Denise: They're often cases where there was little hope.
Dr. Angela: Right.
Denise: Initially, yes. And. And there is always hope.
Dr. Angela: There's always hope. Our brains are beautiful. We can rewire however we want. We just have to make some choices.
Denise: Yeah.
Dr. Angela: Yeah.
Denise: Yeah. Thank you so much.
Dr. Angela: You're so welcome. Thank you for having me. This has been a pleasure.
Denise: It's my pleasure. Thank you for listening to the Healing Our Sight podcast. I'd love to hear from you. Please share and also join our Facebook community at Healing Our Sight to leave suggestions or comments. Have a great day. It.