A new take on improving your vision

I met fellow Vegan Business Tribe member Elisa Beth Haransky-Beck right when she launched the ebook for Enlivening Consciousness: Deepening Your Journey through Vision, Movement, Nutrition, Nature, and Spirit. She initially launched the paperback version in 2024 through hybrid publisher Balboa Press.

In the introduction, Haransky-Beck states the reader will “weave in and out, back and forth, up and down, and all around between different subjects and different ways of BEing.” This is a great summary of what to expect in this journey of a book.

It’s for readers who love self help/development/improvement or who want to grow, spiritually or otherwise. After all, she says that healing ourselves heals everyone else and the Earth.

What is the author’s definition of consciousness? She doesn’t define it, so it’s left for the reader to explore. There are also poems, self-care exercises, anecdotes, and examples of gratitude prayers throughout, which is great for those of you who like hands-on direction. I really enjoyed the art by Eli Helman.

Other highlights I thought were worth mentioning:

• The author introduces the idea of body intelligence (BQ). Intelligence doesn’t just come from our brains or emotions; our body carries it too.
• The most fascinating part of the book to me were the chapters about vision improvement. Haransky-Beck is a neurodevelopmental optometrist and says vision is more than perfect eyesight, and holistic eye care considers the entire person. There are more specialists for the eyes/visual system than any other part of the body! Worsening eyes are normal in the west, and our emotions affect our eye health. Whoa!
• Haransky-Beck reviews the personality traits of people who have near or far-sightedness. I think the myope describes me!
• There are several things that can improve eye health: getting sunlight, body movement, and eating plant-based (which also improves other conditions). The author talks about others whose vision improved naturally.
• Haransky-Beck says she was told by her publisher/editor that this book could have been at least two different books and this is because the rest of the book talks about other ways of improving your health or sense of spirituality.
• For example, she talks about how screen time affects our nervous system. When we use screens, we don’t blink as much. So increased screen time can cause fight-flight responses, headaches, dry eyes, pain, carpal tunnel syndrome, and so on.
• She encourages a raw vegan diet and talks about how to ease into a plant-based diet and the benefits of veganism.
• She shares ways we can connect more with nature, including grounding, forest bathing, and permaculture, and the ways that corporations have destroyed nature with GMOs.
• The book ends with a section on spirituality, including the benefits of meditation and how to start.

How I would have improved the book:

• As a copyeditor there was a lot I would have removed: the abundant use of exclamation marks, questions that had no answers, repeated phrases, her memories of animal-based foods (odd, since the author now identifies as vegan), and one positive reference to Charles Eisenstein (who was exposed for questioning social distancing and vaccines during the pandemic, and supporting conspiracy theories).
• The author sounded like too much of a personal cheerleader for the reader, but I get it—enlivening our consciousness is her goal. And it probably says something about me and how desensitized I am to self-help books!
• The sections about body movement could have benefited from illustrations/images of the poses or links to audio clips or videos of the instructions.
• There were recipes in the food/nutrition section, but these would have been best left as an appendix at the end of the book.

Overall, this was a fascinating dive into the importance of vision and eye health, and a good introduction to how body, mind, and spirit must work together if we want to heal.

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