The Shadow of Death
It is the difference between night and day or the arduous journey up the mountain and the joy of reaching the summit, as a child, I stuttered and as an adult, I do not. It is said, that time has a way of healing wounds, that is not what happens over time; over time you either heal or you deny the need for it.
Exposure to extreme anxiety, constant frustration, and angry verbal outburst had a deleterious effect on my psyche. Poverty level income, unbridled rage, and poor health within the family instructed my awareness, my creative mind to adopt a survival mentality. My emotions were crushed by the proximity to those bewildered souls around me.
Stuttering was a consequence of many uncontrollable influences but I didn’t know that, and it was humiliating. The mere thought of trying to express myself caused my throat to constrict and my ability to enunciate a single syllable impossible. The more I tried the worse it was. I stand witness to the power of my being to mirror conditions existing within me and reflect back to me those conditions in my environment.
The impulse to stutter slowly diminished but not the fear of it. In this case, fearing to stutter is as torturous as stuttering. An unnatural pause in conversation resulted when I desired inclusion in a conversation. Suddenly, having received the attention I sought, I froze, then panicked fearing I would stutter and of course I did. The bright side is, I stuttered less. Years later, the fear subsided and my stuttering did as well.
I pushed those humiliations away, so far away that I forgot about them, until recently. For the past several months I have been on a journey and this process requires that I resolve the past. Resolving the past doesn’t mean ridding myself of it. I am shaped by past experience and those experiences are not my enemy. My relationship to an emotional charge around an experience is the culprits I seek.
Stuttering will not stay a part of me in denial. I welcome the pain, the humiliation, and the fear to instruct me. As I would help a child learning to walk, back onto their feet, now I am the fallen child and the loving adult who’s soul gently whispers, “ Get back on your feet Jeff, and give it another try.”
