Balancing the 'shadow memories'

Image

Caption

Alan

Alan Cox tells us about his journey with stammering and how a relaxation technique he developed with his wife, helps him.

I remember, aged 7, when I was caned on my left hand and told to write with my right hand. This happened in 1958 and I've always believed that this is what triggered my stammering. I remember having a few meetings with a speech therapist and was advised to find a job that involved talking to the public. So I did. At 14 I had a Sunday job at a newsagents, which I carried on with whilst working as an apprentice engineer. As I got older I worked behind the bar of various pubs until becoming a pub landlord in London, aged 24. I was supported massively by my wife, who had a wonderful speaking voice and personality. Our relationship lasted 48 years until her passing in 2022.

During our time together we shared jobs — the pubs, running a taxi company, and when she became a celebrant, conducting many weddings and even more funerals, I wrote the eulogies and occasionally stood in for her, actually presenting them. Not bad for a stammerer who could barely answer the register at school.

A lot of my shadow memories come from childhood experiences with warnings to be careful: 'Don't do this, don't do that'; 'Little boys should be seen and not heard'; and 'Stop stammering!'

Developing a relaxation technique

The other thing we did was to create a relaxation technique we called 'The Balance Procedure', which aims to help people feel calmer, more relaxed and positive. Over the years, and especially during the time when we were developing The Balance Procedure, I attended many trainings and workshops to learn new ways of working with and trying to help people with phobias, stress, anxiety and much more. A common thread in these approaches was how they regarded our subconscious thoughts as the problem and they looked at how to change or influence these thoughts.

I call these subconscious thoughts 'shadow memories' and I believe we all have many of them — good and bad. I like to think of them as looking through a dark lens or a clear lens.

A lot of my shadow memories come from childhood experiences with warnings to be careful: 'Don't do this, don't do that', 'Little boys should be seen and not heard', and 'Stop stammering!' I remember well.  You can obviously have many good shadow memories as well. So, growing up, we see the world, we see ourselves through these two lenses. I believe most of us find a balance between good and bad and are OK. However, that's not true for all of us.

Some approaches try and find what the deep, underlying shadow memory is and then try and talk about it, and find a way of moving forward. I believe this can sometimes be helpful. However, sometimes you can't identify what that deep underlying memory is and I think this is where The Balance Procedure can be useful — getting into a state of balance is a more holistic approach to take.

There has not been any formal research conducted on the approach with people who stammer, but I often think it might be useful. It's a spiritual approach with a daily focus on the desire to be heard and understood. As a person who stammers I certainly believe it has helped me.

If you would like to get in touch with Alan, email us at editor@stamma.org and we'll pass your message on.

Read more Your Voice articles.

Would you like to write something? Share your journey and experiences, tell us what helps, or just vent about something. See Submit Something For The Site or email editor@stamma.org for details.